Can you say "anal-retentive"?

We had every intention of following up on our "hickey thinking cap" post of last week but this story was so stupid we just had to tell it.

Observe the directions we received this week from Shoes.

That's right, step by step, incredibly specific, directions for cutting up scrap paper. To this we can only say Why? Who cares if the scrap paper isn't all exactly the same size. ITS SCRAP PAPER! And the worst part is, from what we can tell Shoes spent at least a week on this "project". 

 

Totally fair

Maybe we're crazy but we've always thought that everyone in Tartarus should have to abide by the same rules. Like time cards. We used to get a few days grace to hand in our time cards. Lately Mineola has gotten really strict about them. If you don't hand them in the day they are due, you don't get paid. Period. Awfully strict, we thought, but so long as everyone follows the same rule it's fair.

You can see where this is going, right?

Zebra had to go home early one week. His kid was sick and no one else was available to pick the kid up. In the chaos, he forgot to hand in his time card. He, then, did not get paid.

Fast forward a week. Mosquito forgot to hand in her time card. No good reason, just forgot to fill it out. Mineola and Shoes filled one out for her so she wouldn't miss a paycheck.

Let's look at it financially. Mosquito shares living expenses with her boyfriend who has a good job. Plus her parents still pay for half her expenses. Zebra is a single parent with small children. He must pay child care and alimony. Which of these people can't really afford a delayed or missed paycheck? 

And they claim there's no favoritism at Tartarus.

 

A group effort

We're not sure who's to blame with this one. 

Is it Hickey, unable to absorb even the simplest of instructions, no matter how many times she hears them?

Is it Opie, how shouldn't be teaching anyone anything since he does everything in the dumbest way possible?

Is it Mineola and Shoes for letting Opie take charge of teaching Hickey as skill she clearly wasn't ready for?

It's hard to say. All we know is Opie was teaching Hickey how to do inventory using a laptop. They spent three hours working on four sets of shelves. After that time, they claimed to be done. When Spoof checked the inventory, nothing had been recorded. Opie blamed the internet, saying it "doesn't work in the afternoon". 

 

Little bites of misery

We've always thought things were bad at Tartarus. We just never knew how much potential there was for things to get worse. There are just so many little ways to make life in Tartarus more miserable. 

Take, for instance, the administrative assistant, a job once filled by Pterry. After Pterry was fired, our board of directors announced that they would not be looking for a new assistant until a permanent replacement for the Hutt was found. That was over a year ago. Randomly, last week, they hired a new Pterry. Old Pterry had a nice desk in the same office as Shoes. We suspect Comfort Inn re-purposed that desk somewhere because when they hired the new Pterry, they put in a cheap, junky desk (of the sort you buy for like 20 bucks at Walmart) for her. And somehow there is no space for this desk any more. Instead of having a reasonable amount of space to work, new Pterry's desk is squeezed in between Shoes' desk and the door to the staff bathroom. Any time someone needs to use the restroom, the new Pterry has to stand up and let them in. And then stand there while they do their business. 

If history is any indication, new Pterry will not last long.
 

It may be pathological

What makes Mosquito think she can get away with blatant lies? She got caught in two whoppers today.

1. She told Shoes that she and Speck were hired to run our department and Spoof was hired as their assistant. Interestingly enough, Spoof has been running the department longer than Speck, Mosquito, or Shoes have even worked at Tartarus. Mosquito and Speck are, by their very job titles, the assistants. This is all documented and verifiable by our employee records. Shoes believed Mosquito over the records.

2. She told Zebra that she had hired a number of performers for summer events. When Zebra asked for examples, she couldn't name a single one. It is, in fact, Spoof who hired the performers. When called out on this lie, Mosquito first sulked and then spontaneously decided to go home early.


It is noteworthy that no matter how much she lies or to whom, nothing every happens to Mosquito. In fact, it is more likely that anyone who points out these lies will be accused of being mean.

 

Do you hate us right now?

We know. We know. We dropped the Comfort Inn bomb and then went back to business as usual. Forgive us. We're still processing the news. Here's what we know as of right now:

1. Mineola is once again "temporarily" in charge.

2. Everyone seems determined to act as if Comfort Inn never existed. We are being urged to revert everything (policy and physical arrangement) back to how the Hutt had it as quickly as possible.
 
3. As a continuation of that, we're never going to be told anything more about what happened with Comfort Inn. Our subtle, and not so subtle, inquiries have been entirely ignored.

4. No one is overly concerned with proper procedure or even legalities. Shoes has been taking home things that Comfort Inn purchased for Tartarus out of our operating budget. This is, apparently, not a problem.

5. Our board won't be discussing starting our new director search until summer. When we are busy. Like last time. So we're looking at no less than 4-6 months without appropriate leadership. Just an interim director who works a few partial days and an assistant director who refuses to do essential parts of the job.

 

Could it have been more obvious

Observe this conversation from today.

