Monday, December 3, 2012

Office Drama

I have some office drama that is bugging me. It's nothing as exciting as Minxy's Princess problems, but it is driving me up the wall nonetheless.

This is my cup. There are others like it, but this one is mine.
This is my coffee cup. It's an ordinary generic-looking blue cup that I have had forever. I take it with me from job to job, along with the cup warmer, so that I can be conscious in the mornings while I'm trying to work. Coffee is an essential ingredient to my work. I don't like coffee, especially, but I need the caffeine to make my brain go. And sometimes I need the warmth to help me dethaw on winter mornings.

Sometime in late August someone at my job decided that it was their job to take this cup from off my desk and go throw it in the break room. This happened several times, each time with the cup disappearing from my desk and reappearing in the breakroom. Sometimes it was on the counter. Sometimes it was in the sink. A few times it was inside the dishwasher.

I assumed it was the cleaning crew thinking this is a generic company cup that they have to clean, so I asked my boss to put me in touch with whomever is responsible for the cleaning crew. Then I asked that person to please ask his crew to stop taking my personal coffee cup. This is not a company cup.

The response I got back was that I should lock the cup inside my desk every single day any time I leave my desk and further, how do I know it is the cleaning crew since I don't have video cameras set up around my desk to prove that it was them and I can't just go around accusing them like that and it is my fault if I didn't lock it in my desk.


So I had to request a key to my desk and begin locking the cup inside my desk every day at the end of the workday before I went home. End of problem, right?

Wrong. The cup STILL disappears periodically from out of my locked desk and reappears in the break room. It disappeared again in September, several times, and then October, and again this morning. I guess they took November off or something? Anyway, sometime between Friday night and Monday morning someone broke into my desk and took my cup. I found it in the breakroom inside the dishwasher along with several other people's cups.

This sure sounds like the cleaning staff to me. Does it to you?

Anyway, another person somehow involved in this suggested that it is merely a prank by coworkers who sit near me. I said I didn't think so because A) it isn't at all creative B) it isn't at all funny and most of all C) I never said anything to them about it or even indicated that it was going on, so they didn't even know it was happening.

Ah, but this person took it upon themselves to go and question my coworkers anyway, months ago, in fact. And after that my coworkers said to me "we didn't take your stupid cup" and mostly stopped talking to me altogether. Thanks so much for accusing my coworkers on my behalf after I said I don't think they had anything to do with it. Now they think I am some sort of paranoid schizophrenic who randomly accuses people of the very odd crime of stealing my cup out of my locked desk and washing it. So awesome.

In the meantime, I have encountered the cleaning crew on a few occasions. They are contracted from another company. Many of them are mentally handicapped. We used to call this 'retarded' but then one day a wave of political correctness swept the nation (Clinton was elected) and suddenly we weren't supposed to use the word retarded anymore. I personally think that the mentally challenged retarded people who clean our offices believe that my generic blue coffee cup is their responsibility to clean. I think that they believe it to be company property and that they should take it wherever they find it, clean it, and leave it in the break room for any random person to use for their coffee as they please. This is why I specifically asked that the cleaning crew be informed that this is my cup and not to be taken. But they refuse to do this. They refuse to talk to the cleaning crew about it because they say that is an accusation and I don't have proof. But they questioned my coworkers about it even after I said I don't believe it is them. And now my coworkers most definitely feel accused and won't talk to me. So awesome.

Coffee cup ... must take it

22 comments:

  1. Larfing SOOOOOOOO hard.

    I'm gonna find you a mug, that has your name on it, and I'm a gonna send it to you!

    Better still, one that says, "This is ****** mug, DON'T FUCKING TOUCH IT" ;oD

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ute, I'm tempted to buy one of those paint pens that you shake up and they are supposed to be permanent and write something obnoxious on the mug like "STOP THIEF! THIS MUG IS STOLEN!" or something like that. Yeah, my name would be a good start, too.

      Delete
  2. Option 1

    Grab all your pen’s, your stapler and scissors and at the end of the day stick them in your mug….

    Tadaaa!!

    It’s a pen holder, no one puts the pen holder in the dishwasher.

    Option 2

    Buy and identical mug and at the end of the day put it on your desk, just remember to pick it up from the kitchen when you make a coffee.

    Option 3

    Hide under the desk and bite the legs of anyone who goes near your mug.

