Office Outtakes

For those of you who missed the predecessor to Office Outtakes (Cult Chronicles) go here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

These stories are about a specific coworker I used to have. She was a sweet girl, but she ... (how do I put this?) ... didn't have a verbal filter. For other Office Outtakes, go here, here, here, here, here, and here.

This story requires some background:

Every week, our office issues a large internal report. It is filled with individual chunks of data that someone back in the day lovingly labeled, "Notes." There is also a team tasked with researching these Notes each week. The deadline for the report is Wednesday, and because some of the information can be difficult to track down, Wednesday is usually very busy for this group. Someone even more creative than the first guy nicknamed this "Notes Day." We also work in an industry where it is important to jump in and be proactive. Everyone is busy, but we make time for projects that come up and work it out.

Now for the story (which, even after that tedious explanation, may still only be funny to the few people who work with me):

My coworker, we'll call her Spacey (can you tell I'm running low on creative/wacky nicknames?), had been working here for a few months. She was on the team doing the Notes report.

One day, we had a new hire come on board to the team. We'll call her Lindsay. One of the first orientation meetings for Lindsay was to meet with the manager of the Notes team. He explained how the team worked and the process for researching. After going through some of the difficulties that can arise in the research, he also explained that other coworkers (translate: bosses) may approach her, asking for help on various projects. Here is the gist of what he said:

"Sometimes, people will ask for help on a project. If they do this on Wednesday, don't say, 'But it's Notes Day!' Now, you may think this is a no brainer, but we actually had someone do this to one of the bosses ... and I'm not going to name names (translate: Spacey), but I'm betting you'll be able to figure out who it was by the end of the week."

Lindsay knew by the end of the day.