We need to talk about your TPS reports.

My field is experiencing some rather severe setbacks of late and this resulted in the RIF of our mail room clerk.

His duties were redistributed to a number of (apparently disgruntled) coworkers.

So when I went to send a piece of mail certified it was no surprise that the form used to bill my department and the envelope were brought back to me with another form that I need to fill out, but was not aware of.

I completed 2 forms and set them on top of the envelope in the mail room to be mailed. Success!

Now it is a month later and I attempted to mail another envelope. Early the next day I received a testy (teehee) voice mail notifying me that I must google where to attach the 2nd form to the envelope because if the envelope is not fully prepared it wastes her time.

Ripping off the backing of the adhesive strip wastes her time, but calling and leaving a 2 minute angry and repetitive voicemail is an excellent use of her time. I called her back to explain that the rules keep changing and yet I am not notified and that I will take care of it, but during the frenzied conversation this woman made a huge point about how mailing envelopes is not her job and wastes her time.

So I waited for this joyous individual to go off of mail duty, and go downstairs to reclaim my envelope and adhere the form to it. And lo, it is gone. The mail sorting room is the size of a small walk-in closet and contains 1 counter with 1 thing on it. That 1 thing- not my envelope. I checked in my mailbox, I checked in the to-be-sent mail box, I looked on the counter and then the floor. Nada. I assumed that when I had called her earlier and listened to about 16 seconds of vitriol before saying, "Ok, bubye" and hung up on her she changed her mind and just did it.

This morning, imagine my dismay when I received another voicemail complaining that I did not take care of my envelope. Knowing it would suck, I wearily called her back and explained that the envelope was not there. The conversation went thus:
Rude Woman: I left it on the counter.
Me: When I went down there it was not on the counter.
RW: Yes it was, I left it there.
Me: I looked on the counter, there was nothing there. I figured someone must have mailed it.
RW: (becoming hysterical) IT WAS THERE. ON THE COUNTER. TO THE LEFT. YOU HAVE TO AFFIX THE...
Me: OK, bubye.

So I waited another hour or so and go to the mail room. The envelope was not there.

I dug around and find that someone had processed it.

Finally. My envelope was mailed with two wasted trips to the mail room, two phone calls, and two torturous voice mails. No wasted time here. Certainly none wasted on actually processing mail.

While I'm sympathetic to the fact that it is annoying when people don't follow rules and being screwed over by the budget cuts sucks, I'm not sympathetic to people who cannot behave themselves appropriately. Doing the mail may suck, but unfortunately for the rest of us, doing the mail is this woman's job. It's easy (which is great because my only other interaction with her was when she lost important paperwork and blamed me because paper-clipping it putting it in an envelope was insufficient), and apparently leaves you plenty of time to act like a jerk.

Fungi not as fun as name implies.

So, guess whose trunk is still leaking?

It's me! Back to the drawing board- by which I mean crawling about in my trunk with a Mag-Lite and tube of sealant.

And they say blonds have more fun.

Gunk in the Trunk

Guess how I spent my morning.

If you guessed crawling in and out of my car's trunk with a MagLite and screw driver, you are really good.

About a week ago I noticed that my car did not have the nice clean smell I was accustomed to. It had a funk about it that I could not put my finger on. (I'm going to take a moment to remind the reader that the whole "don't end sentences in prepostions" thing is not a rule, but a stylistic choice- so no trolling!)

Yesterday I opened the trunk at Nordstrom and there was a 2 foot square patch of terrifying white mold. So I shut the trunk, thinking that this was a problem for Future Quiana. (Sucks to be her. Literally, right now.) All I could picture in my head was two inches of fetid standing water in the spare tire well and the slimy, heavy tire rusting away that I would get to lift. This was too much for me on a Friday night. Instead, I decided to do this before breakfast on a Saturday morning after a very late night. GENIUS.

Naturally it is pouring and I didn't need the neighbor boys watching my yoga panted rear as I clamored in and out of the drunk of my land-yacht, so I moved the car into our tiny garage. I unbolted the trunk lining and pulled it up and out of the affected areas. It has been raining pretty heavily for at least a week, and even though there was a TON of mold there was very little standing water. I gave the drain gaskets in the wheel well a good clean and the trunk is drying out in the garage. The hideous trunk liner is having various solvents tested on it in inconspicuous areas and other than being filthy, damp, and annoyed as hell, this whole thing has gone pretty well. 4 (FOUR!) points of entry were discovered and I hope to buy some sort of sealant for the trunk and get this taken care of today.

I think I will even replace the windshielf wipers, rain-x the windows, and give the whole thing a good detailing. So, in spite of the disgustingness, all in all I classify today as a win.

And that, my dear friends, is the pinnacle of my story telling ability lately, hence the lack of bloggage. But if you liked this entry I'll be happy to oblige you with other tantelizing tales of tidying and other such enchanting stories.

Happy Saturday.