I don’t work at GR anymore, but I have many a tale to tell. Here is an oldie but a goodie.

We were in the lunch room one merry day minding our own business when the Riddler came in looking more than a little agitated. He looked at me and asked:

Riddler:
What are you doing here?
Unit23:
Having lunch…?
Riddler:
Why aren’t you recording the interview?
Unit23:
What interview?

At this point I was starting to get freaked out. I had no idea that we were even involved in a project with Mr. whacker or that we were back in the interview recording business. I kept direct contact with the Riddler to a minimum, so being asked 2 questions in rapid succession during lunch hour about something that I knew nothing about was sending a flurry of scenarios running through my mind.

Do you ever get that feeling like you’ve gone to work and you’ve forgotten something and people are acting weird. And then you look down and realize that you’re not wearing pants? Man that’s embarrassing (no pun intended).

Well, that’s how I was starting to feel. What if I really had known about the interview but forgot? What if I even talked to Doctor whacker about it in person one day and accidentally forgot the conversation? What if I was losing my mind?

“Have you logged into TurdNugget(TM) recently?” And as soon as the Riddler uttered these words, my worst fears were eliminated and I knew instantly that there was no way that I could have been responsible for any of this.

FYI SIDEBAR: TurdNugget(TM) is a useless content management and scheduling software that the Riddler was desperately trying to implement with little success. [NB- Also referred to in this Litany as LandMine] In fact it probably would have just been chalked up as another useless expense and would have fallen to disuse if not for the valiant efforts of the Riddler. He tried to make us fall in love with it by cramming it down our throats and performing various stunts such as the one being described in this story.

Unit23:
Not since last night. Why?
Riddler:
Well Mr. whacker needed us to record an interview for him. I scheduled it for you in TurdNugget(TM). You were supposed to be there at 11:30 (It was now about 12:45). He’s on the phone right now wondering how long it will take you to get to the site.
Unit23:
Well I’d have to pack up all the equipment, take a cab over, and set it up. It will probably take me at least 30 minutes.
Riddler:
Go talk to him and ask him if he wants you to come now, or if he wants you to re-schedule the whole thing.

I should have stopped there.

I should have just gone to the phone and talked to Mr. whacker and sorted the whole mess out. But there was a question burning inside me. It started somewhere in the inky depths of my bowels and I knew what was going to happen. I could feel it rising and I was powerless to stop it. The question spewed forth from my mouth and all over the Riddler:

“I’m not that far from your desk, why didn’t you just tell me in person?”

I couldn’t actually decipher any words from the incoherent mumbling that followed my question but I have a feeling he was rattling on about the responsibility of checking TN(TM) regularly and making good use of an important (read: expensive) resource. Either that or he was practicing an elaborate speech to give to the doctor in an attempt to befuddle him thus hiding the raging incompetence that the poor Mr. whacker was dealing with. Finally he said “I guess I dropped the ball on that one.” And with that he hung his head and left the room.

I wish the story ended there, but there is more - and it gets better! Here is the condensed version.

I got on the phone with Mr. whacker to see if he still wanted me to come given the new time line. He told me that he couldn’t because he and the other person had other appointments to keep. He also told me that he was extremely frustrated because he had been on our phone system for about an hour trying different extensions, desperately hoping that somebody would eventually answer. Had he been able to get a hold of me earlier we might still have been able to get it done that day.

FYI SIDEBAR: Christing Rob was replaced by a phone answering system that nobody knew how to use. Callers easily got confused and nobody that worked at the company knew how to eliminate the roughly 80% of extensions connected to people who no longer worked there. So 80% of the extensions he tried were useless, and most of us (who represented the other 20%) were on lunch. No wonder the poor sod was having such a time trying to reach somebody.

I apologized and told him that there was an internal misunderstanding (I didn’t mention the Riddler’s plan to have TurdNugget(TM) replace all other forms of human communication, although I desperately wanted to) and offered to re-schedule. I gave him my direct extension and told him that when he was ready to re-schedule he should call me directly.

I opened TurdNugget(TM) to see what else I had “scheduled” for that day. To my amazement it was totally blank, not even the interview that I had just missed was on there. “Puzzling”, I thought. I switched to the weekly view and saw the interview in question. The Riddler had scheduled it for the next day at 9:45.

The only thing that gave me hope when I was employed there was to think that the Riddler secretly wanted to run a successful company. That the continual sabotaging of clients, employees, and projects were carefully thought out and executed plans to ensure quality control and to weed out the faint-hearted clients, employees and projects.

I mean, what was the alternative - that I worked for a raging lunatic who was not even competent enough to send an employee to an important appointment with a client. In fact, not even competent enough to schedule said appointment correctly in a software program specifically designed for scheduling appointments?

Eventually my hope turned to despair as I came to realize that the latter is true.