Exorcism at the office

I usually don't blog about work, but what happened today is too bizarre not to share.

I arrived this morning around 8:30. After chatting with my co-worker for a bit, I headed back to my office through my usual shortcut that passed through the boss's office. I noticed a criss-cross smear of oil near the top of her door, and at first I thought that maintenance did a poor job greasing the door hinge, since I couldn't think of any other reason why oil would be at the top of a door.

A few moments later, after my co-worker entered her office, she called me and said, "this crap is ALL OVER my office!" Sure enough, there were little and big oil smears on her chair, on her desk, by her phone, and on her door. And with more smears to observe, it became clear that they were in the shape of the cross. Then we noticed oil crosses on all the doors in that section of our office, and even on the doors of the adjacent offices in our neighbor's office. 32 in all. Apparently the cleaning lady went wacko and felt a need to exorcise our office.

If such behavior can be explained, the instigation was the co-worker's cheap-o souvenir voodoo doll from New Orleans that was sitting in a shot glass from Mexico on one of her shelves. We know this was the spark for the behavior because the voodoo doll was doused in oil, and we know the cleaning lady did it because no one else had access to the office after COB yesterday (and, she confessed shortly before she was fired).

Anyway, the exorcism generated a LOT of interest on this slow Friday, with all the appropriate offices conducting their own official and unofficial investigations and inquiries.

Sadly, because my office is not adjacent to my co-worker's and is instead separated by my boss's office, it was not exorcised. And we all know what a hotbed of sin and evil my office is. The whole thing is somewhat amusing, but also quite creepy. I was so traumatized that I had to leave work early this afternoon and take a nap at home.