Um, Hello?

I think the firm for which I work is possibly one of the most laid-back offices on earth. No, we don't have a ball-pit or a nap room, but pretty much anything goes. Feel ill? Call in sick: sick days don't count against you. At all. If you're sick, you're sick, so don't spread your germs, just stay home.

I did not stay home. In fact, I worked all day. I was, for a while, once again, the only person in the office. Typically, I lock the door when I'm alone in there, but today, I forgot to do so, and as I sat in my cubicle - the farthest spot in the office from the front door - I heard a tentative female "Hello?" I called out "Lola?" thinking that the receptionist had returned. I thought incorrectly. It was a tile distributor's representative and her trusty (male) sidekick, and they had come to update our sample books.

Granted, she had to ask the name of the firm, because she wasn't 100% certain we were an architecture firm when she wandered in... She just figured that we were because - you know - there's a lot of architecture firms in the building. Small firms. That have only one newbie employee manning the whole office for a stretch of two or three hours.

Not that I mind. Being alone means I get to listen to whatever music I want - today was 60s lounge music day, for me - and I can stand at the window and watch the cars drive past for five minute stretches without interruption or being asked what I'm looking at. I can also dance on my way back to my cubicle to the fancy 60s lounge music complete with James Bond sound bytes and laugh out loud when I catch my reflection in the window of the plate glass.

It can also be eerie. Like when you're alone and the tile rep shows up. She was funny, though, and laughed when I joked about keeping the door locked when alone in the office in case suspicious people masquerading as tile reps decided to come case the joint.

Huh, she laughed at my joke... Maybe we should use her company's tile...

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user Wamito, used under the Creative Commons Sharealike/Attribution license. Image may be found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sardana_Ceramic_Tiles.JPG)