Dilbert is An Accurate Depiction of the Workplace

As I often say: my brain is full.  It's been a week, which is so pathetic to say after having vacation and while looking at at a three-day-weekend.

The new job duties have been fun, so far.  Not fun as in confetti canons and dancing bears but fun as in Stuff I'm Good At and Stuff I'm Not So Good At But It's Not Frustrating.

My new boss has turned out to be a fun person to work for.  She reminds me from time to time of Melissa McCarthy.  She doesn't curse in front of us but claims that she does curse.   When/if she ever actually does, I am simply going to give her a ten dollar bill because it's going to be epic.

She doles out support and sympathy and discipline in a fair, straightforward way.  I can sadly say that I've not experienced that in a consistent way before.  It's lovely.

So what's the problem, you're asking.  Co-workers.  To quote Samuel L Jackson: Mother Effing Coworkers.

A tiny caveat: my office is the main office thus the hub of activity.

That being said:

One co-worker will actually go behind my desk to look out the window.  She is sometimes spying on clients (in a good way) but sometimes she's just looking out the G.D. window.  It got so bad that in a desperate psychological warfare tactic, I moved my desk incrementally to make the pathway narrow & not as accessible.  (I know, I am evil)

Today, as I'm working on a deadline and with HEADPHONES ON...bright yellow ones at that...she kept trying to talk to me about nothing really.  That's simply annoying until she takes the picture & tchotchke off my printer/scanner to make a copy "Because I can't figure out my printer.  Or it's broken. Probably broken."

DEADLINE. HEADPHONES. You have your own PRINTER.  GET OUT OF MY SPACE!

To add to the pressure of the deadline, my boss was at a regional meeting (yes, very Dundler Mifflin) all day so that just left myself and the co-worker.

BECAUSE our other coworker suddenly had to go to Seattle today because it's supposed to snow on Monday.  She had to take an emergency day off to go to what I suspect is IKEA. Yes, an IKEA emergency.  Never mind that it's not supposed to snow until Sunday evening, leaving um, let's see...Saturday and Sunday.  Days she already had off. 

I guess I should be grateful that I had a fairly quiet day.  Most days, there are constant stream of interruptions.  Again, I understand that the location of my office is unfortunate and not a good match for meeting deadlines or avoiding interruptions.

In the end, it's not the new job that is stressing me out.  It's the coworkers.  I use creative visualization to cope with the irritation: imagining spraying them with water sprayers, shooting nerf guns, throwing staplers.

I'm afraid it's going to denigrate to me shouting "SERIOUSLY!?!" at an inopportune moment.