I was only in the copy room for less than 5 minutes. When I got back to my desk, arms full of papers, something looked different but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I set the stack of papers down on the cluttered desk and then realized what it was. My chair was gone.
I looked over the cubicle and down the isle to the room center and the common work stations. I saw the man, right hand up to partially block his face from my view. “Well.” I thought, “He must have not been able to find a chair and kept looking until he found this one.” I walked down the isle towards him and saw empty chairs on my left and on my right. Huh. So, that therory isn’t really going to hold water. “Well, maybe he really had some heavy work to get done and it’s the only chair that ergonomically is right for his back.” I was really trying hard to cut the guy some slack.
And then I saw that mine was one of triplet chairs in the common area right next to him. One of them would have bitten his knee if he’d given it a sidelong glance. Only they were blue and mine was black. Ah. He only likes black. But his shirt was blue. And he was checking concert listings on the internet so the hard work thought wasn’t right either. I tried to catch his eye as I scooped up the sibling chair and pushed it past him back to my cubicle but he kept his face covered and only peeked at me from in between his first and second fingers. I guess I’ll never know what made him want to only sit in that particular chair. I’ll never know what made it worth the extra effort to stakeout my comings and goings so he could swipe it covertly while I copied.
Maybe just because it’s the chair that touched my butt.
Please don’t take my Swingline stapler.