Story 330: Trying a New Sleep Schedule

          (In a department store, Coworker 2 is yawning at the customer service desk as Coworker 1 arrives)

            Coworker 1: Gooooood morning!  And how are we this fine day?

            Coworker 2: (Blinks groggily at Coworker 1) I’m sorry, did you come to the right building?

            Coworker 1: Silly-billy!  (Inhales deeply and exhales resoundingly) Ahhhh, isn’t it such a joy to be alive?  (Begins sorting through reshelves that are piled in large towers around them)

           Coworker 2: Are you sure you know you’re at work and not, I don’t know, the Bahamas, or the Alps, or the amusement park?  The store just opened and we’re already 10 years behind in projects, plus we have to start prepping for inventory at some point this afternoon, or did you forget that monstrosity as well?

           Coworker 1: Oh, inventory: what a great process to ensure our records match up with our stock.  (A bus-load of children enter the store) Oooh, young ones!  How their enthusiasm and destructive behavior revitalize my soul!

           Coworker 2: (Grabs items out of Coworker 1’s hands and slams them messily onto the counter) All right, spill it: did you take something before you clocked in today?  As in, something harmfully joy-inducing?

             Coworker 1: Whatever do you mean, ol’ chum of mine?

            Coworker 2: You’re never this happy when you’re here, and all of a sudden you’re treating this place like it’s Heaven.  And we are not friends, at all – you barely say “Hi” and “Bye” to me each day, and the feeling’s mutual.  Are you dying and just now appreciating life in all its glory?

          Coworker 1: Wow, that took a turn – no, I just feel so much better after doing an experiment during my days off this week.

            Coworker 2: An experiment-al substance?

            Coworker 1: Ew, no.  Look, you know pretty much everybody sleeps terribly, right?

            Coworker 2: I’d be the first to say “Yes”: I could keel over right now, but I’d probably whack my head on the counter on the way down.

           Coworker 1: Yeah, we all stay up way too late or have obstructed breathing or watch blue light way too long or all these things combined, so we don’t recharge our batteries properly and leave the door wide open for all sorts of other illnesses and conditions to just waltz on in.  Not to mention our productivity’s out the window, but I don’t really care about that part.

            Coworker 2: (Prolonged yawn) Sorry, I’m actually listening and that’s what inspired me.  So what’d you do?

            Coworker 1: So, these past few days, I finally told myself that enough was too much, and I completely changed my sleep schedule.

           Coworker 2: Oh, you mean you actually go to bed at a decent time and sleep the recommended seven-and-a-half-to-eight hours a night?

            Coworker 1: Better: I read an article that said that sleeping eight hours straight is unnatural and only came about because of the longer working hours during the Industrial Revolution, and we should be more like cats and sleep at intervals throughout the day instead.  So, now I’m a polyphasic sleeper and nap for 30 minutes every six hours, and I’ve never felt better in my entire life.

          Coworker 2: Wow, that’s… really impractical.  How do you get anything done if you keep having to stop to nap?

            Coworker 1: Surprisingly easily, considering that I’m now awake 22 hours a day.  It just takes a little creativity, and everything falls into place.  I nap, wake up, do what I have to do for hours, nap again, wake up again, on and on.  And I feel absolutely refreshed each and every time.

            Coworker 2: Yeah, but what if you’re out somewhere doing… something?  Or here, even: your shift’s eight hours long!

            Coworker 1: Way ahead of you: I arranged with management to stick my meal break at the end of my shift, so when I’m done I’ll go nap in the car and the manager’ll clock me out later.

            Coworker 2: I guess, but won’t you get hungry if you don’t stop to actually eat?  And that also doesn’t seem safe – have you seen who hangs out in the parking lot here?

            Coworker 1: It’s OK: when I set the alarm, the outside of the car’s electrified.

            Coworker 2: What?

           Coworker 1: I also locate perfect napping locations wherever I go now, too – I really should also locate at least two exits, but I can’t retain that much information.

           Coworker 2: I don’t know, this doesn’t seem sustainable in the long run.  What if you can’t fall asleep right away, and blow past your 30 minutes – or your body really does need more than two hours of sleep a day?!

            Coworker 1: I fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and you can’t argue with the results!  (There is a loud crash towards the back of the store, followed by multiple sets of tears) Aw, a crisis – I’ll get it!  (Skips away)

          Coworker 2: (Slumps across the counter and yawns again) Still think you’re on something.

