Today was the last day for one of my coworkers. I mourn the loss of such an adroit generator of gaffs and faux paus but I suppose even the most ersatz muse must eventually die or leave Never-Never Land. We purchased the 34 pizzas for the seven of us and after we began lapsing into the pizza coma we started telling stories as was tradition. Having had six going away parties some Pavlovian response to pizza and departure made every start telling stories about me. Periodically the tales would drift back to the real departing person but would inevitably lead back to my exploits, nay, legends. I had to leave early to see The Watchmen and someone besides the departing person said “We’ll miss you”. I feel loved.
Tag: coworkers
Outlook Rollout
We’re switching from Thunderbird to Outlook at work. Why, I don’t know, probably because some executive accidentally installed it when using a Student copy of Office 2007 and was attracted to the bright color and total lack of functionality.
So, I had to take a two hour training on how to use Outlook going through such tricky things as how to open email, what the preview pain is, how to send email and using advanced options like changing from one poorly rendered font to another (I’m confident that I could remove all fonts except for Calibri, Comic Sans and Impact and no one woudl notice).  The rollout was supposed to come automatically but something didn’t work out. I was confused when a man came around to “deploy it” simply by inserting a thumb drive into my machine and running a shortcut to a network location. I’m not sure what’s more tragic, a rollout failing because people somehow failed to click a link and type their name into a prompt or that a Microsoft certified System Engineer had to come around to “fix” it.
Disruptive Information Flow
I walked to my boss’s cube to say something when I found several folk having a heated discussion on something. The boss was mid-rant about how they’d have to work without interruption day or night after it was done he asked
Boss: Terry, what did you need?
Me: Nothing really, I just found out the guys across the hall have more variety at their coffee machine than us.
Boss: Why didn’t you tell me sooner!
Note to self: superior coffee and notes on office politicking goes above things marked important enough that he’ll have to work day and night.
My First Printer
I’m watching my coworker nearly attack the large, Soviet-style printer to the left of me. The thing jams like Dizzy Gillespie and no longer faxes. A coworker commented that this was caused by increased complication of modern gadgets and that he wanted a phone that just made calls and printer that just printed. Being a child of the 80s and growing up with surly printers like the HP LaserJet II that would only print under a waxing moon or certain tidal periods, I have no problem making the device function.  It is like a child that’s a picky eater and won’t take a ream of paper if the top sheet is off-kilter or toner cartridge isn’t seated just right. The noise of a properly inserted toner cartridge is that of loading a Thompson submachine gun with a drum of 50 caliber dum-dums. In the modern office environment is unmistakable.
So my older coworkers are a lost causee, my peers are versed in the ways of hardware-fu but what of our coworkers’ children? Having grown up in the age of functional printing knowing neither mimeograph nor tempermental laser printers we need to give them the tools to succeed with the next generation of grumpy technologies. I propose the Fisher-Price My First Printer. It’ll be large and plastic with easy to identify trays and cartridges with a display that simply shows a happy face everything’s ok and a sad face if something’s jammed or otherwise out of order and will play happy music with bursts of bright light when a printer problem is properly fixed. Best of all, there’ll be a “at least you tried” feature where the device will provide audible instructions if the operator isn’t able to solve something quickly to avoid early frustration. Wouldn’t it be great, going up to a printer, having it jam and that experience bringing up memories of a joyful childhood. That’s the world I want my kids to live in.
Brownie Intimidation
The brownie as a tool of office diplomacy has long been in my arsenal. I missed two days of work without appropriately notifying my bosses and the last hints of angst were dismissed over a week-old brownie created during the Great Guest Exodus of New Years Eve. But the brownie can be used for a more sinister purpose, intimidation.
Me: Would you like a piece?
Coworker: Sure, I’ll take a piece.
Me: Oh, that’s it. I thought you’d said you’d take a piece. Not a crumb.
Coworker: Hey, I just had lunch.
Me: And you need a quality confection to top it off. The portion you took is like a shot of beer, insulting to the drinker and the bartender.
Coworker:Â Ok…. I’ll be back later to get the rest.
Me: No! You’ll be back now to get the rest. Get in there, and take a slice.
Me: Would you like a piece?
Coworker: Yes, I’d love some, thank you. I really like brownies.
Me: Oh, so that’s how you show your love? With what appears to be a portion the size of mice leavings?
Coworker: I just started a new diet.
Me: The first three letters tell you all you need to know “DIE”. Are you trying to kill your tastebuds?
Coworker: I’ll try more.
Me: Try? Do or do not. There is no try.
Coworker: Ok…. *cuts larger slice*
Me: I’m going to check back with you later to see if you finished it.
Who new baked goods could be such precise tools of demasculation? Next week: Decimating self image with coffee crumb lemon bars.
Brownie Intimidation
The brownie as a tool of office diplomacy has long been in my arsenal. I missed two days of work without appropriately notifying my bosses and the last hints of angst were dismissed over a week-old brownie created during the Great Guest Exodus of New Years Eve. But the brownie can be used for a more sinister purpose, intimidation.
Me: Would you like a piece?
Coworker: Sure, I’ll take a piece.
Me: Oh, that’s it. I thought you’d said you’d take a piece. Not a crumb.
Coworker: Hey, I just had lunch.
Me: And you need a quality confection to top it off. The portion you took is like a shot of beer, insulting to the drinker and the bartender.
