Area 151

In times of extreme at-work stress, one of my co-workers, a couple NPOs ago, had a really funny way of coping. She’d grab her shoulder-length hair into two pigtails, and lift them off her head a la Pippi Longstocking, all the while letting out a sotto voce scream of frustration. I am sure that our immense appreciation of this joke was influenced in part by the fact that when she’d do this, we’d all be in a situation of extreme stress and would thus be a little punch-drunk and giggley. Still, we laughed heartily every single time she did this, and I’ve carried that habit into subsequent jobs.

Now, with my short haircut, I am unable to take the same physical actions. I have, however, found a way to invoke this in words, and have been known to declare an especially rough day at work as a “screaming pigtails kind of day.”

Well, the pigtails were screaming themselves hoarse today.

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Didja ever find yourself in one of those situations where a co-worker was given a project to do, and he or she fucks it up so badly that a whole other team of people have to shift into gear at the very last minute and fix everything? And have you ever been in the middle of one of those crisis teams and thought to yourself that, considering the time and effort and stress you’re going through to fix the mistakes that it’d just have been easier to have one more thing on your plate and to have done the thing from scratch?

Why do I ask?  No reason…..