2:00 A.M. THE FOLLOWING DAY

            Coworker 2: (Awoken by the phone ringing, fumbles with the bedside lamp and phone, then answers) Buh-lo?

          Coworker 1: Howdy-howdy-howdy!  I just had a brainstorm for how we can handle the clearance displays later this week – want to meet up for coffee to go over all that?

            Coworker 2: …Now?

            Coworker 1: No time like the present! 

            Coworker 2: But I’m presently sleeping.

           Coworker 1: Not anymore!  Now you can try out my theory and see how much better you’ll feel all the rest of your days!

            Coworker 2: You woke me up during a dream where my celebrity crush was holding my hand and telling me everything was going to be OK.  I felt so at peace with the world.

            Coworker 1: And?

            Coworker 2: And now I hate you forever.  Also, I think you should check with a doctor before embarking on such a drastic health regime.  And on that note, I will forgive you for your dream interruption if you forgive me for – (Disconnects the call)

         Coworker 1: (Also disconnects, and resumes yoga practice) All visionaries encounter resistance.

Story 328: You Sound Meaner in Writing

            (In an office, Coworker 1 walks to Coworker 2’s desk)

            Coworker 1: Hey, can I ask for a favor?

           Coworker 2: (Did not see Coworker 1 approaching and quickly closes a few windows on the monitor and fusses with items on the desk without looking up) Oh hi, sorry, really busy right now, doing that report you know, e-mails, calls, so much going on, not enough hours in the day, they don’t pay us enough for all this stress, right, what?  (Finally looks up at Coworker 1)

            Coworker 1: Still sneaking in ------------- fan fiction?  It’s been almost a year since the series finale.

            Coworker 2: I will never recover from that dumpster fire of an ending, do you hear me?!  So, how can I help?

            Coworker 1: I just got a notice to meet with the quality manager, and I need back-up.

            Coworker 2: Well, she won’t want to see me there: I wasn’t invited to the party.

         Coworker 1: It doesn’t matter, I’ll just say you’re there to take notes and you can doodle gibberish, I just – can’t face her alone.

          Coworker 2: Why not?  Did something happen between you two?  How would you guys’ve even met?  I’ve never seen her down here and everything’s done by e-mail anyway – she probably telecommutes from Tahiti for all we know.

           Coworker 1: No, she’s here, and e-mail’s the problem: going by that, I don’t think she likes me.

           Coworker 2: I’ll need some examples before passing judgement.

          Coworker 1: (Pulls out a phone and scrolls through the screens) OK, here’s one from about a month ago: “The report needs to be submitted by this afternoon; it can’t be late.  This is a State requirement.”  (Looks at Coworker 2 expectantly)

            Coworker 2: OK, a bit brusque, but understandable: the State’s kind of a big deal.

           Coworker 1: All right – (Scrolls a bit) here’s a better one: “This has to be redone – there are too many errors for it to be sent on to Corporate.  If you send a corrected version by tomorrow, that would work.” (Looks at Coworker 2 expectantly)

            Coworker 2: Ohhhh-kaaaay, so you messed up a report and got told to fix it before it went to the bigwigs?

             Coworker 1: That’s not the point – can’t you just feel the reproach oozing out of the screen?

             Coworker 2: I’d reproach you too if you’d sent me shoddy work.

          Coworker 1: All right, bad example.  (Scrolls a bit) Aha!  This one’s perfect: “Report received.  I will contact you next month for updates.”  (Looks expectantly at Coworker 2) Well?

            Coworker 2: Eh....

            Coworker 1: Well?!

            Coworker 2: I guess a “Thank you” would’ve been nice –

            Coworker 1: Ha!

            Coworker 2: – but not mandatory, since whatever you sent in was, you know, part of your job.

           Coworker 1: You are no help whatsoever.  And the point is, I always seem to mess up around her, and she seems like she’s mad at me all the time, so I can’t face her in person without some kind of posse there with me!

           Coworker 2: OK, but what am I gonna do if she, I don’t know, rightfully reprimands you?  Tell her off?

          Coworker 1: No, I’m just hoping your mere presence will be enough to restrain her from completely removing my head.

          Coworker 2: I doubt it – she sent me an e-mail this morning saying that my presentation has too many slides that’ll make it go overtime when she shows it, which is true now that I step back from the situation and consider all factors, so, you know, there’s that.

