A Day in the Life

So, what does Cara do at her job? This is a question I get quite often. And it's not really the easiest question to answer. First of all, I get confused trying to respond about myself in the 3rd person and on top of that I'm always at different sites and always doing different things. It's rare for one day to look like the day before it. So I figured, the easiest way to answer that is to walk you through one of my days. This is a real day that happened this week:

Normally, upon arrival at work at this site in particular, my first duty is to turn on the tvs to a certain national news station. This is very important! If I don't do this, 96% of the employees who walk through the door in the morning won't have anything to roll their eyes at or complain about. Of course, there are always going to be the 4% who can still find something to complain about, regardless of whether or not politcal debates are being broadcast throughout the lobby. Props to you guys!

On this particular day, the biggest news headline was about Hilary Clinton having a blood clot. I'm so glad it was, too, because how else would I have known about the personal health status of the Secretary of State?! This is vital information here, people! I need to know what to write on her Get Well Soon card. And luckily, since there were updates approximately every five minutes, every employee who walked through the door was well informed of the severity, or lackthereof, of Mrs. Clinton's clot. Unfortunately, I only sit at the desk for the first hour and fifteen minutes of my day, so after 9am, I had no idea what was going on inside Hilary's veins.

After that thrilling hour and fifteen minutes, during which I had worked up a thirst and therefore, finished my entire water bottle, I had to go to the bathroom. Now, the bathrooms at this site had just been newly renovated. This was the first time that I had entered them since the facelift. When I opened the door, I was... surprised. It looked exactly the same except for 2 things:

1. The wall paper was different.
2. The stall doors had been moved about a foot closer to the front of the toilets, leaving acres of space in the hallway outside of the stalls.

I'm actually quite thankful for the renovation; it renewed my fitness committment. Because as soon as I walked in the stall, I slid my legs into the cramped space between the sidewall and the toilet and swung the stall door closed, watching in anticipation to see if the door would actually touch the toilet, and I realized that if I don't keep working out and staying slim, I won't be able to use the restroom at work. I literally will not fit in the stall if I get any bigger! I mean seriously, these things are tiny. As I sat on the pot, doing my duty, I measured the distance between my knees and the door... 3 inches!!! I mean, I think this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. How are tall people going to survive the workday?!

And as if that wasn't bad enough already, I looked over my right shoulder and noticed a giant space between the real wall and the stall wall. If someone had been sitting on the throne next to me, there would have been a full moon for each of us! I mean, really?! What's the point of confining us to the fetal position in a stall the size of a mother's womb if we can see each other's cracks through the cracks anyways?! Why not just tear down all the walls and let us spread out as we answer nature's call?

The next step of my day involved going around to all of the printers in the building and making sure they were stocked, cleared of any paper jams, etc. As I was doing this, I couldn't help but notice, as I do every time I do this,  that each printer has a tray next to it with a note that reads, "Take your prints. You have until the end of the day." It's very apparent to me that when someone finds a copy on the printer, they place it in that bin and if no one comes to claim it by the end of the day, then it gets thrown away. But then I got to thinking... do they really hire someone to go around and enforce that? I mean, who's really going to go around and check?! Is there really nothing more important to be worrying about than if "lost" papers are "found" by the end of the day? And judging from the piles in the trays, no on does. Looking back at the dates, there are papers in there from months ago. So then I'm thinking, what kind of a company makes empty threats like that? I mean, if you imply that you're going to throw unclaimed papers away at the end of the day, and then you don't, what kind of a message are you sending to your employees? Don't expect your employees to recycle or wash their hands after they use the bathroom

(especially after they've touched every square inch of the stall door trying to maneuver around it), or even to meet their deadlines. 'Cause, heck!... if my papers don't get thrown away at the end of the day, I've got nothing to worry about.

And I've got another beef with the company owners while I'm at it... what kind of people are you hiring. I mean, obviously the purpose to the paper tray is pretty self-explanatory, but apparently not for your employees. Noooooo, you're employees like to shuffle the papers up and flip them around and lay them out on the table in front of the tray as if they are making a mosaic. What kind of a company hires people who don't know how to use a paper tray?! I tell you, I'm really worried about this company.

But anyways, so after that, then I wait for the accountable packages to be delivered. Now, once the pacakges are delivered to me, I write down the tracking information and deliver them to the appropriate person. If someone is out, I store the packages in the cubical next door that also couples as our storage closet. So keep in mind, this is a cubicle... about the size of 2 bathroom stalls... well 3 if you count the ones in our bathroom. So over the past couple of weeks, we've accumulated a lot of packages, it being the Holdiay Season and all and everyone's taking vacation days. So our storage closet Is pretty much jam packed. I mean, if I need to get to something other than the first box, it's a real life 3d puzzle. Seriously, I should get college credit for this stuff.

Well, anyways, on this day, we get 3 32" tvs. So I go to the IT guys and ask them what they want me to do with it... well, the guy who ordered them is out for the day... and they don't have any room to store it on their entire floor the size of Alaska. So where do the boxes end up?! Yup, there's little old me trying to hurl these boxes that are bigger than me up on top of Mt. Everest in our neighboring cubical. So that was fun. I closed the cubicle door as quickly as I could before I was crushed by the avalanche and had to deal with the hassles of filing for workers comp.

Finally, I was going around at the end of the day, turning off all of the ever-so-important tvs, and I couldn't help but notice the headline:

Hilary Clinton leaves the hospital
Seen walking down stairs and entering van

And with that, I left for the day, knowing that I could sleep well now knowing that Hilary Clinton safely declined the steps and got into a van.

I know, I know, it's tough work living the life I lead, but someone's got to do it, right?