Year of the Rabbit, I loathe thee.
This morning I walked into my place of employment feeling particularly unrested. I’ve recently decided that I must have RLS: Restless Leg Syndrome. I don’t genuinely believe that, but my feet have definite temperature control issues. One minute they’ll be freezing; the next minute they’ll be burning hot. They can’t decide what they want. Under the blankets or not. It’s frustrating. I also kept waking up last night. Not because of my feet though. One time I was thirsty, one time I had to pee, one time my arm hurt.
Anyway, enough about my interrupted sleep. I arrived at work at 8:30 this morning, made a tea, checked my emails, fiddled with my space heater, went around the office and talked to the other employees, and then was bombarded with a task. “Bombarded” might not be the best term, since I had been emailed about completing the task in question and was well aware that it was on my agenda. I don’t feel particularly social in the morning. Ever. I feel as though I’m in a vegetative state until about 11, and mostly just go through the motions of my day until that point. Being reassigned a task that I just read about at the beginning of my shift is unappealing to me at anytime, but even more so before lunch break.
My manager approached. I heard her feet shuffling on the other side of my cubicle and waited for the inevitable “SOOO Kim….” followed by instructions to complete this or that, or whatever. She asked if I had received the email with instructions to complete the aforementioned task. I replied that I had indeed. She reiterated everything that was in the email anyway.
I should probably explain the task before I go any further. A few weeks ago, I had been asked to create business card sized descriptions of the Year of the Rabbit in recognition of Chinese New Year. I was to use a predetermined description off the internet and include a picture of a golden rabbit. Apparently this year is special and different and unique because it’s the year of the golden rabbit, not a wooden rabbit or a grass rabbit or any other kind. So I went about my merry way, created these business card sized descriptions (keep in mind that the text I was to use was predetermined. Hand-picked by my boss herself. I was not to modify or change it, simply copy and paste and make it all fit on a business card sized piece of cardstock). I did what I was asked and proudly turned in the completed cards to my boss.
”Why is it so small?” she asked.
”It had to be to fit on the card,” was my reply.
It was two paragraphs of text. I had to use size 6 font to fit it on the business card, as instructed. It was small, but legible. It was also a giant pain to get it to all fit on, not be cut off, and get the picture of the rabbit on the card as well.
“Well make it bigger,” she stated.
I stood at attention, saluted, said “Aye, aye, boss” and returned to my work space.
I made the cards bigger and increased the font to a 10. They didn’t really fit well on the page and took a while to alter so that they all looked the same. I considered using the ever-professional Comic Sans font in a passive aggressive manner, but decided against it. My cards were approved on my second-go-round. Task complete.
I thought I’d never have to see those cards again after that day. I saved my work on the computer’s server so if she needed more, she could access them an print them herself. I got tasked again a week or so ago to make more cards: aka - print them. Today my task was to make more of these damn cards. However, today she wanted the company logo emblazoned on the back of the card “perfectly centered.”
I told her “No problem, I’ll do my best to centre it because of the size the descriptions had to be.”
Her reply, “Why aren’t they business card sized? That’s what I originally wanted.”
*Silence*
