Page Three of Crossing the Line

I stopped in my tracks and made eye contact, but couldn’t come up with a casual response fast enough. Part of me wanted to chide him for not forewarning me, even though I knew he wasn’t responsible for my mishap. I struggled to keep my mouth shut as the passing moments betrayed a problem.

Les had no trouble picking up on my body language. I looked like a poorly drawn caricature: clenched jaw, furrowed brow, and defensive posture. Suddenly, he burst out laughing.

"You crossed the yellow line, didn’t you?" he howled.

The volume of his voice was at level necessary to be heard over the constant noise of presses, paper cutters, and other machinery. But coincidentally, every piece of ear shattering, high decibel-producing equipment was shut off at the same awkward moment as employees stopped for lunch. Everyone within the vicinity heard him loud and clear. They flocked like buzzards after road-kill, gathering for an explanation. I left that honor to Les and exited without uttering another word.

So much for maintaining any shred of dignity in the eyes of my crew. I decided to vacate the premises for lunch (this time escaping out the front door, since the receptionist and bookkeeper had been out of earshot), valiantly hoping things would die down. Yeah, right.

An hour later I returned, exercising extreme caution, but everyone appeared to be slaving away at his or her respective tasks. Thinking back, that alone should have clued me that things weren’t exactly normal, if you follow my drift.

I walked through departments, down hallways, past cubicles, and rounded the corner toward my desk, unaware that behind me a mushrooming line of coworkers stealthily followed at a discreet distance. I shared a spacious alcove with my assistant (who wisely averted her eyes as I entered the room).

The front of my desk was flush against a wall that served as a dike to keep my usual flood of paperwork from spilling onto the floor. A countertop to my right functioned as an extension of my work area. Now, however, I also had the brightest yellow tape outlining imaginary ‘walls’ on the floor around my workspace. The perpetrators had even made a mock doorway on carpeting.

A deep sigh escaped my lips and at that moment I had no doubt that a huge audience had congregated just inside the room behind me, waiting for my reaction. I never turned around to face them, but proceeded to my invisible door and turned the ‘doorknob.’ I flung open the make-believe door to my new cubicle and after stepping inside, said, "Thanks guys. I’ll never forget you for this."

I finished my cost estimate later that afternoon and ended up with the winning price quote. I made certain that after the job was printed and trimmed, someone else would be delegated the responsibility to deliver and pick up the collated trading cards (including precise instructions on the rules, as if there was anyone else left that didn’t know about yellow lines).

The postscript to this is a study in human nature. I left the tape on the floor for two weeks and to my amazement, no one ever stepped over the line. I actually rather enjoyed having my own private office. If the janitorial service hadn’t caught one end of the tape in a hungry vacuum cleaner, it probably would still be there.

Return to Page Two, Page One<<