It's a bit nipply in here.

I think every office across America has that one room which is always twice as cold as any other room in the building. In our building, that room is my office. So here I sit, middle of July, wearing a jacket and rubbing my hands together so as not to lose feeling in the tips of my fingers.

I am reminded of a particularly cold day a few years ago, back in my old office. It was a windy November morning (or maybe December), and having just biked through a light drizzle I arrived at work absolutely freezing. Fortunately, back in those days I kept a spare change of clothes in the office for just this occasion. I changed into a clean, dry pair of jeans and threw on some new socks, but couldn't find a shirt. I did, however, have my nice warm heavy sweater draped across the desk, so I stripped out of my wet one and just threw on the sweater. I then killed the A/C to get things a little toasty and watched the grey morning pass by outside.

Several hours later a young lady walks in wearing a tight white shirt and a cute little pink vest. She's clutching her arms to her chest and shivering and, of course, is here to take a drug test.

The collection passes uneventfully, but just as I'm getting everything packed and sealed she points out, "You know, I can tell you aren't wearing a shirt under your sweater."

"That's okay," I reply, "I can tell you aren't wearing a bra under your shirt."

She turns beet red and leaves as swiftly as possible.

I guess nobody ever taught her it was rude to point.

Classic Peemeister - You callin' me a liar!?

In honor of the complete and utter lack of anything interesting happening here the past few weeks, I've decided to go ahead and dredge up an old entry from my LiveJournal, back before the Peemeister blog existed. Here's a gem from December 9th, 2004.

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This is a strange tactic I see from time to time at my job, as well as various other places in the service industry: someone will lie about something, and when confronted with their lie, will yell "Are you calling me a liar!?"

This tactic works surprisingly well. Nobody likes to be called names and, what's more, nobody likes their customers to think they're being called names. The usual response starts with "No, but..." and then concludes with an explanation of what the problem is again and perhaps a possible way it can be solved (or an explanation of why it can't be solved). If the liar is really a wily one, at this point he will shout "So you ARE callin' me a liar!"

I mention this because I hear this particular line once in a while at work, where someone will try to weasel through this loophole or that, and when I call their bluff and they're out of options the only thing left for them to do is get confrontational. Today was an oddity in that I met three people who accused me of calling them liars, spaced evenly throughout the day.

Culprit #1: Mr. McBaldington. Mr. McBaldington is the baldest man in the universe. He shows up at 9:30 am to take a drug test. This wouldn't be a problem, except he was in at 8:10 am yesterday for a drug test as well, but for whatever reason could not contribute a sample. It's against the rules for me to take something after the 24 hour mark, so whenever someone wants to leave and come back at a later time I make it very clear that there is a 24-hour rule, that yes they will have to abide by it, yes I am open weekdays, no I will not stay late on my lunch hour, and no I am not open Saturdays so if it's Friday you'd better get here before 5:00 pm or else.

Yesterday when Mr. McBaldington wanted to leave I made it very clear that if he showed up at 8:11 am, that would be too late (actually I'd cut him some slack, but I don't tell people that up front). I also tell him that I open at 8:00, but if something comes up and I open late he's still out of luck even if the lateness is entirely my fault. I tell him he needs to be in by 5:00 today or he risks not getting the collection done at all.

Now, as it was I got to work on time this morning; with eleven minutes to spare even (for you math whizzes out there, that's 7:49 am). So when Mr. McBaldington shows up at 9:30, an hour and twenty minutes too late, I have no sympathy for him. So of course he says "Well I was here at 8:00 and you weren't open." This is, of course, a flat-out lie. Not only was I at work at 7:49, but I had done a collection by 7:59. I pointed this out on my sign-in sheet that someone had, in fact, signed in at 7:54 and had their collection done by 7:59. Mr McBaldington's response: "Are you calling me a liar?"

I told him no, but he should probably get his watch fixed because obviously it was running at least twelve minutes fast. I told him he would have to get new paperwork from his employer if he wanted to do a collection, and he stormed out. He was back at about 11:45 with new paperwork and his drug test was completed successfully.

