28th March, 2002.

"I can't find this information in the file!"

"Have you looked anywhere else for it?"

"I guess I'll have to, won't I?"

Pause.

"Can you tell I'm not running on all cylinders today?"

Which is, quite frankly, terrifying. If she thinks she's not performing to her usual standards, what am I going to be afflicted with today?

---

Snap quiz time again:

Someone delegates a task to you, asking you to take care of it and let the client know the outcome. Do you:

1. Do as requested; or
2. Find the information, deliver it to me verbally and then ask me to pass it back to the client when I'm very obviously in the middle of trying to do something else?
3.  

---

The Cow-orker Conspiracy Factory gains further momentum today when a few badly-chosen words by an individual elsewhere in our division provoke a storm of criticism of the division as a whole. After weighing up all the issues in the debate, the Cow-orker reaches the conclusion that this was all foreseen by our division's director, who had carefully chosen this time to be absent rather than be around where he could have prevented the situation arising. The glaring hole in this theory, of course, is motive - why would our supreme leader abandon us to a brutal PR pasting when a simple message or two from him could have defused the entire situation? But like all good conspiracies, this one, too, is proof against reason.

"He must have known this would happen!" she repeats.

Yes, and JFK deliberately chose that day to go for a drive without his bullet-proof helmet...

---

While a furious debate rages on an e-mail discussion list, the Cow-orker observes: "It's an interesting distinction, isn't it? If you spam this list with something that doesn't belong there, people just get so upset, but this is something people are concerned about and no-one is complaining about the volume of posts! You have to laugh at the mindset..."

Naturally the Cow-orker's own thoughts on the issue (which has heavy implications for the autonomy of other divisions within our organisation) are as conciliatory as you might expect, as she burns with a crusader's zeal to go out amongst the godless heathens, lay waste to their internal IT infrastructure with fire and sword and inform they're all idiots and that THIS IS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE, BY GOD!

Luckily our manager had the foresight to pre-emptively muzzle her as soon as this even looked like becoming an issue. Surprisingly, she obeys.

---

27th March, 2002.

Cow-orker discovers that I was on a management training course this week, but rather than ask me directly goes to our manager to check up: Why is he doing this? Did he tell you why he was going?

The Cow-orker Conspiracy Factory begins gearing up for production, when the simple answer is that I opted for Management Training because Animal Handling wasn't on offer.

26th March, 2002.

Memo to Cow-orker:

When I assign a task to you with the words "I don't know where we get this from or what it is, can you look into it for me?", a normal person would realise the futility of asking me these very things;

I don't need to know (nor am I interested in knowing) about the number of people you saw almost get run down on the way into work. I'm similarly disinterested in hearing your loud cries of moral indignation on this matter;

Contrary to your expectations, no, I'm *not* surprised that there are people who can talk with such ferocity that they become oblivious to their surroundings;

Yes, the air-conditioning is stuffy in here today. No, I don't need you to tell give me a room-by-room analysis of how stuffy it is relative to everyone else's air-conditioning. No, really. I mean it. Don't make me put this letter opener somewhere I'm not going to be able to get it back from in a hurry if I need it;

When I sit in front of the computer tapping my fingers on the keyboard to make letters appear on the screen? That's called "being occupied". I know it might sound like a looped Morse code message saying "come and tell me about everything you've done in the last 24 hours", but it isn't. You'd be surprised how many people make that mistake;

I may look as though I'm uninterested in what you have to say and am letting my mind wander on to happier things, but that's only because I find it hard to maintain my expression of polite interest while slipping into unconsciousness. By no means should you take this as a hint to stop your relentless assault on my senses.

---

"This order is ambiguous. Which of these two contradictory quantities should I supply them with?"

"Have you rung them to clarify what they want?"

"Sigh! It's never easy, is it?"

---

"Does this product need an activation code?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because they didn't build it to need one."

"Why?" 

No idea. Would you like me to call that nice Mr Gates and ask him personally for you?

---

25th March, 2002.

"Look at the $2.00 hair band my mother bought me! Isn't it so cool?"
I am but one victim of many...

