Vanessa stopped by the office a few weeks ago. She hadn't been there since she formally left the office two years when she transferred to another office and accepted a completely different position within the department. I don't recall why she had stopped by when she did, but it was great seeing her again and truth be told, I didn't care why she came by. Vanessa was one of the two prettiest women who used to work in that office and though she was one of the better workers to come through our office, she was also very easy on the eyes. She knew her stuff as well and she was very pleasant. She and I spoke for just under an hour, as her business in the office didn't take her too long to complete and she had to continue on with her morning. We parted ways in the parking lot with a hug and a promise to continue conversing by text message.
Vanessa hadn't been back to the office since she left, as I said, some two years earlier. She didn't recognize many people who are currently assigned to the office and she would admit that the office landscape had changed drastically since she left. I didn't want to sugarcoat things for her.
Yeah, the office sucks now. It pretty much has ever since you left.
I may have added some glaze there with that second line, but at least to me, it was true. A lot had changed in the two years since she left.
I told her that the department brought in a lot of new people since the summer of 2025, to where I was not surprised that she did not recognize many people that morning. A lot of people had indeed moved on to other offices, pretty much like she did. I still work in that office and I don't know a lot of the people who work there. Of course, I've always had a tendency to keep to myself and not necessarily make it a point to meet new people. Vanessa is well aware that the department struggles to retain employees, and so in some way, she wasn't that surprised to see all the new faces there. I've known for many years that people come and go all the time, to where I usually don't bother to know people or get close to these folks. I think that Vanessa didn't anticipate seeing so many new faces. I told her about the various challenges that have plagued the office since she left (i.e. the blatant incompetence, people no longer coming in on-time, the influx of office assistants who have no idea what they're doing and who don't want to learn how to do their jobs correctly), some of which surprised her and some of which didn't. She would even go so far as to apologize for everything that she thought I was left to endure.
Oh, it's not your fault.
It wasn't and it never would be her fault, nor the result of anything she did. I wasn't even upset when she left the office when she did. She wanted a less stressful position within the department and that position just happened to take her to a completely different building and after five years of working in the same office, she and I found ourselves working in different offices. We've kept in touch, exclusively through text message, in the time that she's been gone. I don't see her that often as it is.
Much of the conversation we had was about how different the office was now and how she didn't know many people there anymore. I told her that it bothered me that I knew some of them, because as workers (and even as people), they're not that great. This would lead us to briefly reminiscing about the people who used to be in our work group, dating back to 2019. In 2019, the work group was amazing. We were a cohesive unit, that in some way, truly felt like family. There was minimal animosity and we could all work together. We all got along and the drama within the work group was minimal. I told Vanessa that those days were definitely long gone and highly unlikely to ever return, because the people that now plague the office suck. She had asked me why this was the case and what had happened to make the office the complete hell hole that it has since become.
I couldn't say much, nor could I be as candid as I would have liked, because we were in the middle of the office and people could hear us. The very people at whom I would have taken shots could have heard me and I didn't want that. I just told Vanessa that the people they brought in aren't that good and a lot of their shortcomings tend to be evident when it comes to the work that they're doing and are turning in. The quality of work is definitely not what it used to be years ago, back when workers wanted to do good work and weren't so quick to put their incompetence and ineptitude on display for all to see. It's almost as though the proverbial bar has been lowered just so that the subpar people working there can reach the lower levels of mediocrity. I've even made the joke that that bar isn't even suspended in air anymore and that it's just being kicked around on the ground at this point.
I guess I may have used some of that time with Vanessa to vent a little, though I don't think she minded. I think that if anything, she was surprised to see just how bad things had gotten in the office, especially in the brief time since she left.
I can't readily say when I'll see Vanessa again, but I know that as long as I have my cell phone and her phone number, she's really just a text message away. I will say that as far as people who used to work in that office and left, she was definitely one of the good ones and I'm not just talking about the quality of the eye candy she provided. I always regarded her as a good person and as someone who continuously did good work. Life and circumstances led to her transferring to a much more relaxed and considerably less stressful position within the department, for which I do not blame her. I continue to deal with the subpar people that now plague the office, while Vanessa is roaming much greener pastures.
Truly, I am happy for her. She was one of the pretty ones, but also one of the ones who did the job well and who knew what she was doing.
As for me, I'm still fighting the good fight, mediocre looks and all.
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