Mr. Shankly

End of the Line

2008-01-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don’t already know, Mr. Shankly is a character featured in the Smiths song, Frankly Mr. Shankly. It’s about a person who feels trapped in his job - a job that pays the bills, that may have offered some kind of fulfillment and relief at some point – and this person now feels this burning desire to be his fabulous self, rather than continuing to work for Mr. Shankly.

These are the lyrics:

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I've held
It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul
I want to leave, you will not miss me
I want to go down in musical history

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, I'm a sickening wreck
I've got the 21st century breathing down my neck
I must move fast, you understand me
I want to go down in celluloid history, Mr. Shankly

Fame, Fame, fatal Fame
It can play hideous tricks on the brain
But still I'd rather be Famous
Than righteous or holy, any day
Any day, any day

But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled
Making Christmas cards with the mentally ill
I want to live and I want to Love
I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I've held
It pays my way and it corrodes my soul
Oh, I didn't realise that you wrote poetry
I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry, Mr. Shankly

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, since you ask
You are a flatulent pain in the arse
I do not mean to be so rude
Still, I must speak frankly, Mr. Shankly

Oh, give us your money !

*****

A few of us here in the workplace have assigned this, and other monikers to the owner of the company.

He is my Mr. Shankly.

He is a pain in the ass. I enjoy mocking him. I enjoy taunting him. He’s also a big kid, just like me.

*****

During the holiday break, a new hot project came in, one that needs to be done in record time, as directed by Mr. Shankly. On the day we returned, I was busy contributing to the project, under pressure to submit something to the client. Mr. Shankly stopped me while on my way to complete an urgent task related to the project, he still grinning from a YouTube video that he had just shown my supervisor and everyone in our team.

Mr. Shankly: Hey, wasn’t that YouTube thing funny?

Employee835: It was funny because it was so well executed.

Mr. Shankly: Have you seen the Britney one?

Employee835: Not sure I know it.

Mr. Shankly: It’s this guy acting like a woman, he’s, well you’ll see. Let’s check it out in my office.

Employee835: Wellll, I’d like to, but I need to submit this, remember? Your thing?

Mr. Shankly: Oh yeah. Aww come on, it’ll be only for a second.

We go to his office and I’m pouring over the numbers for the project, pulled up in a chair next to him while he fruitlessly searches YouTube

Mr. Shankly: We are about to get into a lot of trouble.

Employee835: HR?

Mr. Shankly: Big TIME, if I can find it.

His trusted assistant, Friday walks in, stands at the doorway.

Friday: Mr.Shankly, they’re all ready in the conference room.

Mr. Shankly: I’ll be right there. Where is it? I can’t remember the name of the video, it’s funny as hell.

Friday: Mr. Shankly, James is in the conference room with Robert. They’re ready.

Mr. Shankly: Yeah yeah, I’ll be right there.

Employee835: Shankly! Time to go. There’s a money making opportunity in the conference room, what the fuck are you doing on YouTube?

Mr. Shankly: I know I know, I just need to show you this HILARIOUS video.

Employee835: You need to go. Why don’t you call me when you find it after the meeting?

Mr. Shankly: It’s right here, I just can’t find it.

Employee835: Shankly, I gotta go.

Mr. Shankly: [Calling over shoulder] I’ll call you when I find it.

Friday shakes head and leaves.

He found the video toward the end of the day and played it on full volume. It was that guy, Chris Crocker with a bedsheet as background crying and screaming to the world to leave Britney alone. You know the one. We’ve all seen it.

And he was bitterly disappointed that I had already seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

*****

Five years ago, I started working at this company in another capacity, laboring on the shop floor. My interactions with Mr. Shankly were at best, annoying. A few months later, under the recommendation of his partner, I was promoted to a much better position and have grown within the company in ways I could never have imagined during my first months here. My paycheck has also swelled to reflect my growth.

In the fall of 2003, I introduced my supervisor to the Meyers Briggs personality test, which he loved. His enthusiasm swept the office as he insisted that everyone take it. As more people read their own results, naturally, we compared notes on our profiles, seeking and bonding with those with our own. A number of people had an INTJ party, some ENTPs wove friendship bracelets on the spot. I had no match.

My supervisor insisted of course that Mr. Shankly take the test. Right as he pondered, “I wonder what poor bastard has Mr. Shankly’s profile,” Mr. Shankly came running down the hall to our team, screaming, “ENFP! Who has ENFP?” They doubled over as if hyenas were licking their asses, laughing so fucking heartily, all pointing at me.

I was so dismayed, yet Mr. Shankly and I began comparing notes immediately, and it was as if our two minds were one. We finished each other's sentences with vigor and recognition. He would start off by saying, “Do you ever…”

And I’d cut him off emphatically, “get bogged down by your own efforts toward perfection?”

YES. YESS. MEE TOO. We’d say in unison.

It was startling to the entire staff. And we hugged as old friends separated by lifetimes, alone in the vast sea of personalities.

I remember going home that day thinking it so sadly ironic that the most caustic person in the whole organization, the Boss, also has my personality profile, and that he gets me, and I get him. I’m so lame.

Today, I caught him in passing and I stopped him to have a talk. We stepped into his office and I began by saying, “I’m approaching you because I know that you are the only one in this organization that will understand me when I tell you this. I love it here and I’m so grateful to have this job. It allows me to have so many experiences that I would have never had. But have you ever felt like you’ve hit a plateau and feel so damned bored with your life? I’ve been cruising like this for the last two and a half years.”

His eyes widened in deep identification, he took a deep breath, and said “here, let’s sit.” And we sat as he told me of the many times he’s had such an experience. It was uncanny, I felt uncomfortable, relieved, and understood.

He went on to tell me about certain struggles and achievements and his own existential dread. In our exchange I shared about the gaping hole into which I’ve been throwing people, things, cars, and clothes, and how it persists.

He knew.

And if he knew that I was blogging about all the work shine-ola, he would be so heart broken.

So this is my last blog entry. I’ve come to realize that it’s not really serving me to bitch about the workplace, sarcasm flowing like anal leakage from eating too many fat free potato chips; of all the rampant douchery that goes on here, when in truth, I like where I work, and I love my team mates.

I think I am corroding my own soul.

Mr. Shankly acknowledged that I do my job well, but that I had bigger things on the horizon and suggested that I pursue a number of projects in parallel to my work here until such time as I reach a critical mass and have to make a decision about one or the other. “You should have fun,” he urged, ”no matter what it is.”

It’s possible that I just signed my own walking papers but I have to say, it felt great to talk with Shankly, because he understood me clearly, without any need on my part to elaborate.

I'd like to thank foreverever for his hilarious contributions, posts, and comments, his ability to properly categorize cubicles, employee profiles and the like. I wish we could post our behind the blog emails as they are what made my days here in between all the shit I was putting off in the name of the Blog Father, the Blog Son and the Bloggy Ghost.

And I thank all of you Shankly fans for your generous support, emails, and comments. I will return to the blogosphere to share my incisive notes on other things, at a time TBD. In the meantime, I wish you total enjoyment in whatever you do, and of course, all the free range douchery your heart desires.

Yours truly,

Employee835

Baby. Whatever.

2008-01-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

I’m more than willing to acknowledge that when it comes to certain things, I am a full time asshole who volunteers during the weekends as the lead counselor at dickhead day camp.

This certain thing involves babies and the jerks who love to make them and then share endless photos of them doing poor impressions of sea sponges.

Last week, one member of our team emailed each of us our regular ration of cute photos of his newest daughter. The whole team oooohd and cooed at them, while I found them as cute, as endearing, and as funny as photos of a rock.

I have nothing against babies and all things baby, just keep the photos to a minimum, as I have no viable way of faking my indifference. I’m absolutely sure that my responses and opinions would be different if I had my own child. I’d probably ask when she last pooped, how often they empty out the diaper bin, how often does the older one attempt murder, or if brandy on the gums works, and I’d probably make a joke about how I prefer to smear vodka on my own gums, wacka wacka wacka. And we’d have a perfect mommy and me bonding moment while we tittered about the joys of parenthood over our café au lait. For the moment though, I say go fuck yourselves, all of you, and the SUVs you rode in on.

Why so harsh you ask? Because I feel like it. And actually, I don’t have animosity toward babies or baby havers, just those times when the baby haver’s enthusiasm for his or her own ability to perpetuate the species – an ability that is the principal reason rents are so high - comes in the form of weekly flickr photo streams chronicling in 140 photos, such enthralling events as a child laying in a bed, staring.

I thought we got past last weeks photos, and that I suffered through it without causing too much insult to the sperm donor. This morning, we received the VIDEO version. At last! I’ve been having trouble finding the bootleg version on the internet. So this is great news. Sam was the first to pull it up and the heartiest of chucklers. I know Sam, he is very supportive always, but if I hadn’t known any better, I’d think that he was partially retarded for finding a video of a staring baby, doing the Robocop, on a grey bed sheet, funny. The father watched us watching the video, guiding us through its complex narrative, making sure to point out exactly what was on the funny horizon.

Later I’m going to buy Dawn lunch for being the Guest Bitchy Judge on America's Next Top Baby Model. She looked at the video, looked at the father, inhaled with a wrinkled nose, and barked, “That is a weird baby! That is so weird! She looks like some kind of weird alien baby! Jeeezus, what the hell is up with her?”

Finally, some other reasonable asshole speaks.

I Regret That I Forget

2008-01-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

Tara, a regular commenter to this blog pointed out that I omitted a key detail of my visit to SF.

