insert circus music please…

…all I wanted was toner. I’m pretty self sufficient - I’ll even put the toner in myself, I really don’t need IT to do it for me.

But we have this “system” in place. We have to submit an “IT help ticket” in order to notify the IT team that something is amiss.

I decided to go by the IT team (this was first mistake, actually going to the IT team was my second mistake and we won’t get into my first mistake). Okay, so I decided to go to the IT team and just double-check that no one had already submitted the request for new toner so while sleuthing – I went over to the other side and IT outlined the steps I would need to execute in order to have the toner changed.

I guess I am a little slow because I didn’t quite understand what they were saying, so I asked them very nicely with a pleasant smile plastered on my face, “I’m sorry but can you explain that to me again” I believe I asked them this question 3 times because I am still convinced that I misinterpreted what they were asking of me…could they really be asking me to do the following:

1. Submit an IT help ticket requesting IT to check if there is an available toner in stock
• This would allow IT to verify that toner is in fact needed for the requested printer (i have no idea what this means?)?

• Providing that there is toner in stock (not in the printer) - IT would notify me and then close the ticket (this would also allow them to pull statistics on how wonderful their turnaround time is) and my next step would be to:

2. Submit an IT help ticket requesting IT to change the toner
• Since I submitted #1 above, I will have my wish granted and the toner will be changed

Abracadabra – I present you with…drum roll please….efficiency.

So I took a deep breath and showed IT the paper which I had just printed that was bare of any words, symbols or drawings and said – I’m pretty sure that there is no toner. Thankfully, one of the IT people (yes this conversation took two IT resourses) – confirmed yes indeed the toner needed replacing, in which case I only needed to submit one ticket to “change’ the toner. (help me please).

So as I was recanting my fabulous story to my neighbour – I started laughing so hard that I was crying. I think all of the “interesting people” in the entire world have quite possibly gathered at this one company and therefore the only answer to these situations is to insert the circus music (“ this example seems somehow appropriate)”…

…you know when you have a situation and there are simply no words in the entire English dictionary to express it, when you can’t believe the ludicrous-y of the situation or just the sheer mind bogglement of it all…the best thing to symbolize these moments is by inserting circus music. I usually apply the concept of circus music to work only, although I suppose you could apply it to any situation – but you don’t really want to dilute the meaning of circus music.

It is when things are so helter skelter, higgledy-piggledy, when things are just so mind numbingly unbelievable that you can’t even fathom how the world goes around or in this case how my workplace survives…

So if you see me, glassy eyed, zoned out and in a daze, it just means that the circus music is playing…over and over and over…


NOTE: I usually try to provide definitions but for this parituclar blog…I think it best if we kept it simple.