Update

i hate it here.

someone, SOMEONE, decided that the air filtration system was sucking up the smell of soil, humus, compost, and leaves, and cycling it through the building. where were those smells being sucked up from?

right.

my little garden, which actually smells quite lovely, bearing mint and lemon balm as it does.

so tim, (local busybody, you remember him, right?) and a janitorial looking person were skulking about the area, the custodial employee bearing an aerosol can of "synthetic-smell-gud-crap", both beginning to hover about the garden.

josh: is there a problem with the plants?

guys: um, someone was complaining about a smell, and we think it might becoming from here and getting sucked up by the vents by the window. c'mere and smell this.

josh: (proceeds to wedge his nose in the crack between the pot and the attached saucer, and yes, it does smell like soil and a bit of compost, but perhaps because I'M PRACTICALLY SWIMMING IN THE DRAINAGE FROM THE POT, YOU IMBECILES!) yes, it doesn't smell lovely.

guys: yeah, maybe we can move them over here (gesturing to a file cabinet that gets negative sunlight.)

melissa and lauren: or over here! (gesturing to a file cabinet with an agreeable amount of light.)

guys: hummina hummina hummina sure!

they leave, the sad janitor spraying some aerosol as they vacate the premises.

i am outraged and embittered. no, the soil doesn't smell great, but considering you have to be practically planted in the pot with the lily bulbs to notice it, either someone here has an amazingly sensitive palatte and should be tasting wine in northern california and bringing in a six figure salary doing it, or someone here is just an irritable old fool with an enlarged sense of personal dominion and what i'm sure must be a supremely unfulfilling home-life.

i'm pissed.

my plants smell lovely, the soil smell IS NOT wafting through the office like mustard gas, and harcourt is once again trying to rain on my little, tiny, symbolic parade. in the interest of a harmonious workplace, my plants will have to be taken home, and i will lose another battle in the war to reform corporate america.

and note how the culprit, the crotchety little kill-joy, will still not approach me and try to hammer out a mutually satisfactory solution. no. tim and some other poor sap are made to do the dirty work for them.

and i am once again made to feel like an idiot for even trying to make my office life a little happier.

maybe i should shit in a pot and just leave it on the windowsill, thereby at least giving them something REALISTIC to complain about...

for their part, the plants seem to love it here. and by gorry, they're getting back on the window. that is prime real estate right there, and they deserve it. i am not through yet. this is only a minor setback. i am not through yet...