Manic Monday #18

E-mail tip:  If you receive an e-mail as part of a blast e-mail with many recipients asking if anyone has seen a set of forms please don't feel compelled to reply if you haven't seen them.  Chances are if I don't hear from you I will assume you don't have them.  Unless you are being a prick but then if that is the case we have some bigger fish to fry.

Who was the first person who decided to slice almonds?  And how many fingers was he left with after this endeavor?

The great thing about coming back from any sort of holiday or extended break is that it provides you with a built in topic of conversation for you and your co-workers.  Instead of the usual Monday morning grumblings we chatted about brined turkeys, crazy relatives, and Black Friday shopping.  Perhaps this is an excellent argument for more paid time off:  better inter-department communication.

I got the Cheetoh munchies at work today.  Some people crave chocolate.  Others liquor.  For me, it's crunchy Cheetohs.  Thank god the vending machine stocks them in both A3 and A7 so the chance of me not being able to get one are slim.  Which is a good thing for my sanity and the safety of my co-workers.

Did you know I am running a little contest?  Because I am.  Read yesterdays post for all details.  And yes, there is a fabulous prize.  And no, I am not sure what it is yet.

~ The Office Scribe

The First Official "Asleep Under My Desk" Contest!!!

There are a lot of bloggers that do contests as a way to promote their blogs.  And since I am such a lemming I decided it was about time I followed their lead and did my own contest.

So, I present:

The First Official* "Asleep Under My Desk" Contest!!!

Here is the deal:  I return to work tomorrow after not being there for four days because of Thanksgiving.  And I always hate to come back after time off for one reason: e-mails.  I hate having to go through all the e-mails that I received while I was away.  So in order to make this task a little more interesting, I want my readers to guess as to how many e-mails I will have waiting for me upon my return.

So guess the number of e-mails that will be waiting for me and post your answer in the comment section for all to see.  On Friday I will see who was the closest** to the number I received from when I left work on Wednesday, November 25 at 4:30 PM until I clock in at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Monday, November 30.  That person will win a fabulous prize pack of items which I keep close at hand to help survive my life in the office.

Any questions, contact me at TheOfficeScribe@yahoo.com.

Good luck, and god speed.

~ The Office Scribe

*Okay, I don't know of any unofficial contests that are out there using my name but I haven't looked at the entire Internet so who knows.

**  Closest means "closest without going over".  Yes, I am using The Price Is Right rules, so the last person may want to guess 1.

And Then There Were None

Something eerie has been happening at my office building the past few days.  For those of you who don't know, probably because keeping track of the hours I work isn't a priority in your life as of late, I work the 10-6 shift at work on Mondays and Tuesdays.  This is done because I don't like to wake up too early after the wild and wacky antics that my weekends consist of.  Or because I sometimes head to my mom's house and the 2 hours it takes me to get to work them cuts into the day a bit.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the eeriness.  

So I pull into work yesterday, at about, oh, 9:57 (I like to cut things close) and notice that there are about half the number of cars on the top deck of the parking structure than usual.  But I don't give it much thought, since I have 3 minutes to park, dash up to my office, turn my computer on, wait 7 minutes for it to boot up, and then clock in.

But today, I noticed when I got to work at 9:52 (I always do slightly better on Tuesdays) that there were half the number of cars than there were on Monday.  So now, the parking deck is down by 25% and I am starting to think the worst has happened.  Perhaps a massive layoff of one of the companies in my building.  Or they did that creepy thing where they just close up in the middle of the night, never to return.  Or there was a memo about taking the day off and going to the zoo and I was too out of it with a case of the Mondays to have read that e-mail.

Sadly, none of these were the cause of me getting amazing parking spots the past two days.  It turns out there is some holiday approaching that people celebrate by taking time off work, even though it has nothing to do with religion, patriotism, or a dead celebrity.

Really people?  It doesn't take that long to cook a turkey.  I know.  Before I was a cubicle monkey I was a butcher, remember.  I have a vast knowledge on how long it takes to cook dead animals.

So do me a favor, and be a productive member society. Though the parking situation is nice...

~ The Office Scribe

Manic Monday #17

Got to work this morning and completely forgot I had switched hours with another colleague.  Instead of working the 9-5 shift I showed up at 10 as usual.  I should not be held responsible for remembering anything on Monday mornings.  My boss should be happy I actually remembered to change out of my pajama pants.

Yesterday I went and saw "The Addams Family" musical which is playing in Chicago before it heads to the Big Apple.  Anyway, Nathan Lane plays Gomez Addams.  On the way home from the show my mom and I were discussing his career.  Since then, I have had "Hakuna Matata" stuck in my head.  (BTW - The show was amazing and the sets stellar!  Yes, I admit it.  I am a theater nerd.)

Someone asked me why I was clutching a strand of rosary beads the other day.  Perhaps it was because I was having a bad day.  Or because I thought the power of prayer may fix things, like the copier that hates me.  Or perhaps it was just the strand of green Mardis Gras beads I play with at my desk because I have the attention span of a cat.

