Do NOT "Suck on This"

Last year, I documented here how much I like my business line within the company. It’s small, it’s entrepreneurial (compared to the other business lines here), and the people are just great. Proof of that: a bunch of them are big fans, as I am, of “The Office.” This is why there’s a Schrutebuck and a photo of a Support the Rabid bracelet posted in our common area.

I’ve also documented here how crappy the systems-conversion-slash-merger was this year. The fallout is, well, it’s still happening, but things calmed down for me around June 1. Before that, it was pretty bad. One of the things that helped was knowing I could come into work on any Friday morning and, say, open my Outlook inbox to see an e-mail from our associate general counsel reading "Fashion show at lunch!" or "It's just noise coming out of an ugly scientist."

On a particularly ugly Friday (it might have been the Friday before our annual conference – the same Friday I actually broke down in tears during a phone call with our CIO, Jeff), Tammy opened my office door, slipped her hand in, and slapped a huge Post-it on the back of my door. It read SUCK ON THIS. I laughed so hard that I almost fell out of my chair. (If you saw the episode, you know Michael’s going-away present to Toby, his nemesis in the office, is a Post-it reading SUCK ON THIS wrapped around a rock. If you missed it, go here.)

That was at least three weeks ago and every time I close my office door, I see the Post-it and laugh. I thought a couple of times about taking it down, but then Tammy will come into my office for something-or-other and see it and laugh, and I’ll decide to leave it up some more. You know, for office morale.

Well.

I just met with a very nice person from Compliance (which, you know, is like Legal and HR – they’re not the department you want to mess with in a corporate environment) whom I'd never met before. The meeting was in my office. John came in, introduced himself, was very cordial and pleasant, and sat down. I got up to close the door and as the door was 90% closed (really, it was like it was in slow motion), I realized that the giant neon Post-it reading "SUCK ON THIS" was still there. I froze.

John saw either the Post-it or the horror on my face (which made him then look at the Post-it) and kind of looked at me.

"Um, do you watch ‘The Office’?" I asked.

"Sometimes, but not often," he replied.

"Oh, see, this is a joke,” I said feebly, “because one of the characters… you know, it's probably not the best thing for me to … anyway, I'll just take this down now."

He didn’t say anything else about it or reference it on his way out, but I sorta gotta wonder whether I’ll get the call from HR.