Sushi Boat.

Don’t ask me to name this restaurant, as this is not a restaurant review. This is a report of the delicate, luscious, and open-ended gorging that occurs when you sit me in front of beautifully prepared seafood corsages, floating by at 3 nautical miles per hour. There is nothing more savory and delicious than the irony of fresh raw fish, sitting pretty in miniature boats, cruising by in linear armada, ripe for the plucking by vultures in hipster clothing.

That was me and Tara on Church Street, on the night of December 28th. It was more me and less Tara, as she was rightly fettered by certain food limitations, leaving me alone and unchecked in my tour of duty in at least four of the seven deadly sins.

I just saw the season finale of the Biggest Loser on the plane. I cried throughout and also wondered how a person could possibly eat a whole pizza in one sitting and have room for more. I learned how on this night, but I wasn't crying, I was silently mooing in blinding pleasure.

Some hottie made wanton eyes at Tara on our way out, but sadly we did nothing about it. We made our way instead to the Safeway for skittles, whoopee cushions, and Doritos. I suppose in some blend of Christian fundamentalism/saving-yourself-for-marriage and 90s-fear-of-bodily-fluids-throw-saran-wrap-on-everything logic, if you mix these purchases all together, they make a suitable alternative to a cold rainy night of hot steamy sex. I could be wrong on this one.

The Second Day of the Rest of Your Year

2008-01-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Assholes! and welcome back to your jobs that pull you out of your comfortable, hangover friendly, featherbeds and comforters, where you languish pining for the glorious life you could be having in between taps of the snooze button.

I had intended to write on the PET SHOP party, but the holidays got in the way, so I'll tell you more about it later.

Poodle M and I flew to rural Connecticut for the whitest Christmas ever. It satisfied the 13 year old in me - the kid who wondered what it would be like to step through the TV into snowy Bedford Falls. The light was sublime and the trees whispered old stories of the many generations of people who 'tarded out in New England before me. There was so much ye olde history hanging from the trees, clanging from bell towers, and clacking through covered bridges, that If I stood still and quiet, I could almost smell the first puritans’ B.O. – a mix of burning witches and cinnamon tar.

Snow makes everything look so delicious. I had fantasies of being a giant with the munchies, hopping from town to town, nibbling on the living gingerbread houses with their iced roofs, iced cars, little sugary snowmen, to the horror of the townspeople, but hey, that’s what insurance is for.

Dunkin Donuts? Fuck Yeah!

I don’t want to get into the details of what I might have heard on the police scanner, or the dinner with all fixins, or wrapping presents while watching It’s a Wonderful Life, so I’ll spare you by letting you know that I had a great time and I’m curious to return in the spring by motorcycle in full Armageddon wear.

We returned to LA for one night, then off to San Francisco for a few days. Nothing special happened to me other than my fateful discovery of the best shoe inserts ever made, while shopping at the new mega plex hyper mall downtown.

New Year’s eve was quiet and nice, not much to talk about.

Now I’m back in the work hole with a slightly sunnier disposition. It’s nice to see Sam’s hot new car and dark new jeans. I’m not one for resolutions, thank god. I’m thinking I’m just going to cruise through this one day by day, much like I’ve been going, with some highs, some lows and I’m hoping for a lot more hott sex.

I’m wishing you the same or better.

Foreverever's account of the Pet Shop's Annual Staff Holiday Party

2007-12-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

So this was my first attendance at the Annual Holiday Party here at the Pet Shop. I don’t know where to start relating this evening to all our wonderful readers. First off Employee835 and Poodle M were able to attend and I’ll discuss how they gate crashed later. A brief description of the setting for the party was a series of rooms decorated to the 8’s with everything Christmas: wreaths, bows, presents, live Christmas trees, lounging areas, two buffets, one mashed potato bar, two beer and wine bars, dance floor, horrible snowflake lighting and other accents that we don’t really need to describe.

Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus were there along with some palm, tarot card, handwriting readers. After figuring out it would be easy for E835 and Poodle to get in I went and got a beer and waited in line to get my tarot card reading done. It was still early in the night and people were filing in so I knew I had to get any fortunes told early in the evening. I must say that the tarot card reading was rather humbling and actually linked up with many things that I’d been thinking about, I just have to follow my instincts and things will go great. I was also told that I need to eat more vegetables from the ground. I was able to get a margarita glass full of mashed potatoes with my choice of toppings, total class, and have another beer so things were looking good as E835 and Poodle were about to arrive.

At this point during the party I looked around and saw nobody I knew. A few staff were scattered here and there but, almost everyone was an elder according to Poodle M. These are the volunteers at the Pet Shop who help clean out the cages and take care of sick puppies so this is the Shop’s way of thanking them for all their hard work. They were already trickling out as I made my way outside to meet up with my blog bros. Right when E835 and M were about to cross the street one of the elder’s passed out right in front of me! Flinging her Lexus key to the ground and slumming down. Some people were there to help her and I ran inside to inform the security of the situation. E835 and M must have looked at this moment like when you're in college and you roll up to some crazy party and somebody is passed out on the front lawn. Help was on the way for the poor women and since no RSVP list or anything was being used at this point, E835 and M just strolled in.

We crowded into an elevator with a few elder’s and as E835 was asking me if this party was off the hook I didn’t have to answer his question because, the bass could already be heard through the elevator doors and as they opened to the glory of holiday party fueled by cheap red wine and terrible 80’s dance music was unfolding. We quickly got some food. As usual I ate something that I thought was veggie lasagna but, later found tuna fish or chicken or something in it. As a vegetarian for 13 years I wasn’t that shocked and let the beer wash away my accidental meat eating.

The three of us moved through the crowds trying to find more to eat and waiting for the dance floor to explode. They did get to witness the holiday raffle, awesome prizes like $150 gift certificate to Whole Foods and flat screen TV's! E835 and Poodle M were bummed I didn’t enter the raffle. It wasn’t a big deal because, I usually don’t win anything and plus it helps the chances for all the Pet Shop security guards, mail room clerks, and cleaning people to walk away with something they could really use. So we clapped and cheered and showed our support.

At this point it was about time for E835 and Poodle M to leave. They had been the perfect party crashers, eating and drinking their full. They had a chance to see the Pet Shop’s fearless leader CEO boss double fist an ice cream sunday and beer at the same time while strolling through the crowd. Also Poodle M made a celebrity sighting when Hillary Clinton was spotted! So things were good at this point. All my crushes at work were pointed out and I was quickly poked and prodded by E835 and Poodle M to introduce myself and make the ill-fated trip down the Holiday Party walk of shame by trying to pretend I was in a night club and not a work party. After one unsuccessful attempt to say hello to someone (I was blinded by the terrible lighting and lost sight of her) I gave up hope. Which was probably a good thing.

E835 and Poodle M left and the night club theme DID begin to take over. All the elder’s were long gone by now and everybody had reached their 3 drink max. The dance floor was bumpn’ to Brick House and I found myself standing next to Hillary and doing a little white person dance. Grinding was definitely witnessed and a conversation took place as to which drugs our HR guy was on while dancing: Valium, LSD, or Prozac. So the night quickly spun out of control. Santa packed up shop along with the mind readers. The food was gone and the dance floor was the only place to be unless you were outside smoking weed with the AV dudes. Drunk husbands were beginning to wander into things and the wreaths, table candles, and anything that wasn't tied down was getting looted. It was like being at some strange Berlin Wall tearing down/yard sale and everybody was grabbing what they could. I got a hand full of Clementine’s so I was happy.

So the party ended. No butt copying or make out sessions in the supply closet. I’m only slightly hungover but, I must say it was a fun experience. Having my blog bros there made the night. It always puts you in that strange frame of mind when you realize you’re having a good time but, you would never hang out with any of these people unless you worked together. So it was a nice way to enter this holiday season. I'll miss Employee 835 and Poodle M for the next few weeks but, we'll be able to catch up soon enough in 2008! Next year you're all invited to the party! That is if I still have this job.

Have a safe and happy holidays everybody!

-Foreverever

Time to Par-tay with Santa and Vodka, II

2007-12-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

The excitement is mounting greater than George W's debts to the Dark Prince, and I'm afraid with all the pump, Poodle M and I may be walking into Al Capone's vault.

This is the email that I just received from foreverever:

So it's 2 hours until this doo doo parade of co-worker party christmas awesomeness begins. I have decided not to waste food/money with eating today so that I can gorge myself for free and get drunk faster here at work. . .this had caused me to feel a little hyper active and a general feeling of giddiness. Like Christmas? Kind of like that I think.. augh.. . it's unstoppable the christmas spirit. So i've scoped out what's going on. .. It looks like a check-in table exists when you first come in the building... That means possibly once we cross that barrier then it's all out mashed potato eating and dancing haven. So i'm going to scope it out and see if we can go around it. .. This could involve two distinct mission impossible type scenarios. ..

1. I meet you guys and just walk in.
2. I meet you guys and hand off a fake ID to Poodle M to flash to some sort of security guard and me bringing you in formally as my guest.

We must be aware that neither of these scenarios could be utilized as an entry point and plans dramatically changed. I'll call you guys closer to showtime to give you the lowdown.

Good stuff, all those hours watching MacGuyer and GI Joe are going to pay off.

Peace,

F

*****

I can't tell you where foreverever works, just know that with prestige come rent-a-cops supervised by partyzilla event coordinators in black dresses, black pumps, and sparkly sweaters, and they've got this thing sealed up tighter than the Green Zone in Ramamdan.

Roger Over.

