"I have a tag for this in [REDACTED]," I told Bosslady yesterday. "Code mango."

"No more mangoes today!" I told her today, as the team meeting was breaking up.

"How did you come to choose that particular code word for this?" she asked, not having learned that sometimes asking me these things is not recommended if you don't actually want to know.

"I was up perhaps well past my bedtime and a phrase popped into my head, and since then I've been searching for something that fit it," I told her. I then attempted something like workplace-appropriate discretion in my choice of words. "What the mango-crapping fuck." ... Yeah. About that. Nice choice of words.

It is, indeed, an evocative and somewhat painful mental image. And yes, Bosslady agreed, entirely suited to the situation at hand.


On my way home, I asked amberfox whether actively mango-shitting or continuously mango-shitting was in fact the more emphatic form. We were both unsure at first which, but I thought about it a little harder.

"Actively mango-shitting means that the mango-shitting is happening right now," I mused. "But it doesn't necessarily imply anything about the past or future state of things. Whereas continuously mango-shitting means that not only is it probably happening right now, but it's been happening for a while, and is likely to be happening for quite some time to come if the past is any indication."

Amber was inclined to agree with that.


Now I have to figure out what tops "What the continuously mango-shitting fuck", just in case I need to use the phrase.

Sometime between when I got out of work yesterday evening and when I got out of my early meeting this morning at work (I did not pass go, and went straight to the meeting, yay traffic), someone left a note on my cubicle's whiteboard.

It was written in pretty basic black pen on a pretty basic pale yellow post-it note, with firm but crappy printing and much worse spelling, and complimented my appearance "today", by which I assume they meant yesterday, because I basically saw or spoke to no one but the members of my team until we all dispersed together after the meeting.

"U were Loking Perrty Today."

My Overlady saw it, found it unusual (but not any more so than any number of the random things in my life that are inexplicable until I attempt to explain them), and figured that there must be some context for it, and it was surely hilarious in that context.

There was no context that I can tell. It just appeared. I have no idea who put it there, or why, other than the apparent fact that they (likely he) thought I looked pretty yesterday.

In theory, I ought to be flattered. Someone thought I looked pretty and went to the trouble to tell me so. In actual practice, I don't know who left it there, and absent that context, I don't know whether it's safe to feel complimented, or whether this is the first wave of a longer campaign that is going to be at minimum weird and uncomfortable. I don't know if I know this person. I don't know if I like this person. I don't know whether it was meant in the friendly, sincere, and innocent way that my Overlady might say "Nice shoes!" to a co-worker upon seeing a pair of really sweet shoes, or in the friendly, sincere, and filthy way that I might say "Nice shoes!" at Pride. If it's the prelude to something I'd decline, I have no idea how that person takes their "no" when it's served to them.

And it's such a weird way of contextless contact! My name is on my cube. Given my name and my cube number, anyone with a valid login can look up my email address. An email has context, and leaves records. An email gives me enough information that I can see their location (are they a neighbor? do they work with a neighbor?) and maybe their picture (oh right, that person and I often pass each other in the kitchen?) or -- or *something*. Sure, people leave each other sticky notes -- passing notes in a meeting, there's your context. On a stack of papers saying what to do with them, there's your context. WE HAVE NO CONTEXT HERE.

ALSO NO SPELL CHECK.

Upon advice from zarhooie, who reminded me that if I was evaluating it for threat level, just that alone warranted caution, I filed a ticket with HR, saying that while it was probably well-meant as an isolated incident, it was still totally unexpected, and I wanted to document it in case it was not an isolated incident. I'll be chatting with HR at some point tomorrow.