    Option 4

    Put a padlock and a small chain around your monitor and the handle, there is a good chance that your monitor will end up in the dishwasher… it’s a risk worth taking.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dog3oy, I've actually been considering option 2 as a serious solution to this problem. It'd make them work for me. The problem is they are stealing it out of my desk, so they'll take both mugs.

      Delete
  3. Hahaha, I like all the above. ;o)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ute, maybe I should take it home with me each day and then just bring it back when I come in the next morning.

      Delete
    2. Or, you could just use one of the office generic mugs?! Saves the problem of them stealing it. :)

      Delete
    3. Ute, I don't know where they keep those, but there is never a guarantee any will be available from one day to the next and even with washing it before I drink out of it I'm not entirely comfortable doing that. I prefer thinking that the only person drinking out of my mug is me.

      Delete
  4. OK. I am totally creeped out by whoever getting into your LOCKED desk all the time! That's got to be a violation of privacy or something, no? My feeling is that it's got to be a prank. No way somebody would repeatedly break into a locked desk simply to do their job well. That kind of ambition sounds like a prank. Please set up a cam or something to discover who this is! I'm dying to know!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Minxy, yeah, there is something seriously dysfunctional about it all, wouldn't you say? If it isn't the cleaning crew then I have strong suspicions it is a mildly demented coworker who doesn't understand sarcasm. Couldn't you see Sheldon Cooper doing something like this on Big Bang Theory?

      Delete
  5. oh, one more

    lock it in your desk draws and if they are on wheels turn it around so the draws are under the desk.

    that will confuse the retards...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dog3oy, I'm wanting to get one of those screeching alarms like they have in department stores attached to the really valuable stuff.

      Delete
  6. LOL big black texta "put my cup the fuck down!!!!!"

    someone STOLE my STFU cup this year.....only lasted 3 months. my niece gave it to me for Christmas.

    Dog3oy - have you had your mug stolen before??? You have lots of golden idea's!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AlleyCat, I was thinking of writing "Help! I'm being stolen!" on the cup in bright neon letters. Hey, if you send me your address I'll try to send you a creative coffee cup. I like sending stuff back and forth with friends in other countries. It's fun to see some of the things you guys have that we don't, even when it's just the newspaper packaging the stuff is wrapped in. HA HA

      Delete
    2. LOL help!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      you can send stuff to work address.....i kinda live here!! make sure you include your return addy & I'll send something back.....like a cup that says put me the fuck down!!!!

      Delete
  7. Um, I died laughing reading this. Like, this has Office Space writen all over this. Thank you for making my morning.
    Working in retail, I can relate on the overal concept of this...Have you ever thought of setting up your own camera? (And then sending the footage to 20/20??)

    Amber

    (Came by way of Movies on My Mind)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mouthwash, it did make me think of Office Space as well as The Office, but when I met the cleaning crew I stopped thinking prank and began thinking mental defect instead. I don't know. Its even possible one of my coworkers has a mental defect that I don't know about. None of the people sitting around me work on the same project as me, so I don't know them well.

      Delete
  8. You've got to be kidding!!! How are they getting into your locked desk? I'm thinking you should go the electric shock route. Rig your desk up somehow to shock the living bejesus out of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VapidVixen, I like the way you think. A nice 220 volt cable plugged into the wall on one end and soldiered to a thick copper wire wrapped around and around the cup and handle on the other end might just provide them with a real surprise when they reach into my dark desk drawer and grab the cup.

      Delete
  9. Of all the problems in life, this has to be the most pressing: The lack of respect co-workers have to one's coffee cup. I feel your pain, man.

    On another note, I think that it's fantastic that people with mental handicaps are recruited to be custodial staff at your office. It's humbling and totally brilliant. Even if their efficiency vexes you, please tell them they're doing a good job. I'm sure it will mean the world to them. To be honest, I reckon those cleaning guys can do a better job of getting America out of its current economic maelstrom than what those in charge are doing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MoviesOnMyMind, honestly, in order to think like our current leaders do, I believe you have to have a certain level of logic-retardation and other personality disorders. Without that, how else could they think that what they do is anything but destructive and harmful?

      Delete

  10. Great information. Thanks for providing us such a useful information. Keep up the good work and continue providing us more quality information from time to time.

    Office tables

    ReplyDelete