Dumb Advice From Calenders

Okay, so I know a lot of people in offices have "Page A Day" calendars. Hell, I have one. And it sucks. It is a Joke A Day calendar full of the most pathetic jokes you have ever heard. Seriously, there is like a "Yo Mamma" joke at least once a week.

But now I am completely off topic.

So anyway, there is an advice Page A Day calendar next to one of the printers I use everyday. I have no idea who it belongs to, it just has a new page torn off everyday and I read the bit of wisdom as I wait for my paper to appear. Today, as usual, there was a new suggestion and as I read it, it pissed me off.

"Forget Casual Friday, If you work in a professional place, always dress professional"
What. The. Hell.

Personally, I look forward to casual fridays. I get to rock jeans and a variety humorous t-shirts that I own. I feel comfortable. And guess what, when I am comfortable, I tend to work better. I mean, no one but June Cleaver does laundry or cleans house in heals and a dress. I usually throw on a pair of sweats and go to town.

And I don't know why the other four days a week I can't go casual. No clients ever come into the office, so who do we need to look professional for? As long as a co-worker gets their work done I don't care if they are wearing a power suit or a sweatsuit.

So here's to casual Friday's. I will never forget thee.

The Office Scribe

Crash and Burn

You never truly know how much you depend on technology until it is ripped out from under your like that scene in Ghostbusters with Bill Murray and the tablecloth.

Last Thursday the VP of IT sends out an e-mail about a potential virus that is affecting some people’s computers and to be really careful about opening e-mails and using the internet for non-company purposes. Okay, no big deal. Sure, I am known to surf the web when I am bored but I have been so bloody busy at work that I haven’t had time to indulge. And I never use my work e-mail for personal stuff. That means no silly pictures or chain letters telling me I will die if I don’t pass it onto co-workers.

A few hours later, some of us notice that our computers are not acting the way they are supposed to. You know, locking up, not saving properly, etc. We don’t think much of it. That is, until you started to look around the prairie dog village that is our cubicles and see heads rise up like a game of whack-a-mole.

It was the virus. At first, only a few people we infected and told to shut down their computers. But then is spread. Within like three hours our lovely little office had been turned into a Michael Criton novel.

But we have confidence in our IT team, so we all go home and try not to think about it. Well, I tried not to think about it. Apparently some of my co-workers were starting to freak out. And as it turns out, they had a right to freak out because we all showed up for work on Friday and NONE OF THE COMPUTERS WORKED!!!

It was horrible. Clients were calling in and there was basically nothing we could do. The poor IT team looked like they had slept in their clothes. I had a woman call me unprofessional, just because a freakin’ virus had shut down my computer.

Well, to make a long story short (too late) it is now Wednesday and we still aren’t up to full speed. I am one of the few who seems to have the ability to print. Hopefully by the end of the week we will be back to normal.

But this who situation has taught me 2 things:
1) Always back up your hard drive
2) There are assholes in the world. The kind of assholes who live in their moms basements and play World of Warcraft in between writing visrus’s to shut down computers and jerking off to their little sister’s Hannah Montana poster.
So don’t be an asshole.

The Office Scribe

Pain - And this time not caused by my desk

Ever sit for 8 hours in a semi-comfortable chair with what feels like an ice pick shoved in your left kidney?

Well that isn't what I did today.  I clocked in 3 hours of overtime which made it 11 hours of sitting in a semi-comfortable chair with what felt like an ice pick shoved in my left kidney.

Did a co-worker shank me when I wasn't looking?  No, due to a crappy ticket in the genetic lottery I occasionally get these lovely little things called kidney stones.  And yes, they are every bit as painful as you have heard.  They say the pain is the closest thing to child birth.  Like I need another reason to not want to have kids.  

A couple co-workers asked if I was going to go to the doctor.  "Why?" I asked, "to have them charge me $150 to tell me it's a kidney stone?"  No thank you.  I will self medicate just as I did the last two times I had these bastards.  Water, cranberry juice, and Motrin.  Lots and lots of Motrin.

So the next time you are sitting and work and think, how could this be worse?  Remember me and my ice pick.  Because the sad fact is, it can always be worse...

The Office Scribe

And you were there. And you were there.... And you too!

I was up at my mom's last weekend, relishing in the last days of summer with cookouts and lazy time on the boat, both of which can make a person very tired. So I took a shower on Monday night and snuggled down in my bed for a good old fashioned sleep.

And what do you think happened?

I dreamt of a co-worker. Actually, I dreamt of work and like 10 of my coworkers. It was weird. The dream took place in my office and it was my birthday, so like all good little cubicle monkeys, we were celebrating like we really gave a damn. Anyway, for some reason, all of my coworkers had bought me presents. Now the only present that I could remember came from my newest co-worker. He bought me a case of Mop-N-Glow. Why? I have no idea. That is the great thing about dreams, they don't have to make sense.

Much like working in an office.

~The Office Scribe

Question for the Cubicle Monkeys...

How pissed off would you have to be to just up and leave your job?

The discussion kind of came up today while i was at work, in an indirect way.  Of course we all get crazed and feel like walking out, but how mad/upset/whatever would you have to be to reenact the scene from Half Baked?*

The Office Scribe

* Yeah, you know the one I mean.  In the burger joint.  And if you don't, shame on you!  Go and rent the movie NOW (or watch it when it's on Comedy Central, which is about once a week)

Oops! My Bad…

Sometimes it just isn’t your day. You show up at work and rip your pants. Or you forget to return an important e-mail. Or you delete a bunch of important information off your companies hard drive and have a mild panic attack that the information won’t be found and you’ll be fired, forcing you out onto the streets to try and find a new place of employment though in these hard economic times they only places that are hiring are fast food joints and your local corrections facility.

Phew. Okay, so I might have embellished a little on that last one, but the first part of it definitely happened to a girl I work with. She thought she just deleted something off her desktop and ended up deleting it off the company drive. Whoops. Talk about a panic attack.

But thankfully, our wonderful IT department was able to find out where the files had gone. And my friend wasn’t fired and forced to ask people if they want fries with their order.

~The Office Scribe