Ruth's Stories

Sometimes I accidentally have long conversations with people.  Usually they're with people I love who make me laugh.  Last night it was Ruth.
Ruth and I have only recently become friends, but we're apparently those friends who meet and then a few weeks later are best friends.  (Last year, I did the same thing with Mark.  He asks me about something in a class and three weeks later we're having two and a half hour conversations with lots of giggles.  By this past April, we would run into each other in the street and ten friends would pass by, each wondering why we were having such enthusiastic conversations that last three hours when they're supposed to be ten.) 
Ruth has got all sorts of fun stories.  She used to work in a MP's office.  She said that it was an awful job, just because the MP was a complete disappointment and because she had to deal with strange situations. 
"We had to scan everything that came in and out of the office for records, which was fine, except the scanner was in one room and the computer that would actually make the scanner scan was in another room.  You'd have to walk back and forth scanning in four hundred pages.  At one point I suggested two people do it, one to flip the paper and the other to press the button, and they thought it was brilliant, but no one ever helped me."
Apparently a lot of people would call asking for asylum, which was fine, except no one could write anything down about anyone, so usually Ruth would have no contact information for them. 
"The phone number they had wouldn't work and the ten different emails they had would just come back as one of those failed to send notices, so I started guessing what the email address probably was.  Changing certain numbers, adding an s here, that sort of thing.  Finally I got one of those emails to work." 
Ugh.  Incompetent people are able to have jobs all the time and they make so much extra unnecessary work. 
The final straw was the schizophrenic who would call in.  She apparently believed that the government, elements of the police and a few lawyers were conspiring against her, and she would call the MP's office over it.  Ruth would apparently listen to her on the phone, with her head down, because she would call several times a day.  Which was apparently better than her emailing six times a day.
"Usually, if it was mildly diverting, I would listen to her for twenty minutes, or if she was really upset, I'd give her forty."
I don't even give some of my friends forty minutes on the phone.  And I'd love to talk to Dan like that, but he's always rushing to get off. 
I suggested maybe this woman get some help, since it sounds like the government was far too incompetent to possibly be conspiring against her.  On the other hand, Ruth's making my job, with minimal human contact, lots of books and research, and fellow employees I actually like, sound awesome.  I already was pleased as punch with this work, but you know, it's good to be reminded of how bad it could be.