Time to Par-tay with Santa and Vodka

2007-12-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

It sounds like Employee 835 needs a little break. The debacle from yesterday will be overlooked soon enough with all the insanity of the Holiday Season gift giving, crap receiving, more crap returning, and heavy drinking that is the Spirit of Christmas.

Tonight is the annual holiday party here where I work. Which will have all the above mentioned items and then some. From what I’ve seen it’s over the top with a nostalgic photo op area with Santa Claus, mashed potato bar, open bar, dance floor, and other completely unnecessary elements like live Christmas trees and modest “club” lighting.

Unfortunately you and only one member of your family is allowed to attend so this has given me the opportunity to invite Employee 835 to the party but, what do we do with Poodle M? That’s where our adventure will begin tonight . . .How to get Poodle M in under the close scrutiny of basically a concierge at a swanky restaurant? I’m hoping that in the ensuing chaos which will be the party we’ll just walk in. Another option is using charm saying that Poodle M just arrived from Kentucky and has nowhere to go in which case he can bust out his red neck jock accident to “act” his way into the party. Whatever happens everyone will be able to enjoy the stupidity and I can’t wait to share this experience with my blog bros.

On another note this email just came in . . .

Hello all,

Please return all hard hats to the Conference Room by the end of today. All hats need to be utilized for a press event tomorrow morning.

Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Potty Brain

2007-12-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, there are many times when I am not proud of myself. This report is of such an instance.

This guy John Fogerty, an ex-marine came up to my desk just a few minutes ago, giving me the thumbs up for my valuable insight during the recent meeting in the conference room about our 401(k) plan.

And in the drawing stacks, someone mentioned it as well.

Jesus Jimenez, the guy who greets me as Danielsan in Crane told me he wanted to move seats far away from me during the meeting.

I am in dire need of media coaching and tourrets meds.

I walked into the conference room, among the last to enter and greeted everyone, including the HR department by saying, “Good morning everyone, go fuck yourselves.” And I became disturbed when I realized that I wasn’t kidding.

Someone who manages our 401(k) plan came in today to teach all of us, in groups of 20 about the benefits of the new plan. As always, with 401(k) talk, the person freaks you out about saving, how you'd better do it now or as the woman today said, “you could be working as a Wal-Mart greeter until the day you die. There you go, a tired little old lady in your blue apron saying hello to everyone and then you keel over. That’s not how I want to spend my last days, so you bet I’m going to be putting away a good chunk of change.”

She asked lots of leading questions.

Does anybody know what a triple venti caramel macchiato is? Sounds expensive doesn't it? Remember when coffee was cheap and simple?

Does anyone here know how much a gallon of gas cost 25 years ago? What about a movie ticket?

How about a house? How much do you think all of these things are going to cost 25 years from now?

If you didn't have to work, what would you rather do? Anyone?

That's what they call retirement, and you have to ask yourself, what will I need?

She attempted a poor analogy, asking the group why you would go to the gym and pointed at me.

Why do you go to the Gym?

I heard a voice in my head loud and clear and it wanted to say a few things, but I tried very hard to breathe through it, so I could chalk up a perfect work appropriate reply, and the best I could muster was a very tentative response with long pauses between each word, and a huge question mark hanging in the air. Something like

Bee

cause

it

makes

me feel...

good?

She kept looking at me, digging with her eyes, and in retrospect, I see clearly now that she wanted me to say something like, “because I paid a lot of money for it, and you bet all the ice up Santa's Ass that I’m going to get my money’s worth.”

I wanted to end there, but she kept on looking at me, and slowly, expectantly nodding, stabbing me with her gaze, just lifting the words out of my mouth, and I kept talking and I said,

whennn

I

don’t...

kill people?

The words that came out were the result of an internal struggle between an angel and Dennis Hopper. The Dennis Hopper voice had a lot of f words ready to go, something about turning the office into a homo sapien slaughterhouse, while the angel voice that would like for me to keep my job begged for silence. This was a decent compromise I suppose.

It's hardly worth noting, and definitely not the worst thing I could have said, but it could be a harbinger of my Undeveloped Evil Twin's eventual coming out party, from decades of gestation inside of my gall bladder. I worry that I am on the fast track to becoming the man in this video, and that so far, so luckily, youth, although withering, is still on my side, and there is enough charm in the reserve tank to enchant my way out of my own creative expletives. But one day, I will be this man. I hope I can learn from this.

If you click on the video, you should know that he has a potty mouth strikingly similar to mine. Some of you may find it offensive. If you are at work, wear headphones.

The Video.

Holiday Blazes!

2007-12-17T08:50:00.000-08:00

I received this email from foreverever this morning:

Are you all up in the work zone? I hope your commute was chill. .. seems like things are getting mellower around the holidays. The bus was still packed and crazy and this woman in a wheel chair at Fairfax and Crenshaw said. .. "Where I'm gonna ride? On top!"

Anyways, I'm looking forward to kicking it with you and Poodle M on Wednesday. I dropped my cell phone in a hot tub this weekend so you'll have to hit me up on my work line. We can work out the details later... .
hope it's all good.

*****

Must have been a great hot tub/key party. Wish I was there.

It is confirmed that Poodle M and I are going to foreverever's company holiday party this Wednesday, and without spilling the beans about his workplace, I just know it's going to be interesting, tasteful, and austere.

My company's holiday party was held this weekend and I did not attend. Something about a workplace where the man to woman ratio is 9 to 1 feels a bit like The Accused when you mix us all up in a dark warehouse and splash a little booze on everyone.

We instead, went to a sampler of The Nutcracker performed by a ballet school of kids between the ages of four and six, with some gangly teens sprinkled in as role models. Our four year old girl, the daughter of our friend, was particularly cute, and did her best, but I heard Poodle M praying quietly to himself during her part, “Trust yourself Etta, trust yourself.”

The stakes were high for the girls, and the urine was even higher for the audience.

Urine.

A woman in her sixties, who seemed to have no relation to child or child bearer, performer, audience member, stage hand, or facilities personnel didn’t quite sully our enjoyment of the experience, but rather, her enthusiasm, and her own special spice added an element of Rabid Nursing Home Fugitive to the event. She was dressed well, in a red top, red cardigan and overall holiday theme, but it was her odor, one of a gas station urinal, filled with falafel, and composted roses that brought more tears to my eyes than the five year olds in tutus, dressed as mice. Her BRAVOs and her exclamations of BEAUTIFUL and BRILLIANT added support to the otherwise dreary soundtrack. She gave Etta’s grandmother helpful parenting advice as well as dirty looks. She reminded Poodle M that he was gay – lest he forget and trot over to the nearest church to get hitched. And the audience looked to her, relied on her for cues on how they should respond to the performance. So when you look at the big picture, I’d say she stole the show. It’s just as well. Kids are exceedingly cute in costumed performances, but every show of this nature needs at least one adult Hindenberg to catch ablaze from a single static spark against a metal folding chair in order to burn bright and fierce amidst all the overly child-focused Jon Benet making parents.

I love the holidays.

And I’m excited about foreverever’s work party. Never been there before, and I hope they have their own handful of volatile dirigibles on staff.

What? I'm a work? How did this happen?

2007-12-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

So I am in that mode where you are barely working. It started first thing in the morning. I woke up at 6:30 it was still dark and I thought to myself, "I could totally get up and start my day!" But, I didn't and stayed in bed dreaming until 8. So that created where I am now. That lack of motivation first thing in the morning lead me to dream and continue those dreams into my employement part of the day.

So today i've just been reading the news, emailing, watching videos on youtube without sound. A good one is Criss Angel stuff. And insert paper work and meetings along the way. Before you know it you're back out on the street and heading home. So i feel thankful for this place I'm in and thankful to you the reader. Life is strange and when we're at our day jobs, or school, or whatever we go on with it. I think a lot of us know it's a sham. A cultural joke that we're playing and that's where the humour and levity of Mr. Shankly comes along. To let the epp and flow of our commitments or lack thereof come through.

Someone left coffee burning in the kitchen. I wonder if it'll ever get turned off. It's rather nice. It's one of those "crazy" things that can happen around here and I wonder if other people are thinking the same thing I am. This group dynamic we share to get the job done has lots of different levels and styles that me and E.835 have discussed but, maybe it's the time of year. The darkness that bookends our days or something. It's making me happy to be here and I know I'll have to leave someday and I'll miss this place for a few minutes.

A Gift for You

2007-12-04T05:36:00.001-08:00

What a fantastic welcome back note from foreverever. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for anything bearing a crown in my neighborhood.

I was going to tell you that it took three hours to go through my emails yesterday, but I’m more excited to tell you this:

The photo above is of a laminated greeting card for all occasions. You can keep it, you can send it to loved ones, send it to hated ones, to whomever you want, for any reason. This heartfelt card is extremely precious, and if you want one, I want you to have one.

The lovingly hand made, laminated message, comes mounted on white card stock with a matching envelope.

Just send a self addressed, stamped US#10 envelope (or equivalent) with correct postage to:

Mr. Shankly
1431 South Fairfax Avenue, #1
Los Angeles, CA 90019

Include your email address so I can let you know that I’ve sent off your card.

Welcome Back Bitch!

2007-12-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,
So employee 835 is back in this land of Hilary and T.V. sitcom writer strikes. He was missed but his posts have kept us all company and gave us an excellent insight into his and Poodle M’s adventures. I personally would like to hear more about these adventures outside of the confines of the cube and douche bag alliances that surround us. I have personally given up any further retaliation against my cubeiverse and have accepted it with open arms. I’ve done this for a few reasons. 1. I have a job and I should be extremely thankful for that. 2. I have a job that allows me to do crap like this. 3. Free food sometimes.

