A Quantum of Santa Royale

Ho Ho Ho.

Tis the season to be Jolly.....Roger.

This is the time of year when people exchange gifts, workplaces have "secret Santa" gift exchanges, and the exchanges have exchanges, then after the holiday you exchange everything. Well this place is no different. We have a "secret Santa" deal and I choose to play the part of Ebeneezer Scrooge and not participate. That is to say, not participate on paper; because after all the best secret Santa is the Santa that is the most secret. So secret, this Santa should be granted "00" status. Now that I think about it, to be granted "00" status you have had to "off" two enemy operatives...hmmm... yeah, lets just say this "secret Santa" is more of a CIA one until i"off" 2 Santa's.

So...

I thought with all the workplace funnies, it was time to give something back; literally, I gave something back. I rounded up a bunch of "white elephants" that I received and assorted "workplace promos" and re-gifted the empty bags that I received as "gift bags" from family, friends, associates, etc. I filled these bags with the random crap, and added some surprises to the gift bags already under the tree, (like a good Santa does) then randomly assigned a lucky (or unlucky) recipient, and replaced the secret gifts around the tree.

Ah the confusion as one lucky person received a grooming kit and a 2 oz can of "Sardines in tomato sauce"; go ahead, math that one out all day and you will have to call it a draw. The real comedy is when you can see WHO gifted to WHO, just by the look on their face! They are really confused when the gift they thought they had put together with some thought is quite different; Sometimes to their horror! The person receiving the "gift" is kind of bewildered as to "what kind of idiot would buy this as a gift?"

Ah, I am that kind of idiot.

Don't let the door hit you in the earhole.

Sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

Like a good 15 to 20 seconds of it.

Its as if a door could fart, and it is now 20 mins after a chili eating contest that this door had won!
The red arrow points to the unintended offender; the door with newly dry hinges, and a slow closing pneumatic arm... it just drags out the high pitched squeak.
Any guesses who the Cubicle wall in the foreground belongs to?
That's correct! It belongs to Mr. sensitive ears.
He has not arrived yet this am but everyone in the vicinity has a hurt abdomen from laughing already. Everyone is just picturing his irritation every time someone travels in or out; its a variation on the old game of Russian Roulette. Unfortunately, some unlucky victim is gonna walk square into "Why didn't you close the door!? Who let's it just close on its own?! Can't you hear that!?"
Oh the comedy...
Pair that with the four air-raid ringer time bombs and the pre-arranged afternoon snort -fest.

We may actually see him snap.

Its a sick world.

So I tanked the network on my way home, big deal.

BSOD? OK that was fun.

Still, that's marginally satisfying AT BEST. No, I think something more dramatic is in order to satisfy the sleeping sadist I keep hidden under my tiny black heart.

Mr. Sensitive ears is just not himself lately. Well, he is himself if that is an unconscionable ball-busting bastard; to that end he is a RAGING SUCCESS. What I mean is that he is not.............."happy". Not happy like you and I getting told there are strippers in the break room, no nothing so dramatic. Happy for him: moody, gloomy, sitting quietly at his desk making people miserable via e-mail, over the phone and other chicken-shit means.

I think the guy just needs some sunshine and fresh air.

How do you make someone like this, sitting atop his throne of suffering, go get fresh air?

The thought had crossed my mind to have his car towed, but that's so temporary.

Well fear not and wonder no more, because I figured it out: He needs a smoke break.

Yes, he is a smoker. He used to have a personal rule that he would not smoke at work. Then I started working for him and VOILA, smoking at work; 2 to 3 times per day actually. I quite honestly don't see the correlation between supervising someone like me and craving nicotine, but never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Back to the strategy: How to get those breaks to "multiply" (all for his benefit of course). Well I started thinking, everyone is some level of "sick" with the low temps these days so, there is obviously a virus of some sort making the rounds.

