Somehow, the section of my job description reading “and other duties as assigned” has expanded to include handling all maintenance complaints. I’m not sure when the change occurred, but suddenly, my voice- and e-mail boxes are brimming with worried-sounding messages from, say, a coworker concerned that someone might encounter the horrible smell in the third-floor ladies’ room and associate it solely with her.

Some of the complaints are ordinary: “Hey, it’s Lisa. One of the lights is out over my cube. Can you call someone to fix it?” I sure can, Lisa! As a reward for her lack of emotion and urgency, Lisa gets to go to the top of the Fix-It List, with the actual urgent problems involving urine or the homeless or flames.

I reserve the bottom of the Fix-It List for special cases, and there is a lot of competition to see who stays at the lowest spot. Generally, the criteria for remaining low on the list include:

1. Calling me and e-mailing me AND coming to see me about a single issue within a fifteen-minute period, with extra negative bonus points if the complainant asks more than two other coworkers about my whereabouts, within my earshot.


2. Typing the complaint in all-caps or in a variety of fonts, especially if the words describing the actual problem are typed in red or some other bright color, so I be sure to see that the RECYCLE BIN is OVERFLOWING.


3. Stopping me in the hall to perform a dramatic re-enactment of the moment when the problem was discovered. This one happens a lot, although the dramatics are limited to two specific people, so maybe they’re competing for Best Actress in a Dramatic Complaint, or something. For some reason, this style of complaint tends to include a lot of fake choking and coughing, hand to chest, like they’re auditioning for the role of Mimi in La Bohème.


4. Including the word “stinky” or “turd” in the complaint. Unnecessary.


5. Overstating the effect of the problem, as in the time I got a message from someone with the subject “I just had a HORRIBLE experience!!!” which turned out to be that she had nowhere to set down her purse while she looked for the keys to let her into the building.

This afternoon, when I returned from a meeting, this message was waiting for me:

Something stinks really bad in the break room. Maybe a dead rodent?

That’s almost as inviting as the Great Elevator Peeing Incident—how could I resist rushing to inhale the aroma? I wish I could say that I did rush to inhale the aroma, but of course I took my damn time about it, as I do with everything else, and by the time I got to the break room, everything was peaches and cream, relatively. I conferred with another employee in there, and she agreed that there was no problem. My favorite type of complaint: self-resolving.

Then, I came back to my desk, grumbling over the recent high volume of odor-related complaints and realized that although it was 3:30 in the afternoon, and although I had in fact showered this morning, I had neglected to apply deodorant.

You may address all related complaints to my attention.

Star of the day. . .Cyril Jordan