The circus elephant has lost its way.: "Employee of the Month" is a real thing!

Someone I know is "Employee of the Month"!! Turns out it is a real thing that happens at *real jobs!

JOY is employee of the month for the psychiatry department for January! Of course, she just found out today, and there are only 1.5 days left in January. I'm guessing tomorrow she might wear a tiara to go out with a bang. Joy got a nice letter from the chairman (chairperson?) of our department outlining exactly why she was chosen, etc. The main reason is because she cleaned out all the chemicals (mostly unlabeled waste sitting in nonfunctional fume hoods) from the 10th floor of Sparks, where I used to work. I happen to know for a fact that the 10th floor was a complete disaster, and we passed all our inspections by finding someone to flirt with the inspector. Anyway. Among her adventures in helping to vacate the 10th floor for remodeling, she found

a) lots and lots of cyanide. Like, really, it could be Jonestown all over again.

b) dehydrated whale sperm. This is a real thing both in the ocean and in "science".

c) cocaine.

d) tons of various anesthesias.

She ended up with 1800 bottles of waste, most if it unknown. It took her about a month of constant work to get this accomplished.

And today, to celebrate, Joy was presented with an engraved clock (maybe it's a hint to get back to work?), and there was cake and champagne. But don't tell anyone about the champagne, since officially it was sparkling white grape juice. I certainly did NOT have too much ~~champagne~~ sparkly juice and cake for lunch. And Joy certainly did NOT have mac and cheese with ~~champagne~~ sparkly juice for lunch and cake for dessert.

The man in the suit standing with the scientists makes me think of,

"One of these things is not like the others..."

Also, now Joy will always know what time it is.