A VIRUS. Not a computer virus, but the good old fashioned kind that used to wipe out civilizations. So follow my logic here: a virus makes people sick, my boss makes me sick, a virus starts out as an annoyance, just like coughing is an annoyance for my boss, you get rid of a virus by making your bloodstream inhospitable and the virus leaves or dies. Well, I doubt he will die, but I think I have my answer:

Make his area inhospitable, just like kicking out a virus! The subtle level of coughing, sneezing, throat clearing, flem ejecting, nose blowing was just not cutting it. So I decided to rope in two more co-conspirators and we began our bodily functions holiday parade! I elected to start with throat clearing every 30 secs, this other dude decided upon a nice holiday "coughing fit" once every minute or so, and the last dude elected to stop blowing his nose and just sniff the mucus in and out repeatedly. (I am laughing as I write this) believe it or not it was timed like a symphony and not obvious. I was proud of our mucus recital.

Sure enough the groundhog made his appearance ALL KINDS of PISSED and stormed out for a cig.

YAY! He is getting fresh air!

This was so successful that he left and did not return.

SEE! I knew that all he needed was a snoot full of that crisp winter air and he would see that it was a great day after all!

Yeah.

Well..... there is an outcome when you are stressed: You make stupid judgements.

For example: what if I park my car wherever the HELL I feel? It's "kinda" out in the road, but those drivers can eat my ass! The whole world and sick people and noisy people can eat my ass!

Well they didn't eat his rectum, but they wrecked into his car door.

You can't make this shit up.

Pictures tomorrow. (if he drives it in)

If I am elected, I will address the U.N. like this...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=48471503

You need headphones, and its only about a minute, tops.

Cease and insist.

So my lifelong friend we will call..."Todd" told me that I should elaborate more on yesterday's festivities. I take Todd's advice because he has always been my moral compass. Unfortunately, I usually steered us in the opposite direction but he has always been there for me...all except the one time he tried to take a corkscrew turn by the mall at 70mph. I think I cried a little that time and I had to question what the hell we were doing as the rear end of the car skipped three times, tires barking with each hop. That time and the time we decided to break into a satanic church but that's it.

Come to think of it, Todd is not a very good moral compass.

Anyway, back to the aftermath of yesterday's fiasco..
We were told to "wait here" while the situation was evaluated.

So we waited...FOUR FRIGGIN HOURS.

Then we had a meeting that reminded me of every concession speech I have ever seen. Based upon the body language of my supervisor, the speech should have went: "We tried our damnedest to make you stay here bored with no power nor internet for four more hours, but its becoming obvious to even our staunchest supporters that this is simply an admission that "we don't trust our employees." So we were allowed to go "work from home" until the power and internet were restored, which was going to take approximately 6 to 8 hours. Seeing that I was off work at 3pm and it was 10:20am, if you count lunch, I was golden for the day.

Yeah you would think.

At 1:20pm I received a call from the other guy in my dept. He said "The boss wanted me to tell you that he INSISTS that you return to work because the internet and power have been restored.

~Silence~

I reply "Does he realize that I am 40 mins out and I will have a grand total of ONE HOUR to work?" and the dude replies "Yes. ( it was a stupid question on my part, the man has no soul.. of course he knows.)

"OK I will be there, see you in 40 mins. I arrive on the scene livid yet on the surface I am calm and collected. I sort my e-mails and read what a fragile state the jury-rigged internet access is in right now so be careful and close any unneeded programs and open nothing extraneous.

Well isn't that interesting....

I review to an e-mail where it was determined that an unnamed piece of company software was spiking our bandwidth and out of fairness to everyone, we should only use it sparingly and before 8am whenever possible to preserve precious bandwidth.

Isn't that more interesting....

This is a pretty simple math problem about what happens next.

Fast forward to 2:59 and 3 opened pieces of software...

I actually watched the titanic sink in real time; it was a sight to behold, as the first picture shows. Oh its, ......3PM!

LOOK AT THE TIME!

I WOULD LIKE TO HELP BUT GOTTA GO.

This writes itself.

Some comedian in a semi, tagged the central internet and power supply for the entire complex at 6:52 in the A.M. yesterday. How do I know the time? Well I was here, drinking a hot beverage, crying that my ship has not arrived yet, when my internet access took a huge DUMP. Well, that and the lights went out. The smell of electronic smoke from the server room was a subtle hint that not everything was "kosher". We lost all voice mail, stored and otherwise, e-mail was down for most of the day, and our way overpriced tools were inacessible. I have to admit defeat to the truck driver, because honestly, what could I do to top this? (see below, and see you tomorrow)

Signs? I have my reservations...

