I'm Running a Sh*tshow, Part 2

 So where were we?

Oh yeah, I'm overseeing a massive relocation of my office. How terrifying.

Free graphics are great, aren't they?

In our last installment, I was a naive little thing. I had been attending construction meetings at our new office space for months, in which I listened intently to people who know more about construction than I do, to approximately the same extent that a gynecologist knows more about female anatomy than a 14 year old boy with a gaming addiction and limited Google skills. If you catch my drift.

Anyway, the construction meetings were fun because they got me out of the office for a while and they always wrapped up with a walk-through of the new space so we could see how the renovations were coming along. And then all my co-workers would ask me "How's it lookin' over there?" and I could smile knowingly and drop a few hints or show off a couple of pictures I'd taken on my phone that didn't really show a lot but kept people super-interested and hanging on my every word.

I am absolutely insufferable sometimes.

Yes, I am.

Oh sure, this whole time I've been making seating charts and talking with vendors and such. But honestly, none of that stuff has been really hard work. It's given me a little bit of extra overtime, which never hurts. But mostly I've been supporting the people doing the hard work.

Then, last week, shit got real. We started packing, and scheduling movers, and sent everyone but a skeleton crew home to work so said skeletons could do the labor of getting an office of 80+ people out of one building and into another.

And suddenly an enormous amount of responsibility perched, like a hungry condor, upon my shoulders.

Not a condor.
But super cute.

People had to do what I told them to do. Which means I had to tell them what to do. And guys, I'm no damn good at telling people what to do. Which is probably why, over the last week, so many people have not done, you know, that.

I've had "helpful" co-workers who, instead of putting trash in trash bags, threw loose papers and junk straight into the trash gondola lent to us by property management. And then left the freaking gondola in the elevator lobby and walked away. 

I've had hard-working helpers who decided that the most important things to pack first were all the scissors. Because who needs scissors when you're wrapping, packing, and breaking down boxes?

I've had wise IT guys who shut down our server when I was trying to finish up a bunch of work before the server was shut down. Without a heads-up or a warning. His reasoning? "I had no idea you were here." (I was one of just four people who had been in the office all week. And, you know, was supervising everyone's activities.)

IT guys in general are amazing. But that was a camel, meet straw situation.

"My back! My back!"

And I had a vendor who gave me a quote to remove some marker boards. Not move them, not reinstall them at the new place, not even repair the holes in the walls. Just take. Them. Down. Their price? A hundred bucks a pop. That one nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. (Our awesome moving guy, who is awesome, awesomely offered to do it instead and lowered my blood pressure about thirty points.)

The best part of today was when the very last box was packed, the very last piece of paper (that was probably very important until the moment it stood between me and being done with packing) was thrown away, the very last unidentifiable key was put on an overburdened key ring to be dealt with later. I took my belongings and went home to work until the move is over.

The Siamese Kitten is thrilled to have me home. That makes me happy. I'm thrilled to not have to drive to work in the morning. (I'll be making plenty of trips to both the old and new offices. But I'm not making a single appointment to meet with a vendor or contractor that requires me to drive during rush hour.) And I love the fact that I can start at 7:00 a.m. and stop at 7:00 p.m. but only actually do eight or nine hours of actual work.

Because ultimately I'm the hardest-working lazy person you'll ever meet.

Next: People and why I don't want to deal with them when I'm trying to be awesome.

Simian Lives (Even Imaginary) Matter

Here's a true story from the Baudelaire Files:

A couple of weeks ago, Precocious Daughter and I were driving home from her weekly clarinet lesson.

Totally channeling the Goodman vibe, she is.

She was driving, because ever since she got her learner's permit, I basically only drive to work and home again. Everywhere else - Target, music lessons, her dad's place, band practice - she drives.

She is actually a pretty damn good driver. I'm proud of her.

And in fact, except for her two iron-clad rules - 1) the driver picks the radio station and 2) when she's not the driver she picks the radio station - I like being a passenger. It's a novelty I haven't enjoyed since becoming a single mom.

Let's pretend any of these women are me, OK?

Back to the point, though.

We were driving on a stretch of road between suburbs where the speed limit is 50 mph. And naturally, PDaughter was taking tf care of that rather high limit as she drove us home.

And so, while driving at a pretty good clip for a city street, we both saw something in the median.

First, we saw a big-ass crow.

I mean, this thing was the size of a KFC five-piece meal all by itself.

Seriously, effing wings and thighs and biscuits and all that shit.

Second, we saw that said Mr. Crow was presiding over the body of some roadkill. As your standard suburban crow will do.

Spoiler alert: Doesn't give a sh*t whether you call it a crow, blackbird,
or grackle. Will crap on your car and stare you the f*ck down
from the median.

Here's the thing: As we whiz by, PDaughter exclaims, "Was that a monkey?"

As in, was the roadkill we just saw next to the amazingly freaking large crow...an actual monkey?

DO NOT EVEN LOOK IF YOU'RE SENSITIVE YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY

Oh, Jeebus. I'm sorry for that.

Here's the thing. I saw something in the median that Sunday morning.

I thought it was a large cat...?

Possibly a Siamese, because it was, like, tawny and had a long tail...?

But...A monkey?

What the actual f*ck would an actual dead monkey have been doing in the median of a suburban thoroughfare on a Sunday morning?

Besides something super-interesting but also
inherently very sad?

You can imagine our curiosity.

Unfortunately, the moment passed quickly.

We did not make a U-turn to confirm our suspicions, also unfortunately.

So what did we see that Sunday morning?

A run-of-the-mill carcass of a squirrel or cat that didn't make it across the road like the fabled chicken?

Or an actual long-tailed, tan-bodied, inexplicable monkey who somehow met its unlikely end along a wide suburban road in Texas, to be attended in death by a glossy black-feathered bird?

I'd like to say I have the answer. But I don't.

As far as PDaughter and I are concerned, we saw a monkey in the median along Belt Line Road between Coppell and Carrollton, Texas.

And we mourn that little guy.

The point is, every little life matters. Try to remember that as you whiz by on the roadway.

Every life.

Every one.