monster sarcasm rally

Today we have a new character to introduce. His name is Marvin. Well, it's not actually, but it'll do for now.

My phone rings. I answer.

'Hi', Marvin drones. Oh great. One word and I'm ready to go jump off the Bloor Viaduct. Confound that anti-suicide barrier! [shakes fist] He speaks in a deep monotone that sounds like he's doing his best to keep from bursting into tears. Every word takes twice as long as it should. Every sentence is punctuated with a profoundly dispiriting sigh.

Most of the guys have assistants to do all their dirty work for them. Not Marvin. For some reason, he doesn't. Hypothetically, this means he has to do all his own formatting, detail checking and corrections. Realistically, it means that I have to do it for him. Publishing his document should be a 15-minute job. Because I have to act as his assistant, it should turn into a 45-minute job. But it doesn't. It turns into a 3-hour job.

Sue doesn't know how to use Micro-friggin-soft Word or Excel. He tries. He really does, but each and every bit of effort he puts into his files means an extra chunk out of my day spent trying to figure out how to undo what he did.

I could just send the files back to him and make him fix them himself. God alone knows how much worse he would actually make them in the attempt. And besides, he might cry. If you know anything about me, you know that I can't deal with crying people. If a close friend bursts into tears, I burst into the kitchen and make a cup of tea. I present him/her with the finished product and quickly back away to a safe, non-hugging distance.

If somebody I don't know that well were to burst into tears, I don't even know what I might do. Erm... That's not true. I'd yell. When people cry, I yell. So... Right, probably best not to burst into tears around me. Just in case you were planning on it.

Of course, I've just given you the secret weapon. If you want me to do something and I don't want to, threaten to cry. I'll do just about anything as long as we can avoid the infernal blubbering.

Anyways... Where was I?

Oh right. I was about to fix Marvin's files for him and thought I'd have myself a bit of a rant first.

The end.