Of course there’s always something better out there and searching and attaining that is the American Way. But, since I’m kind of anti-American and after seeing how Employee 835 observed and absorbed the culture on his adventures you probably noticed like I did that he really had fun in all of the differences and craziness that’s the rest of the world. America is weird. This is one of the weirdest places on the planet. We are the douche bag of countries. I don’t want to contribute to the doucheness of my own country anymore. Instead of giving up and moving to a country that’s more like a case of cheap beer (Canada) I think it’s better to stay here. Do what we can and when we can to take a little wind out of the sails of the USS Douche bag.

That’s where Mr. Shankly comes in. All you readers out there know that we’re right there with you. We’ll tell you how it is on the front lines, in our cubes, with our co-workers, or other observations in and outside of the workspace. We want to inspire you to just take a break from the drudgery you maybe experiencing and chill out by the water cooler with us . . .

So today I went down to the .99 cent store for my afternoon snacks and this is usually one of my favorite things to do because, I get away from the phones and gray walls and floors and get to be with the people and see tons of cheap shit. You know what I'm saying, strange packaged snacks with chili-peanuts, DVD's of movies you've never heard of, clothing, plants, you name it it's there and it's only .99 cents! So I guess it’s kind of like a mini-Thailand. I guess you can consider .99 cent stores as foreign lands because, I think either you go there all the time or you never go there. Some people will never eat the food from there but, will gladly get all their hazardous household chemicals from it. Maybe that conflict of energy created by random junk and the whirlpool of old people, moms, and house keepers just creates this perfect storm of capitalism at work.

One inspiring individual was at the .99 cent store today, and I’m glad we crossed paths. He was an older gentleman and he was wearing a rather nice Kings crown and had on a black t-shirt with his own portrait airbrushed on it with a Kings crown on. It was incredible. Was this Jackass? What was going on? The crown would have been one thing. The t-shirt another. But, together they formed a tableau to be discussed and referred to for ages. I wasn’t the only one who noticed and we were all in awe of his divine prescene. We were really seeing a King among us serfs at the .99 cent store. What a day to be alive and to have these eyes witness his majesty.

If you’re going to retire that’s the way to roll. He was asking people in the check out line how to get to south Fairfax because; he needed to see a lawyer and he was a Korea vet so it was free or something senile and boarder line crazy. What I love thinking about is this guy is on an adventure all day in this outfit. He gets to inspire other people and trip them out in his choice of clothing options. Seeing him totally made me look forward to growing old. Maybe I’ll be wandering around one day exhibiting my personal freedom in completely strange yet very deliberate attire. It just makes you glad to be alive so that you can see moments like that and know that yes, God exists, and he’s here on earth walking among us wearing a crown and t-shirt.

Bitch is Back

2007-11-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I cruised through the Jet lag when I woke up at 8am this Friday morning, with a little yawn and a lot of good vibes. I got back into bed at 11 am, following some errands, just to take in the rain falling on ground sound from underneath my old pal the comforter. I woke up at 7 pm, my Friday vaporized.

I am home, with Poodle M as the result of our very serious and very focused prayers that we said in our Taxi to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

We caught a cab at 5:00 am in Bangkok, right outside our hotel. The only thing we noticed as being different was the route to the airport, but the meter seemed on schedule. If this were a NYC cab, I’d have slipped into my bubble of self-absorption and gotten on my phone, or chatted the ride away with Poodle M. But this is a foreign land, and you watch your route, your meter, and your American Nards like an insatiable pitbull hungry for more babies. And that’s why Poodle M noticed that we were going the fastest we’d ever gone on any Thai road at any hour (90 mph), we were in more than one lane for long stretches at a time, and our driver looked as sleep deprived as your bog standard Gitmo Detainee. Could have been drunk, drowsy, or hopped up on goofballs, whatever it was, we each silently wondered which of our friends and family would figure out who hated lilies, and who wanted an open casket, or who would know we were dead at all. I left my car at the shop before we left, would my mechanic eventually sell my car?

The short story is THERE IS A BUDDHA. We prayed and prayed for congestion, maybe a busted spark plug, anything to slow us down. I clapped a few times loudly and we said more prayers. We arrived with no incident.

We agreed to give him money for breakfast or a motel near the airport, or rehab, and he was on the extra money tip way before us. The fare was 230 Baht, I got out to get our bags, Poodle M gave 500, and got back 200. This is another area where guidebooks suck, they have basic phrases in the back, like where is the hotel, but they don’t tell you how to politely say in Thai, “Hey Sleepy, who you think I am Snow White? You better put 70 more Baht in this hand, or this other hand finna get bitchy.” But we did not; I just kept pounding on the trunk, making sure to get our bags before he wrapped the car around the nearest pylon.

(Tipping note: No need to tip taxi drivers, it is a practice to round to the next 5 Baht. Math note: It’s 33 Baht to the Dollar. 300 Baht divided by 33 equals $9.10. Choice note: A pittance by our standards, and money we had planned on giving, only we wanted the option of handing it over, instead of leaving it up to the Mummy to decide his take. Reaming Note: Our first taxi ride from the Airport to our hotel, before we knew anything about anything, was 700 baht, more than twice the average.)

I’d like to thank all the Shankly fans for your visits, emails and comments during my time away from the big desk. I have certainly had a great time taking it all in. I am excited to travel to more far away places that have fewer safety regulations, more street food, excessive pollution, gridlock up the tailpipe, and people who don’t speak my language. [Insert obvious joke about Downtown LA or Pomona here.]

I said I wouldn’t hit the ground running, and so far, I have not made too many telephone calls, definitely have not checked my work email, or contacted my trusted co-workers, Sam and Dawn, and I’m not looking forward to the backlog of emails waiting for me, as well as the shit storm of criticism from my boss about the things I may have let slip through the cracks. Whoops, how did it get to be the future so fast?

It may be a while before I report on the mishaps at work. I know you understand. I will be checking myself into a coma on Monday at about 8:10 am. Send flowers to Poodle M, I like gerbera, peonies and star gazers, no fucked up dyed carnations. Please play Smiths songs by my hospital bed. If you see my right pinky toe twitching, I am singing along on the inside to Half a Person.

It’s nice enough to be back, but I miss our slice of Nirvana. We worked hard to make that slice. Phuket is primarly for Western assholes on their honeymoons with matching flip-flops that imprint JUST MARRIED in the sand. Although our beach was far from perfect, and cluttered with dovey-eyed man/woman combos, we made it ultra pleasant, and I look forward to returning. Poodle M had his books and magazines; I had an iPod borrowed from Kate DeGovia, esq. (You should get her number, she springs people from all kinds of snags). And we had our icy shakes and plenty of purposeless time.

Let me recap, although this was not the Oprah, wildest dreams vacation, this was also not the budget, fresh-faced youth, not-a-tourist, cool backpacking, sharing a bus bench with a chicken, ass strapped to the roof of the train, diarrhea expedition. Our mission was to park it in one or two spots far away from the marriage blinded, do as our lazy asses wanted, and get there in relative comfort and convenience. There are certain cultural, as well as personal conflicts in that, but we decided to put all that ethical mumbo jumbo on the back burner, in favor of barbecues, massages, and taking it way the hell easier than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to. There was no future, and if we did address it, it was around locations of the upcoming meal. Vacation from thinking. Simple.

We made one wrong turn on the scooter, my fault. Our love of buffets headed us to the place that should have had a big banner outside proclaiming HEY WESTERNERS, YOU LIKE THAILAND? COME IN! It was the most expensive dinner we’d had, serving mediocre fare, except for the desserts and this saucy noodle dish. Saucy for sure, I almost took my clothes off it was so good. As with many Phuketeries, we ate under the stars, ocean as backdrop, but this night was special, it was the night they beat tourists over the head with THAI CULTURE.

The dancers came out looking Thai, in fancy dresses, wacky chandelier headgear, and gold gold gold! See? This is THAILAND! This is how we do it! You like? I don’t have photos. It was boring, and if it was authentic, someone in cultural affairs should send out a memo to all dancers and bands to tone it down bro. It was exactly the imagery - dancers in native garb, amazed tourists, torches in the sand, and plenty of seafood dishes - that makes up all Asian airline commercials. I’m glad we finally found it after all this time, now, when a Singapore Airlines commercial comes on during Grey’s Anatomy, I can emphatically point and say, “I’ve been to Asia and it looks just like that. You guys should check it out! It’s cool!”

I loved coconut everything - coconut desserts, cookies, and wafers. I had coconut yogurt twice daily to keep the extrusion machine in good working order and kept cool with coconut ice cream bars, and coconut shakes.

Coconut was my stock flavor, and I also particularly loved the screwball flavored packaged snacks. I had two ice cream bars of note, and I think a strongly worded letter to Good Humor about bringing them here is on the horizon. Good Humor sells in Thailand, an ice cream bar with a Taro Root center, coated in coconut ice milk, and another wacky and disturbingly good one made of coconut ice milk, containing jack fruit, corn, and GREEN BEANS. Green F’n Beans yo, wassup wid dat? I also really enjoyed the nori flavored, as well as the cuttlefish flavored Lays Potato Chips. These would never fly in this country of culinary scaredy cats that anxiously cling to their berry, lemon, and nacho cheese flavor. Wake up and smell the Pad Prik King People.