             Coworker 1: Meeting’s at 3:00 in the conference room.

             Coworker 2: Oh fine.

3:00 IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM

            (Coworkers 1 and 2 sit at a long table)

            Coworker 1: Can we use the 15-minute rule for work like we did in college?

            Coworker 2: (Playing on phone) If you’d like to get written up, sure.

            (They see the Quality Manager approaching through the room’s windows)

            Coworker 1: (Stands and mutters) OK, here she comes.

          Coworker 2: (Pockets phone and stands) By the way, you owe me a five pound chocolate bar for this.

            Coworker 1: Wha – ?!

           Quality Manager: (Enters the room, beaming widely) Hello!  It’s so great to finally meet you in person!  All this back-and-forth with e-mails, it gets to be so impersonal, don’t you think?

            Coworker 1: …A little bit.

           Quality Manager: (Laughs as they all sit at the table) I know: it’s so convenient and helps me get so much done, but people say I tend to be too to-the-point, you know what I mean?

            Coworker 1: Well….

           Quality Manager: By the way, thank you for always replying so quickly and sending me what I need right away!  I wish everyone had your work ethic!

            Coworker 1: Oh.  Thanks.

           Quality Manager: (Chuckles while opening a laptop) Well, you certainly make my life easier – I don’t have to chase after you all the time for everything.  Now: this should only take about 10 minutes, but I wanted you to see the portal we’re going to start using soon and I figured it’d be easier if I showed it to you instead of sending you a training video or something.

            Coworker 1: Oh yeah, that’ll be great – thanks!

            (Back at Coworker 2’s desk)

          Coworker 2: So.  I could’ve been immersed in reading about my OTP sweetly hooking up multiple times as they should have in Season 57, and instead I got to sit there and listen to you being proven wrong.

            Coworker 1: “OTP?”

            Coworker 2: One True Pairing.

            Coworker 1: Seriously?

            Coworker 2: Don’t bash my ship!

            Coworker 1: I don’t even know what you’re talking about!

         Coworker 2: Your loss.  Anyway, are you satisfied now that your e-mail foe was not the monster you’d built her up to be?

            Coworker 1: Yes, thank you – she was pleasant, and professional, and helpful, and, even, nice.

            Coworker 2: So there.  (Sits at the desk and logs onto the computer)

         Coworker 1: (Standing next to the desk, staring into the middle distance) Now I wonder, though: does this mean that I come off as a horrible person in e-mail?!

          Coworker 2: (Not looking up) I wouldn’t sweat it – without verbal inflections or body language to work with, almost anything you write can come across as mean and rude.  Why do you think I insert smiley faces in everything I send?  Otherwise, whatever I write reads like I think you’re all garbage.

Story 325: It’s Not the Flu, It’s Just Food Poisoning

            (In an office)

           Coworker 1: (To Coworker 2 at an adjoining desk) It’s gotten so bad, I had to keep my kid home from school the other day when he got all phlegmy – turns out it was just allergies from our most recent bout of Fake Summer, but still, couldn’t take the chance, you know?  An entire class of parents would’ve been after my head if my kid’d infected their spawn.

            Coworker 2: And, also, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for getting other people sick.

            Coworker 1: Oh yeah, sure.

            (Coworker 3 enters with an ashen face, stringy hair, and rumpled clothing)

            Coworker 3: (From the depths) Morning.

           Coworker 1: (Stands and points at Coworker 3) No!  No!  You’re sick!  Get out!  Go home!  Go anywhere but here!   It’s probably already too late, argh!  I hate you.  (Grabs a disinfectant bottle and sprays everywhere)

            Coworker 3: (Drops briefcase and coat onto the floor and drops self onto the chair at the desk) Relax, I’m not sick.  (Holds stomach as it grumbles)

           Coworker 2: Sure doing a good impression of someone who is.  (Scooches chair slightly away)

            Coworker 3: I mean, I’m not sick with anything contagious.  I ate some bad veggies last night and my body went on automatic purge mode, so I didn’t catch anything; it’s entirely self-inflicted.  (Unwraps five pieces of ginger candy and pops them into mouth)

           Coworker 1: (Starts putting on a hazmat suit) Ha!  Bet you’re making that up – what’re your symptoms?

            Coworker 3: Please don’t make me relive my night of torture.