I have seen the signs... and they are everywhere.

Fortunately, so has everyone else to the point of complacency. There are so many "official" signs that no one bothers to check them anymore unless they are directly affected, and as we all know NOW, they never question authority; they blindly follow all directions and accept their discomfort and fate, blindly.

Enter the conference room reservation schedule.

These are put on the front of the conference room door every morning by the Receptionist, under penalty of DEATH!

Side note- Anyone who tries to make the case to me that Receptionist is an easy job, obviously has never done it. At one point our management, in its infinite wisdom, thought that the "Receptionist" position could be done on a rotating schedule. I refused my turn stating my position that this is a difficult and stressful occupation for which I haven't been trained, nor was hired for in my job description, nor would I ever apply for sober. I was told that by refusing, my job could be "in jeopardy" since the case could be made I was being, "insubordinate".

I made sure to copy my reply and further refusal to Sr. Legal, the CEO, the COO, the CFO, the Chairman of the board and of course, my boss. To this day, I have not had to do any receptionist duties. Moving on..

So what if you wanted your own office instead of a cubicle? A nice conference room sized office, quiet and without any neighbors to speak of. Luxurious leather chairs, a giant table to work from, an LCD projector for big screen entertainment, a giant wipe off board with a rainbow of colored wipe off markers, and a high quality speaker phone. How would you accomplish this?

Its easier than you might think.

Take the reservation sheet that is taped on the door and photocopy it.

Open a "notepad" and type "Sales conference call STFU - CBS".

Yes, it means what you think, but the "C" is for "complete" - anyway now print it.

Cut it out from the newly printed page and use some "scotch tape" to adhere to one of the lines early in the day, run to the photocopier, and VOILA you have a BOOKED conference room for as long as you wish!

Oh yes, they will scramble to figure out how that got booked yet it vanished from our conference room booking software! Obviously its real because the sign says so! Who makes a sign, and how else would they do it? Its IMPOSSIBLE! No one told them but they HAD to have used the computer because here it is! It EXISTS! Its in print! Its the law; ITS BOOKED, and we can't change it at this late date.... you will SIMPLY have to reschedule.

Tranquility is the mode I operated under today. I made a few high powered phone calls to some high powered people, from my high powered office. That, or I made some lunch plans with friends, but either or, I mean what's the damn difference? Its my office for the day, and when I leave, the non-existent sales person will have to explain themselves.

My clever rebuttal for "You were in the conference room all day weren't you?" will read something like this:

Nuh uh.

Miles to go before I sleep...

As you now know, I left early Friday for team building. This left my Embassy unattended for half of the day. Most people know that I have a drawer with change, but in another drawer, however is my secret PERSONAL stash of medicine. I came to work one morning to find my aspirin bottle empty, so not as secret as I thought. Since I am out of aspirin but not no-doz, I decided to keep my no-doz in my Tylenol bottle and throw out the no-doz bottle, SIMPLY out of German efficiency. The two tablets look very similar, so I wonder if no-doz is good for headaches? hmmmmm...

Fridayicus team-buildicus

Friday.

Thank god its M-F'n Friday. It seems like it took two weeks to get here so its arrival is particularly appreciated. Today however, is a "special" Friday, as it is a "team building" Friday at work for my "team". What this means is that we get to leave early, around lunch, to "build our team". This usually entails having a massive carb laden lunch, going to a movie and getting home about normal time. While I enjoy these diversions, my manager has no love for tradition so I will most likely have some NASTY e-mail in my inbox Monday. It will yammer on about how we didn't properly notify the proper authorities, properly or with any authoritative notification of propriety...whatever.
Moving on..
I am part of the "Accessory personnel" team, which essentially means that all of the departments at work which are comprised of 3 or less people are jammed into a leftover "team".
When the team building was first established, the customer service organization was divided into 4 or 5 teams (no accessory people, mind you) all named after Greek mythological figures. My exact words upon hearing this was, if I remember correctly, "How gay."
Team "Atlas" and "Dionysus" were chosen names for two of the teams. I suggested that our accessory team name should be "Testiclese" but it was not well received and by the time we were allowed to participate, the whole ridiculous mythology idea was for all intents and purposes, dead.
So for about a year I was "team building team less" and had no access to the merits of team building.
What merits you ask? Well, besides the development of the "team" dynamic, camaraderie, and socializing outside of a work setting, there is something that team building provides that I was missing and I feel that this really makes all the day to day nonsense a little easier to deal with:

Free alcohol.

