Cry for help.

At my current work place, there is a certain cache attached to where you sit. In my old department, we were in a lovely corner of the building on the second story, clear glass looking out onto brilliantly green trees, the blue California sky poking through the tree tops. My manager, Ann Marie even had a sky light over her desk, providing a dazzling sun beam during the summer months, and a rhythmic rat a tat tat during the brief rainy season. We even had roof drains that created mock Hawaiian water falls among the trees during this rainy period, slate grey skies replacing the blue and the wind gently bent the leafy green tops towards the windows as the water running down the panes blurred everything into a Monet relief.

Our lovely sojourn in the greenhouse corner of the office was cut short when the Sales department decided they wanted more space. Ann Marie, a true medical marvel as she was a woman with no spine, didn’t have the wherewithal to stand up to the formidable PC in his request to oust our fine department from its cozy corner.

In fact, she came to us and explained that as a Catholic, she felt it was her place to take the lesser portion in office seating arrangements as we’d had such a lovely space for so long.

Now, this is all very well and good, but I don’t think she should have been relegating her entire department to the far flung reaches of the office as she was afraid to rock the boat. PC has no qualms about rocking the boat so a few people fall over board, he does it just so he can have more room to put up his feet.

Ann Marie was trying to spin how great the new move was going to be. We were to move into the former cubby occupied by the Sales department. A small section of the company, right by the door, a veritable fish bowl.

Ann Marie’s big plan to market this move to the department was to decorate everything in white; white table clothes on the central meeting table, white pots for pot plants, white picture frames on desks – a nice sterile work environment that would do a dentists office proud.

Now, not being one to stay quiet at the best of times, and realizing there was nothing I could do to change this (short of dressing as Ann Marie for the day and trying to confuse the executive team with a new found spine) I resorted to sarcastic suggestions cunningly hidden as helpful ideas.

Quickly warming to the subject I proposed white gauze hung from the ceiling, white hurricane shutters on our three small windows and perhaps even a white stand alone door frame with white doorbell to play “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” when someone wanted to enter the department. Perhaps even a white ceiling fan to complete what I was now contemplating, a Somerset Maugham /tropical island feeling department.

Needless to say I didn’t get my doorframe, fan or hurricane shutters, I didn’t even get my gauze – however, I did get my actual target – an absolute lack of white around my desk.

When I informed my New Zealand mother of Ann Marie’s plans, she began asking for her number, as she was certain that the white environment was a subtle cry for help.