As far as I can tell, Betty the Hun has taken to wearing ear plugs at all times. At first I thought that she was perhaps just trying to blot out the conversation of other folks in the office. Betty the Hun, convinced as she is that she is the one perfect specimen of humanity, can stand the chatter of her inferiors only through a constant and strenuous act of super-heroic willpower. It would make sense, in the Betty the Hun sort of way, that she might finally decide that there was simply nothing a co-worker might say that she would need to hear. The natural next step would be, then, to block us all out.

    But, yesterday, as I had my wake up coffin-nail, I noticed her walking into the office, her bright orange little buds of foam already in place, already blocking out the world.

    On the upside, it seems to have completely changed her personality. She seems much happier. She even said hello this morning, though she couldn't hear my reply. (This I theorize because I informed her that a small bit of what appeared to be newsprint was stuck to her shoe. Hours later it was still there. Perhaps she means to keep the newsprint on her shoe and simply doesn't feel the need to justify her decision to somebody like me.) Apparently, all it took to make Betty the Hun happy was getting everybody else in the whole wide to shut the hell up. It scares me that, sometimes, I can sympathize.

Office: Recruitment

    Company Y handles staffing issues much the same way a bulimic handles food. A few weeks back, we had massive lay-offs. In my department alone, we lost nine folks. This was followed by a restructuring that, when the dust cleared, left me at the head of a team of one. This isn't completely a bad thing. As far as coworkers go, I like myself well enough. I'm a bit of a slacker and I think I could stand to dress more professionally. But, on the whole, I'm easy to work with and take orders from myself well. Still, there's a lot of work to be done and, as much as we like I, it can't get done with just me doing it.

    Late last week, I explained this to the AVP of Ill Conceived and Poorly Executed Plans.
    "Then hire more people," she said.
    "We can hire more people? I thought we just had lay-offs?"
    "Oh, those," she said as if canning all those folks was some minor social faux pas that she, in her gracious magnanimity, was willing to forget. "Yeah. We did. But if we need people, we should hire them."
    I was going to ask why we fired people in the first place, but I was worried that she might give me an answer that made sense, which would mean that I was now thinking like them and there was no hope for me.

    Yesterday, I interviewed a woman who, for a couple of years in the early 90s, was a cop in Israel. Her resume listed it just like any other gig. She listed her responsibilities as a series of bullet points under a short job description. They included such things as "maintain the peace" and "suppress regional terrorism."
    I was actually kind of stoked to get her resume. As a rule, the office is a fairly orderly and peaceful place, but you never know when you might need somebody to suppress a bit of regional terrorism and I counted her previous experience in that area as a major asset. Though the resume didn't list "pre-emptive vanishings" as a job requirement, I had high hopes. I figured she'd be some tough as nails killing-machine type and, though I've never yet had any need for devastating violence to be perpetrated in the office on my behalf, it is nice to have the option.

    In fact, she turned out to be fairly non-Terminatoresque. Short, plump, with a baby face. Straight black hair. Bright, chatty, very earnest and open. The prospect of having to learn more Microsoft Excel tricks filled her with what seemed to be unfeigned excitement.
    Not the merciless avenger I'd imagined. For a few moments I tried to fool myself into think that this is, in fact, exactly what a killing-machine should look like. If killing-machines all looked like killing-machines, then we'd recognize them immediately and they could be easily avoided. What better appearance for a killing-machine than a baby-faced friendly young woman? Sadly, this delusion didn't last and I realized that if there was ever any devastating violence to be perpetrated in the office on my behalf, it was going to be done on a strictly D.I.Y. basis.

    Still, she's more than qualified and she seemed nice enough, so we're going to hire her.