---

Of *course* I know that - it was in the email I just sent you that you've come around to my desk to tell me about! Don't try to tell me I sent you the wrong information when the "right" information you're reading back to me is what I sent you in the first place!

---

22nd March, 2002.

"Do you have any idea how hard it's going to be to ask someone for a copy of that?"

Not as hard as it's going to be to argue with someone about what it says when they have a copy in front of them and you don't. Stupid, stupid person.

21st March, 2002.

SECURITY ALERT

Attention security, we have a proprietary information breach in Sector 12. Suspect is in the process of describing to outside sources how they plan to single-handedly raise our organisation's public image to unprecedented heights.

Enviornmental catastrophe imminent if methane emissions are not curbed immediately. Use of lethal force has been approved. 

---

20th March, 2002.

I think the Cow-orker must suffer from Tourette's Syndrome, as I can't think of many other reasons as to why she thinks people need to know what parts of the building she used to use to express breast milk when she came back from maternity leave the last time.

I think I need to declare war on someone so I can claim rights under the Geneva Convention and escape this cruel and unusual punishment.

---

A secondary Cow-orker, which had seemed to be in remission, just spent ten minutes telling me what was wrong with this country.

Too many Asians taking everyone's jobs, too many mothers in the workforce who should be staying at home minding the kids or (if they have school-age kids) should only be working while the kids are at school, too many greedy wives in the workforce who don't need the money because their husbands already earn enough for their family...

It's been suggested that I try pointing the primary and secondary Cow-orkers at one another in the hope that they cancel each other out, but I'm too afraid we'd get some kind of self-sustaining Cow-orker reaction that would doom us all.

Cow-orker China Syndrome. Scary.

---

18th March, 2002.

This happened *literally* within two minutes of her getting in this morning.

"I have to order this equipment for someone. I've got quotes from the supplier I really really like [the "you guys kick arse" one] and another supplier that I like, but not as much because they won't spend hours talking to me on the phone. Should I order through the ones I don't like as much, even though they're cheaper?"

"Well, yes." Duh.

"See, I thought I could just rung up the suppliers I really like and ask them to tack this extra equipment on to an order we already have with them."

"No, you know we can't do that. The purchasing policies we have to work with won't let us, and accounts won't pay it."

"But when I rang them to do this -"

Hellooooo!!! Is anyone home? Did someone evacuate Planet Cow-orker when I wasn't looking?

"- they'd already placed our order with their suppliers and they couldn't do it anyway. So what should I do?"

"Put an order in with the cheaper suppliers."

"So should I start getting an order organised for the cheaper ones, then?"

I'm confused. Should I be thumping my head against the desk at this point, or hers?

---

Ten minutes later.

"Let me tell you all about the phone call my mother had from my godmother this morning about her daughter's upcoming wedding."

A point! A point! My kingdom for a point!

I'm now experiencing a new "personal best" for fastest induced stress headache.

---

15th March, 2002.

Either I'm suffering a lot of severe memory lapses or the Cow-orker's hearing voices again. I've just been told I pointed out something to her that, until she mentioned it then, I'd been completely oblivious to.

---

Had the great pleasure of listening to our manager trying to discuss something with the Cow-orker which the latter had some very strong opinions about. The highlight was undoubtably the manager's request the Cow-orker "stop ranting".

---

No! NO! We give them one CD, not two! How many goddamn times do you have to ask me this question before you'll remember the answer?

---

14th March, 2002.

"I hate this form! I think you were right -"

Hold that pose while I get a camera to capture the moment. Or a taxidermist.
" - they didn't give any thought to what anyone actually needed to do with it, and just made up one that matched what they needed and didn't take anyone else into consideration!"

I said that? I seem to say a lot of things I don't remember saying. Are you sure it really was me and not just the Voices again?

"Well actually the form works for 95% of the people in the building. It just doesn't work for us, which is why they let us use the workaround we came up with when you raised this [ranted about this] last time. Just print off our version like we did for the last six orders, staple the official form to the front like we did for the last six orders, and write see attached on it. Like we did for THE LAST SIX ORDERS."

