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Now HMFIC is regaling us with tales of how they blew up rats when he was in Vietnam using claymores. Must be in honor of National Short Story Day. Of course, we’re not in the UK and I doubt he’s heard of it.

To Whine, or Not To Whine?

Eh, what the hell, why stop now?

This place just makes my head spin. We have it all here: Drama, intrigue, grandstanding, backstabbing, power grabs, politics. Dilbert’s got nothing on us. Another reorganization of our entire department, worldwide, went into effect this morning, causing some peripheral damage but also some potentially good news. Let me try to sum up.

Cast of Characters:

• Hawkeye – Good manager that I like (he actually does remind me of Alan Alda as Hawkeye from M*A*S*H*, same acerbic wit, same cynicism, and clear-headed, logical, smartass).
• Nebbish – I think everyone is familiar with him by now
• Overseer – ditto
• Nebbish Minion – one and only direct report Nebbish has
• Ol’ Sonnyboy – jerkwad who told me I look like Tonya Harding and thinks he’s a ladykiller. He’s gotta be pushing 70, just started growing a goatee, no doubt to try to look hip. Rides one of those monster motorcycles.
• She Who Must Be Saved (SWMBS) – Co-worker I like who is a very classy, very nice lady.
• HMFIC – (Navy acronym for “Head Mo-Fo In Charge”) my direct boss, the one who likes to hear himself talk, currently having coughing fits and choking on his phlegm after which he goes outside for a cigarette. Yep.

As you may recall, back in May HMFIC decided he needed to move to the other end of the building, away from the rest of our department so he could have his own private little conference room for all those important, super-secret phone calls with the head cheeses back at HQ. I dragged my heels, waited a full month after he’d moved to finally make the move myself because

a) I liked sitting where I was, near the group, and directly across from Hawkeye, with whom I have shared tons of chocolate and endless cups of tea (I had an electric tea kettle and teapot at work here to brew up fresh tea for us, it was that good of a work relationship. Honestly, best boss I ever had), and I tend to think it’s partly because Hawkeye and I get along so well that HMFIC decided to move away from that area, and try to stake his claim since I had been reassigned to report to him;

b) Big downer: It meant I would be across from Nebbish, who would have a direct view of me while in our respective cubes. It’s just creepy. So no one cool to talk to, and lots of creeps. Made my skin crawl. I never did put up the bead curtain, even though I went ahead and ordered them, because then everytime Nebbish came over to talk to me, it would effectively create a private little space, where whatever happened would be unobservable. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

Fast forward six months to yesterday. Hawkeye finally decided to make the move over to another building on campus where he has direct reports. Of course I gave him a ration, accusing him of abandoning me, told him he sucked, etc. But I dutifully set up the move for him, AND THEN, just to add insult to injury, HMFIC got wind of this and decided he wants to MOVE BACK to the area we were originally in. Can you see the smoke coming out of my ears?

I was so good, I didn’t hit him, I didn’t spit in his eye. I told Hawkeye I was going to call forth Cthulhu to deal with HMFIC. He had no idea what I was talking about so of course I sent him a link immediately. He already knew I served the Dark Lord and wanted to know if I had the dark mark on my forearm. That only comes with the first kill, I told him.

So then today, when doing an empty-cube recon mission to find out how many spaces we have available in the area, I stopped in with SWMBS (who I’m trying to get moved down with us, because otherwise she will be completely isolated down here by herself, with ol’ Sonnyboy in the cube next to her) we stopped by to say hello to Hawkeye. He gave me the astonishing news that he may not go ahead and move over to the other building after all. After the shakeup this morning, one of the developments is that he and HMFIC are now reporting up to the same bigwig back at HQ (it’s all been very fragmented and strange). Things were looking up, I thought this is good! I can survive HMFIC a little longer if I have Hawkeye to laugh with and help me keep things in perspective (and let me tell you, it’s been nip and tuck lately). There is other potential fall-out to come later, but one thing at a time, I guess. Drawbacks to this scenario include being once again seated kitty-corner to Overseer, and the Nebbish would be moving down as well, to the cube next to my former/future location. Ah well, at least he wouldn’t have a direct line-of-sight into my cube like he has now.

Now I’m trying to convince HMFIC that Nebbish should move to another building, where Nebbish Minion already sits, and where there is space available, rather than try to squeeze the two of them into the few open cubes we have left in my former area, thereby also saving moving costs for one additional person. Especially since I’m trying to finagle a spot for SWMBS so she’s not left alone down here when we pull up stakes and head east. She was very excited after we went down there, she got to meet a number of folks in the department she had never met before and liked them all.

Maybe calling forth Cthulhu like I did yesterday wasn’t such a bad idea.