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| This Workplace Declared B.Y.O.C. I currently work in a good sized office. There is a veritable hodge-podge of people, different backgrounds, personalities, etc. Unfortunately, many of them also have a rather over-inflated ego and their self-importance is thru the roof. Allow me a few examples ... There is one individual in the office, I'll call her Loud-Mouth, who is apparently psychic! She can walk into the office at any point in time and know who has been sitting at her desk and which particles of her carefully laid dust has been moved. (That was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it.) She is also totally convinced that everyone that she doesn't know personally, and some that she does, are complete theives. Loud-Mouth locks up everything to her last paper clip in fear that someone will take it. In spite of this, she has told people that she has things missing. How she can be missing things when there is nothing on her desk is beyond me. To each their own neurosis, I suppose. People in this office apparently forget that they are not at home. They have staked personal claim to everything that they use, from their computer to pens to chairs. The number of chairs that have signs on them warning people to NOT REMOVE it, DO NOT ADJUST, is simply staggering. I know of one chair that says, (I am not making this up), "Do not adjust this chair. Last time it was used it was BROKENED. Thank you, LMS." You heard it here first, peoples, her chair was BROKENED. I am not quite sure what that means, but it sounds really bad. We on the night crew now avoid the chair altogether in fear that it will get BROKENED again. (That hurts my brain just typing that word!) You may be wondering what the instigation for this rant was. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the brokened chair. Harken and be enlightened ... Earlier today, it was found out that a number of the chairs that had been being used in the office were actually rentals, not owned by the office. It was then discovered that we no longer needed the rented chairs, so they were going to be picked up. I have already mentioned the territoriality that people exhibit in this office, imagine their abject horror at this revelation that 'their' precious chairs were going to be repo'd! Some people were understandably upset at losing the chair that they had spent so much time adjusting the height, tilt, etc, to the point that it was perfect. One person, however, I'll call her Whiny, was a bit more than that. I think her entire world came crashing down. Whiny came back from lunch to discover that her chair had been repo'd. Her initial response was, "Ok, who took my chair? I can't work sitting on the floor!" When one of her co-tem members informed her of the Great Chair Exodus, Whiny went nuts. "WHAT?! They took my chair? How can I work without my chair?" Another chair was given to her, however, it was not nearly good enough for her tuchas to perch upon apparently. "I can NOT work in that chair! It is tilted, it is on the ground almost! (Whiny then tried fiddling with the levers) Look at this! It won't raise off the ground! I can't work like this! It is tilted toward the ground, I'll fall out of the chair!" After about five minutes of this, I could no longer contain myself and I went into the ladies room for a good hearty laugh. When I came back to my desk, she was still complaining! She never did figure out how to adjust the chair. But she went and complained to her manager about the chair disappearance and he adjusted the chair for her. Isn't she professional? I just don't understand why, if people are so damn protective of their chairs (even moreso than their files mind you), they should bring their own in from home, and take it home with them every day. That would ensure that their ass print was the only one in the chair. No one would adjust it while they weren't around. It wouldn't disappear in a Mysterious Chair Exodus. It would never get BROKENED either ...
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