Reed: Is that Chef Boyardee?
Me: Yes. Â It’s good and only as 440 calories per can.
Reed: I remember when I packed that for my son along with a juice box and a fruit snack.
Me: It’s allowed me to cut my lunch cost to under $2.00.
Reed: Maybe you should ask for a higher allowance.
Me: Die in a fire.
Tag: coworkers
Chef Mockery
Joe: Is that Chef Boyardee?
Me: Yes. Â It’s good and only as 440 calories per can.
Joe: Are you 9? Â Where’s your Go-Gurt and Capri Sun.
Me: It’s allowed me to cut my lunch cost to under $2.00.
Joe: Is that all your mom gives you?
Me: Die in a fire.
Cake Revealed
Coworker: Terry, was there something wrong with that cake?
Me: What do you mean by wrong?
Coworker: Was it what you had planned going into it?
Me: No, not by any means. Â What made you think that?
Coworker: Well, the chocolate later over the graham cracker came out of nowhere and the cake bits were too square. Â You usually don’t go for presentation so we though maybe you dropped it and made that instead.
Me: Nah, it just cooked oddly so I had to cut it up ahead of time and find something to do with it.
Coworker: And you probably just had some strawberries lying around? Â They seemed pretty sweet and that’s a sign that they’re near the end of their life.
Me: That’s pretty astute. Â Any thoughts?
Coworker: Ditch the dark chocolate, otherwise everyone in marketing likes what we’ve dubbed your MacGuyver cake.
Next Skill
Me: Jon, which of the following should I do, learn to eat fire or learn to jump onto a moving freight train?
John: Easy, moving freight train. If you really want to get around, try learning to use speed stilts.
Me: Speed stilts?
John: Yeah, they’re huge in Prague. Speed stilts or become whatever species Taylor Swift is.
Me: What do you mean?
John: Think about it, she’s got 40 inch legs no larger than a guard rail.
Me: Normal bones could hold that.
John: She could probably get going pretty fast. She also has fatty deposits around her eyes, she’s probably from a desert planet. And everyone likes her.
Me:Â Pheromones?
John: No, it works through television. I think it’s probably some form of hypnosis. *coffee sip*
The Non-Wife
John: Terry’s banana bread is pretty good. You should try it, Tihn.
Tihn: Nah, I’m waiting for him to bring meatballs in again.
Me: You could solve that problem by bringing in something.
Tihn: But my wife doesn’t cook.
Me: Neither does mine…
Thanks for Stopping By
Boss #3: Terry, we need to update user fields to include some referral information, that’s why I asked you to stop by.
Me: Ok. I’ll add that to the information we collect.
Boss #3: Good. Thanks for stopping by.
Me: If you need anything else just email or message me.
Boss #3: Nah, I like when you stop by, you should do it more often.
Noted.
About six hours later, I decided to give a try at casually stopping by so I found reasons to be in that other wing of the building and repeatedly walked by that person’s door. Each time, my boss was either on the phone, meeting with someone, or looking out the window. On the fifth pass he saw me.
Boss #3: I guess I never realized how much time you spent on this side of the building.
At least I was on the clock for what I’m now going to call my Communication Attack Runs.
Failed Fudge
Sometimes when making something I’ve made before I’ll be reckless. Â Yesterday I attempted to make a standard chocolate fudge but either used bum chocolate or allowed it to seize and this resulted in a final fudge with the consistency of sand. Â It was devoid of smoothness and had the consistency of Necco wafers and my coworkers none-the-less destroyed it. Â Every horrible piece of its four pound bulk was gone by four PM with comments like “it fights back unlike regular fudge” and “it’s so rich you can barely cut it”.
I don’t know if my coworkers are desperate or just being nice but I hope there’s a day after I destroy a baked good that one will raise his or her head above the heard and point to me yelling “defiler of all that is right in the world of baking, repent for ye hath sinned!” Â That person will identify the taint within my baking soul and I will go through a ritual involving taking sugar from every level between syrup and caramel and back again. Â Thus cleansed, I will again pay attention to what I’m doing in the kitchen and such baking foulness will be behind me.
Duck Farts Revisited
Boss: I keep hearing something that sounds like a goose call and then it smells.
Coworker: That’s Terry.
Boss: Â Nah, I’ve worked with Terry for years, his farts are like thunder.
Coworker: This is his new fart noise.
Boss: You can change it?
Coworker: Or it can change.
Boss: Terry.
Me: Yes?
Boss: Good work.
Me: Thanks.
New Tool in the Box
Boss #2: Terry, will you show me how to do a plot on the big printer when you get a chance?
Me: Ok, or I could do it.
Boss #2: You could?
Me: Yeah, I do kind of sit in your area, have a computer provided by you, eat in your area, sometimes sleep in your area, and have a cost center for your area.
Boss #2: So you’re saying, I can give you things to do, and you will do them?
Me: I’ll bill you for it, but yes.
Boss #2: That’s wonderful.
Me: Just tell me what you need.
*20 minutes later*
Boss #2: Oh, Terry.
Me: Yes?
Boss #2: I have a… ahem, job for you to do. Â *chuckle*
Me: What is it?
Boss #2: I need you to print something. Â I’m too busy with other things to do it so I figure I’d have you do it.
Me: It does make sense that you’d give to me tasks that you can’t do that I can.
Boss #2: *winks at me, laughs*
I wish all bosses were so easy to please.
Sriracha Divide
One a month I try to make something totally new for my coworkers. Â Today, I made peanut butter sriracha cookies that were met with mixed results. Â Some people liked them, some people didn’t and I saw an obvious divide that none of my other coworkers did:
Coworker: Some people seem to really like your cookies.
Me: Yeah.
Coworker: But not everyone. Â Farhad, Venkatesh, and Priya really liked your cookies, but Carl, Everett, and I didn’t. Â Strange.
Me: No, not in the least.
Coworker: Really?
Me: You can find no commonality between the three that liked it versus. the three that didn’t?
Coworker: They’re all in marketing?
Yep, that’s it. Â The fact that most of the likers from from the Indian subcontinent was completely secondary.