Coworker:Â Ok…. I’ll be back later to get the rest.
Me: No! You’ll be back now to get the rest. Get in there, and take a slice.
Me: Would you like a piece?
Coworker: Yes, I’d love some, thank you. I really like brownies.
Me: Oh, so that’s how you show your love? With what appears to be a portion the size of mice leavings?
Coworker: I just started a new diet.
Me: The first three letters tell you all you need to know “DIE”. Are you trying to kill your tastebuds?
Coworker: I’ll try more.
Me: Try? Do or do not. There is no try.
Coworker: Ok…. *cuts larger slice*
Me: I’m going to check back with you later to see if you finished it.
Who new baked goods could be such precise tools of demasculation? Next week: Decimating self image with coffee crumb lemon bars.
The Inventiveness of Children
Relayed conversation from coworker yesterday:
Kid 1: Well what happened to Jesus after he died?
Kid 2: He went away.
Kid 1: Well, what happened to his body?
Kid 2: It wasn’t in the cave where he was buried.
Kid 1: Why not?
Kid 2: Lions.
The Great Collaboration
I got in late today and everyone in the group was working at a feverish pace. Engineers were yelling at designers trying to contact secretaries. The cries were almost pleading:
“The colors won’t work. We’ll never get the purpose across.”
“It needs to be bigger, it’s never going to hold all we need it to.”
“There’s no way in hell that’ll get through the design team. We need to redo the shape.”
“We don’t have time for a redesign, if this isn’t done by 5 PM we’re toast, this is too important to mess up.”
It took me a while to figure out what had everyone working together to ram through a last minute project of great importance and secrecy: A custom-made going away present for a departing employee.
Blood Drive Needle Fail
I enjoy giving blood. I’m good at it (if that’s even possible.) I can drop a pint in about 3 minutes, I have wonderful iron levels and I’m O-positive, not quite the holy grail of O-negative but close. I don’t faint, I don’t complain and I don’t take the afternoon to recover.
My first indication that I wouldn’t be through as fast as I wished was when I was stopped for high blood pressure. Apparently, 1250/80 is unusual. I’m pretty sure that would also kill a person and were an artery cut under such pressure I’d be blow back like a rocket.
Supervisor: Sir, you’re blood pressure’s pretty high.
Me: What is it?
Supervisor: 1250/80.
Me: I’m pretty sure that’s a typo. Sphygmomanometers don’t even go that high.
Supervisor: Well, I guess i could do it over again.*repeats BP reading*, there we go 130 over 80.
Despite being lower, I think it was higher because of my tard-induced rage.
Then came the actual extraction. I thought it was the best draw I’d gotten as I barely felt a pin prick, until I looked down and saw the need hadn’t entered my arm yet and I was being scraped by the woman’s finger nail ring (yes, fingernail ring). The puncture hurt more than usual and the stream was slower than normal. This gave me extra time to see all the tiny women in the complex get kicked out like a fat kid in dodge ball. If you weigh 110 lbs and are a vegetarian, you probably can’t give blood. Don’t bother trying, you meet neither the weight requirement and have as much iron in you as a dying jellyfish. If you want to, bulk up a bit and eat some Victorian fencing, handmade nails or lick anvils the morning of, something to give iron. Don’t worry, their vegetarian and maybe you won’t waste these people’s time wishing. It’s almost as tragic as the fat kid in gym class trying to do the rope climb. It’s nice that he tries, but part of you knows the farcical attempt is pathetic.
Maybe i should build a Fisher Price “My First Donation” kit where anorexic waifs or oddly dieted kids can give fake blood to little fake leukemia patients. It’ll come with a plastic fork so you can even get the experience of several failed stabs at your arm from an underpracticed operator.
The Simpleton and the Steamspout
Lately I’ve glommed onto the John Carter Theory of Caffeine Equilibrium: The substance is best activated by radical changes in temperature in the body. Achieving this requires a hot caffeine beverage and a cold caffeine beverage and I’ve taken to a can of diet Mountain Dew tempered with the mediocre our coffee machines accept. Mind you, I’m not a chronic tea liker, given the choice, I’d take just about any store brand diet cola above $600 a pound Spanish oolong grown in Moslem Andalusia through the ashes of Tartars killed during the Battle of Tours (which I think is impossible), but our facilities folks seemed to have forgotten that people freeze at temperatures above water and its still better than the emitic free coffee.
I approached the machine, pulled out a tea single-serving packet and dropped it into the pouch slot stunning the man next to me microwaving a tea bag.
Him: That makes tea too? Does it taste ok?
Me: It tastes like tea.
Him: How can you have the same device do both?
Me: It’s just a hot water dispenser with a packet cutting device.
Him: That’s genius, I always wondered where the packets went for my coffee. I thought you reused them.
Me: Nah, that pull out bin holds the empty ones and has to be emptied once in a while.
Him: How wonderful! You’ve saved me so much time, you’re probably one of those guys in engineering.
Me: Yeah. It can even make hot water.
I’m not sure how he was unaware of this feature set as “Coffee”, “Tea” and “Hot Water” are three of the labeled buttons on the device. I hope he goes back and tells all his marketing chums about his amazing discovery, although I’m not sure if they’re equally dim as they may herald him as a genius more than a twit. I hope I run into him in a similar situation and then I’ll make hot chocolate with the machine and BLOW HIS MIND!