"The form's completely useless!"

Damn, too late for the taxidermist. Normal service has been resumed.

"What are we going to do? Can we get a database developer in to modify the database so it can print out the form when we generate an order request?"

"We don't need to do that. We just use the workaround that's already been approved, that requires minimal fuss, and that doesn't require a couple of thousand dollars worth of modifications to the database. It's not a problem. We've already dealt with the form's limitations and have been given the official OK to do it this way."

"This form's no good at all! Why didn't they consult us before they brought it in to use?"

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because they've met you?

"How are we going to raise this order when our database system just doesn't use the same format as this form?"

I abandon my efforts to convince her that she's met and overcome this hiccup before. Clearly it's time for some decisive action. "Okay, what we'll do is just print off the standard form we use, staple their form to the front with the appropriate signatures and write see attached in the rest of the fields."

"I guess that's all we can do, isn't it? Are you sure that will work?"

"Trust me."

Cow-orker returns to her desk (and I congratulate myself for the thousandth time for having the foresight to hide the spare chair) and before she can think of any fresh objections I'm out the door and on my way for a sanity break.

---

Cow-orker insisted on coming along to a presentation that had nothing to do with her and which was dealing with things she doesn't fully grasp.

Unsurprisingly her main contribution was to extol the virtues of her Spawn to a pair of complete strangers, who I'm sure don't mind flying interstate to hear how not only can an eighteen-month old child walk and say single words, but it can pinch toys from other children, too, because "she's spoiled rotten".

That, incidentally, is one of the reasons the Cow-orker is giving for having another child - somehow it will prevent the incumbent Spawn from becoming even more spoilt. Because de-regulation has worked so well in so many other arenas, after all...

---

"Why won't the systems security guys tell me what kind of data they look after for people?"

"Because you don't need to know."

This is a recurring issue - Cow-orker doesn't deal well with working in a "need to know" environment. She wants to know everything that's happening, even if it's totally unrelated to her. This in itself wouldn't be a problem, except that not only does the additional information drives out the stuff she does need to know, she makes wild extrapolations based on things she's not familiar with and doesn't have enough discretion not to run around sharing her conclusions with everyone.

"But why do they want it encrypted? What can they have that's so important? I don't understand why they're being so paranoid!"

"It's their job, for one thing. They get a lot of information from external clients about their computer security setup, the type of data they have, how it's stored and encrypted, where it's stored... You know - confidential stuff."

"But why won't they tell me? What's the big deal?"

Repeat after me: "Their job. Computer security. Confidential information. Corporate clients. Government clients. *Law enforcement* clients. Non-disclosure agreements. Breach of contract." Any of this making sense yet? Now leave me alone!

"I asked him straight out what sort of data they were protecting, and he just danced around the issue!"

No, actually, he told you everything I just told you. What did you think he was going to do? People's tax file numbers? Their financial details? Criminal records?

"I don't understand why they're being so paranoid about all this!"

At last the phone rings - saved! When it becomes clear that it's not going to be a quick call, and with no place to sit down and wait, the Cow-orker decides to call a supplier and tell them her troubles instead.

Either our suppliers don't have Caller ID, or they really value our business.

---

12th March, 2002. 

The Cow-orker is on a maternal kick at the moment which is threatening to reach crisis proportions. There are only so many times you can have the same picture of the same unattractive child waved in your face before you have to start biting your lip to refrain from denouncing the baby as having a face like a collagen-injected Pug, and hair like Harpo Marx.

11th March, 2002.

I was warned, but I didn't listen and was struck down by Cow-orker foot odour whilst on my coffee break. Next time I'll know better and heed the warnings of others.

8th March, 2002.

The Orker-of-Cows is still absent, but in the three and a half days I've been answering her phone I've made an interesting discovery: she gets only three or four work-related phone calls a day. No more. Which makes her feat of spending half the day on the phone telling strangers everything they never needed to know about the inner workings of our organisation (and her family) all the more remarkable. It's one thing to be aware that she's spending a lot of time on the phone that has nothing to do with work; it's another entirely to find out just how much time that actually is.