Today we not only had one WORD OF THE DAY we had TWO WORDS OF THE DAY.  Word number one was PHARONIC as in, pertaining to the Pharoahs.  Number two was PROSELYTIZE as in, converting someone to your faith.  Both were used in the same e-mail.  Don't you wish you had a swanky vocab like the people in my office?

The phone system does this thing where it logs you off after two hours of inactivity (something about rebooting or whatever.  IT told me why but I didn't understand)  A good measure of how busy or how slow a day is, is by measuring how often your phone logs you off.  I am pretty sure I would have won some sort of record today if it hadn't been for my mom calling me to talk about prisoners at Gitmo and religious cults.  Yeah, we have awesome conversations.  I promise to write a post about the cult conversation because it was deep, insightful, and made me laugh so hard I almost peed at my desk.

~ The Office Scribe

The Office Scribe's Take On The Heathcare Crisis

I generally like to stay away from politics when it comes to this blog.  I mean, if I wanted to chat about my political ideals I would have started a blog called "Robbing the tax payers blind and doing blow off my desk".  (I'm from Chicago, remember?)  But I suddenly found my happy little cubicle world invaded by the healthcare crisis and I felt the need to address it here.

One could imagine that if we start having the government run healthcare, we might have problems getting in to see doctors.  And when people have a problem that they can't get someone to solve for them, they do the next best thing:  turn to the Internet.

This is what happened at work today.  A co-worker of mine asked if I would look up the symptoms of a peptic ulcer.  So, being the awesome co-worker that I am, I did.  No, I didn't turn to WebMD.  That is a scary, scary website which makes me think I have cancer or a third arm every time I visit it.  So I visited the website which has the answer to everything.

So I looked up peptic ulcers and read through the symptoms, which as it turns out, contain such charmers as "vomiting blood" and "tar-like stool".

I really don't think my co-worker has an ulcer.

Which I told him.  And I added that the next time he thinks he might have something that needs medical attention he should contact a doctor and not a co-worker with a BA in Creative Writing with access to the Internet.

Here's the the future.

~ The Office Scribe

Manic Monday #16

You know how I know I have awesome colleagues?  Because I came into work today to a package of Lebanese flatbread on my desk from a co-worker who knows how much I love flatbread.  Attention to insignificant details shows that you care.

Due to the unseasonably warm weather in Chicago I feel like I am going through the early stages of menopause.  It's about 65 degrees outside and about 165 degrees inside my office.  I turned the heat off in my apartment - why can't they do the same in the office?  The only way I am able to combat the hot flashes it to drink gallons of ice water, which means I will be rather unproductive today since I will be sprinting to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

My mind was plagues by the heaviest of thoughts today.  No, it wasn't about the economy.  Nor was it about the healthcare situation.  Or about the fact that Sammy Sosa is now white.  All I could think about was going home and going straight to bed.  I have been housesitting for about 5 nights now and every night I was sleeping in what may possibly be the most uncomfortable bed in the world.  Like a slab of concrete wrapped in steel beams.  But my bed - oh my sweet, sweet bed.  A pillow top mattress with a feather bed, down comforter, and a lot of pillows.  Oh how sweet it will be to go to sleep tonight.  I know, you are jealous.  It's okay.  I'll allow it.

Did you know it is damn near impossible to pop the bubbles inside of a FedEx Express package?  Because it's really difficult.  I was shipping something today and I tried to pop one.  No dice.  I asked the co-worker who brought me the flatbread if she ever tried.  She admitted she had, but never could pop one.  Game on.  It took some severe testing and several techniques, but I finally managed to pop one.  The technique that worked - the Classic Twist - like wringing out a wet towel.  

My nails looked awesome today.  In honor of the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down I painted them with OPI color An Affair in Red Square.  Granted, a better homage may have been to take down one of my cubicle walls "Office Space" style, but I think management would have frowned upon that.

~ The Office Scribe

The Life Of A Single, Working Mother

So I have been super, mega busy lately. Between work, friends, competitive trivia, and my new 16 year old son, time is something I don't have a lot of.

Wait, did I say 16 year old son?

Yeah, I did.

I know what you're thinking: Office Scribe, how come you never mentioned your teenage son before? Did you do it to protect him for the dark life of a blogger? And wait, aren't you like 27 which means you would have been 11 when you had him, making a plot line like something out of a movie that Oprah Winfrey would have produced?

Okay, so maybe he isn't my son. Maybe he is my cousin and I am house sitting for my aunt and uncle and he is there. But since he is so close to being a fully functioning person, I don't really have to do anything. Except have a general sense of where he is at all times.

So at work the other day, I realized that I had no clue where he was, so I tried calling his cell.

No answer.

I tried again a few hours later.

Again, no answer.

Luckily one of my other relatives knew where he was so I didn't have to enter full fledged panic mode. But I guess I showed enough maternal instinct that some of my co-workers started to refer to me as "mom" on Friday. And that's when I realized I would suck at being a working mom. I would never get anything done because I would constantly be wondering "I wonder what my child is up to? And are they having fun while I am making money for them to spend on Wii games?"

Yeah, I would be a horrible, jealous mom.

~ The Office Scribe