Case Files of The "What Were You Thinking?" Patrol

Today's theme is "And this is my problem...how, exactly?"

Voicemail message waiting for me this morning: "Hi, this is Patti from upstairs. Neither Donovan or I can seem to browse the web—"

I stopped the voicemail at that point and went on with my life. Patti, you see, works for a separate company that will be staying with us for the summer. They were previously using our internal network without trouble, but now they're on a private subnet that her boss just had to, had to, had to have. So, as of Monday when this whole subnet kablooie went live, Patti, you're no longer my problem.

Come to think of it, as many times as she's called me I don't think I've ever actually helped Patti. Mostly because, while her company was duly entitled to use my network, it was not entitled to monopolize my time getting free tech support. Your machine isn't working with our network? I'll look at that. Once, she called me complaining that her computer "was acting all crazy". Tough luck, Patti.

The real question here is how she got my number in the first place. I don't remember giving it to her, and since she's not even employed here, I don't see how I'm obligated to hold her hand along with everybody else's.

First thing this morning, the security guard stops me on my way to my desk. "TicketMaster's here. They're taking out a bunch of stuff."

And this is my problem...how, exactly?

I appreciate the info, but it's not my department. I refer him to the man in charge of ticket sales. Several minutes later, after checking all my mail stores: voice, electronic, and paper, I swing by and ask the man in charge if he's aware that TicketMaster is gouging their equipment out of our building. He is. I ask if he's on top of what they're taking versus what they're leaving. He is. So why did this guard try to make it my problem? What was he thinking?

It's a quarter to four, and now a secretary from upstairs gives me a call. This refers to a quick call I got yesterday from another person who doesn't actually work here. It turns out that our organization decided to outsource our existing gift shop without completely replacing all of the equipment, and the only person who actually knew the equipment just resigned. So now no one has clue one how to actually do her job, and for some reason these people are calling me to come do it.

Sorry, not a chance.

What's interesting about this call is that the secretary just gave me "the plan": this is to say that her boss mulled this over for a bit and came up with the idea. Since no one knows how to work the software, it was up to me to hack into it and get what they want.

Wow. Just wow. I'm flattered that they think so highly of me, and flabbergasted that the current administration wasted a year without even acknowledging that all of their sales data was controlled by one person. I suspect they will not have learned their lesson, since the exact same thing will happen once I actually quit or kill myself, whichever comes first. I have a picture in my mind about this. Something about a bunch of eggs and one basket.