It's starting to look like she really doesn't have anything to do during the day except talk loudly down the phone and annoy me.

6th March, 2002.

Woo-hoo! A Cow-orker free day! And I was feeling especially fragile this morning, too. I can't believe how much my mood has improved just from the absence of one person.

The concern of my workmates is touching - one of them has offered to come over to my desk and start babbling at me if I feel lonely, which made me and my manager laugh out loud, so obviously everyone's enjoying the holiday spirit of the day.

---

Gone but not forgotten...

My manager and I spent several minutes revisiting some of the Cow-orker highlights of the last year or so ("Cow-orker Classics", I suppose you could call them). My manager hadn't heard about some of the more surreal efforts and laughed so hard he was crying. For my part, I was alerted to some things that had escaped my notice up until now, such as the Cow-orker's propensity for wearing too-revealing clothes in the most inappropriate circumstances (and with the most inappropriate body posture), and the threat of lethal foot odour. Now I know to be doubly careful when the Cow-orker kicks back and puts her feet up on the desk.

Workplace bonding is a wonderful thing.

5th March, 2002.

Eeeuuhh!!! Cow-orker discussing intimate medical issues with her doctor over the phone. Too much detail!!!

---

Eeeewwww!!! Eeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!! Stop it!!!!!!! An hour of this is way more than I should have to put up with!

---

Prescription sunglasses, you say? And they're called that because they're sunglasses that have prescription lenses in them? How extraordinary! And the prescription is the same one you use in your regular, indoor glasses? The world is just full of amazing coincidences, isn't it? And you say that looking through them is just like looking through your normal glasses, but everything's darker? Well who'd have thought that tinted lenses would do such a thing. And yes, while you're at it, please tell me all about your health-care plan... It's only my lunch break, and it isn't like I was planning to go away from my desk and eat or anything...

1st March, 2002.

Hooray. The Cow-orker has finally realised that she needs to document how to do her job so that when people aren't here they can see what she does all day. Either that or (more likely) our manager has finally managed to impress upon her that telling us "everything you need to know is in Outlook" is inadequate. Now she's complaining about having to do a massive catch-up job on something she's been avoiding doing for years.

I'm particularly looking forward to reading the chapter on "Annoying The Crap Out Of The Person I'm Supposed To Be Assisting", if only to see how closely her processes confirm to her practices.

---

An exchange between the Cow-orker and a workmate who happened to be passing through our area. Cow-orker has just discovered that this workmate can convert numbers to binary figures in his head:

"Wow, that's amazing! Anyone else would just go and look it up, or use a calculator! No-one actually tries to work things out for themselves anymore these days, they just want to be spoon-fed everything."

She looks back at her work briefly, before shouting across the room to me.

"Hey! Whereabouts do I find this client in our searchable database?"

28th February, 2002.

More Cow-orker database disasters. It's become increasingly clear that her database skills begin and end with designing garishly-coloured menu screens. I didn't *think* that asking her not to bugger up the data entry was such a big thing, but I'm being proven time and again that I'm obviously expecting too much. What is wrong with her brain? Why is it so hard for her to understand how to check whether reference data exists before adding a second, badly-spelt copy of those records?

I've spoken to her about the database problems, because that's something quantifiable where I can point out what's wrong and what's right. Her personal conduct is another problem entirely, because I find it much harder to tell someone they're like a cheesegrater of the soul when they're apparently driven by stupidity rather than malice. It would feel kind of like tipping cripples out of wheelchairs.

And while I was fixing those errors, I discovered that when I was on holiday last year she supplied materials to an organisation that isn't part of ours, and isn't eligible for purchasing through the same discount schemes we use. I don't know how many laws or contracts this broke, but I think I'm going to have to put this away in the Too Ugly To Contemplate file and pretend I never saw it.

---

Yes, for the thousandth time, YES! We only give them the first item in the set, because they don't need the second one. Just like the hundred previous times we've produced one of these exact same sets for people!!!

