Sexual Harrassment Panda
11:49 a.m. || 2004-06-14
With our big Toob trip coming up this week I've been a little antsy at work today, wanting to be outside in the sun instead of being stuck behind this computer screen, but the whole week just took a major turn. I just got turned in for sexual harrassment.
I should probably point out here that I work at a University, therefore we're locked in PC hell everyday. I have been attempting to get some footballs signed by our head coach to be auctioned off for charity. No big deal, pretty normal occurrence, right up until now. I talked to an assistant in the football office (a slightly older somewhat dour lady) whom we'll call HatesMeAndThinksShesTheGatekeeper last week and asked if I could get some autographs. She says probably not because Coach is really busy with camps, etc. but makes the fatal error of forgetting that I have Coach's cell phone. Now nothing is worse to HatesMeAndThinksShesTheGatekeeper than for someone to circumvent her 'power' by calling him directly. But, after being rebuffed twice more, I decide it is time to go straight to the top and I give Coach a little ringy ding ding on the cell phone (which I picture playing 'Freek a Leak' as it rings because he is old and white and that song is funny to me). He does the good University PR thing and tells me 'Sure, no problem. Just bring 'em over and leave 'em with HatesMeAndThinksShesTheGatekeeper.' So I do. And it is with great joy that I leave these balls on her desk with a little note that says, 'Coach says he'll be happy to sign the balls. Please call or e-mail when they are ready.' So, as I was expecting, I get an e-mail this morning telling me they are ready. I think to myself, 'Self, you should pick them up at lunch when HatesMeAndThinksShesTheGatekeeper will be out so you don't have to put up with the old crone.' I then go into a meeting and during the course of the 30 minute meeting, she calls my voice mail, our main line, my boss and my boss' boss to tell them that I haven't picked up these balls that I so inconvenienced coach with. When I get out of the meeting, as you probably imagine I have 8 additional voicemails from everyone higher up the ladder and closer to God than I saying, please go pick up the balls and be nice to the Old Crone (her new name from this point on). I call her intending to be very nice and polite, but I drank too much this weekend and slept too little. That's the only thing I can think of to explain what I did.
I call the athletic department, but evidently she is too good to answer her own phone (when did Secretaries stop answering phones??) so by the time I get to her she is good and fired up and knows exactly who's she's talking to. She is a snotty bitch from the beginning, chastising me for inconveniencing the coach, for ruining her day, blah, blah, blah. As she continues to tear down my nice guy defense (which is pretty thin to begin with I'll admit) she proceeds to say, and listen close because this is important... 'I've got your balls in my hands right now and I've just been waiting here holding them all day.'
There it was... laid out before me like a bunch of drunken high school girls at their first college party. Just too easy, too available, and with me on the rebound from a binge weekend. I now know how Ray felt in Ghostbusters when he sicced the Sta-Puft marshmallow man on Manhattan. It just popped in there. I proceeded in an eerily third person way to hear myself say, 'Wow, are they sweaty, because when I hold my balls for more than five minutes they get really sweaty.' I immediately knew I was fucked but it was too late to take it back.
Now we're going to find out how well the game works. I've been reported so it has to go through a few channels, but it stops at HR well before it gets to any of the 'Close to God' folks. Since I enjoy playing the game and like to think I know how it works, my first week on the job, I took the HR Director out for some drinks on a friends basis and made sure she told me lots of gossip and dirty stories from the office so that if this situation ever popped up I'd have some ammo of my own. Nothing like an HR Director that can't keep her mouth shut.
Now I guess we'll find out who likes the game and who plays the game better.
Stay tuned for JoeCartoon -vs- Old Crone. This time it's personal.
Wanna know how to scare your ex? - 2005-03-12
Maybe I am not the sickest person out there. - 2005-02-23
I'm out of my funk and I'm not talking about hygiene. - 2005-02-11
Ding Dong the Sports Season is Dead. - 2005-02-07
Wow, is this thing still on? - 2005-01-31
11:49 a.m. || 2004-06-14
