There’s a guy in the Space Station who has well-documented “inside voice” issues. When we were planning the office move, every single person brought up his voice as a potential problem – not only does he talk ALL. THE. TIME., he has a very loud voice. Not one person wanted to sit near him because it’s very difficult to get any work done when he is rambling at you about various things. We came up with a floor plan that placed his department in an area away from those who are on the phone a lot, and outside the offices of people who work outside the Space Station more often than they do inside.

Naturally, the Space Board decided to fuck all the plans that had been made, and put him right next to my department and handily away from their offices. This has made things difficult, to say the least. For starters, he sits right next to me, and he is loud. He talks NON-STOP. And best of all? The absolutely bestest thing ever?

He reads out loud.

So, when he’s not talking to me – or someone, anyone made eye contact – or on the phone – he is reading the internet, and WHISPERING WHAT HE IS READING. It is INFURIATING. When I first heard it, I thought he was whispering to someone – then I came to realize that no one is there, and he is whispering to himself. Sometimes it’s just low enough to hear that someone is talking but not what is said; other times I get to loudly and clearly hear what he is reading on the internet. My favourite is when something is not working on his computer, and he starts to whisper-swear. I love it, so hard. The other day I wore a pair of headphones over top of my noise-canceling earphones to try and block him out, and guess what – I could still hear him. I absolutely adore how the needs of the Space Board who are not here all the time outweigh the needs of the people who work here every single day.

Everything is making me cranky today – people’s voices, our lack of money, my raging uteral cramps, the whole non-real job thing. I want to take a few days off next month to help my mom and maybe go on a short road trip – but every day I take off equals no money. I am so fucking sick of not having vacation time.

I want a puppy.

I just emailed the Space Board asking if I can have some days off with pay, as I’ve been here for over 15 months. I also dropped the “according to the government, we should be receiving a minimum two weeks of vacation per year, or 4% vacation pay in lieu of time off” bomb, so we’ll see how this goes over. Put on your life jackets, people – Kimli is once again rocking the boat!

Where’s my puppy?

My birthday is in ten days. A puppy would be an excellent gift.

Long weekends are my favourite kind of weekends ever.

Actually, wait – long weekends that I get PAID for are my favourite kind of weekends ever. Oh, the downside of not being a real boy – sure it’s nice to have an extra day off, but when it comes at the expense of say a full cart of groceries or perhaps a ticket for excessive speeding, it’s kind of hard to sit back and truly relax. As much as I enjoy sitting at my desk all naked and glistening, I’d much rather be getting paid.

This will soon be changing, apparently.

That’s right – wheels are in motion at my Space Station to finally – one year and three months after they should have – turn us into real boys. The Blue Fairy has a wand at the ready, and the paperwork is starting to flow our way. I should be happy about this, shouldn’t I? Except it tastes an AWFUL lot like “too little too late”, not to mention the excessive lack of details we’ve been given. All we have are provincial and federal tax forms to fill out, and a looming date of June 1st.

I am uneasy about this. This is just par for the course with me, given my boat-rocking skills – I pretty much refuse to sign diddly squat until I find out such petty details as:

• Is our pay rate going to change?
• Will we be paid salary or hourly?
• Will we be paid overtime?
• What are you offering in terms of vacation time?
• How retroactive is the vacation time?
• Benefits – are we getting them? How much? Are you flexible?
• How much are you planning on deducting for taxes?
• What of the previous 15 months in which you declared us non-employees even though we so obviously were?
• Discretionary days? Personal days? Sick days?

I know – I am so terribly uncooperative. It feels like I should be jumping with unbridled joy at our impending Real Boy status, but it doesn’t feel right. The “30 day probation” I was supposedly under came and went with nary a word, but the eternal fatalist in me still thinks that every whisper, every glance, every less than delighted hello means the Board is plotting against me. I’d love to be able to say that it’s all in my head, except the shit I went through in April plainly told me that it is not. So what next? Do I sign my life away and be delighted in whatever crumbs they throw my way until the next time someone has a cranky day and decides I am unfit for consumption? Do I try to find any kind of government agency to listen to my tale of woe and mismanagement and find out my options, if any? Do I wait, knowing there’s only a fine line between biding one’s time and wasting one’s time do you know what I mean?

When I explained the situation to the various people in my croo, their expressions mirrored exactly how I feel about this all – a furrowed brow and a “hmmmm”. I don’t know what to do, y’all. I don’t have the slightest clue where to begin. In fact, this whole thing is a lot like the sewing machine – it both confuses and scares me.

Am I on Candid Camera? Is this some kind of sick joke?

The Space Boss’s Wife dropped off ten boxes yesterday, from the liquor store.

That’s it.

There are no other boxes.

I .. am at a loss for words.