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Standing in the way
Jul. 19th, 2004 12:36 pmMy boss, like my father and, I fear, like me, has a talent for blocking indoor pedestrian traffic. (The subject of indoor motor traffic has not come up.) My dad and I both slouch in doorways, I am sorry to say, and J. will tell you I have a knack for, while acting as sous-chef, leaning against the very part of the kitchen counter where she needs to be.
With the boss, though, it's really rather astonishing. First, you need to know that the office is chock full of stuff, mostly bookcases, fileboxes, and piles of paper, and that there are only narrow paths for navigation among them. Next, that we get a goodly amount of correspondence here by fax, e-mail, and the good graces of the U.S. Post Office (often in cooperation with certain analogous foreign organizations, and both foreign and domestic private delivery services). Now, the boss seems to prefer to read these missives from scholarly colleagues and/or shiny publishers' catalogs while standing wherever he happens to be when they come to his attention. This means, usually, the doorway to my office, near to which I place incoming e-mail messages (with the extra annoyance that he is standing silently two feet behind me for long stretches), or by the fax machine, which blocks both the front door to our office suite and the doorway to the Administrative Assistant's office, or by the incoming mail table, which makes passage through the main room impossible.
The final thing you need to know is that while he is reading anything, he is utterly engrossed, and does not respond readily to external stimuli.
This has, of course, been true for nearly a decade (although it wasn't quite so crowded in here when I started), but today the fact that he somehow managed to block my path from three different locations during a simple round-trip to the men's room has made it seem more noteworthy than normal.
While I'm in a vaguely complainy mood, it seems that whenever traveling by subway I can now expect at least one 20-minute wait along the way. This will of course only get worse next week for the DNC.
In more pleasant news, I have just added to my friends' list several people I actually know, whose journals I have checked in on from time to time. Hello, hello.
With the boss, though, it's really rather astonishing. First, you need to know that the office is chock full of stuff, mostly bookcases, fileboxes, and piles of paper, and that there are only narrow paths for navigation among them. Next, that we get a goodly amount of correspondence here by fax, e-mail, and the good graces of the U.S. Post Office (often in cooperation with certain analogous foreign organizations, and both foreign and domestic private delivery services). Now, the boss seems to prefer to read these missives from scholarly colleagues and/or shiny publishers' catalogs while standing wherever he happens to be when they come to his attention. This means, usually, the doorway to my office, near to which I place incoming e-mail messages (with the extra annoyance that he is standing silently two feet behind me for long stretches), or by the fax machine, which blocks both the front door to our office suite and the doorway to the Administrative Assistant's office, or by the incoming mail table, which makes passage through the main room impossible.
The final thing you need to know is that while he is reading anything, he is utterly engrossed, and does not respond readily to external stimuli.
This has, of course, been true for nearly a decade (although it wasn't quite so crowded in here when I started), but today the fact that he somehow managed to block my path from three different locations during a simple round-trip to the men's room has made it seem more noteworthy than normal.
While I'm in a vaguely complainy mood, it seems that whenever traveling by subway I can now expect at least one 20-minute wait along the way. This will of course only get worse next week for the DNC.
In more pleasant news, I have just added to my friends' list several people I actually know, whose journals I have checked in on from time to time. Hello, hello.
