Last Friday afternoon, just because they have nothing else to worry about, management decided to do a musical desk number on some of us in my unit… Don’t ask why, I honestly do not know, it seems to be something they like to do to keep thing fresh… as if I would suddenly love my job more because I’m sitting in a different corner, it’s still the same old job… but on the other hand, it’s one hell of a good reason to wear jeans to work, so I’m in.

So this morning I show up in my jeans and right away this crass co-worker asks: “did you get permission to wear jeans?” Without blinking, my big bear of a co-worker snapped: “I move, I jeans”. (I love it when people cleverly use a noun as a verb and I love it even more when it shuts up the other party)… That, set the mood for the rest of the morning.

So I packed my things, got out my Mr. Net Wipes and started cleaning the surfaces, computer, keyboard, mouse, telephone, inside the drawer… See, I had found out that my other-even-more-crass coworker was moving into my spot and I didn’t want any reason to have him squeal out loud, which is totally retarded because when I got all my stuff to my new desk, I had to redo the whole cleaning again as it was, well, deserted in a hurry…

And then it started… the shaking of the cube… as if the cleaning team from Silkwood was hard at work… I looked up and saw that same asshole wearing Playtex plastic gloves, with a bucket steaming of hot water and detergent and a big sponge, scrubbing as if his life depended on it. Trust me, when I left that work station, CSI couldn’t have found a fingerprint, it was full of shiny spotlessness. He was at it for at least 45 minutes… and it dawned on me that we don’t even have these kind of cleaning supplies at work, which means he brought this all from his home. Can people really be that much of a bigot??

So I turned to my big bear of a coworker and asks: “Is he afraid I left some “gay” at that desk?.

Now, as insulting as this was, I started to think that it was pretty funny in the end… I seriously think he just wanted an excuse to actually not do any work all morning… but then again, this is the same person who told me he didn’t know what to say when I told him I was married to another guy and not a girl when he asked me my wife’s name two days after I started this job after noticing my wedding band.

« »