Not What It Seams

I thought I was through with this.

During my storied years of high school track, it seemed that our visionary coaches had decided that the best way for us to improve in our sport was to spend our practices running. Granted, there’s probably some hard truth to such a practice format – after all, one would expect a writer to get better by writing – but at times, it seemed a tad gratuitous. After all, warming up on a track team required going for a short run prior to stretching, and this run, 800m or whatever, was longer than any other sport’s intended distance by a good 400m. But hey, we signed up to be runners, so running is what we were bound to do.

The warm-up run consisted of a huge group of guys running the same exact path and with very little wiggle room. (Our coaches thought wiggling was not an acceptable substitute warm-up exercise.) People would get bumped, inadvertently in most instances, and with the exception of the dork who tried to win the warm-up (kylewilliamssayswhat?), everyone was cool with running and laughing our way through half a mile.

But the laughing ceased when someone rips their clothes.

For those who ran on the inner edge of the track, there was probably many a jacket / sweatshirt / long-sleeved T that fell victim to a pointy fence wire. And when it happens, there’s not much you can do, other than keep running.

In the real world, you’ve got to keep running.

Now while there isn’t a warm-up lap you’re required to take in the corporate world, that by no means absolves you from the dangers of clothes-ripping monsters, like that old track fence. In this case, it turns out that the fence shares the same wavelength as the doorknob on my office door.

It’s a frickin’ conspiracy.

You know how I mentioned that I’ve been a tad busy the last fortnight? With the boss on honeymoon during the absolute busiest time of our fiscal year, I’ve been scrambling about, working like crazy, and rarely taking any breaks for air. And while air is seemingly vital for human existence, I decided that my first real break of the week would be spent celebrating a co-worker’s birthday at the other end of the floor.

In other words, free cake.

After all, our new admin actually schedules cake for us via Microsoft Outlook, and when I realized that I had hit “Snooze” on the friendly cake reminder two consecutive times, I realized I just might miss the whole thing. Jumping out of my seat, I rolled around the corner of my desk with full intent of making at least the last few chords of “Happy Birthday.” And as I’ve stated before, it’s not out of a need to want to sing that silly tune, but rather, to be punctual as the Operation Controller Pro Tempore.

But as I walked passed my door, I cut the corner a little sharply and caught my pants pocket on the latch. Granted, I wasn’t traveling at such a velocity that would have allowed me to continue on my course of action while leaving my pants behind (thank God.), but rather just enough to tear a nice 5-incher down the pant leg seam. Drat.

Ripping pants isn’t the big deal here. It’s making it through the rest of the day without anyone noticing. Here’s the way to pull it off. No matter what, always walk around the office with a folder or binder at your side. Actually, that’s a good tip in general. For those who don’t really have busy jobs, carrying a work-related item from A to B will give the appearance you have stuff to do. Which is good, since we could replace you with a robot at any moment.

Why? Robots don’t get tired and they don’t wear pants.