Scents and Noses

I have spent the last week adjusting to life in an office. It's completely different from working in the great outdoors everyday. I admit, I'm looking forward to avoiding the Texas summer heat, but I miss the breeze and the nice days!

As the receptionist, I have a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Advantage, beautiful desk with a better view than most. Disadvantage...no view to the outdoors. Advantage, periodic moments of downtime. Disadvantage...nothing to do when everyone else is behind. Days like that drag on forever. On Good Friday, the girl training me, hoped that we would go home a couple of hours early (because they got to last year). We hurried to finish the mail and were ready at 3pm for them to send us home! However, they decided not to let us go. There were little to no offices open past that time in our 20-story building- the place was deserted. So, Vickie and I watched part of the Father of the Bride movie, beat her high score in "Fruit Ninja" on her iPhone, and talked- for 2.5 hours. Oh sure...we had about 10 phone calls in all that time!

I now have the front to myself as my trainers are only a phone call away. One of my duties is to "guard the People magazine." -I have never been a reader of the tabloids, but I admit on some downtime Monday afternoon, I decided to explore the magazine. For lovers of tabloids and People magazine- forgive me. I thought it was ridiculous! I will spare you my sarcasm. While I was reading the magazine, I'd have to stop to answer the phone. After one such interruption, I suddenly noticed a wonderful smell! Something clean...and a little flowery...a lotion? Where was that smell coming from? I listened to see if one of the ladies was headed towards the main entryway, but heard nothing. Hmmm....this was a mystery.

My mind began to really think hard. You know, marketing specialists will scent areas of buildings and stores to sell product- this is true! In the baby section of a store you might smell baby powder, in a flower shop, floral perfume, etc. etc. etc. "Maybe" I thought, "they are scenting our building?! But why? How would this floral-clean smell be related to legal paperwork??"

Then I realized how stupid that sounded and it occurred to me that it might be the cleaning ladies... As I was laughing at myself for my "blonde-ness" my fingers brushed a different texture on the magazine. Startled, I had forgotten it was there, I looked at it. You'll never guess: an advertisement for new Olay soaps! You can't imagine how hard I laughed at myself then! But, Olay just made a new customer- I have to have some of that incredible smelling soap!

The nose is a wonderful creation! Speaking of...we had an incident today in the office that resulted in a trip to the ER (and involved the nose!)

One of our accountants was heading down for lunch. She didn't really pay attention, so when the elevator doors opened she simply took a couple of steps forward, tripped, fell towards the handrail in the elevator...and it went dark. One of the other ladies just happened to be coming out of the lunch room nearby and pulled her out of the elevator!!! The elevator didn't level with the floor like it's supposed to do and was instead about 3 inches taller. That is a large difference. Our poor accountant waited for almost 30 minutes for the Emergency Response team to arrive and went down in the utility elevator on a stretcher. Because I was the receptionist, I got to be notified by the guys as to which hospital they were headed. I e-mailed my two bosses and had the pleasure of seeing my e-mail forwarded to the entire company. I'm glad there were no typos! That afternoon we learned that she had fractured her poor nose. I don't know if we'll be seeing her in the office tomorrow- I bet she needs some rest and pain killer!

Oh, the dull office...:)