Reading Comprehension 101

[bronwynrh]

You're talking on your cellphone while walking through a hallway and, at the end of that hallway, you spot a 7-ft long screen and a Please Do Not Disturb sign in the nook about 20 feet to your left in a side-hall.

Do you:
a) say nothing and continue on your way to the elevator in the main hallway (or back up the hallway from whence you came)?

or

b) give your cellphone pal a blow-by-blow as you walk up to the screen, comment on the sign and the fact that you hear "a funny noise" coming from behind it and START TO MOVE THE FUCKING SCREEN?

"Excuse me, there's a reason for that sign," I said as I sat behind the screen with my breasts exposed and the pump contraption just starting to do its job.

What the flying fuck, people?!?

The voice was not one I recognize and I didn't have the presence of mind (or slack in the hoses) to stand up to confront the idiot in person. I also couldn't just drop the bottles because I'd wind up covered in milk and there'd be an awful mess. A pumping mother is in an extremely vulnerable position, particularly if she isn't taking any modesty precautions over and above a PRIVACY SCREEN and DO NOT DISTURB sign.

And oh yes. A lactating mother must be relaxed in order to express milk. This is a basic rule of physiology. How relaxed do you think I was after this episode?

Not wanting to inform the entire MedCenter world about what we're doing behind our privacy screen, I made the following alteration to our sign:

Private Area
In Use
Please
Do Not Disturb

I resisted the temptation to add the unprofessional, "This Means You, You Nosy Fuck!"

Of course one must be careful lest one find herself forced to make her baby's lunch in a toilet stall.

In other news, that 7 foot long screen did not pass inspection by the building manager who, I'm told, threw an unprofessional (by my supervisor's standards) e-mail fit in which she threatened to rescind her approval of the space and gave an ultimatum: Replace the screen with a furniture-quality (a new criterion) one, approved by Me by August 15 or I will throw your (functional but not up to spec) screen out in the dumpster.

Awesome. Just watch her pick the most expensive one we come up with. Furniture-quality screens are expensive - and we need two of them to cover the full 7 feet.

*argh*

Comments

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Ugh.

*hugs*


How much are we wagering on the assumption that the cellphone asshat was hoping to catch someone having sex, or something?

[bramey.livejournal.com]

I can't for the life of me figure out what he could have been thinking. He doesn't need to know what's going on back there anyway. He only needs to know that what's going on back there is none of his got damm business.

Besides, if I ever hear sex that sounds like "whooshwhoosh whooshwhoosh whooshwoosh" I will be entirely freaked out because obviously it could only be sex between corduroy-coated helium balloons.

Or something equally disturbing.

[microbie.livejournal.com]

"Furniture-quality" screens? What does that mean? And how does a furniture-quality screen even begin to pass for a real room with a real door?

I'd be tempted to plant my furniture-quality boot up her XXX.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

We can't have a room or a closet or anything resembling three walls and a door because we are not wanted in any such place, all such places are spoken for and/or neither my company nor the other company has such a place and neither can/will pay the landlords for one.

So we are in a 3 x 7-foot bump-out at the end of the hallway. Think of a flat-top capital A. Left leg represents the end of the main hallway, the hole is the elevator, the crossbar is a short hallway leading to the backside of the elevator and this bump-out is at the end of that crossbar.

Clear as mud?

Anyway, it's a low traffic spot that avoids the concerns the building manager had regarding our use of the 2nd-floor lunch room. Generally speaking, it's quiet there, but today some jackass decided to get curious.

Why he couldn't come back and look when the sign was gone, I'll never know.

[microbie.livejournal.com]

Sorry the sarcasm in my reply didn't work. I think the building manager is being an idiot, which apparently happens frequently in that place, as evidenced by cell-phone jerk.

Are you allowed to put anything you want on the screen? Because maybe you could write "Keep out: Douching station." That should keep away the morons.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

I gotcha :)

And no, we can't put anything on the screen. She's not happy with a heavy-gauge white cardboard screen (two of them put together, actually) because it mars the stylish beauty of her hallway.

Heaven forbid an investor come by and say, "o how nice of you to provide a hallway corner in which mothers can express milk. And o how very nice of you to provide them with an inexpensive screen!" She'll probably pass off the space and fancy screen (once we get one) as her own generosity.

I wonder if they'll see her generosity or if they'll think she's an non-progressive fool for not actually providing a decent walls-with-a-door space to her lactating tenants (realizing that she is under no obligation to do so)?

[wistfulunicorn.livejournal.com]

Yep. The world is full of idiots!

[scorpbeotch.livejournal.com]

*face-palm*

Morons. And the scary thing? The morons are the majority.

[histygirl.livejournal.com]

The longer you raise children, the more you realise how true that statement is,luv.

*sigh*

it's amazing how dumb people

[suladog.livejournal.com]

can be, just when one underestimates them they always seem to rise to the occasion. the baby on the other hand, is adorable.

Howdy, Stranger!

[bramey.livejournal.com]

Good to hear from you again. How are you?

Samuel thanks you for noticing. Judging by his reaction when he sees his reflection, he seems to think he's pretty cute, too. :)

[mysterygal11.livejournal.com]

OMG. People are SUCH. IDIOTS.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

I was gobsmacked.

Now I wish I'd had the fortitude to just quietly sit there while he moved the screen. My loss of privacy would have paled next to his embarrassment and humiliation. That would have been fun to see.

Dammit