These people don't understand clothes

Expect to hear a lot from us in the coming weeks about what our co-workers are wearing. At the very least they've made some, shall we say, interesting fashion choices of late. This week was over the top. We're not sure some of them really know how clothes work. Here are the two worst things we saw this week:

Plague wore a sweater vest. As a shirt. So, no shirt under it. Just the vest.


Zebra wore his peacoat and fur-lined earflap cap. All buttoned up and strapped tight under his chin. It's June. We've had rather summery weather this week. People have been wearing shorts and sandals.   

This is normal, right?

 

Did you enjoy the gag?

With all of the chaos with Comfort Inn's abrupt departure, we nearly forgot about one of our favorite stories of the last several months. Today we bring you a story from January.

In the post holiday season, there were a number of thank you cards for the Tartarus staff to sign. We were startled to find the following message in a card for Comfort Inn: "Thanks for being a great hostage!"

"Umm, what's this all about," said Spoof.

"You remember," said Plague. "Comfort Inn invited us to that party at her house."

"You mean host," said Spoof. 

"No," said Plague. "A person who hosts a party is a hostage (pronouncing it 'hoh-stage')."

And no matter what we we said, we could not convince Plague she was wrong. Especially with Mr. Ed agreeing with the pronunciation.

Since neither of us was at the party in question, we can only assume it looked something like this:

 

There's these things called manners

We bring to you today a conversation overheard between Plague and a patron we'll call Ketchup-Mustard. 

Ketchup-Mustard: Plauge, do you know where the Oz Herald office is on main street?

Plague: Not off hand.

Ketchup-Mustard: Oh. Okay.

Now, any sane person would have ended the conversation here. The patron, while not satisfied, has had her question answered. Of course, we're talking about Plague, here, who is in no way a normal sane person.

Plague: I don't even know where the Oz Herald office is in Oz. How about that. 

Plague, talking to people like that is not okay.

 

They're called manners; get some

To begin with, we have to say that we have never done anything to earn Plague's displeasure. Not a single insult, harsh word, or poorly timed joke (there was a single incident involving a magazine but she deserved it and it was three years ago so get over it already Plague). In recent weeks we have actually been especially nice to Plague. She may be annoying but she's never been outright nasty to either of us. She's become the lesser evil

Until today. 

Today Plague started out by ignoring us. We even apologized for something that wasn't even our fault. No acknowledgement. She didn't even look in our direction. It went on like this all morning. The only interaction she consented to with either of us was when she and Zebra were blocking a mailbox that Spoof needed to put something in. When Spoof said "excuse me," she whirled around, snatched the item from Spoof's hands without a word, and shoved it into the mailbox.

We all have bad days but there is no reason to treat your coworkers in such a rude, unprofessional manner. And that is why the murder goose, who has been conspicuously absent from the death stare for several months, has decided to target Plague.

 

Who knew a drawer could cause so much stress

There is a drawer in Tartarus that our Board suddenly (like overnight suddenly) decided needs to be locked every night. The problem? We don't all have keys to this drawer.

Apparently we can't be trusted?

The Hutt and Shoes each have a key on their person at all times. Pterry is given access to a key but must turn it in when she leaves each day. Mr. Ed was informed where a copy of the key is kept but must not carry it around. He must only get it out when the drawer needs locking. That's it. No other keys exist.

Yesterday, the closing staff scheduled was Mr. Ed, Plague, and Speck. The problem? Mr. Ed was out sick. Since the Hutt didn't want to come back in at closing, someone else needed to be made responsible for the key. 

Now, Speck has worked for Tartarus for 5 years. Plague has not even completed a year as a full time employee and hasn't even been trusted with the alarm code yet. Additionally, simply by virtue of job title, Speck was officially "in charge". It seems obvious who should have been trusted with the key. Speck, yes? Of course not. Plague was entrusted with the key. Speck was not even allowed to knew where the key is kept. We don't think Speck could be any more insulted.

Today's interaction of note

One of our tech guys walked past our main desk, carrying the CPU from one of our computers that he'd removed several days before to fix.

Plague: The computer is back?

Tech guy: Yep. All fixed.

