Toner Lung

Copying tax returns is a big part of my job at the Tax Place. M and I use the copier so much, in fact, that I am convinced we will both develop a rare and debilitating disease. I first became aware of my risk of contracting Toner Lung when I noticed the acrid, tangy fumes permeating the air around the over-used office apparatus. They definitely smell harmful, and they make your nose sting when you inhale. My fears were compounded when M began exhibiting likely symptoms of the illness. She was coughing more than usual, and complained about her frequent sneezing. Both symptoms, to me, are sure signs of aggravated respiratory passages.

And then there's M's accountant. Now that I think of it, I'm positive Toner Lung is the cause of his constant throat-clearing. Hmm. Or, rather, "Hrm."

Aside from slightly searing my fingertips by touching the copies before they've fully cooled, I've yet to experience any adverse copier-related effects. But I have had several mechanical issues with the machine in the past few days. Shortly before leaving on Monday afternoon, I picked up a five-state, 18 shareholder return to assemble. Just the original document was about as thick as an entire package of paper, so I knew the multiple copies I had to make would produce a staggering pile. I was about halfway through the arduous replicating process when I accidentally caught and slightly opened one of the multiple doors on the top of the copier. It began beeping furiously and immediately refused to keep working.

Annoyed, I gazed at the screen to see what debilitating injury the petulant office fixture was supposedly suffering. Per the copier's instructions, I fully opened the door I'd just bumped and cleared the mis-fed sheet from 5A. Once that had been taken care of, the screen insisted that I open the front door and check for a jam in the cavernous compartment it concealed. I did as I was told, and was shocked at what I found. There was paper everywhere. 3A, 3B, 3C and 2A were all clogged. I managed to clear all the afflicted sections and safely shut the door without burning myself on the fuser. But the copier kept beeping and insisting that I recheck compartment 3.

I opened the door again to find that the paper jam had seemingly regenerated itself out of nowhere. Paper had mysteriously reappeared, lodged in all the places from which I'd just removed it. I diligently pulled out all the firmly lodged sheets and shut the door. The copier resumed its protest, and the same series of events occurred at least twice more. Finding my usual small-repair capabilities exhausted, I sought the aid of my supervisor. She deleted the current print job (I'd cancelled it, but that must not have been definitive enough for the copier to understand) and cleared paper from sections I didn't even know existed. Her assistance silenced the copier's aggravating beeps and left it in perfect working order. By then it was time for me to go home. I was relieved to do so and left the rest of the burdensome copying process for the next morning.

After that debacle, each copy endeavour I've undertaken has run smoothly. Until this morning. I had to use a different copier than normal in order to take advantage of its ability to stamp COPY across documents as it replicates them. What I didn't realise was that while this copier has superior extra features, it's not as intuitive as the copier to which I am accustomed. This new machine doesn't sort the document unless you specifically ask it to do so. I wasn't aware of this until it was far too late.

I loaded my 50-plus page return into the tray, changed the number of copies to three and waited. I watched, slightly horrified, as the copier spat three copies of page two on top of three copies of page one, three copies of page three on top of three copies of page two, and so on. It was a small disaster. Rather than simply picking up a neatly staggered stack of three complete returns, I had to collate the documents by hand when they came off the printer.

Despite the tedium of this task, it didn't actually take too long. And now I know better. I'd still prefer dealing with jams and unsorted documents to suffering from Toner Lung.

Ah, Ahhhh, Mr. Willllson. Ah, Ahhhh, Mr. Heath.

It's tax season. While this widely dreaded occasion usually passes without much consideration on my part, it is more evident to me this year than ever before. This is because I've spent the last five weeks temping at an accounting firm. As one might imagine, the work is eye-gougingly tedious. I'm helping to alleviate the strain of the rush by assembling tax returns. This involves making a lot of copies, then stapling, red x-ing, Post-It noting and paper clipping the federal return and the state return(s). Then I bind a copy for the client and print a cover sheet and mailing label. This over and over and over and over, hour after hour, day after day.

And my coworkers are accountants. People in this profession are not renowned for their sense of humour. Some of them defy this stereotype. But I think I previously gave some of them more credit than they deserve. A few weeks ago I had finished all the returns waiting to be assembled and was doing something non-return-related (probably involving gmail) in my cubicle. One of my coworkers approached me and asked, "How's it going back here?"

"Fine," I answered. "We're all caught up. There's nothing in the bins."

"RE-ally?" she asked, obviously astonished.

"Yeah, I just checked five minutes ago, and they were empty." I hesitated, and when she issued no response, added, "I can check again..."

We both walked back up to the front of the support area and looked in the still-empty bins.

"Well," she stammered, clearly taken aback by the light load we were carrying. "I wonder if someone's slacking off in review."

"Nope, we're just fast!" I quipped as I was walking away.

"Oh, you are?" she asked, a bit too eagerly and gullibly.

"...Yes?" I'd intended the comment to be flippant, but this nuance had gone undetected.

A little later in the afternoon, this same woman had decided to help the flagrantly lagging reviewers by checking some of the returns herself. I brought one over to her after I'd finished assembling it.

