Not Your's

-For Teri-

Thursday was my last day in an office for the foreseeable future. Starting this week I'm officially a home worker for the next 6 months. I'm of mixed feelings about the whole thing really. I've never worked from home before and don't tend to function well without supervision. I get distracted fairly easily and being at home just seems a little bit like playing with fire.

I suppose I should be thankful that I've still got a job, Out of some 60 people in my office I'm one of around 8 people that are still employed after the 30th, but I'm finding it hard to be thankful given the circumstances.

Over the last couple of weeks the office has been a strange environment. There's an aire of panic and contempt among my co-workers that's meant that not a great deal of work has been done throughout the entire month. While many have plans to move on to other jobs, or early retirement, some haven't managed to find anything yet.

The last week I brought in my Nintendo Wii complete with Guitar Hero and Mario Kart. It was amazing to see the same people that continually condemn my video games becoming almost violent when hit with a red shell moments before they would have taken 1st.

Last thing on Thursday I cleared out my desk. I packed everything I needed for home working in my bag and everything else went into the recycling or got donated somewhere. A co-worker was filling a box of supplies that were going to be donated to a school. Most of my desk contents ended up in there, including my stapler.
It was a momentous occasion, giving up my stapler, almost as momentous as that fateful day that I broke my mug. Like the mug my stapler has been with me since day one, I've defended it aggressively from those that might seek to borrow it without returning it. It's been my weapon of choice against my co-workers, especially the smaller ones, throughout my employment and also like my mug one of the few things in the office that I considered 'mine'.

There was a hush in the office as I carried the stapler over to the box, at least I was quiet. Comments were muttered as I dropped it in. As I somberly made my way back to my desk a colleague asked me if I should have scratched off the typex writing on it before hand to which I replied, 'No, that way they'll know it's not really theirs'.

I like to think that somewhere in a school somewhere hopefully a teacher of similar character will snatch the little black stapler out of a recently donated box, muse as the typex writing over the top reading 'Not yours' and the treasure it as I did. On second thought I'd rather they just gave it back.