The Secretary Files: A Plague

Every summer the employee break room at my office becomes a disgusting, festering hot bed of revolting, ghastly plague! I'm not talking about a plague that everyone catches and dies. It's more like one of the Plagues of Egypt. In fact, it was one of the Plagues of Egypt.

The Plague of Flies.

Gross, huh? I don't know how they get in here, but they do and they're everywhere! At any given time there are probably 10 or so live ones buzzing furiously around the windows. Then they die and their rotting, shriveling carcasses litter the windowsills and floors.

They also make their way into the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The silhouettes of death.

I don't know if the custodians of the building don't put this room on their daily rotation or if they're too terrified to enter, but the fly body count keeps rising. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming the custodians. Maybe the expectation is that the employees should take care of their own space. Fair enough.

One time, one of my co-workers went up there to heat up her lunch in the microwave. She said she opened it and a fly flew out. I died a thousand deaths.

Anyway, I pretty much avoid that room altogether this time of year. I only went in to take pictures. You're welcome.

The Secretary Files: A Dear Friend

Sometimes long days at the office can get boring, tedious, and even a little bit lonely. Other times they can be extremely stressful and aggravating. In the midst of either scenario it's important to have someone I can turn to, someone I can lean on for support, someone who willingly lets me vent my frustrations, even if it means taking out my frustrations on him. I am so glad and grateful to be able to say that I have just such a "someone" to get me through my tough times at work.

Meet Stress Ball.




He lives in the corner of my desk between my water bottle and my Kleenex box. Look at this guy!




Isn't he precious? So sweet and unassuming. I have this little friend beaming up at me all day long with his googly eye and single-toothed grin. Don't let the horns fool you. He really is a sweetheart. He's the perfect remedy for a difficult day.




Stress relief!



Phew! I feel so much better! That lady who yelled at me over the phone is nothing to me now! It's all a distant memory.



Now for those unbearably boring days. On stress ball's back is a strange little air bubble thing. When you squeeze it together it looks just like a mouth! I spend interminable afternoons making weird facial expressions or making it talk.

This one says, "Hi there! Happy to know ya!"



Bear with me. I was doing this one-handed all while trying not to get caught and questioned by my associates. Awkward!

This one says, "If that phone rings one more time, I'm gonna go postal!"



This one says, "It's not 5 o'clock yet? Awww, man!"



Now that's entertainment! I could go on for hours. I don't think I could make it through a whole day without Stress Ball. He is my constant companion and friend. I would definitely recommend a similar novel distraction to any working stiff out there. You'll never be lonely again!

The Secretary Files: A Treasure Trove

A lady in my office recently retired. She'd been working with this establishment for a good 30 years. She is smart, capable and shrewd. She has amazing, age-defying skin. And she has a beehive hairstyle. I'm not making this up. You know how sometimes people are really averse to change and they keep the same hairstyle for decades? Maybe it's the hairstyle they wore when they were happiest or felt the prettiest or maybe they're just scared to try something new. You see this phenomenon often with '80s hair, but '60s? Not quite as common. In any case, she has a full blown beehive and she's had it for most, if not all of her adult life.

Apparently her tightly woven connection to the past goes beyond her hair. As she was cleaning out her office, which she occupied for more years than I know, she would bring out boxes of office supplies that she'd uncovered from the deepest, darkest corners of her desk drawers. I was to go through the boxes and decide what to keep and what to toss. I didn't realize that I'd be delving into a smorgasbord of historical office supply artifacts.


A date stamp. Let's take a closer look shall we?


Notice the earliest year on that second to top line there. It says "1979" in case you couldn't see it. What the?! That date stamp is 6 years older than me! It was in first grade learning to read when I was born! Weird!


Paper clips. Oh wait! I'm sorry. Gem clips. Whatever, dude.


These are General's Kwik-Rite (that's a play on "quick write" if I'm not mistaken) fine tip markers. The felt tips have long since dried up and turned to dust, but I gather from the bullet points that they were once exceptional pens. Mae thae wrest inn piece.


This is my personal favorite. Solid head thumb tacks. Check out that catch phrase! "A good head for safety"! That's good advertising for you. Clever, compelling and concerned. That little white oval on the side says "Money Back Guaranteed If Not Satisfied". That really shows how confident they are in their product. I know how hellaciously picky people can be about their thumb tacks. Hold on. Let's zoom in on the top left. This is the best part.


I can't say exactly how old this box is by looking at this picture, but I'm going to go with really old. Like the '50s old. How does a box of thumb tacks survive this long? I think the quality of the product combined with the adorableness of this fabulously curvy, big-hatted, tight-jumpered girl-under-a-thumb-tack clip art saved it from being thrown away for generations. It has survived through moves and personnel changes and who knows what else! I plan to keep it in my desk drawer until the next person comes along, and hopefully they'll see its merits as well. Long live the thumb tack girl!


