When my supervisor pulls me aside for status updates on my workload and account briefings, it doesn't faze me in the least bit. However, when the director of my department buzzes me for a chat in her office without warning... well, let's just say that the proverbial stomach flip is an understatement.

It was about 3:20 this afternoon and I was deep into my midday haze of counting down how many hours were left and zoning out to Jules Massenet when the little blinking red button on my desk phone snapped me out of my "Calgon, take me away" daydream. Shit. It was the ice queen requesting my presence pronto. Fuck. me. hard. What did I do? What's gone wrong now?

I ran into the ladies room quickly to stall for time...my mind was a blur. Checked my teeth for any errant food particles left from the spinach salad at lunch, blotted my face and pulled back up the straps of the lace trimmed cami which was slipping down into a décolletage danger zone. Okay, relax. Inhale...exhale. I had to keep repeating the mantra of "you didn't screw up" in my head as I walked down the corridor.

When I approached the open door, my manager was already seated at her desk and she beckoned for me to join them. "Sit, sit!," she ordered in her authoritative tone. I had to concentrate on the traffic snaking up onto the FDR Drive behind her to bring my paranoia down a notch.

"Well, we called you in here because I just wanted to advise of something which is causing a bit of a problem."

Goddamnit.

"It's a bit trivial, but... your perfume is causing one of your colleagues' allergies to flare up. Would you mind terribly in nixing it?"

What in the fuck? This is the shit you called me in here for with the urgency of a four-alarm fire?

As I smiled placidly and heard myself agreeing to one more compromising position on the corporate plantation, the request alone had notched a lofty place in the Ripley's file folder of nonsensical encounters to date.

I noticed the ever-annoying loudmouthed prick Tom who sits right behind me had angled his neck to see my reaction when I strolled back to my cubicle. A chorus of sneezes began soon after. A-ha. So, it was the balding goombah who sold me up the river. Instead of just approaching me directly, the dickless wonder had to drag our boss's superior into the mix to relay a bullshit message not even worth an interoffice memo.

There are supposed adults who don't know how to walk and chew gum at the same time, grown ass women who haven't figured out that it's a requirement to flush the toilet in the bathroom and troglodytes who leave month-old hummus dip in their cabinets in my midst who float on a happy plane of ignorance... yet my Coco Mademoiselle gets the ax? Oh hell no.

When you reach a level of maturity in life, you force yourself to negotiate with folks you'd normally like to see pinned underneath the wheel of a bus. So I took the measured approach to resolving this issue. A not-so-veiled threat delivered as he scurried past me on the way out to catch the 6:24 ferry. I don't know what was more satisfying to see. The transparency of the "I don't know what you're talking about" excuses or seeing his eyes glaze over as I leaned in closer on purpose to reacquaint him with the scent of an irritated woman. I think I'll douse his chair with my atomizer as a thank-you.

Labels: rants