Friday, February 09, 2007

how to get paid without really trying

i work in an office. that's probably enough said right there. but let me continue. i do payroll. i get a lot of comments on how i'm really quiet, and how i'm "so relaxed". i think this is in reference to the fact that people keep coming up to me and saying "do you want some more time sheets to enter?", and i always say "yeah, sure." i mean, face it: this job is an endless stream of incoming paper to process. there will always be more. even when we finish this week's cheques, more will come in next week. so of course i'm going to say "yeah, sure." it gives me something to do.
besides, i'm nosey. you can speculate a lot about how peoples' lives are going by their time sheets. so there i sit, mindlessly typing and making up stories about people i don't know based on how many dentist's appointments they had last month.
it's a living.
we have special leave for going to a funeral, and when people use this code, they always have to make a note about why they left. not in terms of why they chose to go to that particular funeral (thought that might make even more interesting speculation), but who the funeral was for. usually, anyway. today i ran into a spate of folks who put the time they left, and in brackets, "(mourner)". like there's a lot of different roles they could be playing at the funeral. i suppose they could put "minister" or "eulogist" or even "caterer". but "mourner"? i mean, i assume if you're going to the funeral, you qualify as a mourner. there's really only two classifications here: "mourner", and "the departed". i haven't seen anyone put that in yet.
imagine, getting paid for being at your own funeral?
that's the life for me.

1 comment:

Dr. Matt said...

Maybe they're moonlighting as professional mourners? It's like a glee club, but with less glee.