Near and dear to my heart, alcohol, is available to any team member wishing to have a drink (or 3 or 4) with your team building lunch, provided your individual lunch tab does not exceed $35. For me, I usually have a lunch tab that involves a $5 club sandwich of some sort and the rest used for my adult beverage(s) of choice. Massive gold margaritas are the usual choice, where they float one to 3 different flavors of liquors on top of the actual margarita on the rocks. This enhances my ability to "team build". To be honest, my absolute favorite is to pair this with bowling and pitchers of cold beer, instead of a movie, and then you are REALLY team building. Trust me, this is the best truth serum available to the civilian market, and you can learn who secretly has a problem with who at work. Not this time however.
We used our movie money to buy "toys for tots" (not my idea) so my day ended much earlier than expected.
So long story short, there was not much room for pranking but, I still left a secret trap....

Signs, signs, everywhere signs...

What did people do before desktop publishing?



Imagine the workplace toilet is overflowing, just covering the floor with human waste and water and no one knows what to do! Oh the horror! Someone in a supervisory capacity is contacted, and using their piece of paper that declares they are educated, they get out another piece of paper and scrawl a note declaring the "toilet broke". We the peons (or poo-ons, depending I guess) are all saved from our inability to handle crisis' and that college degree came in handy after all! Hopefully a raise and some sort of celebration ensues for the company hero.


I wish I was way off the mark here.


Fast forward to modern day. Anyone with a pc can make an anonymous semi-professional looking sign. Using a laser printer and some tape, you can inform anyone of anything, and declare places off limits with no college degree and no authority whatsoever. How dangerous! We can't have undereducated fools just writing god knows what in things like blogs about pranks, now can we? Anyway..



This brings us to today's funny business.

Take a standard "Stink closet" toilet stall.

I can say this; by 10 am, this stall has enabled the total destruction of the bathroom environment for all those wishing to simply take a leak. Bring a gas mask because for 2 or 3 hours, the engineering and software guys bring in novels, sit, and leave atomic stink bombs. Its maddening, but there are only 2 toilets and 2 urinals for the whole male portion of the company. Add to that figure, exactly ZERO exhaust fans and this math problem solves itself.

What would happen if these facilities were denied for one reason or another? My god, the gut aches! How are the software guys going to unload their horrific pseudo-Mexican buffet waste from the night before? What will become of the constipated engineers? Everyone may as well go home, because I doubt any code writing gets done by these guys with BRICKS in their guts! God help anyone with a problem because THEY are the ones with REAL PROBLEMS! There is no where to take a DUMP! What an unthinkable scenario..... or is it?

OOPS.

The toilet stall was apparently out of order for some reason. How do I know? The sign says so! We all must obey signs. Who would make a bogus sign for no reason. That's insanity. What would be gained by making up a bogus out of order sign? That's ridiculous. Do you know how many people will have gut aches over this? Is this funny to you? Laugh it up silly ass, I'm constipated thanks to a friggin' sign! Well fine, see if your company tools stay working...funny laughing ass.

At approximately 10:30 am the company tools actually went down as well as our internet connection. I am not joking. I noticed the "out of order" sign was also down before lunch. I can also say that before lunch, the bathroom was pleasant for the first time in YEARS. Also, the alternating siren level phones just continued to ice the cake.

I wonder if there will be a toilet memo? If there is, we all know it MUST come from a supervisor... or?

Parting shot

Two more sirens alternating their rings like a German Ambulance; You could cut the tension here with a knife... like the one in my back from 4 years ago!

Here you go guys! Here is your knife back.. you'll recognize your name on the handle.
Best of luck!

Situation Update

The third in a series of Air Raid sirens on ringer 4 have gone off today. The CEO has been in town all week, so stress level for "the sensitive one" has been sky high anyway. I think his nerves are actually in need of amputation. Do "they" do that? I guess we will see how much as tonight I document how today's installement of shenanigans went.

HAHA! There is siren number four as I am typing this!

