Dispatches From the Long-Term Contract Front

So, for the past week and a half or so, I have been talking to the Oatmeal Dude. And I suspect that Oatmeal Dude is flirting with me, but I really have no idea, as the topics of conversation are not exactly scintillating.

To wit - and this is why he is, and forever shall be, known as Oatmeal Dude.

I was standing at the coffee machine, near the enormous cappuccino machine and I was using the hot water pour thingie to add water to my morning oatmeal. This was how it all started. So I am standing there, stirring, adding, looking pensive and probably frowning and I am totally bleary-eyed when this dude comes over and says, "I can never get the proportions right, either."

So I inform him that the only good way to eat oatmeal is if it is just barely moist. As in, not only should the spoon be able to stick in it when you turn it upside-down, it should be good for repairing the International Space Station. Oatmeal Dude laughs and disappears back to wherever he does whatever the hell he does.

A few days later, I meet him again (unplanned - BTW I have no idea what his real name actually is) and we discuss the coffee choices. I inform him that, whenever I am the one to make the coffee, I always make the Sumatra blend. It's not that it's so wonderful, it's that I figure, you know, a third world country could use the positive press, or something like that.

Then this morning we discuss the fact that the coffee maker is mondo slow and why the hell hasn't this big honkin' Financial Services behemoth that we both work for invested in a K-cup system where we can all have our own individual coffees and then the people of mighty Sumatra would, I dunno, well, maybe we could do something else for them, like if they start exporting bagels to us or something like that. He then informs me that there is a particularly colorful selection of sweetener packets this morning but the yellow ones are the best and I should not bother with the other kinds as I will be sorely disappointed.

And I go back to my desk, bleary-eyed as I am, and God knows I look like I just rolled outta bed (for that is, more or less, accurate), and I recognize that Oatmeal Dude is seizing opportunities to strike up a conversation.

I guess this is what happens when one is close to 50. Flirting, perhaps. But it's no longer, what's your favorite band? It is, instead, what's your favorite brand of artificial sweetener?

I suppose it could be worse, in ten or twenty years, when it's what's your favorite brand of disposal undergarment?

I have just been through over a dozen emails and a half a dozen phone calls to IT to get two files sent over. If this works and I finally, actually, get the files I have been asking for, I will be promoted to IT Whisperer. This means no additional salary or benefits but I will be able to, maybe, get the files I want, when I want 'em.

Plus my virus definitions might actually stay not out of date.

I remain hopeful, and may begin baking cookies for the IT department, stuck as some of them are in Cow Hampshire.

Man, I must stink at selecting Yankee Swap gifts. I always seem to get my own gift back. This year was no exception (it was art supplies). But it was better than my coworker, who got a hat with plush reindeer antlers that, if you press a button, plays "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer".

Oooh! That's a keeper.

But my team did win trivia (77 points! Closest competitor had 74 - and that included the rest of my department).

Don't feel bad - I got mine back too.

And so another contract comes to a close.

ah - you're leaving us....you are about the most normal contractor I have seen around these parts.

It's all an act.