The view from my desk…

Somebody get this guy a beer to go with his conference call….

In related news, don’t forget to check out another daily dose of bad poetry over at A Year of Bad Poetry! (It sucks pretty hard today.)

A Year of Bad Poetry

On the 22^nd of August, 2008, in an effort to cut through the boredom with the thick knife of wit, a project was born. My co-worker, DJ Nezz, and I, two liberal arts majors awash in a sea of number-crunchers, met our  mutual fear of brain atrophy and dull-mindedness head on (no pun intended).

Destined to break out of the mold, to avoid the fate that ensnares liberal arts majors across the globe—sacrificing our analytical skills and creative minds at the feet of “The Man”—we concocted a plan to keep the mind sharp, the creative juices flowing….and hopefully, one day, make ourselves a little cash. Thus, “A Year of Bad Poems” was born.

Committed to each trying our hand at one bad poem a day for an entire year (which is harder to do than you think, by the way), DJ Nezz and I will be posting our “bad” poetry here in the bloggosphere. We hope they prove as entertaining for you all to read as they are for us to write…and one day, maybe you’ll do us the honor of purchasing our drivel in book form. Hey—stranger things have happened!

Click here or on the “Year of Bad Poems” link in the blogroll. And if you’ve got a poem to share, by all means send it our way! All manner of bad prose is welcome…

Enjoy!

I *Heart* My Job…

When the head of your department leaves the workgroup a voicemail to advise that the department upstairs will be having a Guitar Hero battle from 3-5 on Friday, and things might get a little noisy, I have to chuckle.

Not only is it pretty cool to work for a company that will have in-house happy hours every few months, but to work someplace where they promote healthy video game competition amongst your peers…that’s just frickin’ AWESOME!

Now, where do I sign up? I play a MEAN guitar…
*red red green blueblueblueblueblue WHAMMIE BARRRRRRR!*

dire rift scarves actor corollary

Today I received a very special email from one Sebastian Randolph. It read:

“bergen gobbledygook cheer? respire, picky rift.

gigabit imponderable midstream cheer stratton beatify, member

christ midstream hightail midstream committing.

 

yachtsman spree imponderable

 

christ corollary stratton? fox, brisbane activism.

collision hightail midstream spree scarves dire, naval

shrink paucity fox caret stratton.

 

gobbledygook activism committing

 

observation naval midstream? dire, yachtsman bergen.

 

brisbane clause.”

 

So, without further ado, I typed up this quick response:

“clock paper thumb. sandal marionette iguana?
special envelope headphones! balloon calendar sticky…

texas super note, via scissors umbrella.

picture.”

How Sebastian’s initial email ended up in my Junk Mail folder in the first place, I’ll never know…

BTW, uh WTF? kind of email was that, anyway? (Don’t worry, I didn’t acutally respond…but I did get a chuckle out of it.)

Thank you, Corporate America!

I just found out today that I already have 95 hours of Personal Time Off accrued. 95 HOURS!! For those of you who can’t divide 95 by 8, that is a little over 11 DAYS of paid vacation. This may not sound like such a novel idea to any of you, but for a girl that’s used to working jobs that only give you 5 days of paid vacation AFTER you’ve worked there for a year, this is HUGE!!!

Now, where to spend it….

They’re EVERYWHERE!!!

Summer is here! That’s right, folks—it’s that time of year again. The temperatures are beginning to soar, school is out…and all the little children are running amok (which, of course, puts me on edge, but whatever). Summers past have taught me to avoid playgrounds, parks, coffee shops, fitness centers, malls, restaurants, amusement parks, busses, ferries, and all modes of public transportation, libraries, bike paths, and the outdoors in general, so as to avoid the annoying throngs of pre-teens and teenagers that infiltrate my frequent haunts and make my life miserable.

I thought I was prepared. I thought I had my bases covered.

I was wrong.

 

Here at Fabulous New Job, I’m experiencing a whole new kind of infiltration—INTERNS! They are everywhere, shoved into all the nooks and crannies of the office, busily crunching numbers and reviewing files, and generally feeling Very Important. If I didn’t know better, (i.e. if there were no minimum working age), I’d swear they were all 12 year olds dressed up in dad’s work clothes.

I know I’m only 29—still a Spring Chicken if you ask me—but when did kids start looking so dang young?! I swear that when I was 20, 21, 22 years old, I didn’t look that…little. *sigh* Youth, what a fair-weather friend you are.

Now someone get me a giant Intern-Sized can of Raid….

It’s been a while since I wrote a letter…

Dear Partner Whose Expenses I Submit,

When it comes to keeping your receipts, you are a superstar, the best in the biz! You even keep the ones you don’t need to keep, and for that I am eternally grateful. For the most part, despite your constant globe hopping, I can keep up with you, no sweat–of course, I never know what time zone you’re in, but that’s neither here nor there (well, I guess it’s more there than anything).

