Five for Friday: Things Noelle C did to make Valentine's Day even MORE uncomfortable!

Good morning!

I realize it's Saturday, but if you're like me, Friday goes by in a blur, because it's the very best day of the week.  I'm as far away from my next Noelle C encounter as I'm going to be at any point in the week on Friday morning.

So Thursday was Valentine's Day and most people I know don't have a big feeling about it one way or another, especially when it lands on a week day.  Maybe we exchange cards, or, maybe, like in my house, we make a big deal about ignoring it, and then get each other "Ground hog's day" gifts.  (Actually, the anniversary of my first date with hubby in on the 27th.  It's our 27th February 27th as a couple.  So that's really our big romantic day, and we'll be spending it this year service baked potatoes at the Lenten Dinner at our church.)

Personally, I think Valentine's Day is stupid.  If you're in a relationship, and you need a specific day to have to buy your honey something nice like flowers or candy or a bottle a Jameson's Irish Whisky, then maybe you're in trouble in the love department.  And if you aren't in a relationship, Valentine's Day is just a big old day to make you feel worse about yourself.  Bonus, if you're a guy and you don't get your woman something sparkly and expensive on Valentine's Day, well, according to the TV advertisers, you're just not a man.

As always, however, Noelle C managed to make this day, which is already weird and uncomfortable for most people, even weirder and more uncomfortable for those of us who have to work with her.  And here are the top fives ways she managed that.

5)  The grandest of grand entrances.

Every single work day of her life, Noelle C enters the office jingling her keys and singing "good morning good morning"  like some sort of twisted Disney fairy sprinkling magic dust on everyone.  It's especially annoying to me because for 99% of her entrance I'm four feet or less away from her and I almost always on the phone with a customer.  Which means at 10:54 four mornings a week, while we're four hours into our work day already, Little Miss Sunshine bounds in making all sorts of racket. 

Valentine's Day she ramped it up.  Big time. 

She flung wide the door, which means all the cold air from outside washed in behind her and settled over my desk in reception for the next three hours.  She jingled her keys with one hand and with the other she held up a plastic bin of those horrible gummy chewy cinnamon hearts.  This was a HUGE bin of these things.  It truly is my least favorite candy of all.

She then did this odd little dance where she marched like she was presenting Simba to the African safari, and skipped like an 8 year girl at a May pole dance.  This she did until she crossed the showroom and leaned over my desk where she jingled her keys IN MY FACE and shouted in a high pitched voice "HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!"

I was on the phone.  With a customer.  Who was telling me some very technical details of a problem relating to the thing we installed in his home. 

4)  Just take a crow bar to the boss's personal life. He won't mind.

After harassing me, she did her weird dance right into Lumbergh's office.  She stopped with the keys, and sang her "Happy Valentines' Day" song (Think  "Ren and Stimpy's 'Happy Happy JOY Joy' song  but without the attention to musical excellence) at the top of her lungs.  (Again, I'm on the phone.  He's on the phone.)  Then she stood there and waited for him to get off the phone.  When he made the mistake of doing so, she said, "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, IT's A DAY OF LOVE!  DO YOU HAVE ANY ROOOOOOOMAAAAAAAANTIC PLANS TONIGHT?"

This, all said in what I can only think was her attempt at a flirtatious voice.

I felt like gagging.  I know what Lumbergh was doing for Valentine's Day. He and the wife (yes, he has a wife.  She is lovely.  Noelle C has met her.) were going to one of their kids' volleyball games.

I don't know what he said, but I could hear him squirming in his chair because she also has no sense of personal space.

3) A door is no barrier to what she has to say

So for the last three days, Noelle C has been telling everyone, EVERYONE in the office to be on the lookout for a customer who was going to come in and buy something for us to install.  If he did come in and buy something, she was going to get a commission.  Her quest for commissions might be the most annoying thing yet, but that's another blog for another day.

She's asked if he's coming to the office every hour for the last three days.  So when he finally showed up in the showroom at about noon, she did what anyone would do in that case:  She dove behind her desk and refused to talk to him.  (See, in order for her to get the commission, she actually has to talk to him in person. So by NOT talking to him, she can blame whomever does talk to him when the thing doesn't get purchased.)

