(I’m an administration assistant in an accountancy firm, and part of my job involves dropping various deliveries to people as they arrive throughout the day. Many people, especially higher-ups, seem to have no idea what my day-to-day actually involves, so I’m frequently brought queries about things that I’m not responsible for delivering, like newspapers. This one starts with an e-mail.)
PA: “[My Name], we didn’t get a [Newspaper] for [Ill-tempered Partner]. Can we source a spare or send someone out to get one?
(I head to said partner’s department, and see him in his office reading a different newspaper, which he also gets on a daily basis. It’s just about lunchtime, so I wait for him to storm off, which he does with a demand for his ‘missing’ paper. I’m five seconds in his office.)
Me: *to PA* “Found it.”
PA: “Where?”
Me: “Underneath the one he was reading.”
(Later that day, I get an email from one of our accountants in another office, asking about a file that was sent in to another partner and seems to have not arrived. The email thread before I am included holds his comment that he never got it. While I wait for him to leave his desk – it’s just about finishing time – I cover my bases by visiting everyone who got a delivery around the same time, to check if I left it with theirs by accident. Two trainees are also searching the whole floor. When I come back, the partner is gone. Two minutes later I call the accountant who emailed me.)
Me: “I found that file.”
Accountant: “Where was it?”
Me: “Underneath a bunch of others at the corner of his desk.”
(Naturally, no apologies were offered, at least not by the partners whose items ‘I’ had lost.)
