My Fifty-fourth Post

So I spent a long time at the library today. I had a paper that sort of snuck up on me. The professor technically would have accepted it up until Thursday, but you could tell that he really didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve grading papers. So I figured I’d turn it in today in hopes of encouraging lenient grading. Anyway. It took me a long time to get it all down on paper… mostly because I simply could not concentrate.

Anyway, I ended up going to work almost 2 hours later than I was scheduled. I was able to do this because my co-worker, Drazi (I’ve decided to stop using initials—it’s getting confusing!) is amazing. Anyway. Work ended up being so fun, and we ended up getting a little crazy toward the end.

Now, for a little back-story, my manager has recently implicated a new policy that basically sucks. My job takes place in a rather loud area, so it’s difficult to have much in the way of conversation. Drazi and I joke that the most useful skill we’ve learned is how to have an entire conversation with someone without being able to hear a word of what the other person is saying. You think I’m exaggerating; I’m not.

Basically the most entertaining part of my job is the music we play over the speakers. We can turn the volume up high enough so we can hear it above the clamor of our little workspace, and then I can sing along to it as loud as I want without anyone being bothered by it. Previously, we’ve had a wide range of control over the music that we listen to. We could choose the radio station or bring in CDs, and we control even the volume (although technically we aren’t supposed to change it). All of that changed after Thanksgiving when my manager decided that we could only listen to that radio station that’s been playing non-stop Christmas music since early November. Now, I really have nothing against Christmas music—in fact, I love Christmas music…

But.

There are some drawbacks to listening to this station for 20 hours a week for an entire month. For one thing, radio commercials get really annoying after a while. Really, really annoying. For another, they tend to play the same songs over and over and over again. It’s not uncommon to hear the same song three times during my regular shift. Now granted, they’re usually different versions preformed by different artists, but still! Let’s just say I’m getting really tired of “Little Drummer Boy” and “Do You Hear What I Hear.”

So when Drazi and I realized today that we were working out last shift together for the rest of the year, we were feeling nostalgic for some of the CDs we used to play. We appealed to our direct supervisor (not my manager—he was gone for the day) who could see our plight and was very understanding.

And that is how we ended up blasting the soundtrack to Wicked over the sound system at work. Drazi, Ash (another coworker from a different area), and I have had a lot of practice singing along to this particular musical. In fact, we know pretty much every word, harmony, and counterpoint on the entire CD. And we sing along. In parts. Needless to say, we had a fabulous time. Then I treated Drazi to ice cream to make up for my missing two hours. It was great. I feel energized, like I can even conquer my remaining three finals which have recently started to weigh a little heavy on me as finals week progresses.

So this has been a needlessly long post. Sorry for subjecting you to it.