Seriously???

I have a question for all you working professionals out there. 

Let's say you are at work.  It is a Friday afternoon.  Everything is calm.

In walks your mail carrier, done with her shift.  Apparently she has been spending too much time on her route chatting with your company's receptionist to the point that they have discussed hair straightening devices.

At some point in the course of their idle and time-wasting conversations, it was discovered that the mail carrier had a hair straightening iron that she could not use.  She was thinking of offering it to one of her friends (for a price), but the receptionist says that she may be interested too.

Back to Friday afternoon.  Earlier in the day, when the mail carrier delivered your company's mail, your receptionist gave her a hard time about forgetting to bring the straightener in to show her.  As if it would have been totally appropriate for an employee of the U.S. Postal Service to carry around hair styling equipment in her truck.

So now it is later in the afternoon, and the mail carrier, burdened by guilt and fearing future lectures from the receptionist, arrives at your company bearing the iron.  Instead of making a visual examination of the device and making up her mind, the receptionist decides that it would be a good idea to plug in the iron right there at her desk and give it a spin.

You watch this ridiculous scene unfold, secretly hoping that the receptionist's boss will come out and see this blatant disregard for professional conduct.  Before that can happen, a customer walks in.  Now what?  Does the receptionist apologize and put aside the piece of non-business related heat producing equipment? 

NO.  She pretends as though it is perfectly acceptable to be doing what she is doing.  And keeps doing it while the customer sits down next to her and waits for their appointment with a company officer.


How would you react to this? 

Maybe you would just shrug and say "Oh well, no harm done!"

Maybe you would report her to her boss.

I did neither of the two.  I chose instead to become irritated and blog about it later.

I offer this story to show you why I am glad that it is Friday and now I have two days to forget about this episode.  Except that I have now immortalized it in blog form, so maybe not so much.