It’s a ‘Rob Woz’ Kind of Day

First, I dreamed about Rob (which was bizarre). Then, today at work, he gave me a backhanded compliment that pissed me off. Then he made up for it all by arranging things so I wouldn’t have to answer phones on my birthday.

Last night, I had a bizarre dream. There was some sort of gathering or party or something at our house, and Rob Wozniak was there, and so was my step-Gary, and several others. Somehow, I got into an informal competition with Rob, trying to trade certain things for others. I remember there was a roast involved in the trading, and several bottles of unopened liquor, including a very old bottle of wine (with a brittle and yellowing label).

Finally, my dream-self realized that there was no way my collection of mish-mash could possibly entice him to trade whatever it was he had (I don’t recall exactly what, but I really wanted it). In one last-ditch effort to convince him to trade, I blurted out, “OK, sex.” Meaning, of course, I would give him sex in trade for the item(s) in question. I wasn’t exactly burning with passion for him or anything, but it was my final trump card.

And he refused. In fact, he chuckled and proceeded to gather up his stuff and leave. And I was so miffed that he wasn’t willing to go at it, especially considering… well, considering his lack of a girlfriend. I was completely amazed and offended and confused as to why he’d refuse that from anyone.

Fast-forward to today at work. This afternoon, as Rob walked past my desk, he chucked a Gotcha Card onto my desk without looking. I wasn’t sure if he was just delivering it, or if it was actually from him, so I picked it up from the random spot it had fallen—and, sure enough, it was from Rob.

See, I had gotten a couple of requests to fix some payment details on an account that he had already worked on; so, since they were his mistakes, I gave the requests directly to him, without trying to fix them myself. Other people do that to me, and I’m not overly offended by it. In fact, it makes it easier for the same person to do the work on a given account, since that person knows what the original request was for, and won’t accidentally undo something they did earlier, and all that jazz.

So, I get this Gotcha Card from Rob, saying something like, “Thanks for keeping me on my toes with the [client’s] loan. I admire your ‘I didn’t screw it up, let’s give it to the guy who did’ attitude.”

Like I told my cube-mate: If I hadn’t been in a polite work environment, I would have flipped him off when he came past again.

I promptly wrote him a Gotcha Card back, thanking him for being willing to take ownership of the loans he services, and praising him for his positive attitude and sense of accountability. Of course, I worded it all so that an outside observer would be unable to sense the dripping sarcasm. Then I dropped it over the cube wall onto his desk.

Later in the afternoon, when we received a calendar detailing the phone rotation for April, I noted that I was scheduled to be on the phones on my freaking birthday. That fucking sucks.

But then Rob called over the wall and asked when my birthday was. When I told him, he saw that he was actually scheduled to be on the phones with me that day, so he couldn’t swap days with me. But then he ended up going to the trouble of switching with someone else, so that he could then switch with me, and take the phones for me on my birthday. It was convoluted, but he did all the footwork, and I hadn’t even asked.

I thought that was fucking cool, and totally made up for his being a total dick earlier.