I Don't Understand Woman #7

I’ve worked in quite a few offices and office towers and I understand what things need to be done if you ever find yourself as the last person in the building. Also, and probably more importantly, as an adult I’ve found that turning off a few lights and locking the fucking doors isn’t really a daunting series of tasks.

Yet right now where I work people are watching the clock and as soon as it hits five, BAM, mass exodus. At first I assumed everyone had an awesome work-life balance thing going on. No though, it is because nobody wants to lock up the office. I was sceptical of that as well at first, woman and even some men have a wariness of closing up alone, a natural level of caution even in the best of locations is to be expected.

But no. It’s just the locking up thing.

Rhetorical Jesus can't help

you either.

I’m often the last one in the office, not because of any superior work ethic on my part mind you, it’s simply that I don’t get flustered by the simply act of locking a door. It’s both sad and funny, to watch a horde of woman stuff shit in their handbags and at times, literally run outside to ensure no part of their person is within the building by the time the chime sounds the fifth time on the fifth hour. Of course, there could be some supernatural work-vampire shit going on as well. That may sound stupid, but is it any less stupid than a grown person scared of closing an office?

A true leader would solve the problem by calmly grabbing each person by the shoulders, looking them in the eye and in a commanding tone scream, “Harden the fuck up!” while shaking them vigorously and then adding for clarity, “You’re a fucking adult!”. But unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where that kind of rational thinking receives any kind of accolade.

I sat down with one of the woman folk to discuss what is inherently difficult about the whole thing and why they fear the mundane. As with most things, I learned nothing and someone left feeling traumatised or as I call it, ‘educated’. This is pretty faithful to the exact wording:

Me: What is the problem with the alarm system?
Lady: It’s really noisy and what happens if we forget our security number?
Me: Isn’t it your birth year?
Lady: Yes, but it isn’t that easy, things are happening and it’s really stressful.
Me: Stressful enough to forget your birth year?
Lady: Yes.
Me: Wait a second, you are just closing the office, right? There aren’t like waves of velociraptors you are fighting off?
Lady: You don’t understand, sometimes we can forget something and then the lights get left on overnight. I can’t sleep sometimes wondering if I left the lights on at work.
Me: Seriously?
Lady: Yes, wouldn’t you feel guilty and not be able to sleep?
Me: Hell no, I sleep like a guilt-free baby all of the time.
Lady: But what if-
Me: -all of the time.
Lady: Yeh, well you’re weird. And what happens if we forget to lock the door? We could turn up and there wouldn’t be any computers if someone broke in. I’d get fired.
Me: Have you ever forgotten to lock the door before?
Lady: No. Also, I might set the alarm off.
Me: I can’t see how given the timer, but let’s assume it happened, then you’d just put in your code to turn it off again.
Lady: Yes, but it would be noisy. 20 seconds is pretty quick and one time I had to run back and get something from my desk. I almost had a heart attack.
Me: Are you sure there aren’t waves of velociraptors?
Lady: Stop being silly.
Me: This whole thing is silly.
Lady: I said you wouldn’t understand. Now you promised you would wait back and close up for me if I answered your dumb questions.
Me: Yeh, well here’s the best part about being a manager. We lie. Also, I changed the alarm timer to seven seconds because I felt that people weren’t being property incentivised.
Lady: No you didn’t.
Me: Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. If I was you, I would try not to dawdle though.
Lady: I fucking hate you.

Now, does that make sense?

No. But to be honest, I wasn't listening.

That night I wanted to see how she was doing so I texted her asking if she had remembered to turn all the lights off. Maybe now she will think better of taking the last doughnut in the lunchroom.

Revenge doesn’t always need to be subtle.

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