In A Snit.

I was a good girl Saturday. I hung around an extra hour, making sure that everything was OK at work before I went home and went to bed. No one called me, so I went home feeling like everything had been resolved.

Everything was not resolved. A second, related problem reared its ugly head. I’m told they came looking for me, but I had left. I should feel guilty, but I don’t. I don’t think I’d have been much help for the rest of the fiasco, and I’ve got an attitude at the moment anyhow.

Those of you following these annals know who The Mouth is. Those of you new to this little puppet show need only know that The Mouth is a co-worker, theoretically my equal, whose moniker has been chosen for self-evident reasons.

The Mouth and I inhabit the same area of corporate Siberia, relatively far away from the main building and from outside intrusions. I like this, because it puts my office close to the areas of the facility where I do the most work. The Mouth likes this because it gives her a captive audience (myself and The Minion, who is also stationed out here in Vladivostok).

As I may have alluded to in previous entries, The Mouth has no life. She can talk about work, assuming that we’re talking about her work and no one else’s. Lately she purchased a Llahso apso puppy. She is also capable of talking about her puppy. If you are interested in either the aspects of quality control of our products (which is her particular area of expertise) or about crate training a puppy, you will find her conversation utterly stimulating. You will also find it very easy to converse with her. She’ll carry both ends of the conversation. You need only sit there, listen, and stay awake. The stay awake part can be particularly difficult some days, but I understand it’s considered polite. I try to stay polite at all times, at least on the surface. And you can’t hold my thoughts against me.

I just reread that last paragraph. I didn’t consciously design it to come across quite that nasty. I do good work when I’ve been crossed.

The Mouth, I should add, is not a veterinarian. She just plays one on TV (obscure joke – don’t worry if you don’t get it). Being an expert in quality however makes her an expert on everything concerning health and humane handling of animals. This makes my job largely superfluous. I am fortunate, because she absorbs whatever duties of mine she can. Obligations, phone calls, and routine duties that were once my domain now take a left turn instead of a right and land in her in-bin rather than mine. This reassignment of work is largely the result of my having been on disability for three months.

The Mouth’s desk is a veritable black hole, trapping everything unlucky enough to fall within its gravitational pull and releasing nothing but the occasional particle of antimatter. I have belatedly and finally come to the conclusion that items which fall into her sphere of influence will never break orbit again.

For several months now I have been foolishly attempting to thwart physics, and retrieve my duties from this black hole. Friday morning I finally came to my senses. Why should I care if The Mouth wants all the glory? If she wants to do the work, while I get the pay, so be it. It was an epiphany born of rage and exasperation, but an epiphany none-the-less.

Honestly, I have a great paying job with wonderful benefits. I have a wonderful private office in the middle of nowhere. I get private parking, and the opportunity to travel. Why should I mind if I no longer have enough work to fill my day? If I get paid merely because they need someone to sign a few papers as a VMD once in a while, then everybody should be happy. I can find “fulfillment” elsewhere.

By noon Friday (after bending the ear of a sympathetic coworker for half an hour) I had finally resolved that there was no reason fight for my duties anymore. Half an hour later, something went wrong with the last item I ever attempted to retrieve from the black hole. All I could do was tell people that I hadn’t been involved in any way before it went supernova, and that I didn’t know anything about it. There was an unfortunate piece of fall-out that they needed a veterinarian to assist with cleaning up, but I took care not to assume any more of the duties than that. I permitted the bulk of the problem to fall squarely on The Mouth.

I think I’ll start working on a novel in my office in my free time.