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So we're driving home from SCA on Friday night. It's a little after midnight because we're both always so hyper after meetings (especially Bobby, having just spent two hours bashing people with wooden swords) that we always go with the other heavy fighters to Pizza Hut. Mind, we have to be up at six the next morning for our shift at the Aquarium.
It is the coldest night we've had in Maryland so far this year. The temperature is hovering around 26F/-3C, we're driving north through Carroll County, in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch blackness ...
... and we get a flat tire.
8^|
Okay, not funny, Murphy!
We were following the marshal who's training Bobby (Graham) and his wife (Dawn!), and luckily, we got a flat right in front of a gas station, but probably for that reason, Graham and Dawn didn't think much of the fact that we were limping into a gas station and didn't stop. We watched their taillights dwindle into the darkness. I think I wubbled a little bit.
Changing a tire in below-freezing temperatures, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, while exhausted and knowing that the alarm will be ringing mighty early--like in five hours--does not make futzing with a flat tire much fun.
Oddly, we got a flat on the same tire on the exactly a year earlier, minus one day, while driving home from Ocean City with Sharon and Kirsty. Much as we like Bobby's car (well, as much as two eco-radicals can like a car that's not a hybrid), it does terribly on tires. This is the fourth tire we've put on that spot. Luckily, Bobby bought the warranty after last year's flat.
Since I received quite the outpouring of sympathy for my MIA pie plate, then I will tell of the outcome.
It ain't good, folks.
In fact, it's about as bad an outcome as one could have expected in such a situation.
As I think I noted, I posted a note on the communal fridge, asking for information leading to thearrest recovery of my missing pie plate.
Becky, our office secretary, came into my office yesterday to tell me that someone had asked her to tell me that the pie and the plate had both been thrown into the garbage.
Yes. Thrown into the fucking garbage.
Apparently, they--meaning my officemates--decided to clean out the refrigerator, so they had some inmates come up to do it. Only rather than supervising the clean-out or even checking that everything in the fridge/freezer should be thrown out first, they instructed the inmates to throw everything away and left them to it.
So my pie and pie plate got thrown into the garbage.
Poor Becky. I ranted when I heard this and she bore the brunt of it. I cannot believe the lack of respect that these people have shown.
They ask me to bring something to a potluck feast. I do. They don't eat it. I wish to take it home. They ask me to leave it so that they can have it as leftovers.
They still don't fucking eat it.
Less than a week later, without telling me that they've not used my dessert, without asking me what I want done with it, they just let a bunch of inmates throw the whole thing in the garbage.
Yes. Because I spent my money (heavy cream is expensive) and took an evening of my time to make something that I thought people would like and enjoy so that they could throw it--and my dish--into the garbage like it's worth nothing more than a loaf of moldy Wonderbread.
I told Becky that this is the first and last time that I will participate in one of their potlucks. I don't need to be shown the middle finger twice to get the hint.
Becky understood. She's been through worse with these people. She'd bought for our office a bunch of Crockpots and Sternos especially for potlucks, asking for no money, only that if people use them, that they clean and return them. She told me that after one event, nothing was returned and, six months later, was found scattered around the building, still filthy. And half of it missing, never to be seen again, meaning that it had either been stolen or thrown out.
She took it all home and put it in her attic.
That's a complete lack of respect. I get it. I'll gladly eat my own food in my own office and save my efforts for people capable of showing--if not appreciation--at least consideration for the property and efforts of others.
I was so upset by this. Part of me knows that it's just a stupid pie and plate and there's genocide and war and persecution in the world; most of the world would probably love to take my "problems" in exchange for theirs. Still, the lack of respect and basic decency among fat, healthy, professional people who should surely know better--and who work in a field, nonetheless, where the primary mission is rehabilitating people who have shown a lack of respect and consideration for the laws of society--makes me slightly ill.
Then the craven fuckers couldn't even come and tell me themselves--like, maybe apologize?--but had to get Becky to do it.
Asshats.
No good deed goes unpunished.
It is the coldest night we've had in Maryland so far this year. The temperature is hovering around 26F/-3C, we're driving north through Carroll County, in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch blackness ...
... and we get a flat tire.
8^|
Okay, not funny, Murphy!
We were following the marshal who's training Bobby (Graham) and his wife (Dawn!), and luckily, we got a flat right in front of a gas station, but probably for that reason, Graham and Dawn didn't think much of the fact that we were limping into a gas station and didn't stop. We watched their taillights dwindle into the darkness. I think I wubbled a little bit.