Finally, I give you this awesome gigantic paper clip! Oh wait! I'm sorry. Gem clip. I have no idea how old it is. Probably not old at all. It's just big and cool! It's depicted here with a pen to show scale. You could clip a book with this thing!

It was hard to see a person I had worked with and grown rather fond of leave. But finding these treasures made it a little sweeter.

The Secretary Files: My Nemesis

There is only one thing I truly hate about my job. It has nothing at all to do with the people I work with. It’s not the paperwork or the phones ringing off the hook. It’s a very simple and basic piece of equipment that shouldn’t have to be given a second thought. It is a staple puller. It is the worst staple puller in the history of the world. Lamentably, it is my staple puller.

Upon first glance it seems ordinary enough. Don’t let its unassuming appearance fool you. It deceives you. It’s manipulating you right now. Just try to pick it up and use it. It will leave you in ruins.

Figure A. This is how a normal staple puller is supposed to close. When you clamp the little claws underneath a staple needing to be removed, it will easily and cleanly pull the staple out, causing little to no damage to the document or the staple puller user.

Figure B. This is how The Worst Staple Puller in the World closes. The claws still clamp the staple, but they twist and maim the staple, jamming it between the claws, causing one to have to pull and pry them apart, all while tearing gaping holes in the document and pinching the daylights out of the user.

Figure C. This is an example of a poor unsuspecting piece of paper, ravaged by TWSPITW.

Figure D. This is a picture of a wound sustained by the primary user (me). It’s a blood blister received while attempting to free a staple from TWSPITW’s jaws. It’s been there for weeks with no signs of healing.

You may well ask, “Why don’t you get yourself a new staple puller?” How high-maintenance would it sound to ask the other secretary, who orders office supplies, to get me a new staple puller? “Um, hi. My staple puller’s performance is unsatisfactory. Would you please order me another one?” I can’t do that! Then you ask, “Well, why don’t you just use the functional staple puller pictured in Figure A?” That’s a communal staple puller that lives by the copy machine. It’s a different color than mine. If I tried to switch them, someone would notice and be mad when mine destroyed their papers. Then I’d be embarrassed.

And the truth is, TWSPITW doesn’t malfunction all the time. It’ll work just fine for a couple of days, lulling me into a false sense of security. Then, BAM! My successful-staple-removal walls come crashing down around me.

The Worst Staple Puller in the World leaves me churning in its devilish wake, a broken woman.

The Secretary Files: Highlight of the Day

Take a good look at this picture. This is a picture of my desk at work. This particular section of my desk almost always looks just like this. I want to point out to you, though you’ve probably already noticed, the peculiar arrangement of my highlighters. Let me explain. I may or may not have some slightly obsessive tendencies. Fortunately, these tendencies only manifest themselves selectively, usually with trivial things like the highlighter phenomenon you see above. I use all of these highlighters on a daily basis to color code things. I have assigned each person in my office a different color. When someone is going to be out of the office for a few days, I mark those days on my calendar in his or her color. I also use them to code different types of materials that I inventory and manage. So I have to have them easily at my disposal. I need to be able to grab exactly the color I need exactly when I need it. At least that’s what my brain tells me. And how did I choose the order of the colors? Pretend the pink one is red. And pretend there’s an indigo-colored highlighter. Roy G. Biv. In this case, I guess it would read Poy G. Bv. Close enough. It satisfies my neurosis.

While we’re looking at this picture, take a moment to notice the bottom right corner. You’ll see I have two rolly white out thingys. That’s pretty much a metaphor for my life. Just one will never be enough.

Also, take a quick look at the staple puller. Oh, that staple puller! You’ll be hearing more about that. It deserves a post all it’s own! A hateful one. A dark and bitter post of despair.

Well, I guess that wraps up today’s tour of Lacey’s craziness. Thank you for joining me.

The Secretary Files: Dedicated Employee

It was Friday, late in the afternoon. I was counting the minutes till the whistle would blow and the clock would strike five. In my office there is neither a whistle nor a clock that audibly rings on the hour. It’s all in my head. I had finished my tasks for the day, so the only thing left to do was to pretend to be busy. I began typing aimlessly on an inventory spread sheet in a row I created for an imaginary computer. This is what came out in the “Includes” column:

“keyboard, mouse, monitor, tower, wires, a fan, cords, electricity, science, probably something purple, michael jackson, software, I'm starting with the man in the mirror!”

Some of which could be true.