Speck: Shoes, there's a man on the phone who'd like to speak to you about purchasing his new book.

Shoes: Um, well, I guess...Can you just take a message? We're not really in a position to be taking on anything new right now (LIE - Our budget has just been cleared and we're under instruction to seek new products) and Mineola is on the other line and I don't want to tie up both lines right now (HUGE LIE - With our phone system you can see all of the lines. The only one engaged was the one with the salesman).

Shoes, your pants are on fire.

 

Secret meetings?

Today Shoes approached Speck. "Spoof is...", said Shoes.

Might be up your butt eating a ham sandwich , Shoes

Luckily, Speck resisted the temptation to be rude and/or sarcastic and simply pointed at Spoof who happened to be about ten feet away and practically within sight. Responding to the summons, Spoof walked over to where Shoes and Speck were standing. "What's up," said Spoof. Shoes wouldn't answer, only looked pointedly at Speck until Speck walked away.

Now, we understand that sometimes there are conversations you have to have discretely. Our complaint here is with the procedure. Would it have been that difficult to ask Speck to give them some space? Or, here's a crazy thought: take the meeting to an office where you don't have to worry about being overheard.

The worst part is what this meeting was about. Shoes was telling Spoof that not only has an interim director been named, she'd actually been in the building working all day and had met everyone except Spoof and Speck. This was so important and sensitive that Shoes couldn't tell Speck as well?

 

I don't think that's how it works

If you've ever been any sort of boss, manager, or department head, you're probably familiar with the concept of delegating work (If this is a foreign concept to you, delegating is when you have too much work to do so you assign some of your tasks to an underling). Delegating work is a pretty useful system and one of the perks of being in charge. It is, however, an exclusively 1 to 1 system. Yet Shoes seems to think it is acceptable to delegate on someone else's behalf.

The story goes like this. We have new summer help arriving. They will be assigned to different departments. One will be working for Spoof. Yet in the email regarding the new staff, Shoes assigned Opie to train the new guy. Opie who, technically, works for Spoof. Spoof was, let's just say, less than pleased. Confronted with this, Shoes would only say "sometimes we have to delegate our tasks." We would like to know what gives Shoes the right to act on Spoof's behalf.

To Shoes, all we can say is:

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.

The saga completed (please, please, please)

For over a week now we've been relating to you a saga of leaking roof and mold. We couldn't possibly have more, right?

Wrong friends. Very wrong.

We've saved the best for (hopefully) last. This one's about the mold.

When the mold was first discovered we were disgusted. We're talking a patch of wall probably 2 feet wide and 3 feet high absolutely covered in black mold. 

"Man," said Spoof, "that's probably been growing for months. And we've been breathing that in."

Shoes scoffed at that idea. "I don't think so. The Hutt says it's developed from this new leak. We haven't had mold more than a day or two."

"Really," said Spoof. "You believe that."
 
"Of course," said Shoes. "If the Hutt said it it must be true."

Now, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and looked it up. Everything we've read says that black mold takes 2 MONTHS to even BEGIN growing, and that's in warm conditions. It is physically impossible for any black mold, much less the amount we had, to grow in just 2 days. So there, Shoes and the Hutt. Stick that in you pipe and smoke it.

Shouldn't we be concerned?

We've been talking about the leak for a week now and we still haven't run out of stories. This one comes to you from last Friday when the discovery and repairs were just beginning.

In the afternoon last Friday, the mold specialists were in Tartarus starting the containment effort. As a result they had equipment everywhere. This equipment included razor blades which they left all over our main desk area. 

"Can I move these out of my work space," said Spoof. "This doesn't feel very safe."

"No," said Shoes. "The workmen might need them."

"But there are kids in the building," said Spoof. "Some of them aren't very well supervised and you know as well as I do that they come up here and grab stuff off of this desk. Someone is going to get hurt."

"Find a way to work around them," said Shoes.

Seriously?

We shouldn't have been surprised at their lack of concern. There were bottles of poison all over the place, right out in the open. On the floor. Right next to the elevator. 

Coming soon at Tartarus, apparently

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?

Did you say something?

Allow us to set the scene: Spoof and Speck are sitting in a staff work area. Spoof is on the phone. Speck is sorting out some papers. In walks Shoes. "I'm doing an equipment inventory," says Shoes. "Have you seen a black surge protector in this area?"

"No," says Speck. "I think they're all the next floor up."

Shoes says nothing.

Meanwhile, Spoof is still on the phone. "Sounds good," says Spoof. "I'll follow up with you in a day or too."

"Sorry," says Shoes. "Didn't realize you were one the phone."

Speck looks pointedly at Shoes, who makes it a point not to make eye contact.

When Spoof hangs up the phone, Shoes repeats the question. "Have you seen a black surge protector in here?"

"No," says Spoof. "I think they're all the next floor up."

"Okay, thanks," says Shoes. "I'll go check up there." And Shoes leaves.

