I <3 Cops

Today is the second day at my new job. I am the proud new Monday and Tuesday evening receptionist at a nice little Non-Profit in Manhattan. I don't know about you, but I can't pay my rent on only twelve hours of work a week, so I'm still looking for another job (let me know if you hear of anything.) I like this new job, though. It is very very very busy, and while my responsibilities are few, (I answer the phones, transfer calls to voicemail, babysit the therapists and run credit cards - literally, that is all I do) I am busier here than I've been at any job I've ever had. Including Starbucks. But I love that. It makes the time go by fast and makes me feel like I'm useful. I like feeling useful. But while I'm still the new kid on the block, it can get a bit hectic up in this joint. Like tonight for example. At seven o'clock I was starved for dinner, three phone lines were ringing, two people were on hold waiting to be transferred, five people were in line to pay for their sessions, a therapist was whining at me because someone was in the room she was assigned to and when were they going to be done and why couldn't she just see her client in the library, and someone had accidentally locked the door to the waiting room so that there were three other clients piled up by the door, wondering why they couldn't get into the waiting room. I was slightly flustered, but I was managing. If I could just transfer these calls and finish this transaction, I'd be able to run across the lobby and unlock the waiting room door. Suddenly, this therapist who I've never met, comes behind my desk and starts feeling around by my knees.

"WHOA!" I yelp.
"Oh! Sorry! There is a button under here that will unlock the waiting room door so you don't have to get up. Here it is!" And she pushes it. And pushes it again. And the clients by the door push on the door. Nothing. She pushes the button again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

I assign an empty room for the whiny woman who needs a room, run the last three credit cards and then I jump up, run across the lobby and unlock the waiting room with my keys. And I breathe a sigh of relief because I actually got through that without having a heart attack and now maybe I can go take my fifteen minute dinner-and-pee break.

Forty minutes later the phone rings.

"Good evening, Blankety-Blank-Not-For-Profit."
"Trish! Are you alright? I just got a call that the alarm went off." It's my supervisor on the phone.
"Oh, wow. I have no idea why. Everything is fine." I say.
"Well, check the alarm panel because they're saying it was set off." I check the panel, I can't tell that anything is wrong, I assure her that I'm fine and we hang up.

Five minutes later the phone rings again.

"Good evening, Blankety-Blank-Not-For-Profit." It's one of the other girls who works in the office.
"Are you ok? Is everything alright? The alarm went off!"
"Yeah, Mary just called and said the same thing. I have no idea why."
"The alarm company said you hit the hold-up button."
"The what?"
"The hold-up button under the desk. Maybe you hit it with your knee?"

And then, of course, I remember the frantic moment forty-five minutes earlier when the nice helper therapist kept hitting the button to unlock the waiting room door, and I realize she must've been hitting the hold-up button. So I explain the situation to the girl on the phone, we hang up, and I begin to wonder why, if the hold-up button was hit so many times in a row, the police never showed up. Fifteen minutes after that, the Boss Lady calls.

"Patricia, what is going on there?"
"Oh, Janet. Everything is fine." And I tell her how the button accidentally got pushed. And she reprimands me for letting one of the therapists behind my desk and lectures me on how I am never, under any circumstances, to hit the hold-up button unless there is a gun in my face and someone demanding money. That's why it's called "a hold-up button." And then we hang up.

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER THAT, NYPD shows up. A full hour and twenty minutes after the hold-up button was frantically pushed many many many times, three uniformed NYPD officers with the faces of pimpled teenage boys saunter into the lobby, meander over to my desk and stare at me. I stare back. By now I've forgotten all about the alarm and I don't know what the hell they want, but by the looks on their faces I'm thinking they want cookies. Or dog biscuits.

"Can I help you?" I ask.
"Uh.... um.... I think... wait. Uh.... did your alarm go off?"

Oh jeez.

The moral of this story is that if I am ever held-up or otherwise threatened while I'm here in this office building all alone late at night, I can be sure that the NYPD won't show up until I'm laying in a pool of my own blood and guts, cold and dead. I am just so glad that I pay all those city taxes. What is it that money is used for again?