Consultant Chronicles Week 15
Monday 22 June 2020
Last time I wrote about the client being in a call with four consultants who all had their backgrounds set to colorful balloons on a purple backdrop. Today I asked him whether he knew that we were celebrating his colleague’s birthday or whether he thought we had all gone crazy. He told me that he assumed it was for his colleague’s birthday. Great, Deloitte image still intact.
Friday 26 June 2020
This whole week has been HOT. I didn’t manage to get the inside temperature lower than 26C, and today was the worst day with a constant 29C inside. Since it’s Friday and probably everyone prefers to be anywhere that’s not at their desk, I decided to abandon my desk and office-proof attire, put on my bathing suit, moved my computer to my balcony, and worked from there. I noticed that more colleagues left their cameras off and suspect that no one was wearing office-suitable clothes. There is one colleague with whom I always talk with cameras on, so I felt the need to disclose my current situation (“Sorry I’m not turning on my camera today, it’s because I’m wearing a bathing suit to survive the heat”) and after a short pause to process my words he laughed and cheered me on.
Boomer Blog Week 5
I do my hair toss, check my nails. Baby how you feelin’?
I’m feeling HOT AS HELL, Lizzo.
This week was warm. Last year during the heatwave it got so hot I laid down on the floor of my office to cool off and long story short, I fell asleep and was there for several hours. In order to avoid a repeat of what was certainly the least productive day of 2019, I went back to working from home for a couple of days. I was also not productive there since my dog sighs dramatically every 15 minutes because his life is very hard and I’m interrupting his sleep. He needs to get his 19 hours a day or he gets cranky, and when my talking disrupt him he gives me a judgemental stare.
Anyway, enough about my dog. Let’s go back to the boomers. This story includes an appearance from a dog. What a subtle segue.
On April 14th, a coworker informed us that she fell off her bike when a dog attacked her out of nowhere. She swerved to avoid hitting it, and fell hard. This caused a bump on her leg that filled with moisture and was causing her discomfort.
Update on April 21st: “The bruises are getting a lot less noticeable but I do still have a very weird moisture bump that’s not going away.”
April 28th: The moisture bump is getting bigger
May 12th: There’s a pretty elaborate story on the moisture bump. I don’t remember what the exact update was, but I did write down the timestamp and we talked about it from 11:10 to 11:12 so you can fill in the details yourself.
May 19th: The moisture bump is getting smaller but it’s also changed colour so that is a new development
June 16th: The moisture bump is gone.
In case you’re wondering where the gap in the moisture bump updates is coming from: that’s when the w.o. boomer was on vacation, so he wasn’t there to ask this coworker on how her moisture bump was doing. Yes, you read it right. While the first week was unprompted, after that the w.o. boomer asked her about it every single week. Why? Because of reasons.
Do I know these reasons? No. Was I forced to listen to these stories regardless? Yes.
That’s it for this story, but because it’s a little short I have some random interactions for you.
W.O.: “I understand our system automatically informs the ING. ING? No, not the ING. I don’t mean the ING, I mean the IGZ. Yes the IGZ”
He does not mean the IGZ.
Manager: “This item is on the agenda because there’s still a lot of people struggling with oh God I’m getting all these bloop bloop bloops on my screen struggle with the proces. Shall I run through the process again for everybody?”
Coworker shakes head ‘no’ furiously.
Manager: “So when you start and you decide to file a report...”
All my coworkers are on mute, which can only mean that everyone has zoned out.
Next week is dedicated to our boomer CEO who frequently uses English phrases that she really shouldn’t because I don’t think she knows what they mean.
And also, exciting news. We’ve submitted an official request that we no longer want to have weekly zoom meetings. This request will be discussed with upper management. Please send prayers. In the meantime we’re going to talk about how we’re going to make our weekly zoom meetings more effective, at our next weekly zoom meeting. Send more prayers.