Tuk Tuks, pictured above are cute and lame. They’re unsafe, they’re open air, they’re unmetered, which means they cost whatever the driver feels like charging you. Taxis, especially the pink ones, were our preferred mode of transit. They are metered and have climate control, which unlike cars in the states where temperature controls go from red to blue, Thai cars go from blue to bluer. It’s how I like em - cheap, pretty, and ice cold.

Our hotel concierge was nice enough to give me a crash course in Thai at 4:30 am, on the morning we arrived. By the middle of our first day, we developed a decent taxi muscle and could easily and confidently tell the driver where we wanted to go, beginning each transaction with our favorite ice breaker, “Hello,” in Thai. Even though we didn’t know much more, this seemed to smooth out the choppy transaction. Poodle M really loved to flex his third learned phrase, How Are You? This usually caught the recipient off guard, and then endeared Poodle M to them, but sometimes they’d answer off book, to which Poodle M could only nod and grin, hoping to hell they didn’t say anything like, “I’m fine, Is that a stick of pork sate up your ass?”

Our visit was too short. As I wrote in previous posts, the smell is disquieting, the smiles are mysterious, and you’re going to get reamed, but hey you’re in Thailand, where the food is absurdly delicious, the water is jewel colored and warm, and you can get knock off anything.

*****

Final Notes – Hit or Miss

Hit: Spray hose attached to our toilet. The importance of this bears no explanation.

Miss: And you’ll be sorry.

Hit: Ultra amazing street food on sticks, in banana leaves, deep fried, steamed, flogged, what have you.

Miss: No pesky health codes to get in the way of you and your salmonella, hepatitis, worms, mouth lice, what have you.

Hit: $5 Thai massages every 20 yards.

Miss: Not your pampering spa day, but more like something you’re nice Thai cousin would do for you while watching TV or listening to his/her favorite Asian music, under fluorescent lights of course.

Hit: INSANELY low prices on knock off anything.

Miss: You touch it, you buy it. And if you put it even close to your body, and you don’t buy, you may have this happen to you – Skinny ass vendor wielding a calculator chasing you down the alley screaming 100! 100! OK 100! How you like that GIRL? LADY! YOU LADY! LADY! YOU GIRL!! On second thought, don’t even look. Looking is the same as buying.

Miss: Un-marked prices on all goods sold on the street.

Hit: Say nothing while the vendor yam yam yammers on about authenticity and suddenly a 3000 baht Breitling watch knock off can be yours for only 700 bhat. Translation – a watch that normally sells for $5,000.00 in its genuine form, starts off at the Night Bazaar for $90, and with no negotiation of your own, just by looking at the watch with one eye open, it can be yours for $21. The getting is good here my friends.

Hit: Fake Louis Vuitton purse for $60.

Bigger Hit: Fake Fake Louis Vuitton purse for $6. Why is this better? You’d be the only one in your tri-county area sporting a genuine Louis purse that closes with a Gucci clasp.

Not a hit, never, ever: Tourists in corn rowed weaves.

Hit: Our abode.

Hit: The view from our window.

Miss: Our window.

Hit: In line water heater.

Miss: Shower and Toilet in one.

Miss: Toilet paper as silicone caulking.

Hit: Our Beach

Miss: Our bathroom drain, and all drains empty the soapy water and other grime into a small stream, into a larger stream, right into our beach.

Click for more

Hits

Misses

Don't Bring Me Down

2007-11-28T07:09:00.000-08:00

You might ask, why does it always cost more and take way more time to get anything done? If you’re in the US of A, one answer is safety. Safety regulations, these blasted little rules pretty much bog down any project, any undertaking, any activity, such as construction, parking, driving, hang gliding, starting a forest fire. You name it, there is a book of safety regulations that the man uses to take away your spontaneity, your own special know how, your fun, your everything. And the other answer is the law. There’s always someone ready to sue you for all your worth, so you better take your time and follow the law, follow the safety rules, waste all this extra money on BIG GOVERNMENT just to cover your ass in case someone sips on your fresh hot coffee too fast.

Not so in Thailand. Safety is cool, but who needs it if it’s going to slow growth. This is a country on the move and the people ain’t gonna stop for some man with a clipboard.

Got no delivery truck? No problem pile in, and bring your 500 lbs of green vegetables with you. You’re probably better off barefoot any way, it keeps you cool in this heat.

Like Shankly said, we are on the move and we got no time for that guy to fix the platform. That's why we keep ropes and buckets.

You’d think all these trinkets would impede my vision, they actually improve my vision. They tell me how hard and fast this mofo is turning, and I adjust throttle and brake as necessary, it's what we call TVSC - THAI Vehicle Skid Control.

It’s only a fire hazard if someone is smoking near all these extension cords.

The ever evolving miracle of cinderblock. Not just for shelving anymore.

Ahh, the bus is for assholes anyway, and I just hate getting harassed by crazy homeless people.

Can I get a HUH?

2007-11-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

The alley diner is set back from the street, blocked by the fruit stand pictured above. Not many foreigners know that there is a kitchen behind the stand. One adventurous woman from the States broke through the fruit barrier, walked up to the cook and asked if he had any Thai iced tea. The cook answered yes.

I found that YES is the go to answer here, and then later on in the transaction, as this lady found out, they actually mean “HUH?” I know, because I made the same folly in Bangkok. I asked for Thai iced tea, the person replied a hearty and confident yes, because she was planning on serving me Lipton tea with ice, in Thailand – Thai iced tea, you dumb, obvious American fuck.

“No no,” I clarified, “THAI, iced tea. You know, it’s thick, it’s rich, has milk in it?”

First I got question face, then deeper question face, thinking face, and then the final face, just slightly more contorted, and then “HUH?”

And just as the lady did, I resigned, “well, never mind. Is OK. One soda water please?”

*****

In the months leading up to this trip, I tried to learn Thai by using the Rosetta Stone online language course. I didn’t find it optimal for my learning style. I know what boy is, and maybe a cat, and a plane, but outside of that, I’m pretty much Helen Keller. And I feel ashamed. It’s bad enough that I am among the hoards of tourists who treat this place like our personal fantasy rag. I feel terrible that Thais can't enjoy their own beaches because they are sullied by outsiders like me who can't focus on anything past their coconut drinks.

I only learned to count a few days ago, courtesy our friends at Ace Massage. Just understanding the numbers has made all the difference and I see that I have short changed myself and have missed out on the kinds of interactions that I love – making people feel heard and understood, making people laugh with just a simple phrase. If only I could say in Thai, “Take my wife…Please!” I would have so many people in stitches, or they’d get me a newer, better, bride than the current battle axe I haul around. Either way, we’d have a connection deeper than how much? and is there a discount?

We found a way to communicate with our new friends through sharing pictures on our digital camera, and we strained with each, supplementing with a great deal of exaggerated gesticulation and charades.

They giggled when I showed them pictures of the crap sold at local markets.

They blushed when we got to the underwear laid out like omelets on a buffet table.

And they all laughed at my photo of the toilet hose, each one making the same, spray in the butt gesture.

I was able to explain my love and appreciation for the spray hose attached to most toilets, and I was also able to explain with the help of my stellar spoken mime skills, “In Amereeka NO HOSE. Just paper.”

And they looked at me as if I swallowed a live Toucan.

“No water? Only paper?”

“Yes! Paper”

And then the inevitable, “HUH?”

I just couldn’t say more. Couldn’t elaborate on western cultural imperatives and our connoisseurship of toilet paper versus the Asian model for rectal cleanliness. It would have been a perfect opportunity to ask if that hose is the reason why Thai’s don’t shake hands upon meeting. I bet that if I had better language skills, we would have gotten past the Huh and dove right into Oprah Talk. But all I got was a lot of head shaking disbelief.

Damn the language barrier.

P.S. For the record, I learned on Monday night that the drink known in the States as Thai iced tea is known and ordered locally as Thai Milk Tea, and it’s not that popular.

Breathe In and Ahhh

2007-11-25T17:44:00.000-08:00

At any point in this blog, please feel free to contact any one of the remaining U.S. Airline companies and let the bosses know that they are nothing but a gang of fuckheads set out to ruin the mystque of air travel.

Thank you.

We are currently waiting to board our flight from Phuket to Bangkok in the Bangkok Airways passenger lounge, OPEN TO ALL BANGKOK AIRWAYS PASSENGERS. No, it's not a water cooler with Thai TV Guides, it's a perfect sanctuary from all the air travel bullshit loaded with delicate snacks, Thai iced tea on tap, beverage-ola, and free Internoodle access. There were no lines to hassle with, just speedy movement from checkpoint to checkpoint. This is perhaps the most civilized way to fly.

Fuck Delta and all its friends on expedia.com.

Ad Infinitum Ad Nauseum

2007-11-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

Around here, more is better, and why the hell not?

These two photos are the only two that can be uploaded from this internet cafe and I've been sweltering here for an hour while the windows hourglass taunts me.

I cruised into an outdoor market for more of the same treatment. Hey, come in! You like nail polish? What you like? Mac or Bobbi Brown?

Yeah, I dig nail polish, I use it when I get a run in my stockings.

Sun is particularly hot today. Everytime I park the scooter, like seagulls who smell french fries on the beach, lounging shop keepers stand to, and approach me carefully, offering more bespoke pinstripe pants, plastic garbage, and other wares no human really needs.

We saw this white guy earlier wearing a shirt printed in Thai and in English, proclaiming the following:

NO I DON'T NEED
A SUIT
A TAXI
OR A MASSAGE
THANK YOU VERY MUCH

I think the same thing, but only a true douche bag would wear a plum colored shirt with that printed on the front and back.

