Little Annoyances

Last night, I had a dream that one of my former bosses had suddenly given me an assignment – something time-consuming to do with researching sales – and wanted it done by this afternoon. It was one of those weird dreams that combined aspects of a present job with aspects of an old job, because I was being asked to research information on what I’m doing now, but my old boss was doing the asking. I’m sure that's because my clever subconscience knows this is not the sort of thing my current boss has ever done to me. Thus, I would have realized this was only a dream long before I typically do (of course, I'm contradicting myself here, as I found it completely believable that my former boss could still assign me tasks, the way I always find it completely believable, no matter how many times I dream it, that I'm back in school, have a final exam, and am suddenly aware I've forgotten to attend class all semester).

Thinking about it, though, has made me realize that one of the little annoyances of working in an office is annoying people – people demanding things of you, people constantly wanting to chat when you don’t feel you have time to chat, the person in the next cubicle who has that little habit of stomping his feet just so…I could probably go on, but you get the picture. I just came back from visiting our office, and I’m sure I’m that annoying person when I’m around, barging into people’s offices to chat; occupying spaces that are normally vacant, making noise people aren’t used to having to hear; asking stupid questions…I could probably go on here, too, but you get the picture.

So now I’m back home, no longer annoying others, and am thinking about the fact that when there are no others around either to annoy me or for me to annoy, I just annoy myself. For instance, my work phone happens to be a portable one so that I don’t have to be tied to the desk in the study all day. Why I can’t remember to charge this damn thing occasionally is beyond me. Every evening I’ll find myself thinking, “I need to remember to take that phone back upstairs and hang it up,” and then I promptly forget. Luckily, we have the other line, but it kind of takes a little something away from my professional cool to have to announce in the middle of a conversation, “Oops. My phone’s dying. Could I call you right back in two seconds?”

I also annoy myself by not checking my office supplies on a regular basis. How hard is it to make sure I’ve got at least one spare ink cartridge for the printer, so I don’t find myself in the midst of printing out an important document, only to discover half of it hasn’t printed, and if I want to finish printing it, I’m going to have to go to Staples? This is especially annoying, because I know the trip to Staples is unnecessary when it comes to ink cartridges. People at my office are perfectly happy to ship me spare cartridges, and if I don’t want to bug them, the company that makes the printer will also ship them to me. All I need do is put in the request, and they’d arrive at my house without my having to go anywhere.

Something else that distracts from one’s professional cool while on the phone is a barking dog in the background. I’ve mentioned before the fact that Bob and I live with The Barker. However, she doesn’t tend to bark if I close her into a room with me. It’s only when she has free rein of the whole house that falling leaves, blowing grass, and twittering birds become huge threats. For some reason, though, I forget to bring her in with me whenever I pick up the phone to make a call.

And you know the most annoying part? I’ve discovered I’m not half as much fun during the 80% of the time that I’m not busy annoying myself as colleagues usually are.