I Knew They Never Should Have Hired Me

Hi. Excuse me. Can someone please explain what is going on? I walked into the office this morning and discovered that over the past three days the Bosses have hired like seventeen new mortgage bankers. Why was I not consulted? I’m serious, I walked in the office today to find strange laptop bags and lunch pails and people strewn about the cubes. What’s this? And who is that? I wondered. I then quickly snuck into the ole Boss Chad’s office and threw my hands in the air in a “What?!” motion. At first he had a hard time forming words. He kind of stared at me like he’d never met me before and finally asked, “How are you?”

“I’m a bit overwhelmed,” I huffed. “Who are all these people?”

“You’re overwhelmed?” he asked. And that’s when I noticed how glassy his eyes were.

Later the ole Boss James charged over to my new cube (“new” as in Gobe is busy birthing a child so I’m squatting in her cube until she gets that sorted out). James hunched over the cube partition and I saw that same dazed look. “Dude, you have a staff of like, fifty now,” I quipped.

“Yeah I know,” he said, rubbing his neck. “Do you think I’m qualified for this?”

“Nope,” I answered, munching on my organic apple.

See, my ole Bosses have had grand plans of growing their business for years. Back when it was just four of us, we’d all prop our feet up on our desks (they had real desks, I had a some side table that came from one of their granny’s houses) and daydream about a full staff of fabulous people all busy at their computers. It’ll be great! We’ll have, like, a whole staff! Little did they know, managing fabulous people is a bit different from managing me. Back then, I didn’t do very much (well, I don’t do very much now either), so managing me was a cake walk. “What’s Ledbetter working on today?” “Ah, lemme see. There she is. Nothing. She’s doing absolutely nothing. No wait, she’s about to get up – never mind, she sat back down. Yeah, she’s doing nothing.” See how easy I make their lives? Sadly, I fear they thought managing other people would be just as easy. But these new hires? They actually plan on working. And that’s why James and Chad are pacing around their offices and massaging their temples. They both just staggered out of the office, presumably to down a few margaritas and come up with a plan.

While they do that, the rest of us are bombarding Christi, our beloved front desk receptionist. Here’s the thing. In order to open the bathroom doors around here we have to have a key (don’t ask), and all of those keys reside at Christi’s desk.

As of 11:00 this morning, every single person in the office had approached Christi’s desk under the guise of snatching a bathroom key, but secretly hoping for a complimentary therapy session. “How are you?” we ask, in hopes that she’ll return the question and we can unload our emotions. “I’m fi-” is usually how far she gets before we pull her into our drama. “You think the new people will like us? You think they’ll come to our bingo nights and happy hours? What if they don’t  like that stuff? What if -” And that’s when Christi gently consoles us and tells us everything will be just fine.

In a week we’ll all be back to normal, functioning as a team and laughing and slapping our knees as we pass around new inside jokes and shots of tequila (hee hee!). Until then, if any of you have any words of encouragement for the Bosses, please comment below. I’m off to do . . . ah, who am I kidding? Off to do nothing.