A Bad Joke and a Good Joke

One would think that with my extensive flights to Israel and back I'd learn the lesson of jet lag, but apparently, I'm not that smart. After a 23 hour flight from Sydney to London (minus 40 minute stop in Singapore), I slept five hours at a hotel near the Heathrow airport (worst airport I've ever been through!), and then tried to sleep on the 7 hour flight from London to the U.S. with minor success. Our flight left London an hour and a half later than scheduled due to debris left on the tarmac from a previous landing (the plane apparently exploded a tire during landing). This caused us a half hour delay landing in the U.S. By the time we landed and after the two days of being on a plane, not only was I jet lagged and confused about which continent I was on, but was not ready for what was about to happen.

I got off the plane, passport in hand, excited about getting closer to bed with every minute that passes, handed my passport to the immigration officer - all smiley and cheerful, and then it happens. He gets up, takes the passport and says "follow me, Ma'am." As everyone's eyes watching me behind, I felt embarrassed and annoyed. I followed the officer to a waiting room where four other people (non-American) were sitting and waiting. There was no other officer there. My passport was placed behind the desk and I was told to sit and wait. For twenty minutes I sat there feeling annoyed, angry, and scared about what on earth could have happened that they decided to detain me and confiscate my passport. Meanwhile, my husband was outside waiting, sending me text messages on the phone worried about me.

After 10 minutes an officer comes in takes my passport to a back room, and comes out after ten minutes. He asked me one simple question - "when did you return your previous green card?" and then returned my passport. Apparently, due to a clerical error in the Baltimore immigration offices, they forgot to enter into the computer that I returned my previous green card (a very bad practical joke to play on a person, in my opinion!). I was SO pissed when I came out of that office. I found my bag, waiting on the belt with four other bags. Grabbed it and headed towards the Customs officer. Apparently, it's been a slow day for him and he was bored stiff so he sent me to the Agricultural department x-ray check. So I drag myself to the end of the hall, about to scream someone's head off. The guy asks me if I brought any food with me, so I admit to having Kangaroo jerky in my bag. He didn't seem amused and asked me to show him. At this point I'm really annoyed at having to open my bags, find the jerky and show him it's still sealed. He finally lets me go and asks me to put all my bags on the x-ray machine.

By the time I was out of that freaking airport I let out all the steam straight at my husband. Poor soul. Of course what annoyed me even further is that starting next month he'll be working for the Department of Homeland Security, which means I take him personally responsible for all the beaurocracy I have to go through as a foreigner in his country.

Monday I came in to the office rather early, still jet lagged, when I noticed something odd about my cubicle. My chair was placed upside down on my table. So I figured someone needed to clean under the table so they put it on top. Then I noticed my phone was in the wrong place, so I figured someone used my space while I was gone. I felt like Goldilocks and the three bears. It took me about a minute to finally notice that I've been flipped! My goofy coworkers decided that after all the practical jokes I've played on other co-workers, it was my turn. They descended upon my cubicle and flipped it 180 degrees. Everything that was on the left side was placed on the right side and vice versa - all my bookshelves, posters, photos, phone, cables - everything! When I realised this I had a very good laugh! They definitely got me. So I now have zero privacy because my computer's location was flipped and the cabinet that was hiding me was relocated, too. I can no longer write in my blog or check other blogs during the day because anyone can see what I'm doing. On my second day back at work I noticed that one postcard was placed upside down. I'm wondering when I'm going to get over this jet lag and find out everything they've done to my cubicle.

Gee, thanks!

I love my co-workers, I love my co-workers, I love my co-workers.

And here are the photos of my flipped cubicle. Since I do not have good photos of the original setup, I figured I'd flip it on the computer just to give you an idea what my "wonderful" coworkers did. The photo on the left is the original configuraion of my cubicle. The photo on the right is what I came back to.