Culprit #2: Evil Midget Woman. Evil Midget Woman came in and said she needed a drug test for her parole hearing (or whatever). This is a little out of the ordinary for me; it requires payment up front and an extra form. She wants to pay with her credit card, which is fine, except I have no way to run the card at my office so I have to call my bosses in Tampa. I get in touch with them, rattle off the card number, expiration date, yadda yadda yadda, and the card is declined.

Right then I noticed the number I thought was a 1 was actually a 7. I apologized and rattled off the number again with the 7 in its proper place. The card was declined once again.

I tilted the card and saw that the 7 was actually a 9, and I triple checked the card (by the way: white numbers on a white background is hard to read) to make sure I had it right this time (Evil Midget Woman was getting furious) and rattled it off again, but the card was still declined.

At this point, between me and the other office, all our information was correct. We confirmed it when Evil Midget Woman got on the phone herself. Eventually Tampa told me there was nothing they could do and she'd have to find some other way to pay, and hung up.

The woman informs me that she knows her card went through because it's not really a credit card; it's her debit card. And she, like, just put $126 or whatever in the account, so she knows it's good. I tell her, once again, the card was declined. Her response: "You calling me a liar, boy?" (The addition of "boy" to the question was comical because I towered over this woman. She was like two-foot-nothing. Like a hobbit with a drug problem.)

I told her no, but she'd have to straighten out her card with her bank before we could run it. It was agreed that she would pay with cash, but when she found out she'd need exact change (drug tests cost $38 and I don't keep cash at my office) she left in a huff.

Culprit #3: Teh Glassez. Teh Glassez comes in about 4:00 or so, interrupting my work on a Lord of the Rings jigsaw puzzle. Right away I have to stifle myself because this kid is a goth/punk wannabe with big thick coke-bottle glasses. Seriously, if Steve Urkel were emo... and white... he'd be Teh Glassez.

Now, Teh Glassez doesn't want to empty his pockets. He pouts for a bit until I tell him he can lock his wallet and wallet chain (HAH!) and his half-eaten pack of Starburst in the box. Box goes in the bathroom with you, key stays out here with me. Important to note: I never touch anyone's stuff. If they put it in the box, they put it in the box. And when we're done, they take it back out. So when we're done I watch Teh Glassez take his wallet, wallet chain and half-eaten pack of Starburst out of the box and that's that.

He shows up about a half-hour later saying he left some money in the box by accident, and could he please go back and get it? "Sure," I say, "you can go look. But I'm fairly sure you didn't leave anything in there. I checked it after you left and it was empty."

"Dude," says Teh Glassez in his hardest 'tryin' to sound like a tough guy' voice, "if it's not there I'm going to be somewhat cross, because the logical deduction would be that you took my money. Pray let us investigate, good sir." (He was actually a lot less cordial than this but it wouldn't be nice to reproduce his exact language here.)

I go back and unlock the box for him and, sure enough, it's empty. "Dude, where's my money?" says Teh Glassez. At this point I tell him I don't remember him putting any money into the box, or taking any out, and that all personal effects are solely his responsibility. If he did in fact lose some money (funny how he never mentioned how much) he'd be just out of luck.

"Dude, I put money in your box. What'd you do with it?"

"I didn't take anything out of that box, and there was nothing in there when you left."

"So are you calling me a liar?"

This is the third time I've been asked this today, and I'm sick of it. So I answer his question with a question: "Do you maintain that you put your money in this lockbox earlier today?"

"Yeah, I put it in there."

"Then yes, I am in fact calling you a liar."

Teh Glassez was shocked! He'd been called on his lies! The look on his face was priceless, and not just because of the black lipstick (seriously). He said he was going to call the police; I said fine, you can use my phone. I even have the number handy. He backed down. On his way out the door he said he'd be back with the police.

By this time it was ten minutes to closing time, so I decided to leave early. I am currently enjoying my last night of freedom, because between 7:49 and 8:10 tomorrow (whenever I feel like showing up for work) I will most assuredly be arrested and locked up tight.

