trinityvixen | A lack of boundaries

It was the worst-kept secret in the entire world that my boss was leaving. Before anything was done as far as getting us moved, the vultures were circling. I've given up defending the piles of boxes that have multiplied as I emptied the freezer. Those are disposable goods, no big deal. I did give one girl from the other side a sharpish look, even though my tone was sweet as anything when she walked by, saw a plastic tube holder and, with the air of one who's going to hear only what she wants, asked me, rather perfunctorily, "Oh this is ours, right? I can take it?" I informed her that this was not the case, in fact, and that I'd be only too happy to let her borrow it, seeing as I was not using it. It was returned, all was well.

Once the majority of our things were hauled away by the movers, things picked up the pace more dramatically. Without my knowledge, the department head (it must have been her because there's no way the women in the office would do anything on their own) had put in an order to have the now-empty benches cleaned. The only problem, as I saw, was that that included my bench, and I had to throw everything up on the shelves with less than an hour's notice.

And even before the bench cleaning, people from the department head's lab have been taking advantage of the empty benches and my boss' empty office. My boss said that all she wanted was for my personal desk and bench to be sacrosanct. Thus far, they have been, and I've paid little attention to the MD who comes in later in the afternoons to do one or another experiment for the other lab.

Flash forward to today, when suddenly our (empty, thank god) fridge is not tucked away in its corner but blocking the imaging machine; there's a canister of carbon dioxide hooked up to a dissecting microscope station where my printer used to be; and an enormous iMac is on the desk. Frankly, all of this would be fine except that a) people who aren't me still need to get at the damned imager, so they have to move the fridge, and b) I had to go track down my damned printer. Which, of course, is now making an incredibly loud clicking noise as it prints. Not broken, but something's wrong with the BRAND NEW TONER cartridge. If I take it out, the noise goes away. This is not a long-term solution. I'm going to have to put up with the noise (which is now closer to me--YAY--because I can't put the printer back there lest he passive-aggressively banish it from his domain again and do something worse).

Because this person, who is a notorious night owl who only ever comes in after about eight o'clock (and is apparently moving the rest of his shit in tonight at midnight), I have no prayer of ever meeting him face-to-face to go, "No, really, who the shit told you you could remove my stuff?" No one else has touched our things. When people borrowed the space, they just used it. Nobody made it their home. It's really fucking rude to do that. So I left a note taped to his keyboard (OH HOW I WANTED TO TAPE IT RIGHT TO THE CENTER OF HIS iMAC'S SHINY SCREEN) and said, sweet as anything, "Hi! Nice to have somebody here! TOUCH MY SHIT AGAIN AND DIE." I also left him my e-mail so if he really needs to move something, he can give me a jingle before he does it. Or, more likely, for me to read the next morning after he's already done it. At least that way I won't have to track down someone else to go, "Where the shit is my printer?"

As for the MD who has been using that space, I see his stuff has been as unceremoniously redeposited on the desk directly behind me. I could care less. That is, I do care, and I'm displeased that I'm going to be back-to-back with someone again, but his stay will be more unpleasant than mine, seeing as the noisy printer now has to reside on that desk. There's literally nowhere else for it to go.

(Well, I mean, I could just directly connect it to my computer and put it on the bench next to me, but why the hell would I be more accommodating after this bullshit? Besides, I don't have the faintest idea where the extra printer cable has gone that would allow me to hook it up to my computer without an ethernet cable, and there's only one ethernet jack in the computer and I need that for internet communication with my boss. Sooooo sorry.)