Dear Office Scribe #1

I always love when people who read this blog decide to take a few minutes out of their crazy day and shoot me an e-mail. It’s a practice I encourage for two reasons:
A) It provides we with a better understanding of who my audience is

And

B) By checking the e-mail (and responding) it provides me with computer work that makes me look busier than I actually am.

So I was super stoked to check my Office Scribe e-mail this morning and find the following note from loyal reader Black Coffee Drinker:

How do you like it when someone else in your office skates by for about a year doing the bare minimum of work required to keep his job, falls asleep at his desk a number of times, and then BAM something hits him and all of the sudden he's working harder than you've ever seen. Now he's the golden boy, his ego's getting all pumped up, and he starts taking credit for a huge deal you've been working on for the last several days! Know anyone like that?

Of course I know someone like that. I do work in an office. But the thing is, I am kind of a golden child myself around the ole cubicle and I think maybe a little intimidating. Co-workers know better than to try and pass off one of my ideas/work as their own.

I would end them.

But I am also all about the honesty. Tell this good-for-nothing slacker that you don’t appreciate him trying to claim your work as his own. And if he keeps it up you won’t tell your boss. You’ll tell everyone in the office about his scorching case of genital herpes and addiction to midget porn. Nothing takes a knocks a guy down like making him the office pariah.

Hope that helps! And keep the e-mails coming!

The Office Scribe

I Hope You Go Blind

Recently I have been spending a lot of time up at my mom’s place on the weekends, helping her get ready for the twice a year garage sale her community holds. We have a lot of junk we can sell since the move. It’s amazing the stuff that accumulates in a house over 30 or so years.

And I really hope a lot of it sells, because her being 80 miles away is taking it’s toll on my gas tank. And with the way gas prices are going (Thanks OPEC!) I don’t see it getting better in the near future.

The interesting thing though is all the fun things I get to see on my drive into work on Monday mornings. Of course I see the usual people gulping coffee or chatting on their cell phones. The people that really have my interest piqued are the ones that feel the need to perform their own Mary Kay makeover while going 70 mph down I-90 at 8:00AM.

I understand you want to look nice. I understand that we can all benefit from a little makeup. But how ballsy is it to try and apply mascara in this manner? And in all actuality, how much do you really care about your looks? If make up meant that much to you, so much that you’d be willing to either blind yourself or cause a 20 car pile-up while applying lipstick, then wouldn’t you wake up 5 minutes earlier and do it in your bathroom with a proper mirror and lighting?

I am really surprised that we don’t hear about more accidents due to early morning changing lanes while applying make up. Maybe there is a cover up by authorities to protect the feelings of the family. How embarrassing would it be to have to tell your friends that your sister dies in a horrible car accident because she was trying to apply purple eye liner to make her eyes stand out? (Yeah, I read Vogue. I know stuff about make up.) Or why your Aunt Shelly had to have a closed casket due to inappropriate application of concealer?

So ladies, I beg of you. Please take a few extra minutes and do your make up at home. I’d feel safer and I guarantee your co-workers will stop the Tammy Fay Baker jokes if you do.

The Office Scribe

Some Things Never Change

Greetings from me, who I know has been away for a while, but is back and sitting in my cubicle, waiting for divine inspiration to come and give me a topic to write about.

But unfortunately, by being away I have not only neglected this blog but my day to day duties in my office, meaning there were tons of e-mails to answer, files to sort through, and phone calls to return. One of my co-workers just was at my desk and said, “Sometimes it’s not even worth going away with what we have to come back to.”

While this statement is pessimistic and, let’s face it, somewhat true, the tons of work that has been keeping me occupied since my return from Tanzania is a small price to pay for, well, BEING SENT TO TANZANIA!!!

So as we, the working class people of the world, quickly approach summer vacation season remember this: Yes, stuff will be piling up on your desk while you are gone, but the fastest way to forget about it is to order a fruity drink with an umbrella in it and soak up the rays until that winter pastiness is gone.

~The Office Scribe