You can view some of today's photos here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21189289@N02/

*****

We did not eat at our alley diner this morning. We had a bit of a pow wow last night about feeling ripped off for only a few Baht by the cook, and we agreed that there were probably better places out there, that would be just as good and cheap, and also less likely to be performing alchemy with the orange juice. Better to stop now before I get garlic powder in my OJ.

We went instead to the Danish bakery for a more traditional western breakfast that included fresh baked bread. We got eggs, bacon, ham, potatoes, a bread basket, tea, and some kind of orange juice that seemed a little whiz banged. It was not deep orange in color, like regular Shogun orange juice, and it tasted a little like Five Alive. It was good, but I couldn't place it.

Our proprietress, Lucky, went on to explain that two days before yesterday, a man she identified as one of three Danish Mafioso, laying low in Phuket, just around the corner, kicked the crap out of a dog that had wandered in to the restaurant. The dog wandered in and the diners seemed to all enjoy its visit, feeding it and petting it, but Den Danske Mafioso did not concur. Lucky said that the guy kicked the dog so hard, it flew into the street. Not cool, and she went onto say that she kicked him out making sure to say "Fuck" a few times for good measure. In her retelling, she giggled each time she repeated the expletive. The dog belonged to someone down the street and has not been seen since.

Dey not come here no more. Ip dey come, I know his face, I say, no more, you turn around, you no allowed come to dis place, fuck, hehehe hehehe no. Dats what I say to heem.

This kind of directness, this is the shit I can go for. You know where you stand with Lucky. If she is smiling, it's because she's down with your jive, and she'll let you know when she's not. Now if they could only stop fucking with the orange juice.

Keep Smiling, Keep Shining

2007-11-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

I don't like to feel correct about my suspicions of certain smiling bastards, but I think, sadly, that we won't be returning to our alley diner. It seemed that our kitchen master was peeved yesterday that we didn't leave a big tip, but instead left our usual. Let me make this more clear - There was some confusion on our team as to the size and amount of the currency, he thought I was handing over the whole wad, but I took some back, and then I also left an additional tip on the table. When he didn't get the wad, he made a pouty sour ugly whiny tantrum bad cheerleader face, which I didn't see, because it was blocked by my big dumb hat. Poodle M caught it and noted it.

Today, we were presented with a whopping bill, much more than we'd ever paid, and since there is no printed menu, as that would be the obvious and fair thing, we had to fork over the extra cash. Didn't feel good. But man was that a pretty smile that he gave us.

Here is the other thing around here that I have a hard time with - very little consistency. I noticed that at our diner, some days they put sugar and water in the OJ, yesterday it was salt, today, nothing, just ice. You can't count on shit here, just like Trader Joe's. The other day, I crossed a road block because someone had earlier moved a concrete pylon just enough so that minivans could squeeze by. Me and my tiny scooter cruised on by just as the rest, because why the hell not? No one said not to, they just closed the road for no apparent reason, and no one seemed to mind even though there were traffic cops on duty. Same rules apply on the road, some days it's open, some days it's closed. You can take it or leave it. I took it, and it didn't pay off. I had to head all the way back to the road block and take a circuitus route back to Patong, where Mad Max goes for ashram. But I digress.

Just now, this loud Italian was blocking the entry to the internet place, smoking with his fat ass plugging the stairs. Don Smoke-o didn't move, so the proprietress had to get out of her chair and then she smiled and giggled and ha ha ha ha pointed ever so coyly, oh please, giggle wiggle, you move, please, no smoke, he he he he he so sorry. I just watched the woman in awe. Hard to know what the hell is going on in there.

*****

Other note - Poodle M and I just had the nicest little dinner at a Danish Bakery. Such a nice break to have actual bread and real salami, with milkshakes. That definitely put a smile on our faces, the real kind.

Giggle is the New Black

2007-11-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering if the Thai people are just a bunch of smiley faced passive aggressive bastards this side of the international dateline. They call this place the land of smiles, and to be frank, I have a difficult time with the all smiles all the time routine. We've been ripped off by a lot of smiling people, which leaves me to wonder about this friendly veneer and all of this prayer pose bowing.

We go to this alley every morning for breakfast. The cook, a lady boy often sporting a billowing blouse, greets us with the biggest smile, as we delight in one of our two Thai Phrases - Sawadee Khrap! Helllloo! Hellloo! We all say to each other, but immediately he turns to his right and starts murmuring in Thai, using the same kind of face you might don when shoveling elephant shit out of your bed.

Hard to know. Poodle M suggested we hire an interpreter to sit next to us, but pretend he or she is also a foreigner, just so we can understand the shit talking.

And they just giggle. When all else fails, giggle. Massage too hard? he he he!

We don't understand each other so I've taken to slipping in non sequiturs like, This is a great dish, I masturbated all over myself this morning. I smile hugely and wait for the giggle.

Daily Grind

2007-11-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

So I've told you about Patong, and about the smell, and I've noted my suspicions re all the smiling, but I have not yet mentioned to you about the little paradise on earth that Poodle M and I are carving out here in Kata Noi.

I wasn't exaggerating about the daily massage. This usually comes close to the end of the day, and for about $10 including tip - that's when we're going up town.

We have spent the last several days by waking up when we can't stay in bed any longer. It doesn't matter that there are birds, barking dogs, or construction going on, we get up when we feel like it, and that is usually after a good 9 hour sleep period.

We head off to our diner in the alley that none of the tourists dare enter. It's a ramshackle rig with a series of portable cookstoves. They have two plastic tables and some plastic chairs. Decor a la poverty. They know our order and giggle every time we say it. Kao Koog Ka Pi - Rice fried in shrimp paste, served with fried egg, pork, chilis, shredded green mango, shallots, cucumbers, and maybe pineapple. And a glass of fresh squeezed Shogun orange juice.

Today, I tasted salt in my juice and I bolted to the lady, "hey there's salt in my juice."

After some back and forth I realized she was saying, "yes, I know, I put some in it, that's what makes it taste so good! DUH!"

And she was right, but Poodle M didn't think so. His point to me was that I hated it when I thought it was a mistake, but came to love it when I found out it was deliberate. No matter, I came here to learn and so far, I have found that sometimes salt in the OJ is just what the Thai doctor ordered.

We log our expenses as we wait for our food, scratch our heads at how quickly the money is going, then realize it's all so cheap. We gather snacks for our long day at the beach, which is only a few steps from our door. I get coconut yogurt, Poodle M gets coconut wafers, then we seal the deal with water and some kind of fruit.

Cruise out to the beach with our towels, pay the $3 beach chair fee and we hang out all day. At some point, one of us orders up sandwiches and blended drinks. So far, my vote is for the ice blended young coconut in its own juice, served in its own shell. Poodle M seems to favor the pineapple shake.

We must remain vigilant about sunscreen. I got a bad sun burn two days ago just from being under the umbrella. Poodle M reads his books, I groove on the iPod. We carry on like this until late afternoon. Go in, wash off, get dinner and a massage.

We aren't spending lavishly, but this is hardly that shoestring budget, reggae on the river, dirty asshole dreadlock, back packing tour. Last night, during my foot massage, I came to realize that my life in the last few years may have been spent in preparation for this vacation. I have never treated myself this well, and I don't think I would have been able to do this a few years ago.

We can't stay here forever, and I wouldn't want to. The bathrooms suck, I'm a walking mosquito buffet, but the coconuts drinks are ice cold, the water is warm and the massages are almost free. Poodle M is a fantastic companion and stalwart navigator. All in all, this is one of the loveliest times I've ever had.

Hell so Close

2007-11-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

We've decided to hunker down in Kata Noi, a little seaside hamlet near the south tip of the island. The rest of the place looks like the bloated, cancerous version of Las Vegas with a lot of Blade Runner thrown in.

There is no middle ground in Thailand. You are either in the lap of luxury or you're eating shit. Our quest is to find our own quiet middle ground. So far, that means stinky toilets and bad mattresses.

Last night we rode the scooter on a slightly harrowing trip to Patong, birthplace of the Devil. It's right hand drive here, so it can be a challenge to remember that the left lane is the slow lane, and much more of a challenge when you are sharing your lane with a mobile fruit stand on your left and a propane truck on your right, on a winding mountain road. Do what you feel, and the others might accommodate you, that is the rule.

I can't emphasize enough how the guidebooks understate how truly disgusting this place is. They might note that "Patong is the least attractive of the beach communities because it's so overdeveloped." But they should really say, that Patong is quite a unique place because it's the only known region in the world where you can get Street Herpes.

You see a great deal of older white guys wining and dining young Thai women. It's a douchebag's paradise. There is a great deal of shouting going on at all times. Shouting to get you to watch some kick boxing, or a ping pong show. High rise hotels next to shacks, upscale shopping centers boasting mega tall pink christmas trees serving as the backdrop for countless rows of designer knockoff stands.

The food is fantastic everywhere in Thailand, particularly on the streets. So far, we have enjoyed numerous snacks that I have never tasted before at laughably cheap prices. And the other thing that happens on the streets are the endless siren calls to get thee to a drinkery; or to a tailor, or to a massage, or to an optician. These are the main businesses here after food vendors. And it is impossible not to be harassed when trying to get from dinner to your motorbike.

Five or six ladies will all scream Hello! Where are you from? You like girl? Or boy? My friend! bondage show, Kahm in!

My friend! My friend! How about some nice pants? Hilfiger Yes? I make you good deal.

