This is not a test

I've an odd job.
Yes I realize that to most of the people that know me, I don't have a job.
I generally come and go as I please. Showing up in strange places at seemingly random times.
I go to work at 4 am.
For those of you that lead normal, sunshine lives. 4 am is not the middle of the night, its just a while before the butt-crack of dawn.
I get emergency calls occasionally.
Sometimes, but very seldom actually are the emergencies real.
I have just had to broaden my view as to what, exactly, constitutes an emergency.
I wont use any names, I cant.
A day or so ago, I started getting calls at 3:30 am. An emergency in one of my buildings. Unspecified as to the nature of the crisis, but from the panicked tones and veiled nervousness on my voice-mail and carefully worded semi-literate pleas in the emails I was receiving I surmised it was something big.
A little background.
About a year ago I had a power failure in one of my buildings.
This particular building houses (among other things) a lab.
As in Laboratory.
They store things in this lab, in giant stainless steel locked refrigerators.
Things that if they got even a little thawed, even a little bit of exposure to humans, could make some very sick people.
A lot of very sick humans.
I got one call.
one.
The other day I got 15 calls. From 15 different people. 36 emails.
All within an 8 hour window.
To say I rushed is a bit of an understatement.
I calmly sped to the building, calmly ran in, I calmly eschewed the elevator and sprinted up the stairs.
8 flights.
Opening the doors to a kicked termite mound of activity.
2 seconds.
That's how long it took for the lowing masses to recognize I was there and start clamoring.
One of those marvelous instances of mass hysteria where every single person is talking at the exact same time.
I picked the calmest looking of the bunch, a distinguished looking gent.
He had a sardonic tilt to one eyebrow that gave me a little hope for the survival of the entire floor. A little humorous gleam in his eye as he surveyed the crowds of cubicle lemmings milling about.
He walked me over to the emergency.
Briskly walked.

Bananas.
That was the emergency.
Last week one of the lemmings had gone on vacation.
He called one of his co-lemmings the day before the emergency to tell a sad tale.
A sordid tale.
A tale of woe and calamity.
See, he had left a bunch of bananas by accident locked in his cabinet.
Sardonic eyebrow and I, we stood there.
In front of the unlocked cabinet, and I reached in and removed the browned bunch.
The sigh of relief from the herd was audible.
This is when it gets weird.

I walked, mouldering fruit in my hand, to the nearest garbage pail and was just about to calmly chuck them in.
It seemed a good idea, after all, if you can simply dispose of the emergency, you really should.
I was stopped.
Mid chuck.
By 4, count them, four women and 2 men. That's a total of 6 (unless I miscalculate) humans.
All of whom wanted the fruit.
Is a banana a fruit?
Needless, these people, budding chefs all of them, wanted those blasted browned bananas to make bread.
Banana Bread.
no shit.
So I set them on a table.
With a conspiratorial glance at the sardonic eyebrow, I left.
Left them to go and type up my required 6 page emergency report.
Left them to cajole, plead, argue and possibly use the wisdom of Solomon to distribute the potassium packed delicacies on their own.
I've an odd Job.

Stranger things

Some of the conversations I have with people border on the absurd.
Scratch that, let me re-phrase, very few of the conversations I have with people could be considered normal.
Possibly because I do not fit into the "normal" spectrum, but I think that the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Either that or Karma-man hates my guts for stealing his weed in a previous life.
I had a female walk up to me at work the other day and throw a hand drawn floor map at me. Then she screamed (loudly) "I want my 48 feet back!"
I had no idea who she was or what the hell she was talking about. Fearing that she was having an episode of some sort I plastered the "concern" expression on my face and remained silent.
She plastered the "furious hate" expression on her face and stood staring at me with her arms folded.
I felt that she was ready to stand there all the live long day so I relented and said "Huh?"
She took this for the green light and was verbally off like a shot. After about a three minute rant, three minutes by my watch, which I kept glancing at, I got the gist.
She had given me a hand-drawn request for some small interior project she wanted done the week before, measured out with her very accurate paces, and I had the absolute gall! The nerve! The GOD-COMPLEX! To give her back a blueprint, computer generated from the stupid building plans that reduced her spacious 48 feet to a paltry 32.
I was confounded. Rendered speechless.
She took this as even more encouragement and started wailing about the unfairness of life, the stupid domination of men and their even dumber ability to pee wherever they feel and my idiotic reliance on such inane things as "BLUEPRINTS" "TAPE-MEASURES" "LEVELS AND LASERS" and other such malignant tools of Herr Satan.

I had recovered sufficiently by this point to try and reason with her by explaining that on the 4th floor, there really was only 32 feet between the walls in her area and That I would be pleased to walk over with her and show her. Using the tape measure that, since time immemorial, has given us dumb ass Americans the measure of feet, inches and so forth.
She actually threw her laptop bag on the ground and screamed at me that only if I gave her the 48 feet back which I had taken from her was she ever going to let this drop.
She turned on her heels and marched directly into the CEOs office, slamming the door behind her.
Not before I was able to hear the screamed, "I just want my 48 feet back....."
Stunned Silence.
I heard the click of a keyboard, the hum of a printer.
Then Laughter.
Not a roar of laughter, not a group, not even the dual chorus of two folks laughing at a good joke. 220 people within hearing distance and one guy was laughing.
One.
I turned to see who it was.
A Director, of another Division.
To my somewhat stunned expression, he laughed even harder.
Patted me on the back and said "your job really sucks"
yes.
Yes it really does.