            Coworker 1: Tough – we need to determine whether you’re fit to be in our presence, breathing into our air, so spill!

           Coworker 3: (Grabs a mini-garbage can that is under the desk and holds it at the ready) Bad choice of words.

            Coworker 2: (Sympathetically) So, what happened?

            Coworker 3: Well, it all started when I went to the supermarket the other day –

            Coworker 1: Skip the prologue; what happened at the main event?!

           Coworker 3: (Suppresses a burp) Well, a few hours after dinner last night, I had a noisy and active date with the bathroom for quite some time, and apparently it was so good I got a call-back around 4:00 this morning.

            Coworker 2: Aww, poor thing.  (Rubs Coworker 3’s upper arm)

         Coworker 1: (Smacks Coworker 2’s hand with a ruler; muffled by the hazmat helmet) No touching Patient Zero!  (To Coworker 3) I’m still not convinced; the timing could just be a coincidence.

           Coworker 3: I was feeling fine all day until after dinner, and looking back now the vegetables did seem a bit suspect, so food poisoning’s the only logical conclusion.

            Coworker 1: That’s fallacious reasoning – correlation does not equal causation!

            Coworker 3: Huh?

          Coworker 1: Just because you got sick after dinner does not definitively prove that dinner made you sick!  Flu has an incubation period of up to four days, so you could’ve been walking around here with it this whole week!

            Coworker 3: (Holds grumbling stomach) I highly doubt it.

            Coworker 1: You’ve got all the classic symptoms!  Are you a doctor now, hm?!

            Coworker 3: No, are you?!

            Coworker 1: I vote we call Security and have you forcibly removed to home quarantine!

           Coworker 3: (Stands, then sways a bit and leans onto the desk) You’ll do no such thing!  I got the flu shot, this is just bad food that I’m already starting to recover from violently rejecting, so you’ve got nothing!  (Holds loudly grumbling stomach, then freezes)

           Coworker 1: (Also stands) “Starting to recover,” you say?  Starting to infect the rest of us, more like!  You know how many millions of people have gotten the flu this year?!  I refuse to join their ranks, do you hear me?!

           Coworker 2: (Also stands; to Coworker 3) Maybe you should go home, though – from a purely objective standpoint, you look terrible.

            Coworker 3: Yes, I will go home –

            Coworker 1: Aha!

           Coworker 3: Not because I have the flu, but because, like a child, I need to take care of my person, right now.  And any embarrassment I should be feeling is entirely supplanted by absolute irritation at this major inconvenience, and at you!  (Points at Coworker 1) So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my lunch hour now.  (Stiffly backs out the door)

            Coworker 1: (Takes off the hazmat suit and sprays disinfectant everywhere again) Well, that’s taken care of splendidly.

            Coworker 2: (Sits) What do you mean?  I don’t think that was the flu.

           Coworker 1: (Also sits) Well, with all those people sick and even dying from it each year, I’m certainly not fooling around with something that may only turn out to be a mimic.

          (Several hours later; Coworker 3 is back and sitting at a desk off to the side, surrounded by a furniture barricade)

          Supervisor: (Enters in a rush) Bad news, folks: turns out a member of our office family unknowingly came in with the flu two days ago, so we probably’re all infected with it now.  Did you get the vaccine this year?

            Coworker 1: (Frozen) Yes.

            Coworker 2: I can’t get it anymore – I got Guillain-Barré Syndrome that one time.

            Supervisor: Oh.  Well, it’s a roll of the dice either way – just an FYI you all might get sick in the next day or so.

            Coworker 2: Oh dear heavens.

          Supervisor: So, if everybody could go ahead and submit their weekly reports by the end of today, that’d be lovely!  (Gives two thumbs up) Thanks-bye.  (Leaves)

          Coworker 1: So that’s it?!  We’ve been infected this whole time and didn’t even realize it’d happened?!

            Coworker 3: (Glares at Coworker 1 over the top of a chair pile) Does this mean I get credit for time served then?

            Coworker 1: (Sinks head down onto the desk) Oh ,who cares what you even really have, now we’re all going to be beaten up by our digestive systems within the next few days, plus who-knows-what-else, and I wash my hands and don’t touch doorknobs all the time, it’s not fair!  (Softly bangs fist on the desk and cries)

            Coworker 3: (Picks up mini-garbage can again as stomach grumbles) I really hope I don’t get the flu on top of this – I have nothing left to give.