Mardi Gras bad juju

I knew that sin city was soon upon us, but I had no idea until while rushing past a colleague’s office this morning I heard projected at me, “HAPPY MARDI GRAS, C!”

And there it was, the official firing gun of the sin and atonement season, the time when we get stupid on debauchery, and promise and pray to be holier than thou for the next month before Easter – LENT! Being raised the son of a Southern Baptist minister, I had never heard of lent – I suspect it’s mostly a Catholic thing – oh, those Catholics, perpetually punishing themselves in the teachings that ‘once a sinner, always a sinner’.

When I first heard of this lent thing, I was well into my sophomore year at university, and just seeing some of my friends get so worked up over having to give something up for lent, made me insane. Give something up? Give what up? And what determined if what you gave up was sacred enough or not? Well, I sure wasn’t about to give anything up for a month to atone for anything. I had been giving it up as a preacher’s kid since the day I was born! Give it up – hah! Not! If anything, lent was going to see debauchery like it had never seen before. (But that’s a separate story for my life’s tome.)

So, here it is late in the day, and I find myself staring down the clock awaiting the 5:30pm Fred Flintstone rock quarry whistle to blow. And what a day it has been, trying administrate all that needs to be done in so little time, while working in an environment where it seems you have to jump through hoops like some circus poodle to get the most miniscule of projects completed.

You need a pink form for this, you need a blue form for that; and you need an orange form for the other (not the day-glo color orange form – just the regular orange colored form), you need a cost center, you need authorization, you need to go six floors up, take the magical elevator that climbs at a 45 degree angle to the far reaches of nowhereland to sign your name in blood, promise your first born, and swear allegiance to the almighty copy room gods so you can get the Xerox machine fixed.

Here’s an example of just one thing that would cause anyone to reach for the gallon jug of Pepto-Bismol they keep stashed in their desk. I needed to get a security keycard for a new employee we are on-boarding this week (the names have been changed to squelch the carnage:

CJames asks Christy for keycard.
Christy asks Bob for keycard.
Bob asks Charlotte for keycard info.
Charlotte asks Lucy for keycard info.
Lucy gives CJames form to fill out.
CJames receives email from Christy (after Lucy gives CJames forms to fill out) stating that Bob will handle directly with Dick to resolve keycard issue, CJames need not do anything further.
CJames emails Bob (and cc's Christy) for follow-up, to confirm if Bob has contacted Dick yet.
Bob tells CJames to sign the form that Lucy gave him last week.
CJames fills out form and takes it to Bob for additional signature authorization.
Bob informs CJames that Bob cannot sign, and that Dick must sign the form instead.
CJames has the form completed and sends it to Dick for signature.
Dick now says the form must be signed by someone named ‘authority’.
CJames then goes back to Bob to get Bob's signature.
CJames gets signature and elusive keycard.

Ugh! There’s bad juju everywhere today...and when I ask the magic 8-Ball sitting on my desk if there is relief within sight, it reads, "Prospect not likely." Today, I feel like someone trying to get their last nickel out of a ponzi scheme before the gig is up.

I’ll be giving up lint for lent.