Interoffice Space

Something that's really been getting my goat lately is interoffice mail; you know, the manila envelopes that mysteriously show up at your desk that are sent to you from someone else in the company that would rather send something un-anonymously to you than see your face and hand you whatever it is they had to send.

In my lifetime I've used the interoffice mail three times; all to send someone something lewd and inappropriate from someone else. ("Jill, why the hell did you send me this decapitated Barbie doll through the interoffice mail?")

Don't get me wrong, I understand the utility of the interoffice mail system, especially for very large companies with different divisions where it's just not practical to hand deliver something. And believe me, if I could avoid human interaction all day at work, I would. But interoffice mail is the equivalent of the modern day Pony Express. You hand someone a package (probably your administrative assistant); they hand it off to someone else (probably the mail room); they then deliver it to yet another person (the recipient's administrative assistant); then it finally gets delivered if it hasn't been intercepted by a tribe of angry, displaced Iroquois. The probability that it gets misplaced somewhere in one of those transactions is damn near 100%. Plus if you're like me, you never get interoffice mail when you're sitting at your desk; it only materializes when you're away. If I were to piss once during the day, I'd come back to find a piece of interoffice mail sitting at my desk (and six voicemails) like the admin. spends her day lurking in the bushes around my cubical like a revolutionary guerrilla fighter waiting for the opportune time to strike.

Clearly I'm mad as a hornet about this because I’m constantly getting shit through the interoffice mail. In fact, I got a goddamn birthday card from HR through the interoffice mail. Like, they were all sitting around and someone said:

“Hey, does anybody know who the hell this guy is? I’ve never even heard of him before; like I’m not even sure he actually works here.”

“I’ve never heard of him. Just send him the card through the interoffice mail. If he doesn’t work here it’ll just disappear. Oh, and can you just sign my name for me?”

“Yeah, me too. Just sign my name with a little flower above the “i” instead of a dot to make it look like I actually care.”

Just today I got a pretty important document through the mail with a handwritten note on it from the sender. Are you shitting me? It took you longer to write the goddamn note and sign it with a fucking smiley face than it would have for your to walk down two flights of stairs and hand it to me with an actual smile. As much as I want this to be a condemnation of the sender, in reality it's a condemnation of me. As if I am so repulsive/intimidating/hideous/terrifying that they consciously decided to put more effort into not seeing me than actually seeing me. Like I said, I would be fine not interacting with another human for the entire workday, but as I'm still relatively new, I'm actually putting effort into looking approachable as opposed to my typical rabid dog look. So for someone to choose to send me something through interoffice mail just fires me right up.

I imagine one of my buddies back in Ohio is getting a lot of interoffice mail these days, though he couldn’t be happier about it. He’s currently in the midst of the longest lazy-beard of his life as described below:

“As for the beard, some are now calling me "grizzly" at work. My apathetic attitude towards my personal hygiene at work is reaching unprecedented levels. The beard, un-tucked shirts, and jeans (w/ holes) 3 out of 5 days are commonplace. My lunches are stretched from 60 to 75 minutes, and I'm consistently 3-5 minutes late every morning. Not late enough to be reprimanded, but just tardy enough to annoy everyone else. I feel someone wants to speak to me about my downward spiral at work, but the beard keeps them from doing so. It's like a force field for those in a position of authority. They don't want to fuck with me because of the beard. They know the beard means business.”

You have no idea how much I envy him.

And one last thing – does anyone know why the interoffice mail envelopes have holes punched through them? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation but I can't look at them without thinking their air holes, as if someone is tempting me to send a living creature to someone else at work through the interoffice mail.

“Hey there, New Guy, looks like you got something in the interoffice mail. What is it?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never gotten anything in the interoffice mail before. Let me just see what it is… Oh my god! It’s a reptile! Oh my god, I just shit my pants! Is that a… I think it’s a… Is this a newt? I think it’s a newt! Someone sent me a live goddamn newt through the interoffice mail! Where the hell do you find a newt? I’ve never even seen one before. And who would do something like this? It’s a fucking newt and now it’s on my keyboard. Oh, this is the worst day ever!”