So Lumbergh went to speak with this customer.  Now the guy was not what you'd call a chatty person.  And he spent nearly half an hour staring at our displays, saying nothing.  When there's someone in the showroom, my day comes to a stop because I either have to talk to that person, which is fine, or I have to sit and work quietly without making or taking phone calls.  (Given that I'm the customer service person and 99% of the phone calls I take are unpleasant, I can't be doing that in front of new potential customers.)  So I'm sitting there, pretending to write our thank you notes to customers, while Lumbergh is standing there waiting for this guy to talk. And what's Noelle C doing?  What she always does.  She's talking to herself.

Loudly.

I had to check because at this point she was talking so loudly I thought she was actually on the phone.  Nope, she was just saying random things to make herself look good.  Things like, "well, I already booked an appointment with so I can just move on to the next person.  And oh, I booked that one too.  Well, what am I going to do?  I booked two appointments and it's not even noon."

This went on for several minutes, annoying me, and annoying Lumbergh to the point where he closed her door, so as not to disturb the corpse of a customer we had standing in the showroom. 

That didn't stop her. oh no.  She just got LOUDER so we could hear her through the door.

2) EAT THE CANDY!  EAT IT!

By three PM no one had eaten any of that vile chewy candy.  I don't like them.  Lumbergh doesn't eat candy.  And PM doesn't like non-chocolate gummy sort of candy.  And since we are the only other people in the office when she's there  (The sales guys rarely come in and the installers are gone by 7:30 every morning.) no one had eaten this rare treat from hell. 

As she was announcing that she was going to lunch in the conference room  (Another daily announcement)  she stopped and noticed that the candy hadn't been touched.

But she was.  So she picked up the candy and started shouting this.

I BROUGHT THIS CANDY IN AND SET IT NEXT TO THIS HORRIBLE BOX OF STALE DONUTS!  AND NO ONE HAS EATEN IT.  (PM brought in donuts for Fat Tuesday on Tuesday...it was a lovely gesture and they were very good donuts. Noelle C, of course, didn't eat any because she's given up sugar forever.)

SOMEONE EAT THIS CANDY OR I WILL KNOW YOU DON'T LOVE ME AND I WILL QUIT.

This was my MOMENT!

And I was weak.  She waved that horrible tub of hearts under my nose and I took one, but into it, and then held it in my mouth away from my taste buds.  Lumbergh watched this with amusement, and whispered, "Just spit it out."

Oh, great.  Suddenly I'm nine at we're at my grandmother's and she's made us all taste some weird German dish that tastes like lye and rotten eggs and Lumbergh's my mother telling me it's okay to spit it in a napkin.  This is exactly how all office people behave, right?

Well, Noelle C offered the candy to Lumbergh who said, "I don't eat candy, you know that."  So she went to PM and repeated that if he didn't eat it, she'd know he didn't love her.  PM is a good guy.  He took two.  And then he sent a text to Lumbergh  "eat the candy you coward."

Lumbergh took a piece and pretended to eat it.  This made Noelle C's heart almost explode with joy.

And I got to spit something into a garbage can.

1)  PET YOUR COWORKER

This wasn't a great week for me.  It just wasn't.  A lot of things went sideways and wrong and I had to deal with it.  But when a guy called to complain that something we installed was malfunctioning because it made his water too bouncy.  (It's a blog for another day, but I'm not making that complaint up.  The thing we installed in his tub made his water too bouncy and he was now getting water on the floor.)

After spending quality time trying to explain to this Mensa member that he probably just needed to close his shower curtain, I hung up and put my head on my desk.  "This week is giving me more gray hairs." 

Noelle C, who can't hear anything managed to hear that.  She came over to my desk, and started picking at my hair...like a monkey picking bugs out of another monkey's hair.  Then she started to pet my head.

And you wonder why I have three bottles of wine, in my fridge, ready to go the minute I get home from work.

So hey, happy Valentine's Day weekend all.  I'm going to go get some discounted candy.