I carry around hand santizer, but it never quite cleanses my soul.

After dinner, our waiter recommended that we seek post dinner entertainment at the Paradise Hotel complex, code for the gay area, and also what puts the Gay in gay. I hate saying that, but there was no queer pride here, just a lot of closet case westerners screeching into 50, hanging with local twinks born after Duran Duran's lesser selling album, Big Thing was released. Again, hand sanitizer did not cleanse my soul.

In keeping with our one massage per day rule, Poodle M (Boyfriend's codename for the sake of blogginess) and I walked into FAITH. As I noted earlier, no middle ground in Thailand, which meant this knocked us squarely in the land of eating shit. We were each assigned an indifferent "therapist", mine more so than Poodle M's, in fact, I was perturbed that mine was as short as a night stand, and angry as hell. They escorted us up a dark staircase, inside of which Poodle M said freely aloud, I guess this is where they kill us. They took him away to shower, I got undressed in my little room while the guy waited alongside me. It wasn't the worst massage, but I was distracted that he didn't wash his hands, and that he sounded like a troll.

Time up, you get up now. Here is water.

I faked a drink, he then told me to shower. Just pointed to the back. Poodle M was already back in the one shower, having just completed his lackluster massage. So I got in with him. They didn't even give me a towel so I borrowed his, but I had to walk back to my room naked. No one even cared, and I just held my breath and laughter until we got way the fuck far away.

Patong is the bad David Lynch dream sequence that has no end. As we tried to gather our thoughts, we of course had to walk through gauntlet after gauntlet of bars and the crazy faced personnel hired to move your money from your wallet to the bar.

Last I checked it wasn't fleet week, but here we were, sailors in a foreign land. The walk to the bike was long, I felt like we were batting away all kinds of walking talking bullshit invitations to see some kind of lame show. They make things out here to be racier than they really are. It's as if a bunch of 8 year olds got a hold of porn for the first time, and they make a really big deal about it, guaranteeing a mind blowing experience, only to show you what you may have already seen on the internet for free.

We got on the bike, and since there was no way to the main road, but to go back through the gauntlet of bullshit, we had no choice but to stick together on the bike, through the crowds, engine revving, parting the sea of crap ahead of us, and we made our way back home. So the guidebooks will tell you how overdeveloped it is, and that it's not as cozy as it could be, I just want you to know, just to save you a lot of time, Fuck Patong.

Smells Like Thai Spirit

2007-11-20T01:56:00.000-08:00

Before I carry on about nothing, I need to tell you two important things:

1. I can't tell what day it is, therefore, all that crap I spewed about Sunday being the worst day doesn't matter for this moment. I am truly on vacation.

2. I love this place entirely. In a minute I might complain about a few things, but I need you to remember how much of a good time we are having here and I'm not thinking about the Douchebag Alliance. So yes, for the record again, I AM TRULY ON VACATION and I'm digging it.

****

Two possible scenarios strike me as I write this: 1) I may not have read the right travel publication and/or 2) These fucking books leave out critical details like THIS PLACE, MUCH LIKE MANY OTHER COUNTRIES OF THIS TYPE, HAS THE BEST AND WORST SMELLS YOUR BODY CAN INHALE.

In notes that I've written to others, I state that there are three main odors that fill the swampy air - Boogers, Diesel Exhaust, Lemongrass. I don't have the guide book here with me, but I remember becoming filled with romance and fantasy when reading any of the entries in either one of our books, plus getting a little listless reading the endless Shine-o-la found on the internet about Thailand being beautiful. It's truly gorgeous. And to take Thailand in is like making out with a beautiful princess who had been chewing on smoked cod for about an hour before your makeout session. You just hope that the smell of her hair can counteract the sewer in her mouth.

You're grossed out? You should be.

It seems to me that guide books often make it a point to omit the disgusting odor factor in their reviews. I spend my days congested, that I can smell anything at all is a miracle so you think I wouldn't be bothered by it. I just wonder why no review I've read let's you in on the dirty secret. We know the Princess is hot, and we all want a piece of her, but for fucks sake, what's wrong with telling us about how bad she smells?

The books go to great lengths to let you know how to get somewhere, who to expect there, how much things will cost, where to get a hooker, and how long she'll love you, but they don't note in the cute legend about the smell.

Our sweet room in Bangkok, in Silom was just right for us. Picture perfect. Close to everything, super quiet, incredibly cheap internet access, the best free breakfast I've ever had, fresh squeezed shogun orange juice, service with ten thousand smiles, and a room that smelled like the ashtrays at your grandpa's favorite shoe store.

Our room had a no smoking sticker on the door, but maybe that was just for decor, and the kid who did that ran out of Hello Kitty stickers, so she found the next closest thing.

The sewers are just a few inches underfoot covered by removable, vented concrete slabs. So you'll be walking, enjoying your sate on a stick that you got for about 30 cents, or maybe some of that exotic shogun orange juice, and then boom, you'll get a gust of warm, grey brown smelling, air that could vaporize Marilyn Monroe's skirt, pubes, and possibly some lower internal organs. Not good.

Diesel is king here which means when I get back, I'm going to lease an iron lung.

Today on my scooter adventure from our little town Kata Noi, to Phuket town, then to Patong, I got stuck behind several different stench parties on wheels, the least of which was the Thai Trash Truck. I slowed down to let it ahead of me, way the fuck ahead of me, only to be passed by the Thai Pig Truck. There's a lot going on here in the Kingdom of Siam.

So that leaves the food smells. These are perhaps the best smells ever. If you can think it, they can fry it and they make it smell so good, that you just may want to eat snake dick. Haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it exists. Beyond fried, you can get steamed rice snacks, baked whatever balls, limbs on skewers, glasses and bottles filled with rainbow antifreeze colors. The fruit stands are rediculously cornucopic and everyone here gets danbgerously close to hurling food at you as you pass by. In our taxi, our driver reached out his hand, for what I thought was to check the weather, and boom, two bags of fried yams, and bananas land in his hand for 67 cents. This is the land of cheap miracles.

So when you add it up the odor stew can be a bit much, going from sweet smelling fried bananas, to some boy's undies that have seen neither water nor light in a fortnight. It would be helpful to know this don't you think? Or maybe it's just assumed that you're in Bangkok buddy, the world's your oyster, and you know what those smell like.

Out of Office Reply

2007-11-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

Dearest Shankly Readers,

If you were wondering why I haven't been logging my usual sarcastic reports from the office, it's because it's a little difficult to do it from the Beaches of Phuket.

My shit, and the rest of me is on vacation with the beloved until the end of the month. I will try to report to you from the ground here at Phuket as time and internet connections permit.

Please stand by for reports of this land.

For now, I will tell you this - we've been getting ripped off, but we're quickly racking up the anti-rip off skills. The food here is fantastic. Hot and humid here means that the organism I once referred to as my hair, is actually a sleeping giant, rising and expanding by the minute. I'm beaded in sweat, my hair has taken over my head - I don't look good.

The mosquito bites on my arm make it look as though my arms have developed little nipples.

The beach looks like it fell off a post card rack. There are no emails to check. No memos to scoff at, just sleeping, eating, and daily massages.

I will keep you posted. I promise. Hard to type here as I'm sweating up a storm.

Wish you were here.

Yours Very Truly,

Employee835

Both Sides Now (or not)

2007-11-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

When Management sends a memo, we read with total delight and wonder because no one is as good as the ruling body of any organization at serving up delicious, steaming piles of white hot bullshit. I have retained this memo in its original form changing only the names of the individuals to protect their sad identities.

Date: 11/8/2007

To: All Staff

From: Management

Re: Personnel Changes

Due to the increased responsibilities of the Production Department, John Mellencamp has been transferred to the Production Office to assist with daily operations, administrative duties, and manufacturing process controls. His knowledge, skills, and abilities will continue to provide the support that is needed.

Real Story – This guy John Mellencamp did not get along with his boss, Mr. Angrypants. One partner, operating on Mellencamps's behalf offered Mellencamp a position on a different team headed by Steve Earl, months ago, but Mellencamp balked for reasons that defy logic and decided to tough it out. On a recent business trip with that partner, Mr. Angrypants gave the partner an earful about Mellencamp. When the partner returned from the trip, he was eager, very eager to fire Mellencamp on the spot, but his trusted go-to person, Joni Mitchell, the author of this memo, intervened and helped to create another position in the company, on the spot, to save Mellencamp's ass, because she thought he was worth saving.

We regretfully announce that Karen Carpenter has accepted a position elsewhere, and as of Thursday, Nov. 15th will no longer be employed by Abercrombie & Fitch. Karen has played a vital role in the development and progression of [certain special] projects, on top of being an engaged and valuable Abercrmobie team member in general. We thank her for everything she’s contributed and wish her the very best in her future endeavors.

Real Story - After being jacked around longer and harder than any porn production would ever demand, Karen Carpenter found a job that was a) closer to home, and be b) run by actual business people. Her vital role had been down played several times despite her own efforts to succeed so she said fuck it, fuck you, my shit is outta here.

Beginning Monday, November 12, Jerry Springer will join Steve Earl’s team and assume Karen's responsibilities.

We appreciate everyone’s continued support during this transitional time.

Real story – Jerry Springer and John Mellencamp worked under Mr. Angrypants. Springer asked to be moved another team/department citing a hostile work environment. The company hemmed and hawed. On the day that John Mellencamp was removed and relocated Jerry Springer made his case again, only stronger. With the help of Joni Mitchell, Springer was relocated to an equally dysfunctional team, but hey, it's better than unemployment.

