memo to self: take job, shove it

Ever since I started working for the Cube Farm, Administrative Assistants Day has been an occasion not for joy, but for irritation.

Oh, the first few years weren't so bad. There'd be a maudlin speech by our supervisors and a lame breakfast from the same shitty bakery that caters all of our events (unless it's a meeting for the bigwigs, in which case an excellent BBQ place brings in lunch and then the bigwigs' assistants deign to put their leftovers in the break room, where people swarm upon them like locusts even though all that's left by the time those corporate fatcats are done are a few corn muffins, a spoonful or two of baked beans, and three spareribs deemed too grisly for their expensively capped teeth), and then they'd hand out coupons for one free hour off work.

Okay, not exactly the greatest treat, but something at least.

Then AdAss Day got progressively worse. Here's a sampling for your schadenfreudian pleasure:

• They took away those coupons. God forbid we not get one fucking hour off work!
  
• One year, we got a bookmark that said "If you pray for rain, be prepared for mud!" WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Oh, and a pad of paper and a pen. Come on, we work in an office! We have a fully stocked supply room for all of our pen and paper needs!
  
• Once we all got a lapel pin shaped like a puzzle piece and a craptacular poem about how we are all beautiful unique puzzle pieces that, when put together, make a gorgeous picture. Each pin was exactly the same. Discuss.
  
• One year, the management team cooked and brought in breakfast and then sat there and WATCHED US EAT. You know how at Versailles peasants were allowed to watch the queen give birth? It was like that, but in reverse. Oh, and with eating instead of spawning.
  
• And last year, a supervisor who has since gotten a promotion and moved out of state (thank Christ) brought in her children to serve us breakfast. The daughter knocked a pitcher of orange juice over, narrowly missing my lap (others weren't so lucky), and then she screamed inconsolably while a flock of middle aged women cooed over her.
  

So yeah, AdAss Day has always been underwhelming at best and actively insulting at worst. Today's offerings?

A catered breakfast by, you guessed it, that same shitty bakery. And this year, we didn't get to go to the breakroom and get one measly hour away from the phones. No, they put it on a folding table over by the managers' desks, and we had to grab it ourselves.

Oh, except I come in at 9:30, and you know what was left? A plate of rapidly browning fruit and one lousy goddamn ONION BAGEL, which I would eat if I was literally starving to death or offered a princely sum of cash but not under any other circumstances.

"I'm so sorry," my work wife J said, upon seeing me return to my cube with an empty plate and a scowl on my face. "They put the food out at 8 and everybody just went for it, including the fucking claim reps. I was so mad! I would have saved you something but I didn't know what you'd want."

"That's okay," I said, shoving the empty plate in my desk for another day. I booted up my computer (which, by the way, they recently upgraded, completely fucking up all of my settings in the process, necessitating a whole lot of hair pulling and a visit from an IT person who smelled like Chipotle and poor dental hygiene) and saw a new e-mail from my supervisor with the subject line "Happy Administrative Assistants Day!" I opened it, clicked on the attached Word document, and watched as my computer completely froze up.

"Oh, by the way, don't open that e-mail from [supervisor]," J said from behind me. "Something's wrong with the clip art she used and it crashed everybody's computers."

"Yeah," I said through gritted teeth. "I just discovered that."

So next time Bosses' Day rolls around and my kiss-ass coworker T comes around asking for donations so she can buy our supervisors a huge giftcard and a bottle of wine, I'm going to hold up my hand and say, "Oh yeah, let me give you five!"

And then I'll slowly fold down every finger but the middle and say, "Oooh, guess I only have one."