everyone needs an office mom...

when i'm not playing g.i. joe, i'm a jack-of-all-trades computer geek for a medium sized manufacturing company. i think my official title this week is "exchange administrator" or "senior network analyst" or something like that. who knows. anyways, about a decade ago, they decided they needed more space for the info-tech department and they weren't going to pay the $/sq foot to house it in the high rise office building with the rest of the corporate office. so they banished us to the dark-side. one of our manufacturing plants is located on the other side of the city, in industrial hell and it had a 2 floor wing that was sitting empty. insta-office. i came to work for the company a year or two later and it was just me and the i.t. director at the time. but we've grown, and so has this part of the city. back in the day, if you wanted lunch, you needed to bring it. that or you went to one of the two nearby truckstops or the hole in the wall bar next door. now there's a couple options within a ten miles radius, but you still run out of options pretty quick. well, alot of the sales staff is single, so they'd go to the bar next door for lunch everyday and were going through 70-80 bucks a week on just lunch. so one of the girls had her maternal instinct start to shine through, and decided to take up a collection and go to sam's club.

the told me about this when i came back last month, and i decided "what the hell" and pitched in my $20 bucks. money well spent. i ate GOOD for the last two weeks, and she just stocked the fridge again. about 6 different types of microwaveable sandwiches, chips, two huge fruit bowls, celery and carrot sticks, apples, oranges... if they sent me, i would've come back with 4 boxes of microwaveable burritos and told them to be happy. she's got silverware, disposable bowls, plates, orange juice... and my 20 bucks is going to last me for two weeks. i love her. i know. what in the WORLD makes this story blog worthy? nothing. but it's my blog and i'll write about whatever i want. heh. i'm just finding it funny because this lady is one of the most caustic people i've ever met. it took awhile to figure her personality out and now i think of her as a friend, but there's no way i would've pictured her as going through all this trouble and effort to take care of us.

when i was a kid i worked in a shop that actually had an official "office mom". it was great. they figured you were more productive if you weren't worried about 6 million personal errands during the day, so they paid someone to do those for you. needed someone to pick up a present for you? tell her what you want, give the the money and away she goes. like a certain type of soda? tell her what it is, give her the money, she stocks the fridge for you. need to renew your car registration? away she goes. the cool thing about it was she didn't find it degrading. she came to the company, pitched the idea, convinced them to hire her on a trial basis, and proved that she saved them money in the long run. she liked taking care of people and was hyper organized and hated working in an office. it was great for her. she'd sit on the phone and get your cable connected for you, whatever. she especially shined when we'd get a new employee moving to the area. set everything up for them. it was one of the best corporate perks i've ever had.

okay, i'm pretty much just rambling about nothing. bye-bye.