Rambling Rhodes

Surreal Morning

This morning, I entered the office about 15 minutes early, so that I could adequately scramble and do absolutely last second prep work for an interview. I sequestered myself in a nice, quiet conference room with a good quality speaker phone, set up my tape recorder and dialed the number.

Things started off quite well, at first. I was knowledgeable enough about the subject matter to not stink it up entirely, and I had been able to stick to my list of prepared questions, more or less.

And then suddenly there was a knock at the door that made me jump out of my skull. It was a delivery woman with a huge Dell computer package. It didn't matter to her that I wasn't the intended recipient, or that I was on a call or. . . well, it didn't seem like much at all mattered to her beyond getting my damned signature so she could go smoke a pack of Winstons or whatever. I was so surprised and flustered by the whole thing, I had a fairly tough time getting back to the interview at hand, which I managed to conclude, albeit in limp-a-long fashion.

But then I had that damned box to deliver, which didn't seem at all fair to me. After all, it's not my job to be the go-between guy when it comes to UPS deliveries. Still, I managed to locate the actual intended recipient and work my way back to a familiar hallway. Just when I thought my day was about to return to normal, a voice called out behind me.

"Excuse me, do you have a minute?"

I turned around to see a guy carrying a box and wearing a Jimmy Johns baseball cap. Since the box also said "Jimmy Johns," I immediately assumed he was from Jimmy Johns. My first thought was "how the hell did he get in here?" That was my first thought because you need badge access to get in the building. Lacking that, you piggy back behind someone who DOES have badge access, but I didn't see anyone else anywhere near him. It was like he just materialized there using some sort of Jimmy Johns transporter beam.

"Would you be interested in a box of free sandwich samples from Jimmy Johns?" he asked, before I could press him on the whole badge access thing.

Normally, I'd be all over a free sandwich offer, but I couldn't shake the central question of "where the hell did this guy come from?" From which of the earth's frozen poles did this Sandwich Clause travel? Also, why me? How did I get singled out for this particular offer. Surely, provided he didn't beam directly into the building, as I suspect, he could have asked the person he piggy backed behind. My head was full of questions, and very few answers. Clearly, I needed someone with more interpersonal skills to adequately deal with the situation.

Thankfully, here in cubicle land, there's a go-to person who has more personality than Sybil. I knew I could count on her to deal with the unexpected appearance of the Jimmy Johns guy and his box 'o sandwiches.

If the Jimmy Johns guy was to be believed, the random sandwich bestowment was part of a promotional program for a new Jimmy Johns that supposedly opened nearby, although I'll be damned if I know where that store is; I've certainly never seen it.

Apparently, I'm the only person who is reasonably paranoid by the appearance of a box of free Jimmy Johns sandwiches, which were quickly scooped up and put in the big refridgerator in the break room. This was followed by a group e-mail to the whole office informing everyone of the community sandwiches that could be procured in the break room. Through the day, I witnessed several of my fellow cubicle denizens happily munching down on the Jimmy Johns offering, while I could not bring myself to do the same, owing entirely to the suspicious nature by which the sandwiches came to be with us.

If you happen to read about a massive outbreak of food poisoning coming out of Rochester this week, you'll know why.

Posted by Ryan at February 17, 2009 02:32 PM | TrackBack