We’re now into week 3 of The Great Work Clusterfuck, and…all right, I guess first I should quickly explain TGWC:
I’ve telecommuted for the past four+ years. Every now and then I’d have to drive the hour into the office, but only maybe two or three times per year. Recently, most people in our department (who all telecommute) have had some issues with the phone system. For some, it’s been very bad, to the point where their ability to do their job has been severely impacted. For many, it’s been a minor annoyance. For a few (myself included), it’s been a non-existent issue. The company has found that the solution is a new piece of hardware, but this item is difficult to come by – it will take about a month to get one for everybody. So in the interim, the solution is The Great Work Clusterfuck: everyone has to come into the office, whether or not they’re actually having any issues.
So then, we’re now into week 3 of The Great Work Clusterfuck, and I’ve been digging more and more of my office-acceptable work clothes out of mothballs as time has gone on (my standard uniform of “bathrobe or less” probably won’t cut it in the office). Today, I’m wearing a pair of pants that I don’t remember wearing before – standard khakis, nothing really different from the several other pairs I down. Dark blue, soft, pretty comfortable. But there’s one major difference that I didn’t notice until I got to work: The zipper bulges.
It’s like the zipper insists on folding in half and <poink!>ing straight out, creating a rather…err…visible display. To make matters worse, we’re talking about a standard fly here, which aren’t exactly gigantic. So not only are my pants visibly…tenting…there’s also the appearance that we’re dealing with a three-inch tent pole. So, now I’m spending the workday making sure my “bulge” is smoothed out – an action that has already earned me at least one odd look. Nope, not happy today, not at all…
For the record – yes, I know, a one-month return to commuting after more than four years of working at home isn’t the end of the world – after all, most people have to commute every day. It sucks, in that it’s a majorly inconvenient change from what my family and I are used to, but we’ll live. Which is why I’m non-pitting these damn pants, and not the whole TGWC situation.