But I gotta say, I’m going to need your help with these:

Cause this is all Greek to me!

Faithfully Yours, etc….

Just when you thought life was getting interesting…

…you realize it is, in fact, as boring as you suspected all along.

My absence here over the last few weeks is not for lack of desire. Truth be told, I’ve sat down to update the blog half a dozen times, only to be hit with a severe case of writer’s block. Life recently is uninspiring, unexciting, uneventful, and just plain snooze-worthy.

“There must be SOMETHING going on, Essaytch!” I imagine you’re all saying to yourselves. “Any funny work anecdotes?” Alas, there are none. I’ve transitioned to a new desk in the office, and life has shifted from YouTube surfing for Manager and wild event planning weekends, to posting invoices and YouTube surfing for pleasure…because I’m THAT BORED. Oh wait! There’s a guy on this floor that gives me creepy eyes every time he walks by my desk. And I killed my bean plant over the weekend. Does that count? No? *sigh*

So what HAS been happening? Well, in the time that has passed since my last post, I have:

-used Fabulous New Job’s tickets to see a Mariner’s game. They finally won, and would like to credit that to the rowdy cheers of “Come on RAUUUUUUUUL!” and “I-CHI-ROHHHHHHHH!” coming from our section on the first base side.
-been sunburned twice.
-went Garage Sale-ing. Purchased two books for $2. Have yet to open either.
-watched about 80 episodes of Stargate SG1 and 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica.
-watched the successful landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander. It was a tense 15 minutes, but when the EDL Communications officer exclaimed “Phoenix has landed, I repeat: PHOENIX HAS LANDED!” and everyone started cheering and jumping up and down, I got a little teary-eyed.
-convinced Other Roomie to FINALLY make a doctor’s appointment to diagnose her stomach issues. I’ll admit, I played the “You’re going to feel like a complete douche-bag ten years from now when you find out you are dying, and a proper diagnosis could have been made early if only you had GONE TO THE DOCTOR LIKE EVERYONE TOLD YOU” card. Hey, it’s worked for me before.
-went to my first ever film screening as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Although Roomie and The Enabler fell asleep, I found the film enthralling and beautiful! Not to mention I felt VERY important and cool attending a film festival. (oooooooh! aaaaaah!)

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. What about the rest of you?

Oooooooooooooooooops!

So, I broke my boss’ computer. Oops.

Yesterday, he was re-imaged to Vista, and couldn’t figure out how to transfer his Personal Folders back into Outlook. And because I am a Computer GENIUS (please note the sarcasm), he asked me for help. So I did a little research and sent him some directions. He tried them and they didn’t work…so we decided to wait until he could take it back to IT and have them do it.

Well, apparently the directions I gave him were slightly…off. He tried them again later, and all the files dumped into his In-box, effectively freezing it because of the amount of data. So he did the WORST THING he could possibly have done: he called the Help Desk. As I mentioned previously, it is my experience that Help Desks generally aren’t all that helpful. In this particular instance, they proceeded to completelycorrupt Outlook to the point where the program won’t open half the time, and the rest of the time is stuck in a perpetual loop, trying to synchronize his folders with the Exchange Server.

When I called IT today and explained what had happened, I got a heavy-weighted *sigh* followed by sarcastic thanks for my continued efforts at providing them with job security. Hey: I do what I can.

So if you’re looking for me and I don’t appear to be at my desk, it is because I’m hiding under it. Just look for the white flag.

What would Brian Boitano do?

So, here I am working away at Fabulous New Job when I get an IM from someone in the office who just so happens to be a CRAZY PERSON. And she’s talking smack about a new co-worker that she has to work with (someone that I just so happen to be friends with–but she doesn’t know that). She basically puts in writing on IM her plans to sabotage this person by not training her or offering her help or advice as she transitions into her new role. Her reasoning? “No one helped me when I was in that position, so why should I help her?”

Uh, how about because it is the right thing to do?

How about because, when she screws up and gets called on the carpet by her manager, who inevitibly will ask “Didn’t Ms. Crazy Co-Worker train you on this?” (to which she will no doubt respond “No, actually Ms. Crazy Co-Worker hasn’t trained me on anything. I’ve been on my own.”), YOU will look like the douche-bag, and not her?

How about because, when you say in one sentence “I thought this would help foster a team environment” and then in another sentence you’re pledging to sabotage the new girl, you’re basically contradicting yourself and again looking like a douche-bag?

How about the fact that going around touting yourself as a strong Christian…well, we just won’t go there. No stone throwing here. But I’m just sayin’…

So I’m left asking, what would YOU do if you were me, on the other end of this IM conversation? What would Jesus do? Hell! WHAT WOULD BRIAN BOITANO DO???

 If only ALL the world’s problems could be solved by South Park…