The psychiatrist is in

When I came back to the office after being onsite for a year, I was shuffled a few places until they finished remodeling the downstairs of our office and then I got my dream office. Well, maybe not my dream office. That would be on a beach in St. Lucia with a nice cold drink in my hand. But pretty close. It's up on the executive floor, it has a wall of windows, it's two doors down from the kitchen and right up the hall from the restrooms, the mail room, and the front door. Everything I should ever want or need.

Oh, but it's small. Really small. I have my desk, a bookcase, a small printer stand, and three filing cabinets in there. There is barely enough room for me to have my own chair - there is no chair for anyone to sit in when they come see me, which has been both good and bad. If someone wants to sit down, they have to drag a chair in and try to wedge it in the small space that's available. Hey, it might be small, but it's all mine - and after sharing a trailer with seven guys for a year, I am all about having a space that's my own. Especially one that doesn't require using a portajohn.

It seems that suddenly everyone in our office that has ovaries has become prey to the bitterness of the men. Barbs are being slung about that we all gossip all day long instead of actually working. Apparently, though, if you have a penis, gossiping all day long is acceptable. But I digress.

My office is pretty high profile. And everyone passes it at least 100 times a day, and everyone who walks by stops in to say hi. I manage to get my work done, but apparently it is Mr. Anti-Social is bitter that people actually talk to each other?

So finally today, I asked EPOD if he had any suggestions for dealing with the fact that my office is a high-traffic area. People stop in to say hello. People stop in to talk. People actually come to me with work that needs to be done. I'm a popular person in the office, which is a good thing most of the time. But short of putting up barbed wire and a big sign that says "GO AWAY", how am I supposed to stop people from coming in my office? I suggested shutting my door during working hours (not all the time, but maybe like half the day) and he shot that idea down. EPOD is very paranoid of closed doors - he assumes that every time someone has their door shut that they are up to no good. I, on the other hand, appreciate when people are courteous enough to shut their doors so I don't have to hear about their marital problems or they can pick their noses in private. And sometimes, I need to close my office so I can do important things like readjust my boobs or look at porn. A girl has priorities, you know.

I admit, I tend to be the sounding board for a lot of people. There are many days when I feel like Lucy Van Pelt with my little sign for Psychiatric Help, 5 cents. I hear it all - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I try to at least be a good listener, because a lot of times my friends don't have anyone else they can confide in without being judged. Hey, I figure until I've walked in someone else's shoes, who am I to judge? I'm just glad that I can be there as a sounding board. And I think a lot of times the men in our office tend to forget that for a lot of the women that work there, their main time to socialize with other women is at the office. How many women that work full-time and have small kids actually have the ability to have a super social life after working hours? Not many, I'd bet you. And I will never, ever turn one of my friends away if they need me.

But for now, at least, Lucy will be taking her shingle down and I've asked all the girls to keep things on the down low for a few weeks until the guys are reimmersed in their own personal misery and too busy to notice if I'm in April's office discussing eye cream or Cathy is in my office spilling her guts about her latest fight with her husband. Because that's what we girls do. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, guys. (Um, GMan, you're excluded from this, because you are an Honorary Badass.)

Is it Friday yet? Geez.

*****

And, because you asked for it, here is the recipe for the magical pimento cheese. One new trick I have found is to make sure the cheese is at room temperature - grate it as finely as you can - before mixing it with an electric mixer. Then it gets a good creamy consistency, instead of chunky like Cat Dad's girlfriend's recipe is. Apparently that's what put mine way over the top in the Taste Test. I came back from lunch today to an anonymous voice mail..."I want me some more o' that pimento cheese...." Gee, wonder who left that message?