It's been fun guys! Write to me in prison.

Suffice it to say, i did not actually go to prison. What a disappointment.

Classic Peemeister - Free Your Mind!

Sometimes I sit down to write a Peemeister entry only to realize that nothing particularly humorous or interesting has happened recently. This problem is compounded by the fact that December is my slowest month. Of course, before I started this blog I would just post all the good pee clinic stories on my personal blog, the same one I use to whine about video games and politics and Survivor (but mostly video games). So, I dug up an old favorite from January 2005. Enjoy.

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I think the key to doing a good job is to pretend like the well-being of the entire universe rides on your performance, and act accordingly. This is why, though most of the US populace (myself included) couldn't give two figs about drug testing, between the hours of 8am and 5pm I act like an absolutely brutal rules nazi.

I hear stories about the stuff collectors let people get away with at other offices, and I'm not having it. Nobody gets in without ID. Nobody signs without reading the form. Nobody slides by under 30 ml, and nobody gets their results before the employer gets them. My job is like an exclusive club; coming here is a privilege, not a right. It's my way or the highway, bub.

This is especially evident when people like Mr. FYM show up. FYM stands for "Free Your Mind"; that's this guy's ideology through and through. Free your mind from reason, logic, and common sense, and you'll be free of responsibility, obligation, and social mores. Because the only way to truly be free is to avoid conformity, whatever the cost.

Mr. FYM shows up and doesn't have ID. He didn't leave it at home, he says; he just doesn't have one. He says he ripped up his social security card too, and threw it away. He says carrying ID means they've got you in the machine, and he wants to remain free. I'm not making this up. He actually said "got you in the machine".

I know this fruit loop was just trying to sneak in under the rules, but the way he went on about it you'd think he was there to be my personal hippie savior. Why, he asked, do I content myself working in the endless world of the 9-to-5 grind? Why do I allow myself to be a tool of society? Why do I refuse to challenge the stuffy rules and regulations that bind me?

All this from someone trying to get a job at some roofing company.

I wasn't interested at all in having a discussion with some random nut. It was eventually understood that if he wanted to get the job, he'd come back tomorrow either with a photo ID or with his would-be supervisor in person so I could talk to him.

If I were to have gotten into a debate with Mr. FYM though, my point would have been something like this: challenging authority just for the sake of challenging authority is stupid. The vast majority of the rules we live by as a society are there for perfectly good reasons. Conformity makes my life easier. I couldn't imagine trying to live "outside the system"; I'd probably wind up like Mr. FYM: scraggly, dirty, wearing a shredded denim jacket and paper-thin blue jeans in the middle of January because I can't afford decent clothes, and desperately trying to get a job at a company that traditionally only hires folks who speak no English, and for minimum wage at that. Because I'm "in the system", and because I have a state-issued ID, and because I pay taxes and have a bank account and a Social Security Number and a credit card, I get to live in a nice comfortable apartment watching cartoons all day while drinking gallon after gallon of pre-made pre-sweetened iced tea and eating microwavable junk food, talking to people who live hundreds of miles away via the Internet about "reality" shows where people eat bugs... and all this in what is essentially perfect safety and privacy thanks to a stable government and public services like police and paramedics.

There are bad things about our government and there are bad things about our laws. It is our duty as citizens to have the wisdom to see where the bad things are and try to stamp them out. Throwing up your hands, throwing away your ID and adopting a "damn The Man" attitude simply is not an option. The sad reality of it is, for all the enlightenment Mr. FYM probably thinks he has, if he wants to pay his rent (I assume he's homeless, but I suppose we could give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's just crashing on someone's couch) he's going to have to show up at my office tomorrow along with his supervisor just to get the go-ahead from some jerk 20-something kid who plays video games all day to pee in a cup. If that isn't a kick in the head I have no idea what is.

I originally intended to follow this post up, but never did. I can't remember now whether or not Mr. FYM ever came back. Such is the fickle nature of blogging.