My Ortega Last Name Observation Practice
So, I’ve got this thing I do with the last name “Ortega.” It’s not like I’m a genealogist or anything particularly deep, just something I sort of fell into doing. You know how sometimes a word, a place, or even a name just kind of… sticks in your brain after a certain experience? Well, that’s pretty much what happened with “Ortega” for me.
It all really kicked off a few years back. I was neck-deep in this massive project at work, a real monster, you know the type? The kind where the sheer volume of paperwork and bureaucracy could make a grown person weep. And there was this one critical department, or maybe it was an external vendor, honestly, communication was so scrambled it was hard to tell, that became this legendary bottleneck. Everything, and I mean everything, had to be funneled through or approved by someone named “Ortega.” But here’s the truly baffling part: it felt like there wasn’t just one Ortega. It was like an army of Ortegas, or perhaps just one incredibly elusive, possibly mythical, Ortega who was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The Great Ortega Chase
I’m not exaggerating. We’d send out an email needing urgent approval, and the reply, often days later, would be signed by “Ortega.” If we tried to call, the person on the other end would invariably say, “I’ll have an Ortega get back to you on that.” Documents needing a crucial signature? “Just leave it for Ortega; it’ll get sorted.” It quickly became a running gag within our suffering team. We’d ask each other, “Have you managed to summon an Ortega today?” or “Which Ortega are we waiting on this time – Ortega the Gatekeeper or Ortega the Vanisher?”
- It started with a simple form, Form A-38, if I recall. It needed an Ortega signature to proceed. Sounds straightforward, right? Oh, how naive we were.
- We dispatched it to the Ortega we were told handled such things in Department X. Days passed. Then, it came back, rejected. “This isn’t for our Ortega; you need the Ortega in Department Y,” the note read.
- So, off it went to Department Y’s Ortega. More waiting. Then, a cryptic email: “While I am an Ortega, this specific subsection requires the attention of Ortega from the Legal Division.”
- Finally, after what felt like an eternity of phone calls and misdirections, we located an Ortega in Legal. This Ortega looked at the form, sighed, and informed us that the original Ortega in Department X was indeed the correct recipient, but we had failed to use the mandatory blue ink pen for Section 3, and apparently, Ortega Prime only accepted forms filled with blue ink. Blue ink!
This whole ridiculous saga dragged on for what felt like months. It was less like project management and more like trying to navigate an invisible maze designed by Franz Kafka, if Kafka had a peculiar obsession with the surname Ortega. I started to develop this mental image of a shadowy council of Ortegas, all sitting around a large table, cackling as they devised new ways to complicate our lives with their Byzantine rules and shifting identities.
How My “Ortega Spotting” Began
Naturally, after that entire ordeal, the name “Ortega” was burned into my memory. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I started noticing that name absolutely everywhere. I’d see it in the credits of a movie, as the author of a book I picked up, mentioned in a news article, or on a shop sign. And every single time, without fail, I’d get this little jolt, a flashback to the great Ortega paper chase of ‘insert year here’.
So, my “practice,” if you can even dignify it with such a term, is simply this: whenever I encounter the name “Ortega,” whether spoken or written, I take a brief moment. I sort of give a mental nod, sometimes I even let out a small, knowing chuckle. It’s like sharing an inside joke, but only with myself. I don’t delve into their ancestry or anything like that; it’s not an academic pursuit. It’s more of a quiet acknowledgment of the name and the bizarre, frustrating, yet ultimately comical bureaucracy it now symbolizes in the archives of my mind.
It’s quite funny, isn’t it, how a completely ordinary surname can become so heavily freighted with personal meaning based on one absurd experience? Before that project from hell, “Ortega” was just another name in the phonebook of life. Now? Now, for me, it’s legendary. It’s a shorthand for bureaucratic rabbit holes, the Sisyphean quest for the correct signature, and the critical importance of blue ink pens.
I suppose everyone develops these little mental quirks, these unique ways of categorizing the world that stem from particularly memorable, or trying, experiences. For me, one of those quirks is inextricably linked to the last name Ortega. It’s not earth-shatteringly profound, it’s not going to change the world, it’s just… a thing. And sometimes, these small, personal narratives and internal monologues are the very things that help you crack a smile when you see a certain name pop up unexpectedly.