And stop telling me about the kind of shows your damn kid watches! I don't give a rat's what kind of video popcorn your Spawn and your deadbeat husband watch when they're sitting around the house all day! No, I don't find it disturbing that Bob the Builder talks to his vehicles - they talk back to him, don't they, and it makes as much sense as Bananas in fricking Pajamas!!!

Get the hell away from me and leave me alone before I'm forced to use lethal force!!!!!

Oh, God, but this is going to be a long day... I picked such a bad week to quit junk food.

---

And stop giving me a running commentary on everything you do as you're doing it! I can see you're getting up from your desk, I can see you're walking over to the other side of the room away from your phone! I have EYES, damnit!

AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

It's been suggested that I use headphones and loud music to combat the Cow-orker's stream of semi-consciousness gibberings. This has some merit - headphones and the right kind of music have worked in the past. There was an employee here last year who was sitting at ground zero, and after the first day or so he just brought in his MP3 player loaded up with heavy/death metal tracks. The downside was that he couldn't hear anyone else, either, but after he had her trained to stop talking at him incessantly he didn't need to play the music anymore - wearing the headphones was enough.

Sadly headphones aren't really an option for me, because my phone rings so frequently I'd be forever taking them on and off. I'm doomed.

---

It's quiet. Too quiet. The theme from Jaws begins...

"That email you just forwarded to me verbatim? Who did it come from?"

Where's Robert Shaw when you need him?

---

27th February, 2002.

From The Cow-orker Recipe Book:

Dish: Database Lite Just like a real database, but with none of that pesky usable content!

Method:
Take one previous complaint re. databases, reference numbers, and the need to cross-reference with external data sources in order to actually make the database useful.
Add new consignment of CDs to be catalogued.
Add one thickened Cow-orker.
Allow to sit for half an hour.
Check the contents of the database and voila! - two dozen database entries of no meaning to anyone!

Serving Suggestions:
Best accopmanied by:
- vengeance (served cold);
- panadeine, or other painkiller of choice (for relief from butting head against brick wall);
- alcohol. Cheap and lots of it.

25th February, 2002.

Pop quiz time again:

Childbirth is:
a) a miracle of nature;
b) just a part of life;
c) something best not experienced first-hand;
d) an appropriate subject for a blow-by-blow retelling (complete with sound effects and graphic descriptions) over a morning tea with some suppliers.

---

Drama time: a soliloquy in which the Cow-orker begins to reveal the mysteries and conspiracies surrounding the plants in her garden, and the treachery and backroom politicking of those neighbours who would see her grandiose plans for the future of her weed-enshrouded fence-line (to leave it as it is) come to naught.

The soliloquy is a deeply moving one. At least that's one way of explaining the tears and wails of anguish from the audience.

22nd February, 2002.

A shaky start to the day with a visit to the dentist that left the side of my face numb (from my throat, to above my cheekbone and back about an inch behind my ear) for four hours. And the anaesthetic still wasn't strong enough - when the Cow-orker arrived I could still hear her.

---

So your family are genetic mutants and your mother once had a tooth grow out through her nose? Absolutely fascinating. And you seem like such a normal, well-balanced individual, too...

19th February, 2002.

Apparently some lessons are harder to absorb than others.

Inspired by the words of our manager, who had the temerity to suggest that a degree of discretion or professionalism on the phone could be considered a good thing, the Cow-orker embarked on a late afternoon rant (after the manager's departure, of course) about the curtailment of her right to publicly identify people falling short of her own high standards of efficiency and deride them in front of an audience. There then followed a thinly-veiled and apparently arbitrary rant to any and all passers-by concerning the member of executive management she'd been bad-mouthing so vigorously last year.

The only thing this particular executive had done to provoke this sudden flashback was benefit from a reorganisation that now sees them wield even more direct influence over our division. Presumably this news triggered the Cow-orker's "career deathwish" gene.

18th February, 2002.

Friday's Cow-orker saga continues with a vengeance. In the 90 minutes since she started work, over a third of that time has been devoted to picking up exactly where she left off on Friday. She's found some new people to ring, though.

