Of Mice And Maps

I just started at a new company. I needed a second mouse for travel and was told by my manager to call [Employee] to get one.

Around 1:00 pm, I called [Employee].

Me: “I need a travel mouse. Where are you? I’d be happy to come by your office to pick it up.”

Employee: “No. I’ll come to your office to drop it off.”

She insisted. I had not seen her by 5:00 pm but chalked it up to her being busy.

The next afternoon at 1:00 pm, I still didn’t have my mouse, so I called [Employee] and asked about the mouse, again offering to come to her office. She became somewhat agitated on the phone.

Employee: “I dropped one off already!”

Me: “I didn’t see it anywhere. Maybe you dropped it off in the wrong office? My office is—”

Employee: “I couldn’t possibly have put it in the wrong office. Look behind your desk, under your chair, and in your desk drawers.”

I couldn’t find it anywhere, so she said she’d bring me another one and rather blatantly implied that she thought I just hadn’t looked hard enough.

By the next afternoon at 1:00 pm, I still had not seen [Employee] or my extra mouse. I called her again asking about it. This time, she blew up at me.

Employee: “I’ve brought you two mice! What keeps happening to them? Maybe your officemate is stealing them!”

Me: “Are you sure you’re not going to the wrong office? My name isn’t on the door yet.”

She became livid and said, loudly enough that my officemate heard her through the phone, that she would be in my office in five minutes, and then hung up before I could verify what office she was going to go to.

Fifteen minutes later, she walked in, announced that she had been putting the mice in the wrong office, handed me a mouse, and left again.