The Invasion

My office has been overrun by strangers this morning. Well not actually strangers. Half of these people I’ve probably spoken to via email a time or two so the names are familiar, but the faces, not so much. They’re doing some type of system training today so people from our offices across the country have converged and are now milling about until they corral them into the boardroom to start the process of listening to droning voices and viewing items projected on a big screen and then zzzzz… oops sorry, I have a nasty habit of nodding off anytime someone mentions (a) training; or (b) spending any longer than 15 minutes trapped inside a boardroom with hoards of people. Thankfully I’m not one of those being trained. I get to spend my day uploading umpteen files to our new intranet site and zzzzz…oops there I go again… where was I going with all of this anyway? Oh yes, the problem with being invaded.

Here’s the thing. My job is hardly brain surgery. To be honest, most of it is pretty mind-numbing, but the people are nice enough and they pay me well for what I do, plus I live only 10 minutes away, which means I can write in the mornings for a couple of hours and still get to work on time. But the mind-numbing aspect can really wear on a girl’s nerves, and there are times through the day when I need to just find a quiet corner and hide out for 5 or 10 minutes to refresh my brain, give my imagination free rein and think, usually about something I’m writing. It’s like a little mental health break to keep me sane and prevent me from going completely bonkers, scaling the walls of my pod and screaming like a banshee. I’ve screamed like a banshee before and I don’t recommend it. Wrecks havoc on the throat.

Anyhoo, back to the invasion. About the only quiet corner I can find in this place for that length of time without being discovered and accused of slacking off is the ladies washroom. No one says, hey what are you doing in there? If you need to take a little extra time, no one’s going to question it because quite frankly, they probably don’t want to know the answer. I can sit quietly in one of the stalls and let my mind wander wherever it wants to go. Peace and quiet. My very own Calgon moment interspersed at necessary intervals throughout the day.

But now there are about 20 extra people in here tramping about, most of which are women. My mental health space is being overrun. I can’t get a moment’s peace. Is it wrong that I want to bar the door, or scream at these people to get out, get out get out!! Take your bladder control problems elsewhere! Okay, you’re right, that probably won’t work.

Sigh…it’s going to be a looooong two days. Maybe I can hide under my desk.