M- People I Hate, Part 2

So today, I was going to grace you all with a funny series of quips on words that make me go "buuuhhhhh" (Ron White style, for any of you out there who have seen Tater Salad too many times.) Then I became incensed with the metro (again) for no particular reason....other than that the North Dupont Metro down escalator is STILL out of service....and had mentally planned out my post about hating WMATA....

But then. Something special happened. I had a Planet Earth Goes Corporate moment. You know that one scene where after like days of waiting, the camera man catches the bird of paradise doing that ridiculous mating dance?



This was like seeing that. I was in shock and awe, because I have seen probably every single strange incident that can happen in normal daily corporate life. Examples include:

- Sexually harassed by clients? Been there, done that, over a seminar on shipping corpses, nonetheless.
- Watched boss drink straight from wine bottle in the office? Check.
- Had my skirt blow up while delivering a massive proposal and show my underwear to my senior manager and co-worker? You betcha.

But this one, this one takes the cake. I finally witnessed a CD in action. The CD's. I can't really flesh out for you what that means because I'm in no mood for someone to google and randomly come up with that and trace it somehow back to me. But. While the C stands for....Corporate...Suffice to say, the D's stands for douchebag.

As I am rarely in my own office, I don't often get to see CD's in action. You see, CD's are amazingly well camoflagued as normal, caring individuals who would rather avoid conflict and putter along at work than get in your face and make a scene. CD's only show their true colors when threatened while in a state of holier-than-thou-art. When a male CD is threatened during this phase of his lifecycle, he becomes immensely douchey, territorial, and excreets something that smells vaguely of shit, coffee, and menthols. Office behaviorial scientists of dubbed this secretion "self importance" and have determined that it comes from a mixture of brown nosing, large quantities of bad coffee intake, and, clearly, a nicotine addiction. Smarter CDs have tried to cover their self-importance by dousing themselves in cologne. Usually to much avail as it amps up the smell of the self love stink. Non-CDs can smell the predator coming and usually run. A classic example would be Andy from The Office. And I don't mean heart-broken, sweet, kinda weird Andy....I mean the asshole pre-anger management Andy.

So. My experience.

I've been sitting in what my office calls a telephone room. Probably because it's just about the same size as an old school telephone booth with a chair and a small shelf that comes out of the wall for your laptop. I love these rooms. Why? There is a door. I can pretend that I'm important enough to have a door to close. Mostly, these rooms are used for having conference calls about sensitive information. I use this room becasue there aren't any other desks available and because they're hidden behind the other cubes....so no one ever walks by and I can gchat my life away while waiting for some work--any work.

This has not been an issue for the past month that I have randomly been in this office and taken one of these telephone cubes. Until today. You see, you can't reserve these rooms. These are the only 4 rooms, aside from partner's offices, that cannot be reserved. While I was actually doing work (amazing! my manager gave me something to do!) I heard a little "tink tink tink" on the glass door. I turned around, confused, to face....a CD. I knew it from the little smirk he was trying to guise as apologetic.

The M/CD exchange

M: Hi, can I help you?
CD: Yes, I believe I reserved this room.
M: I don't think that's possible, actually, these rooms can't be reserved.
CD: Well I reserved it.
M: Okay, well it's possible that you're looking for the cubes on the other side of that wall.
CD: No, it's this cube.
M: *looks for cube number, cannot find one, gives up* well, there are three other phone cubes here, the two there are available.
CD: I reserved this one.
M: *thinks CD is joking...realizes he isn't* .....since I have all my stuff spread out here, would you mind using that one down there? I'm sure that if you're expecting to cram another person in there with you, that they will find you if you move one door down.
CD: Listen, I have a phone call in 5 minutes, I need to use this room.
M: That phone room is just fine, no one is in it, and the phone works just as well.
CD: I reserved this room, it is policy for you to leave this room. You shouldn't even be using this room if you didn't reserve it.

***** at this point in time, I'm somewhere between extremely pissed and totally amused. This guy was so anal retentive that he literally had to have this cube that he just knew as a reserved room. He was going to shit himself if I didn't conceed and give it to him. I was tempted, but already really ready to go back to my gchat with K.*****

M: If it's really that big of a deal to you, would you mind moving out of the way so I can move to the room next to you? And by the way, for future reference, even if you did reserve the room, if you're not here by 10am, that reservation is cancelled. Just an FYI so you don't make someone needless move all their stuff next time.
CD: Oh thank you so much. I know I reserved this room. I've had it for the past two days. Sorry about the hassle.

********

No. You are not sorry about the hassle. You basically just splooged yourself over this hassle and, like the f'ing spinless moron that I am, I MOVED. COME ON M.

Ugh. So. To all those CDs out there. Your boy here got a pass. One pass. This isn't three strikes you're out....this is next time, I'm going to be a bitch and accidentally spill my coffee on you while I'm moving all my shit. I hope that cube still smells like my god awful commuter shoes.