Or what passes for it.
Made the run to the toothyanker yesterday for my crowns, and got to see the big C-5 Galaxy cargo plane landing at the airport with all the Presidential impedimenta for his visit here today. He said he might drop by and chat with me for a while, but you know how fluid these scheduling things can be. If he can't make it by during the day, Karl said he'll be able to come over tonight and watch the game with me. Thank goodness the house is clean. I mean, sure, there were some North Korean hit men hanging around yesterday, but I strangled them and left them at the curb for the recycle truck to get, so I think everything should be okay.
Anyway, got to the dentist and was escorted back to the chair by the same less-than-skilled assistant I had when the first tooth grinding took place. Uh-oh. Read a Reader's Digest while she hovered and I tried to read, and finally Doc Nancy came back to get going on me. Almost a repeat of the grinding operation, with the doctor getting quite peeved that her assistant was more of an unsistant. But at least it didn't take hours on end. I had both crowns cemented in place within thirty minutes, so it's hard to complain.
But. I would like it if there was some recognition that my jaw will open only so far. And that my skin is not infinitely elastic--especially that around my lips, when it gets dried out, and gets frictioned to a hand inside of a dry rubber glove, and pulls to the point where it feels like my lip is going to split open like someone popping a grape between their fingers.
At least it's done--TIME FOR CORN NUTS AND BEEF JERKY!!
Got back to work, and was inundated by more crap to do--the phone wouldn't quit ringing, and it was never anything good. Well, I can't say never. I did get one call from a contractor I had worked with before, and that was a nice call because she's a she, and I had enjoyed working with her back when I was at The Bad Place because she was a very smart she and ran a good business. Her daddy is the putative owner of the shop, but she really runs the place and does all the paperwork and job visits and stuff, and was always good to work with. And that's saying a lot for me to say about a contractor. Anyway, it's been at least twelve years since last spoke, and it was just like picking back up from a conversation five minutes ago. So that was a nice call. IN FACT--she just came to the counter for a sign-off on a permit a few minutes ago. She still looks just the same, and after a hearty handshake, I told her so. She said thanks, and with a wicked little grin she said, "You do too, and you've even still got hair!!" Hey, I'm as impressed as she was. And she was kind enough not to notice all the gray.
Anyway, all the rest of the phone calls were crap.
A bright spot?
Well, it only goes to prove that I'm really not a very nice person, but nonetheless, I'm still relieved that our outer lobby area is suddenly now free of a certain person's constant hoots, screeches, braying, ululating, coo-cooing, cackling, whooping, hollering, screaming, shouting, blabbering, yammering, blithering, and constant interruptions and rudeness to our citizen-clients.
A long nightmare is ended, and I can finally feel okay about leaving my door open again, and not have to cringe every time I have to tell someone to come to the counter and ask for me, or have to return a call from someone and have them ask who the incredibly rude person is who took their message.
Obviously, this being a bureaucracy, we can't be so forthright as simply to fire someone when they constantly--for years--display their instability and insubordinate nature, nor paddle around the office on their raft of mental flotsam, but it does seem that such a person CAN be transferred to another department. It's unfair to the people that will now have to deal with it all, but doggone it, at least it's not us. And at least this new billet will not have the need to interact with the public.
Anyway, just a tip--if YOU are the type of person to display all these characteristics, it's probably best that you not file a grievance against your supervisor when it was YOU who kept constantly interrupting HIM while he was with a taxpayer at the counter, and it was YOU who told him he needed to shut up and go to the conference room if he was going to keep on being so disruptive. Because doing that rarely causes things to work out quite like you think they should, and you find yourself shipped off to Siberia within 24 hours or so.
I shouldn't be like this, but that ol' schadenfreude sure does feel nice sometimes.
Now then, time to do other things. Maybe even stroll though the lobby without being stared at!
Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 28, 2006 09:44 AM