In my office there are about 8 different plants. I don’t even know what half of them are. They just sit there, and I water them, and they keep growing, so I keep watering them, and so on. Then people see that I have plants that keep growing, so people keep giving me plants. And I don’t mind; I actually enjoy seeing so much greenery in my office. The thing is, the only reason I have any plants in my office is because of my stupid, dumb-dumb head brother.
(cue aside to end all asides)
See, for a period of time Mokie was in undergrad and living at school, my older brother had moved out, and I was also in undergrad, but living at home. When Mokie moved into the dorm, he essentially scooped up all the clothes that had been accumulating on his side of the room since the beginning of high-school (yes, we shared a room) and just left the rest of the mess sitting there. As far as I can tell, he never cleaned up his half of the room during the entirety of high-school, and certainly never made an effort to clean up when he first moved into the dorms. A few months later he comes back, dumped his crap on the floor during the school break and started the process all over again when school resumed. A few years ago Mokie moved out for good, and he’d still not cleaned his room. Meaning his side of the room went uncleaned for over 8 years. This is the type of person my younger brother is. Remember this when he insults me in the comments later.
So anyway, at some point in the process my mom gave Mokie a plant to take to school, and maybe he took it, or not, but in the end it wound up on his dresser, the plant’s slowly dying leaves just adding to the 8 year strata of mess that archaeologists would one day title “The Filthyslobezzoic Era”. So on the way to work one morning (yes, I was still living at home) I grabbed the plant and took it to work with me. I plunked it down on a table and nursed it back to health, and it’s still thriving today (and by “nursed” I mean, “gave it water from time to time”). Of the other plants I inherited, the only other one that came from my parent’s house was a pot of ivy. The ivy had a few brown vines six or seven inches long sticking out of the top of the soil, and one or two green vines with a few pale leaves clinging on. Now that ivy is overtaking my office. The longest sections are over 9 feet, and the ivy has a death grip on my inbox. I wouldn’t be able to extricate it if I tried.
(end aside)
So the ivy kind of grows where it wants to, and while it is growing the leaves on the terminal seven or 10 inches of the vine usually go from green to brown to white and vacillate between the three colors, but still continue to grow. You may understand, then, my shock when I came in to find that the cleaning ladies had chopped off about two feet of two of the longest vines.
What the fuck!?
So here’s my dilemma:
a) On the one hand, it’s just a fucking plant, and I should get over it.
b) On the other hand, what fucking right of it is theirs to decide they can chop my fucking plant up whenever they want to?
I mean, fuck, every time I look over and see my ivy sitting there with two shredded vines (the ends were clearly ripped off, and not cut) I get pissed off. To me, it’s as if somebody stole one of my pens. Yeah, in the long run, it’s just a pen, but it was my fucking pen.
What would you do? Would punching them in the face be considered an “overreaction”?
How can you be sure it wasn’t an accident?
Punch first, ask questions later.
I say wait after work to confront them. If any of them are hot, let it slide. If not, start yelling at them in fake Spanish (or Chinese as the case may be), making wild hand gestures at the ivy, sternly point your finger and glare at them, and then storm out.
“Housekeepeenk! Want me fluff your peellow?”
somehowI get the feeling your coworkers give you the “nervous side glance” quite often.
Ummmmmmmmm, in a word? Yeah.
Maybe it got sucked up in the vacuum hose by accident.
Are you certain it was the cleaning staff at all?
I’m sure you have other enemies.
i agree with freedom girl about the enemies thing.
of course, the diplomatic thing for the cleaning crew would be to leave you a note asking you to please prune your plants so they can clean under them.
but, i’m going with the enemies thing. watch your back.
Clearly the cleaning-lady-eating-plant attacked first, and only were vines chopping in self defense. If I were the cleaning lady who was nearly slaughtered by your cleaning-lady-eating-plant, I’d be talking to my lawyer right now about how much money I could sue you for, and if you didn’t have any money, I’d be talking to some Mafiaosos about administering a “talking too.”
PS - I’m glad you dumped Homer-in-a-bag.
It’s a plant. Get over it.
Candyass.
I don’t think you are overreacting. After all, that was your personal property. I mean, what if the cleaning lady came into your office while you had your wang out and she lopped off 6″? It’s the same principle.
Well, I think you’re overreacting, but I understand your point. Did you ask them why they tore off part of your plant? I agree with a previous commenter…maybe you have enemies.
yeah.
(I wanted to post this hours ago, but my stupid PC at work was acting up.)
I think you’re under-reacting.
Firstly, you need to determine who did it - assume all are guilty, not just the cleaning ladies.
So first you should print a giant sign accusing your coworkers of malicious plant killing, on the largest sized paper the office printer will take. Then hang it in the lunchroom, outside your office, heck - do many copies and spread ‘em around.
Next, approach each person directly and yell at them, accusing them of being the plant killer. Start with the lowliest office worker to warm up. Wear a hat while you’re doing this, it’ll make you look scarier.
Next, put up some barbed wire around your office/cubicle.
Nobody will ever attack one of your plants again (maybe because they’ll be too busy laughing at you, but whatever).
Confront, confront, confront. Don’t touch them or you’ll get fired.
I share a big studio with a few of my colleagues, and for a couple days, someone was throwing their rotten fruit into my trashcan… I mean, it’s just fruit, and it belongs in a trash can, but I was a little annoyed because our trash doesn’t get emptied all that often… and it’s my trash can! I had an idea of a couple people who may have done it, but didn’t want to get all accusatory. I mean, professionally speaking, passive-aggressive post-it notes are all the rage these days. Mine just said ‘Please don’t put rotten fruit in my trash can. Thanks.” Yours could easily say “Please don’t clip my plants. Thanks.” Or even, “To the non-English-speaking cleaning staff, I know who you are, but I’m not going to confront you, but to whoever you are, don’t clip my plants or I will fucking cut you. Gracias!”
My neighbors’ maintenance guy wiped out 3 vines of grapes this weekend that were on my fence. They were about 16-20 feet long. I feel for you. They will grow back, but it will make you say “Dude, WTF?”