Tuesday, September 28, 2010

BoW Club - REAL Office Mystery

Facts:
i. I'm in a Beer of the Week Club
ii. I'm the only female in the BoW club
iii. Last night there was a 6 pack in the fridge for the 6 BoW club members; my contribution for this week.
iv. I'm OCD, I have odd neuroses, every minor and totally irrelevant detail of the minutia happenings in life I just happen to notice

Evidence: Exhibits A - E

Events:
Mid-Morning - I retreat to the ladies to relieve myself of my morning coffee
Mid-Morning Mid-Stream - While sitting there I notice on the TP dispenser a beer cap, and it looks oddly like a beer cap that belongs to one of the beer of the week club beers which is chilling in the fridge.
Mid Morning - A quick check to the fridge shows that out of 6 beers, 2 are missing.
Mid - Mid - Morning (my bladder is the size of a chick pea) I'm sitting in the bathroom and I notice Exhibit A.

I find it a little odd because (I use the same stall every time - is that odd?) it was not there earlier. So, I look closer and I find Exhibit B.

I think to myself, this is strange.
Lunch Time - I look in the fridge and to my surprise more beers are gone. I think, "Huh?" are my BoW club mates putting the beers in their bags for later? I again have to visit the ladies and on a hunch, and this is gross, I look at Exhibit C (for the gents this is a receptacle which can be found in most sanitary ladies stalls)

and upon looking inside (the gross part) discover Exhibit D.

Now I'm thinking - This is so bizarre, sad, funny? I also think this is a set up, someone has to be playing a joke as this is too strange to be true. I go back to the fridge and now there is only 1 beer left! That's it.
Post Lunch - My mind is piecing things together and I then wonder, wait...I see caps, but where are the empties, if this is a joke then most likely they're in the kitchen recyclable bin. However, as I go back to my desk it kind of hits me and I know I have to go back to the ladies to confirm.
I confront Exhibit E

and when I look inside my suspicion is confirmed with Exhibit F.

Now everything is pieced together; the where (ladies room stall), the general when (mid-morning to mid-afternoon), the general how (some lady had to be going to the kitchen and then directly into the bathroom and chugging - as the bathroom is pretty trafficked - a beer in the stall and tossing the empty in the garbage. Again, this is soo odd to me. I can't even begin to wonder the why. I think of the ladies that work in my office - that's the other thing, it's just our office on the floor and no one else is on our level, and I think, WHO? could be doing this. Is it a joke? Is this someone's kind of funny but also kind of sad reality. It's a Tuesday. We're at work. I start thinking maybe a lady thinks beer is the demon so she's sneaking in the stall dumping the beer down the toilet and then tossing the evidence. Maybe some lady is doing this on a bet a dare. It's almost all too much for me to contemplate.

Am I prude? I'm no saint and on a fleeting occasion or two I've had a beer at lunch in the height of summer and in the throws of a rare 2+ hour lunch outing. Still something about this the image in my head. A lady going into the kitchen, discretely and quickly stashing a cold beer in her skirt? her bra? dashing to the bathroom, not sipping but chugging? and then going to a meeting? Our office is pretty intimate, there were not many of us ladies today - 9 all in; desks are close, except for mine which is why I can't figure out the last part. I would think you could smell the beer so someone who sits near the suspect knows the last piece of my puzzle.

I'm not making any of this up. It's all true, I mean it's one of those it's too strange not to be true type scenarios.

Any how - that's all I have, I can't say any more about this.

Monday, September 13, 2010

FAX You.


Our health care system causes me concern for many reasons. One of the most alarming is the administration of the system by those in the trenches.
True story. I help administer our health care - our company uses a very large health care provider - which requests, prefers actually, that all correspondence concerning employee maintenance from the activation to deactivation of their plans be handled via fax. I have issues with the fax machine, the public openness of their placement in many offices, the speed at which they relay information, etc...
Recently I had to activate an employee's insurance. I did as requested, filled out 11 pages of paper work and stood patiently as I fed into the fax machine each page, waited for them to scan, and then submit/process. In return I was rewarded with a one line print out which read "OK" giving me the confidence that my fax and all it's precious information was in fact relayed and my employee could rest easy knowing they'd be insured.
A week later - via the USPS I received a typed letter saying my fax was missing one piece of information and I should re-fax not the one missing piece - but the entire document - because this is how things are done. I phoned immediately raising my concern but was assured this was the proper procedure and there was no alternative. I couldn't give the missing information via phone they needed a faxed, and then scanned record. During the call it was also revealed that only 6 of my 11 pages were received and my "OK" meant zip.
A little frustrated I did as told and again faxed all 11 pages and was rewarded with my one line confirmation "OK"
This time I decided to be proactive and phoned the representative the next day. I was told my fax was not received. Calmly but sternly I replied "But I have a fax confirmation that says it was relayed and to the number you gave me. It says "OK"." The representative told me that might be the case but I still needed to resubmit all 11 pages - I could mail them. However, I was told because of the time that had elapsed the employee would have to be enrolled in the next billing cycle which was not acceptable. I said I faxed the information timely and received not one but two "OKs" and the employee should not be punished for this exercise in archaic information transmission. I was told that I had to prove my faxes were indeed sent within the allowed time period. When I asked how I could possibly do this and expeditiously I was told "fax us the fax confirmation pages..."
Seriously health care administrators? Fax you.