I'm finally a part of the office

One of my jobs as assistant to the Division Director (ie glorified and underpaid secretary) is to take each month's phone bill as I receive it from the DSS higher ups, draw lines separating each phone number, write names of whose phone number it is, and circulate among the 25 staff. The staff are supposed to initial next to their phone numbers to say that none of those calls were personal calls. It normally takes two months for my 25 staff to pass the phone bill and initial it.

The DSS higher ups didn't like this and got onto me. As if I could hurry them up somehow. So when the phone bill for March (yeah so it takes a month or so for the higher ups to give it to me) arrived on my desk, I decided I'd try something different. I sent an email:

The phone bill for March is now out in circulation. Please help me by circulating this one quickly.

If we are able to get this phone bill initialed and circulated back to me by Friday, May 21, I will bring breakfast for everyone.

Thanks and good luck!

Ashley

Then the first email came back:

Ashley,

You sure you want to start something with offering us food? Lord knows we can eat! Good luck!


Well this scared me a little bit. I was thinking a box of pastries and some bananas would be good for a breakfast for this bunch. Boy was I wrong. These people eat a Cracker Barrel type of breakfast. Biscuits, sausage, eggs, gravy, the whole deal. I didn't know what I got myself into. I just hoped that the phone bill wouldn't be circulated in time. The deadline I gave them was two weeks. There's no way they could do that in two weeks what normally takes them two months.

ONE week later, the phone bill is sitting on my desk. Every single person had signed, initialed, crossed the t's and dotted the i's. It was perfect. The higher ups would love it. I was shaking in my boots. This meant I'd HAVE to bring breakfast.

So I sent out another email, thanking everyone and telling them of the day I could bring breakfast (I checked everybody's calendars and found a day where nobody was busy in the morning). And I waited for folks to tell me they couldn't make it.

None of that happened. I got tons of emails back, but most of it was people offering to bring things. Biscuits, sausages, gravy, fruit, juice, plates, grits...by yesterday afternoon when I had sent out the email to remind everyone that breakfast would be this morning, I couldn't think of anything to bring because everybody else was bringing something. I did bring one thing anyway, I made them my guinea pigs and made a hashbrown casserole, which I'm told was a wonderful thing. Phew.

Boy it was a spread. And they were right. They could EAT. We have a few straggling biscuits left and some fruit and maybe half a donut. I didn't bring my lunch today b/c I figured I could have some leftover casserole. It's all gone. These people are like hamsters. You see food bigger than their heads, turn your back and next thing you know the food is gone - and their cheeks seem slightly mishapen and bigger.

Phew. It's over. They liked it, they liked me, and now instead of just being the new secretary of the meanest boss in town, I'm a part of their team.

And now I want a hamster.