Changing a tire in below-freezing temperatures, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, while exhausted and knowing that the alarm will be ringing mighty early--like in five hours--does not make futzing with a flat tire much fun.
Oddly, we got a flat on the same tire on the exactly a year earlier, minus one day, while driving home from Ocean City with Sharon and Kirsty. Much as we like Bobby's car (well, as much as two eco-radicals can like a car that's not a hybrid), it does terribly on tires. This is the fourth tire we've put on that spot. Luckily, Bobby bought the warranty after last year's flat.
Since I received quite the outpouring of sympathy for my MIA pie plate, then I will tell of the outcome.
It ain't good, folks.
In fact, it's about as bad an outcome as one could have expected in such a situation.
As I think I noted, I posted a note on the communal fridge, asking for information leading to the
Becky, our office secretary, came into my office yesterday to tell me that someone had asked her to tell me that the pie and the plate had both been thrown into the garbage.
Yes. Thrown into the fucking garbage.
Apparently, they--meaning my officemates--decided to clean out the refrigerator, so they had some inmates come up to do it. Only rather than supervising the clean-out or even checking that everything in the fridge/freezer should be thrown out first, they instructed the inmates to throw everything away and left them to it.
So my pie and pie plate got thrown into the garbage.
Poor Becky. I ranted when I heard this and she bore the brunt of it. I cannot believe the lack of respect that these people have shown.
They ask me to bring something to a potluck feast. I do. They don't eat it. I wish to take it home. They ask me to leave it so that they can have it as leftovers.
They still don't fucking eat it.
Less than a week later, without telling me that they've not used my dessert, without asking me what I want done with it, they just let a bunch of inmates throw the whole thing in the garbage.
Yes. Because I spent my money (heavy cream is expensive) and took an evening of my time to make something that I thought people would like and enjoy so that they could throw it--and my dish--into the garbage like it's worth nothing more than a loaf of moldy Wonderbread.
I told Becky that this is the first and last time that I will participate in one of their potlucks. I don't need to be shown the middle finger twice to get the hint.
Becky understood. She's been through worse with these people. She'd bought for our office a bunch of Crockpots and Sternos especially for potlucks, asking for no money, only that if people use them, that they clean and return them. She told me that after one event, nothing was returned and, six months later, was found scattered around the building, still filthy. And half of it missing, never to be seen again, meaning that it had either been stolen or thrown out.
She took it all home and put it in her attic.
That's a complete lack of respect. I get it. I'll gladly eat my own food in my own office and save my efforts for people capable of showing--if not appreciation--at least consideration for the property and efforts of others.
I was so upset by this. Part of me knows that it's just a stupid pie and plate and there's genocide and war and persecution in the world; most of the world would probably love to take my "problems" in exchange for theirs. Still, the lack of respect and basic decency among fat, healthy, professional people who should surely know better--and who work in a field, nonetheless, where the primary mission is rehabilitating people who have shown a lack of respect and consideration for the laws of society--makes me slightly ill.
Then the craven fuckers couldn't even come and tell me themselves--like, maybe apologize?--but had to get Becky to do it.
Asshats.
No good deed goes unpunished.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-04 11:24 pm (UTC)A few days before the potluck, I was with my parents, lamenting how I wanted to make two pies for my colleagues but had only one pan to use. Since they know how busy my weeks become, and how much I love sharing my ice cream with other people, they kindly gave me one of theirs to use.
And it's gone now.
In a way, that's more hurtful to me than if I had spent a lot of money on it. My mom mentioned reading about our flat tire on LJ the other day, so I knew she had seen about the pie plate too. And I didn't have the courage to tell her that it was her gift that got tossed because I was too foolish to trust that my coworkers would value my efforts as I value theirs. So maybe I am no better than them, in this. :)
But yes, it was a slap in the face that they had our secretary give the news to me because they know that I'm friendly with her and she's good at diffusing difficult situations. It would have hurt a lot less if someone who'd made the decision had come to my office, called, or emailed me to say, "I'm so sorry but we made a mistake and we regret it terribly. We didn't mean to be thoughtless or hurtful when we did what we did."
But no. No one could be bothered to do that. Which is perhaps just as thoughtless and hurtful as the original act.
Ai, the angst surrounding Dawn's cookery ... but thanks for the comment, the support, and the kind ear. :)