Buffalo, NY—WTF? All the women at work are crushing on Mason. That’s the feeling among the male members of the Surge Team at Buffalo Surgical Supply.
The fifteen member Surge Team which works remotely and interacts with each other via Microsoft Teams is composed of ten females and five males. The group was assembled at the start of the Covid crisis and has been filling PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) orders for area pharmacies, medical facilities and hospitals.
In the early chaotic days of the crisis when the Surge Team was incredibly busy the crushing on Mason was barely noticeable. But as infections waned last summer and the team had more time to chat and interact about personal matters the crush became apparent. It came to a head one day when Maryn, the team manager, called on Mason during a meeting and he wasn’t there. He was back a moment later saying, “What? . . . Who, me? . . . Sorry, the DoorDash guy was here with my Burrito Bowl and Queso Blanco from Chipotle.” When he finished explaining where he had been, a strange thing happened—all the women in the group giggled.
From there it was a thing. Everyday the women asked Mason what was for lunch and no matter his answer, whether it was a chicken sandwich from Sue’s NY Deli on Main Street or a Gyro from Pano’s on Elmwood they all giggled like it was 1998 and Joey Fatone just sat down at their lunch table.
Soon after that Nat, one of the Surge Team members, casually brought up that he had an awesome Falafel from Rachel’s Mediterranean and except for one perturbed sigh, there was dead silence. Recently, another group member who everyone calls Tark, announced he was doing a 5K Tough Mudder event—his first since the start of the pandemic. Female members responded with a certain amount of dismissiveness and asked why he would torture himself like that. But when Mason mentioned he had started some light running and weight lifting and had lost some weight the ladies asked him a bunch of questions and complimented him. And, of course—they giggled. They giggled like it was 1971 and David Cassidy just leaned up against their locker after third period Algebra.
This has been the pattern with the Surge Team throughout the pandemic according to team leader Abe. “It’s frustrating,” he said. “Like, last fall I took a week off to go help fight the forest fires in California and when I came back and brought it up in a meeting nobody wanted to hear about it. All they wanted to talk about, especially the women, was Mason’s Vegetable Lo Mein and what he thought of the Andy Samberg movie, “Palm Springs,” he watched over the weekend. And, I’m like WTF?”
That’s the consensus among the male members of the Surge Team—WTF? Or as Tark said in a philosophical moment, “Women—can’t live with them—it sucks not to be Mason.”
By P.A.Kane
