The honeymoon Ended So Quickly After the Lovers Reunited.

Good evening!

So this week has been about Noelle C reuniting with her one true love...Lumbergh.  Lumbergh was out all last week at corporate meetings in a warmer climate.  Poor Noelle C was stuck here with those of us who spend our time NOT worshiping at the altar of Lumbergh.  And Lumbergh, since he's gained quite a bit of confidence that the team here at Stuff, Installed  (It's the name I'm using for the company in the upcoming Elsie W book, so you're going to have to get used to it.) isn't going to set fire to the place or walk out, didn't spend the week checking in by phone or email or text or smoke signal or whatever.

Poor Noelle C. He did send one email...and he sent it to everyone, not just her, and it read, "Hope everything is running smoothly there.  Thanks for all you do."

My response, "All is fine, we haven't set fire to the building."

Noelle C fretted for two solid days as to what to send in response to this heartfelt email  (that someone else probably wrote since Lumbergh rarely says thanks for anything.  Ever.)  I don't know what she finally did send, but I can tell you this:  She asked me for ideas on what to say.  In response to an email.  From her boss.  That he sent to everyone.

I told her to say something clever like, "I hope the weather is good."

Anyway, so Monday she was reunited with him.  And oh, how the lovers missed each other!

Well, actually, she missed him.  He...well he didn't miss her.  And here's why:

Remember when Elsie W worked here and she started every day out coming in late and then arguing with him for half an hour  and then cooking herself something and then eating it so that by the time she dialed the phone for the first time she'd been on the clock for an hour?

Well, Noelle C has rather a similar pattern.  She strolls in ten minutes early, but she's cheering, literally shouting cheerfully, and JINGLING HER KEYS.  Every day. Now this would not be a problem if I weren't on the PHONE WITH CUSTOMERS.  By the time she arrives to work my day is almost...almost half done.  And she can't hear how loud she is because she won't do anything about her hearing so she comes in like a varsity cheerleader with her keys jingling and shouting, "HI SARAH HOW ARE YOU?  HOW'S YOUR DAY GOING?"

Only in a more sing-song sort of sickly sweet voice.

Then, in a voice only dogs, Lumbergh, and I can hear, she reaches a new octave and greets Lumbergh.   And when her voice gets higher, she sounds like a little girl.  A little pants wetting girl jingling her keys and simpering in front of her boss.

And then she spends no less than fifteen immediate minutes in his office going over the tiniest details of her job and how she performed it the previous day.  (She makes phone calls.  That's all she does.  There's no skill to it.  I do it all the time.  The only requirement is that you don't curse at the customers and you don't blow your brains out due to boredom.)  After that, when she's gotten either the praise she was digging for or the scolding she aches to get, she spends no less than half an hour sitting at her desk chanting something to herself just loud enough to annoy me but not loud enough to actually reach Lumbergh's ears so he can't hear the gigantic can of crazy he opened with the simplest word.  And then, well , then she'll announce loudly because again SHE CAN'T HEAR THE VOLUME OF HER OWN VOICE that she has to "potty."  (Seriously...she's 56.  "Potty" is a word that should be banned from her vocabulary unless she's talking to a child under the age of 3.)  And she'll tell us multiple times, because she has to tell every person in the office exactly where she's going and what she's doing.

So she potties....and that takes about fifteen minutes, which means, by the time she's done her first phone call, she's been on the clock for almost an hour.

Now, multiply that by four, the number of days a week I have to witness this and then multiply it by 54, the degrees the intensity grew for Monday's cathartic reunion. 

That took almost 90 minutes.  And then there was another chat in his office every hour on the hour for ten minutes.  By the time I got back from lunch Lumbergh was tearing his hair out...well, he would have been if he had any hair to tear out. 

All he wanted to do was talk about the great seminars he'd been to.  I know how that is.  You get back from a conference all energized and rarin' to go and then you realize you work with a whackadoo.  Anyway, she was in his office at one point and he said something about a personality seminar and she said, and I am not making this up:

"So did you find out what kind of man you are? I know what kind of man you are.  You are a strong man.  You are an organized man.  You are a man who tries very hard."

I missed the rest.  i was busy gagging into my garbage can.

But by the end of Tuesday, after two days of worship just one step short of ceremonial feet washing, Lumbergh was at his wits' end with her and ceased communications with both of us.

I don't care.  I thrive on working alone.  Noelle C on the other hand thought we were in some sort of competition.  A competition for Lumbergh's love.  And the only rules were MAKE A LOT OF PHONE CALLS.

Hey, no problem.  I do my job.  I was perfectly happy to not be drawn into her web of whackadoodle.  And Lumbergh liked the peace and quiet. 

Noelle C, however, was not so happy and the minute he left for the night tonight, she let me have it.  For half an hour.

"He used to give me things to do. Now he gives you everything to do and all I'm supposed to do is make phone calls.  I asked him about it and he got angry at me."

Folks, let's try and see this from Lumbergh's perspective. He's a married guy.  He's a polar opposite from Noelle C in every possible way.  And the one thing he wants in the office is for people to do their jobs without having to be coaxed, monitored, instructed, and guided every step of the way.

I'm betting he got angry because, well, this isn't the first time Noelle C has berated him for giving me more attention.  I've tried explaining to her that her job is to make phone calls because she's good at that. My job is to do everything else because she's a whackadoo who tends to screw things up because she either doesn't hear everything or the multiple voices that must be harmonizing in her brain don't shut up long enough for her to focus on anything other than dialing the phone.

In short, what I'm sure Lumbergh heard, was this:

"YOU LOVE SARAH MORE THAN YOU LOVE ME!  WHY????????????????"

Now, according to Noelle C, she's going to ignore him until he loves her...I mean until he gives her more responsibilities in the office. 

It's going to be a long week.