A....B...um...what was the question?

I'm not great at office jobs. It's not so much that I dislike them (which is often the case, but not all the time), I just have no aptitude for them.

For the month of December, I have found myself back at my old job from a couple of years ago. The woman who took over my position has developed some serious medical problems. I received a phone call requesting my return on a limited basis - at least until classes resume in January. This surprised me. I was terrible at that job.

Everyone working in the business (including my immediate boss, with whom I had, to put it mildly, a tense relationship) seems genuinely pleased to have me around. And without the pressure of having to be there past the end of this month, my quality of work is pretty good, despite the internal obstacle course I have to go through to fulfill my duties. As sort of an assistant project manager (which is what I choose to call myself), I organize jobs and do some basic filing.

The basic filing is one of my challenges with typical office work. You see, I have a problem with alphabetization.

Uh...what?

I said, "I have a problem with alphabetization."

I know what the alphabet is. I know the order, for chrissake...I can "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" from A all the way down to Z with some of the top first graders in the country. The catch is that I have to sing the song EVERY TIME.

And even then, it's a struggle.

It's not that uncommon. While at a party a coupla-three years ago, some friends and I were laughing over personal eccentricities: I only use the second stall in a public bathroom. I've never seen Star Wars. Red Foxx gives me nightmares. That sort of thing.

I felt compelled to share the my issues with the ABCs.

Most nodded in recognition and continued to do so when I expanded further to say that I had to sing the song nearly every time I organized a file alphabetically. It was when I mentioned that I thought N came before M so M could be announced to the room because N was M's toadie, that I was met with furrowed brows.

"But N doesn't come before M."

"Yes. I know. But...I..." More bewildered gazes. "Right, heh, right...I know..."

The subject quickly changed to the film Time Cop.


Each letter of the Alphabet has a very distinct gender, personality, status, and relationship to the other letters (Featured here in their colors as well!):

A: Female, a gentle but effective leader, long hair
B: Female, bossy, annoyed by A and how pretty she is
C: Male, a terrible manager of people, wears a pager
D: Female, corrects grammar at cocktail parties
E: Male, elegant, confidant, smiles at you across the room and you blush
F: Male, kind of a douche, sponges off of E, has lots of stories about drunk sex
G: Male, kinda sexy, somewhat violent
H: Male, snooty, smells like Aqua Velva
I: Male or Female, wishy washy
J: Male or Female, a rich artist with a penchant for the darker stuff
K: Female, ostentatious
L: Female, sneaks up behind people in the laundry room
M: Male, very powerful and regal
N: Male, cowtowing servant to M
O: Female, is always surprised
P: Female, hunchbacked, spits at passersby
Q: Male or Female, persnickety
R: Male, almost always in charge
S: Female, very into PDA
T: Male, jealous of R and S and wonders why he isn't first in the "RST" triumvirate
U: Male, a middle child
V: Female, not afraid to hit on men or women
W: Male, Big fat guy with a handlebar mustache and a pinstriped suit
X: Male or female, a spy, wears a mask
Y: Male, eats lots of sugar, jumps on the bed
Z: Female, tattooed, exotic girlfriend of your roommate

(All lowercase letters have the similar personalities but are children)

Because of this, I tend to arrange the alphabet according to the personality/gender/social status of the individual letter. Usually, it looks something like this:

ACBDFEGHIJKLNMOPQRSTVUWXYZ

B has moved away from A while C is trying to get to the top.
F has muscled its way in front of E and E is fine talking to G.
N is in front of M to place his coat over puddles.
RST are in the right order but T is seething. (as a result sometimes I put T first.)
Shouldn't V be in front of U? She's so alluring.

None of this was a problem until I started working office jobs where most files (digital and physical) had to be arranged alphabetically. My managers would open up a file cabinet and find the letters in some sort of alien arrangement. I would laugh it off and say office-y things like, "Oops, wow...it's Monday, y'know?"

"But it's Thursday."

"Oh...yeah..."

It's been a while since I've had to alphabetize anything in earnest. But now, working for a couple of weeks at this job, I am face to face with it again.

My immediate boss has NO understanding of what goes on in my head (and has to squelch his sneers when I talk about "fartsy" plays and so on.). If I were to tell him why he keeps discovering me downstairs, a good ten minutes after sending me to retrieve a file, standing in front of the file cabinets and singing the ABCs, he's the type that might call in the white coats.

It's not that uncommon is it? Lots of us attach colors and feelings to letters, numbers, days of the week - even if we don't realize it.

Close your eyes and imagine the Alphabet. What do you see?

That's right: H and Q are having brunch at a chi-chi coffee house. Little do they know that X has them trained in his viewfinder while F does the walk of shame back to E's condo.