"That was a really fun one," I said as I handed it over. "A three-state shareholder one."

"Oh! You liked that, did you?"

"...No."

"Ooooooooooh! You were being sarcastic!"

Since she'd called me out on it, I then had to find a way to detach myself from my snarky statement to avoid looking like a complete snot.

"Well, it was nice because it was different. Otherwise it can get a little monotonous."

Last week, I encountered another example of the humour void. I was missing a piece of a return I was assembling and went to retrieve it from the appropriate person. While I was waiting for her to print the portion I needed, I noticed a librarian action figure gracing a ledge of her cubicle.

"Oh, that's funny," I commented, "A librarian action figure."

"Yeah," she answered, "It's kind of a joke."

Um, I know! While librarians are certainly staunch defenders of citizens in the literacy and educational arenas, theirs is not a profession that would traditionally inspire one to create a miniature replica. That's why producing one is funny. Thankfully, my coworker then went on to say that she'd been educated as a librarian but couldn't find a job in that field. So she wasn't explaining that the existence of a librarian action figure was funny. Rather, her owning the action figure was the joke.

Though these coworkers don't seem to entirely understand humour, that is exactly what makes them funny (to me). Another of my coworkers takes a different approach to amusement. The standard procedure in the office is for the reviewers to put the returns that are ready to be assembled in bins at the front of the support area. One of the accountant managers flagrantly flouts this established practice. He prefers to bring his returns directly back to me and the other assembly temp. Actually, he prefers to bring them only to the other assembly temp. If she was in the middle of assembling a five-state, 35 shareholder return and I was idly checking my facebook, he'd still hand the new return to her.

The extent of his devotion to M was not entirely clear until she left early one day. I was assembling in my cubicle when I heard the constant throat-clearing that indicated he was in the vicinity of my desk. He looked a little bewildered when he saw M wasn't present. "Hrm...M's not here, huh? Hrm. Hm. Hrm."

"Nope. I can take it," I offered, only slightly sympathetic to his dashed dreams of seeing her in all her assembling splendour. He went away, and I didn't think much of it. But he came back with another return just before a firm-wide, in-office happy hour scheduled for that day was due to begin. M's accountant looked for her, then settled for talking to me when he saw that her chair was still crushingly empty.

"M didn't stick around for happy hour, huh?" he asked. "Hrm. Hrm."

"No, she went home," I confirmed. "I can take it."

He handed me the return and walked back to his office, clearing his throat in a decidedly lacklustre and heartbroken fashion.

When M returned the next day, I informed her of what had transpired. "You make me sound like a..." she hesitated, the word she wanted escaping her.

"Seductress?" I supplied helpfully. "That's because you are. He tries to stay away, but he just can't resist your charms." Pointing out the special attention her accountant paid to her may have made M feel a little awkward around him. The consequences were disastrous. She came up to me late in the afternoon and rehashed an incident that had just occurred. She'd passed her accountant in the hall, and he'd said "Hi" and stopped (presumably to have an intimate chat with her). She returned his greeting without breaking stride. "It's just getting too weird," she confided. He must have taken her not-so-subtle hint. When he brought back a return the following day, he placed it on the neutral shelving unit between our two cubicles rather than handing it to M directly. "I'll just leave this here. Hrm. Hrm."

I didn't fully realise the significance of the direct interaction M's accountant had insisted upon until last week. This time, he intercepted me near the bins and handed me a return to reassemble. This exchange happened in front of one of my supervisors, who questioned me about it after M's accountant had gone. "Which return is that?" she asked.

"Oh, <name withheld to protect confidentiality>," I responded.

"He shouldn't be giving you stuff directly," she chided.

"I think he just gave it to me because I assembled it in the first place," I explained.

"Well, he knows better," she countered.

So, he knows better than to give us returns directly. But M's special lustre is just so impossible to resist that he'll defy all the approved procedures in order to see her, consequences be damned. It must be love.

While he has not made much of an impression on M, M's accountant seems to have a more powerful effect on another of my coworkers. The returns that this particular woman prepares for assembly always seem to have something wrong with them. They're missing pieces, or the pieces are wrong, or they're out of order. A few days ago I noticed an interesting correlation between her mistakes and the location of her office. It's right next to M's accountant's. I hear his incessant throat-clearing every time I pass his office, and I have thought to myself several times how annoyed I would be if I had to sit anywhere near him. But she is actually forced to live the experience that makes me cringe to even imagine. Perhaps listening to this repetitive and, frankly, rather disgusting sound all day drives her to distraction and causes the problems I so often encounter with the returns she's reviewed for assembly. An interesting theory, and one I'll likely explore in the remaining weeks.

Tax Place has proven to be one more in my series of odd jobs in even odder places. But this time, the assignment is enlivened with, perhaps, some of the oddest people I've yet encountered as a temp. This additional element definitely helps me to continue plowing through and assembling the seemingly endless pile of paper. As M and I often remind each other just before free lunch is served on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's the little things that help to keep you sane.