What do business professionals do at work? Apparently they fight over the microwave, or at least they do at our office.

On Tuesday Dale and I were walking to get ice. It’s a long walk, about two buildings over, and it’s a boring walk so we try to go together. We make this trip about 3 times a day to get ice, snacks, and/or a soda. Well this particular time we happened to catch a certain coworker (”Princess”) from another department wheeling a microwave on a cart down the hall. Now the odd thing is that instead of wheeling it down the closest hall, she went one building over to go down a more empty hallway.

When she was setting it up in the new (hidden) location we questioned her. She said that her department paid for the microwave and she was tired of having to clean up everyone else’s messes in it because everyone else is gross. She was basically saying she wanted to move it to hide it from everyone else so she wouldn’t have to clean it as much. We found her very odd and the whole situation amusing.

Later that day we went to use the microwave to warm up our lunches and we found Mary wandering around looking for it. We showed her the new location and relayed the story we had heard from “Princess”. As we were telling her this, “Princess” walked up complaining about how the microwave needed to be cleaned, and proceeded to stand there waiting while we warmed up our food so that she could clean it. I told her we would clean it when we were finished, but she still hung around.

Mary asked her why she moved it and she told Mary a completely different story. She said that she moved it so it would be closer to the ladies room, and therefor easier to clean. Whatever.

Ok, so at this time everyone is wandering around trying to find the microwave. “Princess” didn’t leave a note saying where she moved it, so of course nobody knew what was going on. Oh but Dale and I made sure to fill everyone in on the stories we were told.

Then next day a sign mysteriously appeared in the old microwave spot telling the new location. Well, I shouldn’t say it’s a mystery because I know who put the sign there… and no it wasn’t me. Then “Princess” put a sign on the microwave door that said something about how people are dirty and they should clean the microwave like they clean their houses. Big mistake. You can’t assume people clean their houses. People are nasty and the people that leave the microwave dirty probably have filthy houses too! Well, then somebody wrote “GOOD LUCK” on “Princess” sign, which pissed her off, so she ripped the sign off the microwave.

Today I came in and the microwave was back in it’s old spot, with no sign on it, and no sign in the old location. I have a feeling this drama is just getting started. I had told Dale on Tuesday that we should start moving the microwave to a different location every day just to screw with “Princess”. Other coworkers were talking about how they were going to intentionally explode food in it, just to piss her off.

Yeah, this is what we do at my office, at least when we’re not having rubber band fights, or leaving ransom notes on people’s plants.

Posted by Tomithey on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 8:53 am.