Now instead of ringing people outside the organisation, she's talking to colleagues of the staff member who started this whole thing off (the one she was denigrating to all and sundry last week), and is telling them how useless he is.

15th February, 2002.

Situated as I am in the fallout zone surrounding the Cow-orker's phone, I'm learning a surprising amount about things I've apparently been saying or doing in the last few days. I've been pretty scathing things about people (which is arguably true, but not about these specific people) and have been having no end of trouble with other people (which, again, is arguably true, but not with the people she's talking about).

The total absence of anything like professionalism or discretion in her work-related phone calls is mind-blowing. I'd be appalled at the amount of time she's wasting on the phone with her peculiar brand of character assassination, but the upside is that while she's engaged in it she's not bothering me directly. After a fifteen-minute barrage it becomes too much and I flee for a coffee-break, only to find on returning that she's still in full swing, repeating the same stories to a different person at the same company.

In the space of less than five minutes she produces the following gems:

• bad-mouthing of other staff within our organisation to the supplier (identifying the staff member by name and department);
• bad-mouthing of other suppliers (identifying both the company and the employee);
• informing the supplier several times that they, on the other hand, "kick arse";
• telling the supplier exactly what quotes she's been receiving from other sources, the names of the people she's been getting quotes from, personal appraisals of their relative competence, and who she hopes gets the best quote (not the supplier she's talking to, either!).

After finally getting off the phone she surfaces for air, fills her lungs again and rings another supplier to begin again!

Deciding to share the pain around (and because I'm not senior enough to the Cow-orker to successfully rein her in) I consult our manager in the hope there's some training course we can send the Cow-orker to, where people are beaten with rolled-up newspapers and knotted towels until they're capable of showing some restraint on the phone. Unfortunately there isn't, but I experience the rare joy of seeing my manager clutch his forehead in pain exactly the same way I was doing ten minutes previously.

This isn't the first time this has come up.

Last year the Cow-orker was gleefully bad-mouthing a particular member of administration to everyone on the phone, which was bad enough in itself. What made it worse was that in the grand scheme of things this person was one of the highest people in our organisation and one of the few people our division is directly answerable to. In ecclesiastical terms, if our supreme leader is God, this person would have been the Pope. When our manager became aware of this and approached the Cow-orker about it (charitably assuming she didn't appreciate who she was maligning) he was horrified to learn that the Orker-of-Cows knew exactly who they were slandering and couldn't seem to understand that this was an extraordinarily careless thing to be doing.

And this, among other things, is why my manager repeatedly apologised to me at my performance review for making me work with the Cow-orker.

13th February, 2002.
 
"It's no good, I can't find the serial number!"

"It's there. I'm looking at it now."

"That's so weird! I can't see it at all." There's a pause while realisation begins to dawn. You can almost hear rusty mental gears grinding against one another in protest. "Hey, where are you reading that file from?"

"From the place you copied it to because you said it would be easier for everyone else to access it there."

"Ohhhh... Then what's this one I'm reading?"

"It wouldn't be the original "inaccessible" one you didn't delete after everyone started modifying the copy six months ago, would it?"

Silence.

At least the client patiently standing beside the Cow-orker's desk waiting for the serial number looks amused, so the exercise wasn't a complete waste.

---

Storing relevant work documents in one location rather than spraying them randomly across a variety of local and network drives, e-mails and filing cabinets allows you to quickly locate required information and provide accurate summaries, thereby avoiding near-misses such as the following:

"We were told to do it this way! I've got the directive from executive management saying just that!"

[20 minutes later]

"I still can't find it - you must have it in your files."

"No, I was on leave when that happened, remember? And I've already checked in case you hid it in my files, anyway, and it's not there."

"Oh. Where is it?"

I don't know. Why would I know where you'd hide something like that when I wasn't even here at the time. I continue trying to get on with my work while an indignant and uninterrupted monologue floats over the cubicle wall.

