So I mentioned (once or twice) that I am becoming seriously obsessive-compulsive. Perhaps, even, I’ve mentioned it in the past couple of days.
Well.
There have been some recent activities at my place of employment that have brought out my most direly obsessive compulsive tendencies to date. Allow me to expand:
We have a new janitor. I’m not exactly sure how or why, as Leonard, our old janitor, a) did a fabulous job and b) still eats lunch in the courtyard of our building downstairs, but such is the case. And New Guy (and/or Girl, but we’re calling shim New Guy for the purposes of this post) does not do as excellent of a job as good ole Leonard. Shoutout to the definitely computer-phobic Leonard – miss ya! So anywho, New Guy has some interesting “quirks”. And by “quirks”, make no mistake, I mean “flaws in the way s/he approaches the janitorial profession”. Like, for example, not so much vacuuming. Yeah, at all. Like, nope, perhaps like many babies and puppies, s/he is afraid of the apparatus and/or the noise it makes. Whatever. My cubicle needs a good vacuuming, as does my crumb-dropping boss’ office, etc. Kind of one of those essential functions of the janitorial profession.
But you know what’s even more vastly infuriating than the non-vacuumed status of my cubicle?
Every single day, New Guy moves the trash can and recycling bin to a different place. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Now you must understand, I have been at my current employment for just more than two somewhat unfortunate years. But, fortune aside, that means I have become *quite* accustomed to having. things. in. their. place. That place has not changed for OVER TWO YEARS now. And during the incredibly stressful and hectic times that can sometimes hit (not to mention the lethargic and old-habits-die-hard times that also hit at times such as the present), I am very used to being able to simply chuck things in the right general direction and have them land perfectly in the appropriate receptacle. Yes, my right arm has a perfect into-the-boss’-inbox toss, and my left has an ideal “toss into my inbox because I don’t appreciate it when you interrupt the concentration-intense task at hand by shoving a new non-emergency task in my face while I’m clearly in the middle of something more important” wrist-flick that lands things perfectly in my own all-too-often-ignored inbox (The Boss REALLY has a penchance for the face-shoving tactic – my coworker actually recently invested in a “mouse cover” so that the boss couldn’t stick things on top of her mouse while she was working – so now she puts them on her KEYBOARD – it’s so nice to come back to lunch to a page full of ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt and so on, really). And my left arm also has a carefully calculated, finely tuned elbow/shoulder snap that lands recyclables perfectly into the recycling bin, and trash perfectly into the trash can.
OR SO IT DID BEFORE YOU CAME ALONG, NEW GUY.
I hate to admit it, but I was so intensely thrown-off by this whole “new, surprising, innovative” placement of the trash can and recycling bin thing that I suffered more intensely than an entirely sane person probably should. I freaked out. I would re-position them upon entering my cubicle each morning, as something was NOT RIGHT if I could sense in my peripheral vision that they were out of place. What can I say; animal de costumbre soy yo. So, I finally had a brilliant idea. I made little tape-boxes outlining where each receptacle should be placed. Ever since I did this, they haven’t been placed carefully within the tape-indicated guidelines, but they were at least closer – against the left wall of my cubicle in general, at least, as opposed to, say, one under my desk and one in front of the file cabinet thus blocking the bottom drawer. FOR EXAMPLE. So anyway, my little tape plan was sort of working.
Then last night, I got a little kooky, being as how I’d bought a new roly-poly mat for my I-hate-my-lame-boring-job chair to roll upon, and when I pulled up the old disintegrating mat, there were years’ worth of archeological Dilbertian artefacts underneath. It was a truly foul and wondrous event all at once. SO, I decided to postpone the placement of my new mat until the area had been fully “excavated”, and I wrote a sign for New Guy to please vacuum the floor since I got a new mat and wanted a nice clean palette to start with, yada yada (I refrained from actually using the word “palette” in my sign, for the record).
And it worked… New Guy vacuumed my cubicle. But in doing so, s/he also vacuumed up/removed out of bitter spite or possibly hatred, my little tape guidelines for the trash receptacles. AND PLACED SAID RECEPTACLES ALL KINDS OF WEIRD PLACES ONCE AGAIN. My poor, fragile, Monk-taught inner freak could not handle this.
So, blogpoll: what is the best way to cure myself of this frail mindset and get the results I desire?
a) Re-tape an outline for the recycling bin and trash can, as that seemed to at least sort of be working for me.
b) Invest in some of that fluorescent contact paper and create large block-like “landing pads” for each receptacle, and possibly label them “TRASH” and “RECYCLING”, hoping that this clarifies the problem.
c) Get a prescription written for Anafranil.
d) Get a new job that doesn’t drive me to these OCD measures through sheer stress, ennui, and dissatisfaction.
e) Other ________________ (please fill in blank).
I await your input, O Imaginary Readers. I really do.