It's all about Pam

Ok, I just had the most hilarious prank call from Bill the maintanence guy. He did the such an obnoxiously funny (and horrible) imitation of Pam, the loud-mouth pushy woman who is going to take over my position. Let me tell you a little about Pam.

Pam is actually kind hearted (for the most part). But she is LOUD. Put 10 Lisas, 10 Beckys, 10 mes, 10 Carols, and 10 Kierstiens in a room and everyone will still hear Pam's voice loud and clear. Whenever she pages, everyone grabs their earplugs and does the whole "duck and cover" thing under their desk cringing the whole time. I am serious about the cringing. I have even found myself covering my ears when I don't have earplugs in (which is most of the time). Lyle (another maintanence guy) told me today that he was going to ask Kevin if they could turn down the Master Volume that controls the loud speaker.

Ok, so we have established Pam's loudness. Now let's move on to her pushiness.

The most recent such example of her endearing trait occured yesterday. She proceeded to make herself comfy at my desk (I'm not being snotty. It's still MY desk until Tuesday). She walked up carrying a fake plant and proceeded to switch it with the ONLY live plant in the entire building while saying, "I hope you don't have any special attachment to this plant, Anna, but it has GOT to go." I vehmently protested as nicely as I could (cuz I can't be mean to her, even if I want to). So she plops it down and it blocks half of my view of the doorway (we kinda need to see when a visitor entering). I told her this so she decides that she'll leave the live plant (for now) where it is and sets the tall fake one next to it (and block even more of my line of vision. "Pam!" I told her, "You can't take up the entire counter! That's where all of the packages coming and going are put!" So she (nicely) huffs out a, "Fine," and moves over to the table in the waiting area, picks up a fake fern and said, "Well OK, but DON'T tell me that you want this thing too." I didn't really care but it was the principle of the matter. I didn't want her to throw it out. Bill was up here and said, "Don't throw it out! I'll take it home!" She just looked at it and then him and said, "Are you serious, Bill? It looks like something from the dinosaurs." He replied, "Cool! Even better!" LOL.

Anyway, that was just an isolated incident. There actually were SEVERAL more things that happened within that 15 minute span of time. I won't bore you with any others. Now you will understand the "prank" call a little better.

Bill calls me up. I know it is him because I can see the extension number of the internal call. I pick it up and say, "Hello." There is a moment of silence and I hear this HORRIBLE loud witchy semi-female voice on the other end speaking super fast and choppily (Imagine the part of the intro to "Fresh Prince" where the old lady shakes her finger and says "You're moving with your auntie and uncle to Bel Aire." That's EXACTLY it). So this voice says, "This is Pam. What are you doing at my desk? You had better get that all cleared off. I'm coming up there Tuesday. Do you hear me? OK. Bye." Click.

This is probably an instance where you had to be there to find the humor in the situation, but I had tears streaming down my face. The call was just so randomly unexpected! I tried my hardest to almost scream out a page for Bill to call my extension just like Pam does. When he called me I asked if it was loud enough and he said no way. I don't think I could have spoken any louder without shouting! I was also told that Lyle was just staring at Bill like, "What are you doing?!?" throughout all of this. He had no idea who Bill was talking to or why he was making voices.