The big shredder's still out of action, so I'm going to wait it out.
Monday:
I was real bored last week, and I guess I will be again this week. It's real quiet in the office with James and LeeAnn both out on vacation, and the others don't have the same sense of humor.
AJ called us together for the morning meeting and said he'd decided over the weekend to implement a "pre-sort" policy, to follow on from last week's "waste paper" policy. In future nobody will have their own waste bin any more, instead we all have to use the bins in a centralized area by the photocopier. We all have to sort our waste and separate out white paper, colored paper, card and other paper types, and domestic (to include all plastic product) and put each type in a separate waste bin. Each bin will then be emptied separately by the Cleaner and put in separate areas for collection - and the white paper must all be shredded first for confidentiality. I thought he'd forgot about us all shredding white paper, but it doesn't look like it. I'll have to shred all that paper I've been leaving since last Thursday.
AJ also told us all the Head Office meeting last Friday had gone for red and white as the new corporate colors, and his Big Boss was very pleased with us all here - and with AJ. Apparently this office was one of the few where all the staff who'd been consulted had unanimously chosen the red and white combination and design Head Office had finally decided on.
After AJ had gone back in his office Amy said I thought we'd all agreed on green? I said we all did - but either he forgot by the time he got to the meeting and the conditioning Marketing had given him kicked back in, or he was asked what we'd all gone for after enough of the other CEO's had committed themselves to red and white. Donna said she'd call up Carly and ask her which it was - devious or stupid. I said don't be so sure it's one or the other, as it could be both.
Tuesday: Mike and I tied up the waste bags that were getting real full this afternoon and put them to one side for the Cleaner to pick up, then Fiona pointed out the Cleaner wouldn't be able to tell what was in each bag without opening them up. We reopened them, Donna wrote out a couple parcel labels, Amy stuck them on, then we re-tied them.
Amy sat down and wrote out a couple sets for each type of trash, and Donna said everybody make sure you label each bag as you tie it.
We're all supposed to be using the little desktop shredder until the big one's repaired to shred all our white paper. It's making grinding noises now, and there's a burning plastic smell every time someone uses it. I'm still not shredding my white paper - I don't have that much anyways and I can wait AJ out.
Wednesday: Andy came over to my office with the printout files from LeeAnn's desk again, and said would I carry on covering for LeeAnn again this week, as I'd covered for her last week. I said OK and sorted out the items to be made between tomorrow and next Wednesday, got all the part lists from stores up together, and then got the paper lined up so I could print it all out on the big printer.
I didn't set it all off to print straight away - I went over to Mike's desk and sat there waiting for him to come in during the lunchbreak, so I could tell him what I'd be saying to LeeAnn if he even so much as looked like he was thinking about maybe touching the big printer power cable or socket. He said he wouldn't.
He came over to my office just before we all went home to tell me I'd made him very uncomfortable by watching him all the rest of the afternoon to make sure he didn't. I guess it was just his guilty conscience as I hadn't been watching him all afternoon - I'd only looked over a couple times, three or four times maybe. OK. Maybe five or six times maximum, or no more than eight - certainly not all the time.
Thursday: Amy went cruising on to the Information Superhighway again today. AJ wanted some information from one of our customer's website, couldn't be bothered to do it himself, and told Amy to get it for him. She came over and asked me to stay with her in case anything went wrong, so I said OK and went to sit with her.
Everything went fine, the website was there, and we navigated through it and found the telephone numbers and the contact names he wanted. She wrote it all out and then I talked Amy through right to the sign off and hang up stage. Donna called over to say I'd got one of our shippers waiting on the line to talk to me about a shipment they'd lost and were tracing for me so I said you'll be OK now Amy, and left her to close down the connection. She said OK, so off I went.
I was walking back through about an hour later, and noticed Amy just sitting watching her screen, so I thought for a moment and decided I'd just casually drift by and make sure she was OK. She just looked up at me and said you've been quite a while.
She'd not closed down the connection at all - she'd been sitting waiting for me to come back to talk her through clicking on the "yes, I do want to disconnect" button.
Friday: I was going to throw out some old shipping tariff brochures this morning but they wouldn't fit in the waste bin, so I thought I'd be helpful and take them down to the trash area myself rather than leave them by the side of the waste bin - and detour back through to see Steve in Stores for a break from the office. I looked for a separate area to dump the brochures, as card and other paper types, but there wasn't anything. All the trash bags for the last couple days that Donna and Amy labeled so carefully are all just tossed in the one dumpster together. I put the brochures in too and decided not to say anything about it.
AJ said at the morning meeting how well the "pre-sort" policy was going, and how helpful it was, and how it showed the corporation was ecologically friendly no matter what people said about our record on waste emissions. Fiona pointed out we're getting through a lot of plastic sacks. I didn't say a word.
Just before he went to the afternoon meeting at Head Office AJ wandered around to tell everybody don't forget there won't be a morning meeting on Monday because it's a Bank Holiday, and you don't need to come in. I wasn't going to come in, and I don't think anybody else was either. Donna's too busy thinking about her vacation over the next two weeks, and Fiona's beginning to think hard about hers.
About ten minutes after he'd gone I got a call from my cousin Elli about what was I doing this Bank Holiday vacation. I said I hadn't got anything worked out, so she said she was going away and would I like to come? She could come up now to meet me and we could go that evening if I wanted. I said yes, of course - where are we going? She said I'll tell you when I see you.
read 01/08/13-17 or read 01/08/27-31 