Spoof and Speck just look at each other. "Did you hear me," asks Speck. "I did speak, right?"

"Yup," says Spoof.

 

Seriously, it's a door

Tartarus has this whole stupid ritual about the end of each work day. We all have to troop down to our staff lounge together, retrieve our belongings, and leave out the front door together. Like we're a bunch of preschoolers.

With the winter weather this process takes even longer. Fed up, Spoof decided to leave by the back door today. Not only is the back door closer to the staff lounge, its the closest to the parking lot we are meant to use. Really, it's the more sensible door. Rather than just vanish, Spoof informed Shoes as to what was going on. "I'm going out the back door," said Spoof.

Shoes just stared for a minute. "O....kay." It's hard to convey the disapproving tone of that "okay."

It was accompanied by this look

 
Nonplussed, Spoof left. Nearly out the door, Spoof could hear Mosquito say "Zebra is parked back there and he's leaving out the front door with the rest of us."

Why does all of this matter, you ask? Firstly, we agree. It shouldn't matter. Why should they care which door we use?  But, because they made it an issue we can't help but point out that Mosquito has left by the same back door the last two days. Where does she get off judging Spoof for something she's done repeatedly?

You have your J months confused

Every year Tartarus hosts special summer programming.

"Spoof and Speck," you are saying, "why are you talking about summer? It's January. Summer is, like, months away."

Oh friends, we are well aware of that fact. We have absolutely no desire to be thinking about summer events. Blame Shoes.

Today Shoes cornered Spoof. "Where is the clipart cd that came with our programming packet," said Shoes. "I NEED that cd."

Can no one bring me a clipart cd?!

"I dunno," said Spoof. "I stuck it somewhere. I'll look for it sometime. Maybe March."

"No," insisted Shoes. "Look for it now."

"Shoes, why in the world do you need the cd now?"

"I'm so far behind," said Shoes. "I haven't even started my summer brochures yet."

Readers, have you ever made a brochure? Most word processing programs have a decent brochure template. Even messing with fonts and images, a basic brochure like we use at Tartarus shouldn't even take an hour. Why, then is Shoes starting on them now?

We must admit, though, that if events hold true to history Shoes will still be working on those brochures in May.

Thanks a bunch

This year, your friends Spoof and Speck were tasked with writing thank you cards for the gifts of food the staff received this year. It is a largely harmless, if annoying, job. As we looked through the list, though, we spied the name Pterry. “Hey Shoes,” we said, “is this the Pterry who works here?”

“It is,” said Shoes. “Pterry brought in so many treats. I thought it would be nice if we thanked her.”

“We already thanked her,” we said. “We thanked her when she brought them. Besides, Turtle brought in a lot of food too. You didn’t put Turtle on the list.”

Shoes sort of glared at us. “Well, if you don’t think Pterry is worthy of a card, don’t right one. I just thought a written thank you would be nice.”

And so we didn't. Not because Pterry isn't worth but because it was a stupid idea. So there.

What were you thinking?

When we got to Tartarus today we found a note from Shoes. The general theme of the note was as follows:

A lady had a complaint about fees. She says that Control Freak and Shadow have been waiving fees on her behalf right along. Shoes checked the lady's account and found no indication that her fees should be waived. Shoes has left the fees in place for now but did Spoof know something to the contrary?

We have several problems with this note. Firstly, Shoes is assistant director of Tartarus. Shoes should be making decisions of this caliber solo, not relying on underlings to make decisions. Secondly, and most importantly, Control Freak hasn't worked at Tartarus in nearly 6 years and no one currently on staff has even heard of Shadow? Shoes knows this but didn't question the lady at all.

Really, Shoes? Really?

 

Mr. Not-so-clean

The Hutt admonished the staff today to clean out the refrigerator. Every shelf was full and most of the food in there was old. 

"Take out or label anything that belongs to you," said Shoes. "After lunches I'm going to throw away anything without a label."

Now, this has happened at Tartarus before. Usually it results in a nearly empty fridge. This is what the refrigerator looked like shortly before closing today.

This is clean?

And why is there so much year-old soda in there?

 A few things are gone. Like cheesey potatoes. But this was still in there.

See all that sediment? Disgusting.

 

Tartarus may be in another dimension

It is summer, yes? Pretty much no matter where you live in the United States, July and August get pretty warm. Around Tartarus we've had several days in the upper 80's. Why then are all of our coworkers wearing sweaters?

This is what it has looked like all summer

Neppy wears a sweater Every. Single. Day. Heavy, only-wear-it-in-the-dead-of-winter, sweaters. Every day.

Today, Shoes came in wearing a heavy long sleeved sweater. When we saw Shoes 15 minutes later, that sweater had been removed to reveal...

-wait for it-

another sweater.

It's like those nesting dolls. Or Bartholomew Cubbins's Hats. Or Sammy the Dead Rat from Wayside School (look that last one up if you've never heard of it. It's a hoot.)

Are all of these people completely brain dead?