Good 'ol SA did it again....I posted an entire entry and it simply disappeared....

As many of you know, I share a p/t proofreading job with another woman. She works on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings while I work Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays and Fridays. We share the same cubicle. We share the same phone as well, so that means we have the same password and can listen to each other’s voice messages.

OK, I lied. There are mostly cons to sharing a job with a co-worker, at least in my position. While we do the same work, we don’t share each other’s work. So if, say, I’m away for several days, it’s not like she’s going to pick up the slack for me, or vice versa.

It’s a pretty small workspace so neither of us can have too many personal doodads around as it’s just too much clutter. And we need to keep the workspace clean when we leave after our three-day stint. (In the first week, she did leave a few used tissues behind for me to find, but after I mentioned it to her, it wasn’t a problem anymore.)

As is my habit, I keep a small bag of toiletries in a drawer at our desk. It contains a toothbrush, toothpaste, aspirin and chapstick. At some point yesterday, I went into the bag and used the chapstick, and as I was putting the cap back on, I noticed a single strand of red, curly hair stuck onto it. My co-worker! Big ewww factor.

My co-worker is 65 years old, very personable, outgoing and friendly. She told me she’s got 4 degrees, including a Ph.D. in psychiatry, and once worked as a sex therapist. She recently retired from a long career as a public school teacher.

I initially decided I wasn’t going to say anything to her but would simply take my bag of toiletries home and not keep it there anymore. But then I changed my mind and sent her an email to her home address this morning, updating her on some things that were happening at the office.

I didn’t want to say anything to her at the office because not everyone who works there is very professional, and since my coworker has a loud voice, I didn’t want to provide new fodder for gossip. At the tail end of my note, I said by the way, I noticed a red, curly hair stuck to my chapstick, etc. and that while I don’t mind sharing a cubicle with you, the items in the bag are personal and I don’t want to share them, ok? I didn’t write it in an accusatory manner, just straightforward and to the point.

I was curious how she would react: would she deny it or quietly accept what I’d said? Well, she emailed me back this am and flatly denied ever having gone into the bag and said the red hair wasn’t hers. I thought some more about how that red hair could have gotten in there and I suddenly remembered that on Friday afternoon, I had a backache that was killing me (my own fault, comes from leaning forward away from the back of the chair when I’m feeling rushed). It was so bad that I disregarded how filthy the carpeted floor might be and I lay down in the cubicle on the floor for about 5 minutes, which helped quite a bit.

Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe I picked up my coworker’s hair when I was lying on the floor and then the hair dropped into the chapstick when I was using it. Sort of an unlikely scenario? Maybe it’s more likely her curiosity got the best of her one day and she snooped in the bag to see what was in it. Whether or not she actually used the chapstick, I don't know. But even a Ph.D. is not immune to certain human impulses like that one. I guess I’ll never know.