- I kill me sometimes.

Hit the Showers

This is more of a quickie side-note bit of terrorism that was performed on an employee we will call Mr. Smug.

On a lunch trip to a thrift store, which is a regular lunch time diversion two minutes away, a sadistic chick friend and I found the above cards still in the wrap for 50 whole cents. Upon reading the outside of the card, we both were puzzled at what the hell a "personal shower" is, as opposed to a "bridal" or "baby" shower? I had an idea of what to write inside the card and shared it with my co-conspirator. We laughed out loud in the store, and developed a case of that laughing that you can't shed no matter what you do. This debilitating, periodic cracking up lasted for the remaining 2 hours of the workday. Imagining the reaction and puzzlement to "who is the asshole that would do this to me?" just was killing me for the balance of the day. The offended party was sufficiently irritated to make it all worthwhile, fyi.

I give you.... the punchline:

I crack myself up.

The Ringer

What do you do when you have a boss who is offended by noise? I mean reeeally offended.... Every cough, sneeze, throat clearing and cell phone not on vibrate just sends him into a fit where someone (usually me) will suffer dearly for his discomfort. I would say that to avoid the ensuing rage, you would want to try to watch for any conceivable noise maker within earshot of the overly sensitive tyrant. You would want to search out and find these offenders and quiet them.

That is, if you were not on borrowed time.

Having said all of that, I give you.....The Ringer.

Look at the picture with the red arrow. That button is the notorious "ringer" button. Each and every work phone has one.
Push once for a quieted ringer, the standard and preferred office ringer.
Push twice for a loud home phone volume ringer, a bit uncomfortable in a quiet office and louder than preferred via company guidelines.
Push three times for an uncomfortably loud ringer that will make everyone "prarie-dog" over the cubicles to try to discern who is the rude asshole who doesn't get it, that this is an office.
So you are saying push three times?
I would agree with you except for one thing......

There is a FOURTH setting.

Push four times and you are the recipient of a near air-raid siren volume ringer that can be heard from outside of the building. God knows why that setting exists except for possibly the trading floor on Wall Street in a bull market, mid-day you may have wanted to receive an order.
(No, the earpiece does not follow suit in volume increments, I already investigated that angle.)

So how to implement?

Turning up "his" volume is way too predictable, and too easily remedied. No, thats not what we are looking for. We are looking for a Manchurian Candidate; someone who is oblivious to the fact they are an offender until its too late. When you are the second person at work in the morning and the first person is your friend, the world is your oyster. I have a sea of waiting phones, all set to "ringer one" ; just waiting for their chance to alert the cubicle slave that a voice communication transmission is waiting for them to accept in a non offending manner. So do you pay back those who are most deserving? Do you set them ALL to ringer 4? The answer is no.
Why you may ask?
Simple. Because the fun will be over all too soon. By selecting 3 phones at random, the fun can and will continue like little trip-wire grenades all over the cube farm. This fun will not be discovered for days, the agony to Mr. sensitive ears will go on for days or weeks and no one will be the wiser. OH, the memos and reminders will be created to silence loud phones, but it will do no good, and the offensive behavior will go on and on. His ears will bleed and his rage will grow at random times during the day. He can't believe that no one is taking his memo seriously! A simple request that cannot be followed by the damned untermench! OH the GOD DAMN annoyance! My poor poor sensitive ears! Its not poor management, its all the stupid people under me! AAAAAHHHHHH I hate you all! BASTARDS!

Take comfort knowing we are already on day three.

The countdown begins

I have short timers disease.

I admit it.

I have worked for my employer for the last 7+ years during times of good and recently, times of very bad. I am a sucker for startups and being employee number 12 or 13 I felt right at home here for a very long time. As it turns out...too long.
After two management changes and 200 employees later and going from Right hand man to Leper for my past associations (company politics), I stuck it out for my stock options. With the recent change in the market, my "options" are now less about stock and more about survival. I choose survival. A past associate put me in touch with a new startup in a related, yet different aspect of the industry. We had an unofficial phone chat, and both parties saw merit in a future association and an official deal was made and I am on my way to greener pastures (provided my luck holds!) So what do you do when you are wrapping up a career and way of life?
The sorid details to follow.....