An entire month of festivities has begun in an annual festival designed to remind the humble employees that we are a valuable part of the company. It’s fairly innocuous, rah-rah stuff, with treats and events most days. And special dress-up fun, too.

It’s all in good fun and only coincidentally it runs the entire month before the company-wide employee survey, which is important in our world because some management ratings are based on it.

Today we were supposed to show up in company logowear. We’ve been given a variety of freebie shirts over the years, so I dragged the first one I found out of a drawer.

Someone, however, has taken this theme to the extreme. A supervisor showed up wearing a large cardboard box with the company logo enlarged, photocopied, and pasted all over it. With a company logo shirt on underneath, of course, because she can’t sit down and work while wearing the box. Which is ironic, because she’s really good at thinking outside the box.

And no, I can’t take a picture. It may be worth a thousand words, but it’s also worth more than my job, thank you very much, so no pix for you.

I’ve got more to say on Things in General, but it’s only low-level grousing, so into the extended entry it goes.

Things are going to get uncomfortable around here. Up to now we’ve been spread out on 2 floors, and the floor I’m on has so much extra space that there’s 1 or 2 extra desks between each agent. This means that for people with allergies (me! hello!) we don’t have to react to perfumes, body odor, and the smell of stale tobacco as often.

Until the big re-org, of course. They’re consolidating all of us up here no this floor. Then we’re going to be sitting chock-a-block next to each other, plus the lady who supposedly quit smoking has definitely fallen off the tobacco wagon.

She’ll be sitting right next to the fax machine after we all move into our new configuration, and I send lots of faxes. This means that I’ll be coughing, sneezing, getting a sore, tight throat, and getting itchy hands from touching stuff over there (when I have to sit at her computer to reboot it or rewrite a programmable key for her, I have to go wash my hands and forearms afterwards).

Also, with everyone sitting close, we’re going to have a lot more sick time. The air quality here is terrible, and it’s only going to get worse.

I’m really going to have to talk to my supe about this, but I don’t know if it’s going to be possible to make a change – OR if it’s a good idea in the current climate to complain.

Oh, goodie! Someone just came by and said we’re moving TODAY. This is going to be a wonderful opportunity.

Good thing I already sent the email to my supe.