Pitch Imperfect

I recently became the proud owner of a refurbished RIO MP3 Player w/ 256 mb of memory. "Eugene" kept harping that I should get one due to the convenience of copying your own tunes and being able to take it wherever you go. After weeks of harping, I finally made that purchase and I have to admit it turned out to be a wise choice.

I've been taking it with me to the gym, my out of town trips, and even at work. The latter unfortunately led me to my latest most embarrassing moment. Typically I whip the MP3 player in the office. Unfortunately I'm surrounded by very loud talkers, especially whenever they're having conference calls. One guy in particular, a manager, stands up whenever he's on speaker and laughs and shouts so loud that it's jarring. Being a manager, though, there's not much folks can do.

I've found the MP3 player quite useful in drowning out the unwanted noise. If I got even better speakers, I'd be living large. So I've been enjoying my MP3 for several days. I get this email from my boss (who I've grown to get used to working with) with the title 'Please Hush The Singing'. I went through four phases starting at that moment. The 1st phase was shock. That didn't last long as then I quickly entered phase 2 - amusement. I immediately got up and talked to my boss. Apparently somebody had told him that I was loudly singing to the music in my cube. I flipped back and forth between amusement and anger, my third phase. I wasn't like angry at my boss for telling me but I pointed out to him the irony of my so-called disturbance being due to the 'loud' conversations going on all around me. I said it loud enough too for the ratter to hear. The said ratter is definitely guilty of being loud too. After telling my boss that I'd be mindful of my actions in the future, I went back to my cube and immediately entered my fourth and final phase -- embarassment. That phase lasted for the rest of the day. A co-employee (defined to me as someone who works for the same company but doesn't work with me) came up to me, hearing my 'loud' conversation on the matter with my boss and relayed that he heard my voice floating around the general area. He added that it sounded nice (yeah right) but I'd have to be careful. That made me even more embarassed as my bad singing has potentially been going on for at least a week or two. I was annoyed none of my co-workers came up and told me something and some co-employee (not the one that said I had a nice voice...*LOL*) had to tell my boss. I was especially miffed when learning the next day from a co-worker that said co-employee (yeah I know who the ratter was) had talked to him about it. It would've been nice to have gotten some warning, though I suppose it may have been awkward to say something. Ironically I'm considered soft-spoken. I guess my musical voice isn't.

Unfortunately the loud people around me will continue to be loud because some of it is 'work related'. So I'll definitely still be using my MP3 player. I'll just have to resist the urge to sing...*LOL*.

Happy 4th by the way! I'm just glad to be away from that nutty job. Sadly I go back tomorrow. Come on NCDP. Shoot up to $10 so I can quit my job. You're my last hope...*LOL*.