We applaud him for saying that with a straight face. We'd have said something like "Nope. Just carrying it in here to tell you it's still broken. I find carrying broken computers to be good exercise."

This is pretty much what we looked like, the entire time

 

Don't bother talking to people

Apparently the Hutt feels even less compulsion to keep us informed than it used to. We now find things out about Tartarus from the newspaper. Wait until you hear this one.

The Hutt is nasty? Shocking

Let's set the scene. Spoof, Speck, and Plague are working the main desk. An elderly patron approaches carrying a plastic bag.

"Here you are, dear," says the lady. "Here's a portable DVD player like you want. I hope I got the right kind."

"Umm...," says Speck. "I don't know anything about any DVD players."

The patron looks strangely at Speck. "It was in the paper a couple of weeks ago. It said you all wanted DVD players."

Speck looks at Spoof. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Nope."

Plague smirks a little and says, "Send her up to the Hutt."

"The Hutt is out of the building," says Speck.

"It was in the office like 15 minutes ago," says Plague.

"Yes, and then it left for a meeting."

"So call Shoes," says Plague.

"Shoes left too. They were going to the meeting together."

Eventually, we decided to take the player up to the Hutt's office with a note. But not before the patron looked at the three of us as if we barely had a braincell between us.

And really, could you blame her?

 We managed to find the newspaper article in question after this encounter and have some idea of what's going on now. But isn't it sad when the public knows more than the employees?

I think I'll be sick on Friday

Does this story sound as fishy to you as it does to us?

Yesterday, when getting ready to leave, Mosquito was saying things like "I'm not sure what you all will need for tomorrow." Then, while walking out the door she said, "I'll see you all on Friday." We knew that Mosquito had taken Wednesday and Thursday off. That didn't account for today. We figured she must have also taken today off and it just wasn't on the schedule.

This morning, arriving at Tartarus, we were told that Mosquito had "called out sick" (on Facebook of all things. Is that a thing now? Do people do that where you work?). 

"Huh," said Plague. "I thought it was scheduled. That's what she told me yesterday."

Shoes, who was a part of this conversation, just about took Plague's head off. "No!" she snapped. "Mosquito is sick."

Do they think we are idiots?

Plague of the Day

Today Plague was sporting: Black pants, black and white sneakers, a chocolate brown scoop neck shirt, a pink green and brown geometric striped tunic, a pink blue and grey striped knit cowl, and an ivory scarf with silver sequins.

Since when does that count as work?

Some time ago the entire staff of Tartarus was soundly scolded for "chatting" while at work. We were told we could only talk about work things unless both people in the conversation were on break. Some people even got in trouble for talking about work. It was intensely insane. 

It was literally impossible to guess what might get us in trouble.

It would seem, though, that all of those rules have been tossed out the window. These days people sit around at all hours talking about anything from the "cute thing" their cat did yesterday, the awesome movie they just watched, to their plans for the weekend (all the way down to the meals they plan to cook/eat). Today, though, really took the cake. Today Zebra and Plague spent twenty minutes at the desk looking at and loudly discussing the Etsy shop Turtle just opened, all the while ignoring the patrons who were anxiously waiting for help.

This look may be permanently etched on our faces

To make matters worse, your friends Spoof and Speck recently got the Glare of Death from the Hutt when they took a few minutes at the desk to discuss plans for an upcoming event.

Plague of the Day

Today Plague was sporting: an over-sized black and white patterned cowl necked sweater (with a drawstring at the waist), a snake skin patterned petal skirt (and yes we know the drawing makes it look plaid. Lay off. Snake skin is hard to draw), black tights, and high faux-suede boots with weird and useless straps.

New feature - Plague of the Day

We mentioned earlier this summer our coworker's sudden obsession with sweaters. One person in particular seems to wear nothing but sweaters. And she wears them in the strangest outfits. This young woman, who we call Plague, has such an odd sense of style that we feel the need to chronicle it here. We'll pop in occasionally to share what we are calling "the Plague of the Day." For instance, today's look:

Split cowl necked short sleeved sweater outer layer (worn as a shirt with nothing under it), navy skirt with lace edge, black leggings, slouchy tan socks (tucked under the leggings), black soccer shoes