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

Half Staff Days

As a goodwill gesture my company decided that they would have several “half staff days” which allows for people to basically make a 4 day weekend. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

Well, this being the Friday before Labor Day this was one of the Half Staff Days. So by working today, I get the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off. Okay so far.

But what really sucks? That would be me, sitting here in my cubicle, feeling lonely because I HAVE TO WORK UNTIL 6 THIS EVENING!!! Every forth Friday I have to work late and it falls on the day when no one is calling in with new business and there is no one here to even pass the minutes with. Most people left at 4:30. But no, I am stuck here for another hour (it’s around 5 PM). And I have no idea what to do with myself.

I have visited all my usual websites, debated McCain’s VP pick with those still here, ate and ice cream cone and did work that isn’t due until next week.

So in preparation for the next Half Staff Day, I ask, what is a good way to waste time at work? You have until January 2 to come up with an answer because that is the next day I work when ½ the company doesn’t.

Send suggestions to: TheOfficeScribe@yahoo.com

I’ll publish the ones I like the most here.

So until then, I think I’ll wander around and reenact scenes from Office Space.

The Office Scribe

Non-work related work related e-mails

Sometimes a Wednesday is just a Wednesday.  And sometimes a Wednesday is the day you get two of the best e-mails you have ever received...

E-MAIL #1

Here's a good working in an office story for you.

This morning we see fire trucks come into the parking lot. We figure
that there's going to be a fire drill later in the morning.

I go into a meeting and come back to my desk, and everyone is all
atwitter. I ask what's going on, and the guys tell me that when they
went outside to have a cigarette, they heard what the ambulances/fire
trucks were for - there's a dead man in a van in the parking lot.

Best part? Apparently, he's been parked there for a few days and no
one noticed.

E-MAIL #2

I'll keep you updated on any further information. Since I
sent you that email, we've now got reports that the truck was parked
there for a week. A WEEK. We've also got some reporters from CLTV
(lucky for them, they happen to share a parking lot with us) who have
just arrived.

Just now, we got an email from the CEO's secretary saying that the guy
wasn't an employee and asking us to "refrain from speculation and
rumors." Um. Too late lady, there's a FREAKING DEAD PERSON IN THE
PARKING LOT.

One of my coworkers is on the phone with a girl in our British office,
and told them the story. Her response, totally deadpan, was: "today in
our office, we had a dead squirrel in the break room."

Wow.  What can you say to that?  I'll tell you what.  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  All you can do is forward it to 15 of your co-workers and put it on your blog.

The Office Scribe

Still here

Hello everyone

I know what your thinking, that how dare I show up here after not posting for so long.  How dare I come here and put some thoughts down on my own blog which i haven't updated since the mid 1970's (a good 7-9 years before I was even born).  But the truth is, I missed everyone.  And for my continued absence, I am sorry.

So from this day forward, I promise to post on a more regular basis, like in the beginning.  I'll go to counseling and I promise to be more involved in this relationship.  You don't have to go and find another blog.  I'm back and I'm not going anywhere.  (Plus it helps that we finally got the internet installed in my lake house where I spend most weekends.)

But I might as well bring you up to speed to how my summer has gone so far:

As I mentioned before, my entire office up and moved.  It was quite an undertaking, but we have finally all settled in.  But I have been bored out of my mind since the actual move, because the person I was assisting moved to a new department and they didn't replace her right away.  So I have been spending a lot of my time wandering around the new space a la Bill Lumberg, chatting up the co-workers and trying to look more important than I actually am.

But other than work I haven't been doing too much.  I see my friends sometimes, hang out with my mom, go to an occasional party.  The normal kind of stuff people do in the summer.

Summer is almost over though.  School supplies are on store shelves, school buses are doing there practice routes, and I started to get e-mails about Halloween costumes.

So here's to hoping the fall is as spectacular as the changing colors of the leaves (little to Hallmark-ish?  Yeah, I thought so.)

The Office Scribe

The Big Move - Part Two

The Field Trip

 

Since we are moving to a new building, which is only a few towns away but nevertheless a confusing prospect to some people I work with, it was decided by my company that we should have a series of Field Trips to the new building so people can find it.  (Apparently MapQuest is not known by everyone)

So this week everyone has been piling onto an old school yellow bus and taking the trip over to the new building.  

And I have to say it's pretty cute.

No, not the building.  Seriously, it's an office building.  Seen one seen them all.

I meant the field trip.

Not only were we on a bus, but we got name tags which broke us down into smaller groups and a snack bag with water and candy and peanuts for the trip.  

Like I said, cute.  Sometimes it's the little things the company does which counts!

The Office Scribe

The Big Move - Part One

It was announced a few weeks back that my entire office is uprooting and moving a few towns away.  This is awesome for several reasons:

1) Our current office space is dark and dreary and falling apart around us.  There are these weird rumples in the carpet and the desk chairs won't roll over there.  And nothing matches.  We have about 22 styles of desks and they all suck.

2) The move will turn my 40 minute commute into a 15 minute commute, saving me on gas and allowing to sleep in for those extra 25 minutes.

3) We will no be within walking distance of bars, which means to reinvention of the 3 martini lunch.

So until we actually move on August 8th, I will be updating all of you on how an office actually moves everything.  

So I bring you... 

PART ONE: THE SHREDDING CONTAINERS

I work at a company that is all about keeping all the paperwork we can because of liability issues.  But what is the first thing upper management did was tell us to put as much stuff as we could get rid of into these giant read lockable garbage cans that are setting around the office.

The thing is, no one wants to get rid of anything, so these containers are virtually empty.  And that makes me feel bad so I have devised a new use for them.  Reverting back to my middle school years, we now are passing notes amongst each other about people we hate in the company and then we throw them in the containers.  But at least my VP now thinks I am actually getting ready for the move.

And sadly, a lot of working in an office is worrying about what upper management thinks...

The Office Scribe

Can I Get Brake Installed on My Life?

Ferris Bueller's Day Off gave the world a lot of memorable quotes:

"Bueller?...Bueller?...Bueller?..."

"Ferris Bueller you're my hero"

“The place is like a museum. It's very beautiful and very cold, and you're not allowed to touch anything.”

And possibly the most quoted.  Basically seen in every high school yearbook quote section since the movie came out...

"Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Well what happens if you can't seem to find the brakes?  I have been so busy the past couple weeks that, aside from not updating this blog as often as I should, I have also not been able to keep up with laundry, friends, family, grocery shopping, and a myriad of other day to day activities.

So I am making it my mission to revert to my school days and chill a bit this summer.  Pop open a bottle of my new favorite beer (Leinie's Summer Shandy) and spend my nights doused in Deep Woods Off relaxing on my patio or up at the lake.  You all might want to do the same and save your sanity.

The Office Scribe