And it goes a-little something like this...

So here’s how today went…

Our Someone sent an email to advise me that Cow Orker is not out of our group, he is just being reprimanded for what he has done, and the way in which this shall occur is none of my business.  That was fine with me—I want *nothing* to do with this, and the further away from me it is, the better.  Someone did then email our group with the formal request for revision, which Someone has to do—this is all laid out by contract, and it’s really quite a long and detailed explanation.  And in a way, I am happy about this; I kind of like Orker, especially when he is not plagiarising.  He is the one who reminds me of someone else, and I want to stomp the crap out of him for being lazy, but on the other hand, I feel kindly towards him.  In a way.  Up to the point where he is doing Evil things and putting my name on it, that is.  That’s why I was re-writing all his god-awful stuff for him; I am just an enabler that way. But we knew this.  

So Someone emailed their formal request to the team, which is great, except for the fact that somehow in the shuffle, no one has talked to Orker yet.  

Oops.

Well, I was too…freaked, spooked, frazzled, whatever to do it.  Plus, it’s not my *place* to do it.  If I had my druthers, I would have driven over to Orker’s house and just put him out of his misery.  Eventually.  And believe me, he would have been in a LOT of misery right before I had finished, so it was completely going to be a mercy killing.  

Well, eventually.  With a little set-up.  :-D  

I can’t help it…no one—NO ONE—drags *my* name into stuff like that.  And we’re talking huge chunks of text and something like a diagram here.  That’s not a mistake, at least not an *accidental* one.  

But I didn’t kill Orker, appealing though it was.  Instead, I phoned my Someone who is heading this up, and ratted Orker out.  Which brings us to the present.  

I had to go to a reception this afternoon (which I had completely forgotten about, so I had to Chinese-shirt-and-palazzo-pants it in five minutes, and I am sure I looked like hell, but they *did* have both cherry and concord grape Manischewitz for Passover, so I was happy; how thoughtful of them), and so I had my phone on silent for about three hours.  When I finally found my car again (we all had to park in a sprawling over/under ground garage downtown that is a maze of twisty little passages, all alike), I turned my phone back to normal, and saw that Orker had called me three times.  I figured that he’d spoken with Someone and was calling to bitch me out and since I wasn’t in the mood for it I did not return the call; I just went home and got back to work, since now I have to fix our re-write on top of everything else I already had to do (one of which is a WAY-overdue synopsis kind of thing for MMM…augh!).  After a couple hours, I had actually completely forgotten about Orker and so I was halfway to answering the phone when it rang before I looked, thought about hitting ‘reject’, and then figured I might as well get it over with and answer.  

It only took a couple seconds of conversation to figure out that no one had talked with him yet, and he wasn’t sure why we were re-submitting (but I think he had an idea, which is why he was calling me instead of just hitting ‘reply to all’ and asking what in the hell was going on, or phoning someone else), so I decided on a whim to be perverse and cruel, because I was still pissed off at him, and I was pissed off that no one (or Someone) didn’t step in and call him, or something; I don’t think this should wait until our next conference.  

I just flat-out told him that it might have had something to do with his plagiarising.  Repeatedly.  From a source that I cannot describe here, but it was exceedingly obvious in places—bad enough that it’s kind of like an English teacher I know who received an (allegedly) autobiographical story from a student (born sometime in the mid-eighties, I’d assume) who described the feel of his lunch pail banging on his shins as he walked to his one-room school house whilst watching the Prussian soldiers doing their morning drills in the fields.  Ummm…yeah, *that* bad.  And obvious.  Idiot.  

Butsoanyway.

When I said that, it led to the longest series of ummms and uhhhs that I think I’ve heard ever.  I was tempted to tell him that vocalised pauses never did give nothing to the weasel that he didn’t, didn’t already have…but I didn’t.  I save my cleverity for here.  So I sat through it, actually fairly enjoying it.  I hate to admit it (well, that’s not true—I hate the way it makes me *seem*), but it’s the truth.  What a blast.  

Well, it’s payback for what *I* went through.  Hmmph.  

So what is the first thing he asks?  If I am angry at him!  Oh, no…certainly not.  Ignore those photos of you all over the wall with darts and knives all in them, the eyes gouged out, Colombian neckties drawn in, and swastikas pencilled all over your brow.  They were there when I moved in.  Rilly.

I asked him if that was a really clumsy way of apologising or something, and he said it was.  Sigh.  One cannot help but like him.  I told him that, in case he didn’t know yet, he has to talk to Someone (since apparently it actually *is* my job to do all this).  And then I declined his help with the re-writing.  

Oh, as-IF!  What…so that I could then spend twice as much time making sure it’s our work?  Ummm…no.  

I am so glad that I am not in charge; otherwise I would have to handle this all by mysel…uhhh, waitasec…

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