[5 minutes later]

"Oops. That was just my faulty recollection of things. What I thought was a final decision was just an email I sent to someone else entirely asking if they thought that was what we should do. Lucky I held off on telling the director we were only doing what he'd told us, wasn't it?"

Lucky is such a subjective term.

8th February, 2002.

"I can't think clearly and manage bodily functions at the same time."

I may as well stop updating this site now. It's just not going to get any better than that.

7th February, 2002.

"Did I tell you my cat had her kittens the other day?"

No, please do. Please tell me you videotaped the happy event so I can see it with my own eyes.

This was followed by the inevitable description of what the cat looked like, and comparisons with the patterns and colours of the kittens (right down to the colour of their claws). This would conceivably be useful to me if I was a cat-kicking type of person and frequented her neighbourhood, because at least then I'd know what animals to abuse. But I don't belong to either category, and I know I didn't look interested while she was telling me this because I was busy replying to work e-mails while she wittered on.

---

"And these people received this much mail, and this person received no mail, probably because they changed sections recently. And you got these letters, and they're from <insert names>, but I think they're all junk mail."

Cool! Junk mail - I can throw it straight in the bin. What am I supposed to do with junk conversations, though?

---

On the bright side she seems to have finally learned how to look for the names of departments that don't immediately leap out of the database at her in response to her experimental key-strokes. The next step is to train her to stop shouting out every goddamn step in the process.

"I think it might be this! No that doesn't work. I think they're a part of this department! No, that doesn't work. I thought they were a part of this department, but they're not. Maybe I could try this! No that didn't work, either." 

And so on. Very stream-of-consciousness.

Annoying as that was, it didn't come close to the hysterical jubilation at having finally found the "missing" name. 

And, of course, once the celebrations died down it was my fault again for entering the name incorrectly in the first place, because I entered it under its actual name rather than its popular acronym.

---

As I type she's on the phone to her husband (as part of her solid 45 minute personal phone-call marathon) and is explaining to him exactly what noise the phone makes when the person at the other end hangs up.

Dear god, now she's imitating the sound to let him know what it sounds like! She's sitting at her desk going "Doop-doop-doop-doop!" down the phone at him.

How did these people ever manage to conceive a child, let alone avoid killing it within the first two weeks of its life?

All this and it's not even lunchtime yet...

5th February, 2002.

"I can't find this department in the database!"
 
"It's in there."

[long pause]
 
"Oh, it's okay - I found it. You put a space between the words."
 
Yes, that would be because the department's name is made up of separate words. This is a surprise to you because...?

1st February, 2002.

"No, it's not going to work. The problem with what you're suggesting is that it doesn't take one-off box-product orders into account - we can't use a sliding scale for those. We need some sort of flat fee for those."

"You mean like the flat-fee model I said we should apply to one-off box-product orders just two minutes ago?"
 
"Yes! Oh..."

30th January, 2002.

"This email about Photoshop licenses from N**** that's coming out the printer, is it the email about Photoshop licenses from N**** I just asked if you could print out for me 10 seconds ago when I was standing over your shoulder watching you push the Print button?"

23rd January, 2002.

Question 1.
 
You're entering information into a database. Do you:

1. Include the 8-digit ID-code that's essential for cross-referencing an item's volume number to the vendor's index of what software can be found on that volume; or
2. Ignore it. Just because the preceding 1212 items in the database have been done this way doesn't mean anything - the person who normally maintains the database obviously just enjoys entering extraneous data for its own sake.

Question 2.
 
 Still working within the same database, do you:

1. Enter information in a consistent and legible manner; or
2. Pound randomly on the keyboard like a drunken chimpanzee with Attention Deficit Disorder, waiting anxiously for the next power blackout so you can go back to sticky-taping the CD-coaster collection to the wall to make pretty patterns?

If you answered (2) to either of these questions, there may be a vacancy for you here soon once pieces of your predecessor have been cleaned from the walls and ceiling.

22nd January, 2002.

"What if we do that then it still doesn't work? But what if we can't fix it that way? What will we do then? What if? What if? What if?!?"

How about we just *try* to fix the fricking thing first, see if it works and *then* worry about what to do next?