Lesson: Don't fuck with Joni Mitchell.

No Brainer

2007-11-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

We have this guy here, Murray, whom we rely on for all of our materials and services, which means everything, and this guy has ZERO urgency in his blood stream. I’m not sure if I’d like to be more like him, or just plain kill him.

You could be screaming, “MURRAY! A bunch of jihad guys have me hostage here, and one of them has an AK-47 up my ass with a fresh clip, and they are ready to pull the trigger, what is the FEDEX tracking number for that package? I NEED IT NOW OR THEY ARE GONNA BLOW MY ASS THROUGH MY OWN BRAINS!”

Humming Do the Hustle, he would say, “All righty. I’ll get that for you in a minute. Computer is slow today. Hope they’re not in a rush. Huh huhuh.”

(Humming resumes)
Do do do dodo dodo do do (4x)
Do the Hustle!

Sam asked me to draw a picture of how I felt inside.

Ruby Poosday

2007-11-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

I just made an enormous mistake.

Someone left a big pink box of delightful Latin American pastries in our office. I took a big messy bite of the guava cheese pastry, expecting strawberry, so I was a tad surprised when the guava/B.O. taste kicked in. It was so messy that I got it all over my hands, and while still eating, I walked into the bathroom, on the heels of someone who had just taken the hugest, stinkiest, dead babies in the Ganges, dump.

Why couldn’t I just wait or go to the kitchen instead? Who ever heard of eating in a public restroom?

Bad call.

What We Don't Know About You

2007-11-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dearest Mr. Shankly Fans,

You live in:

Los Angeles
New York
San Francisco
Washington State
Davis, CA
London
Vienna
Tokyo
Singapore
Taiwan
Bialystok, Poland
Anakra, Turkey
Bergamo, Italy
Indonesia
Malaysia
Philadelphia
Las Vegas
Delray Beach
Chicago
to name a few locales

In our efforts to better serve you, we have been stalking each of you. We are world citizens after all and we at Mr. Shankly just wanted to know where OUR dogs were at.

We still don't know where all of our dogs are, but we know know the following about you:

You prefer to visit Mr. Shankly on Mondays.

Mornings are your favorite time to visit, particularly between 10am-noon.

Someone in Washington loves us. And we can only guess that that someone also likes to hop the border into Idaho.

Someone in London loves us, and you too in Vienna. We are crazy about you.

You rarely visit on Sundays. Maybe your church doesn't have wireless.

You seem to like the wet look.

One of you found our site by googling the keywords, CHLOROFORM KIDNAP. Bravo! I don't know how you did it. Try it, it's impossible to find us this way. Too many Chloro-sex websites.

Some of you find Shankly comforting.

Some of you fear Shankly. You want to be on Shankly's good side, but you don't quite know how. Here's how - send us an email or comment.

Some of you let Shankly boss you around and abuse you, and you always say you're going to leave, but when Shankly comes by with a box of Russel Stover Chocolate Covered Cherries and a mini-teddy bear, you forget about all the pain and you stay. Good.

Some of you might think it's creepy that we know this about you, but how would we would we show that we cared? We don't actually know much, Google Analytics is pretty vague if you are getting the free version as we are.

Thank you so much for giving us a reason to be on the internet other than scanning Craigslist Missed Connections for our almost brushes with fate.

We love you all, we appreciate your visits and when Shankly Swag arrives, we will be sure to send you our branded therapeutic Koosh Balls and other Shankly approved stress reducers.

Untitled (Sunday)

2007-10-29T07:54:00.000-07:00

As I did my rounds this morning, about three, maybe sixteen people groaned the following statement:

“RRR, it’s Monday.”

I have said it many times myself, but I don’t really get why I do. Makes no sense. Why do we hate Monday?

There should be some way to count all the times the world over (the Monday Fearing World that is) that some jerk who’d rather be binge drinking underneath a school bus, uttered that statement. I am surprised that it never gets old, and in many ways replaces, “Hello. How are you?”

Perhaps language instructors should modify their lesson plans to include “RRR, it’s Monday” as an acceptable substitute for the main ones that they throw at you when you learn any language.

Guten morgen!

RRR, es ist Montag.

Just like that. Easy.

I don’t really HATE Mondays. In fact Mondays are the days when my mind is as erased as it’s going to be, and since I have little recollection of the bullshit I left behind from the prior week, I actually feel slightly optimistic about the week ahead. I actually think I’m going to get things done and that things will go my way.

The day that is worse than Monday is by far Sunday. Sunday is for and by assholes. As a kid, my parents made sure to sock it to us early by going to church first thing. Some of you dig this place, I don’t. Not judging you.

I don’t like any place where I have to stew quietly on hard wooden benches for stretches at a time when I was perfectly content in bed. So I stopped going at fourteen. I don’t know how I got around it, but no one seemed to mind out loud. Eliminating the church factor definitely made Sundays a fuckload better, but it seems that space became filled with other free-time zapping Sunday anxiety.

I got no church to hassle with, but I have the all day, looming buzz kill, countdown to sleep and the end of all fun as we know it.

Some people have no beef with Sunday, in fact they LOVE Sunday. Who the hell are you? Puritan hold overs?

Stores don’t stay open as long; the radio is an abomination of public service spots, slow jams, and love songs and dedications; and the whole day just feels like borrowed time.

I don’t turn on the TV on Sunday because I don’t want to see Televised Sports – the quintessential Sunday buzz kill. Again, some people get off on Sunday Televised sports. Not judging you, just silently stabbing myself in the eyes. Growing up, after church, since we only had one TV, we then had to watch our dad watch his televised sports, yelling at the Ref, or at Magic Johnson, spitting bits of fried pork into his mustache, while the hot suburban sun made its full arc from high noon to evening.

“But it’s still a day off for you right?” you might ask.

Yes, of course it is and I would hate to work on Sunday, as I have in the past. I live in the future, that’s why it sucks. When Monday finally arrives, I can deal with it, and since it doesn’t look much different from Tuesday or Wednesday, I’m in the present on Monday. But Sunday is all about anticipation of Monday and I have tried many many approaches to de-criminalizing Sunday, including, but not limited to recreational drugs, hallucinogens, spa days, frat parties, key parties, you name it. The sad sad feeling always rolls in around 5pm.

I have often wondered if I would feel the same way if I didn’t have to work on Monday, and the answer is yes. It’s hard wired. There were many times that I’ve been unemployed -some call it freelancing - for long stretches and it still feels like a life sentence in traffic school with all your favorite dickheads you meet on the road.

Even Morrissey, the person who inspired this blog thinks Sundays suck.

So here I am, it’s RRR Monday and I’m cool with it. I made it through another Sunday.

It would be great if someone in blog-land could tell me of their own Sunday love/hate, but focus on the hate. Yes?

RRR.

Cinch It!

2007-10-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

We were originally going to tell you about the fires. We wanted to tell you about the thick blanket of Armageddon that's been choking us all around here, the freeway closures, the endless, heartbreaking stories about people and their horses, how some people are thanking god for sparing their houses, and others are bitterly asking god why them. But all that is trumped by saggin’.

This article on NPR.org reports on the city of Dallas pleading all those who sag to "pull up your pants".

The Article

Why now? Don't you think it's too late? Isn't that a little Stepford?

Employee835: I'm about to pull the Country When Country Wasn't Cool Card, which is to say, my ten year old ass knew full well in the early 80s that saggin’ was not only inconvenient and inappropriate, it was dumb as shit. I, and all of my friends with pants did not need this spelled out to us, although it seemed many at the time did. At the GoKart place in Pomona, CA, item 2 on the dress code specifically and emphatically stated that "Pants must be worn on or above the waist AT ALL TIMES."

The article quotes the Mayor, a dude named Caraway as saying the following:

"This is not just a teenage problem," Caraway says. "There are people sagging ... in their 30s. You know, where's your mind? You're not a teenager."

People in their 30s, sagging? These are my peers. Where did we go wrong? Was it the lack of head start programs?

Dear City of Dallas, Duh. A little GoKart place by the railroad tracks at the corner of Reservoir and State Street had this figured out long before much of this country was down with OPP. By my own estimates, saggin' has been going on for a solid QUARTER CENTURY at least, and you're only now sending out your team of rappers with the message to keep it at the hip? It seems to me that you should post a sign at the perimeter of the City stating the City of Dallas Dress Code.

What’s the big deal?

Foreverever: Well Employee835, you bring up an excellent point that the world maybe reaching Armageddon and that the societal rules of dress codes is something that still plagues some communities like wild fires in SoCal. We know the fires will come, we know they will cause damage but, we just don't know how much damage. Just like baggy pants exposing young men's asses is endangering our communities and causing wild fires of their own.

I feel that I have a really open mind toward fashion, music, etc. but, yes the saggin' pants thing even has me a little worried. But, then it got me thinking about mini-skirts. Which are almost the opposite of saggin' pants. Super short skirts primarily on women showing off the legs and going right up to the ass-line caused their own controversies back in the day. I'm not sure if mini-skirts started in prison but, they may have just like the baggy pants fad. So the saggin' pants is like the reverse of the mini-skirt but, this time we get ass. What do you think?

Employee835: Point taken re the miniskirt. Basically, with one, you are looking UP the ass, and with the other, you are looking DOWN the ass. And I guess that I prefer up the ass - for women and for men. I see your point and I had no idea that saggin' would go down in fashion history as the upside down cousin of the miniskirt.

I'd like to point out though, that the miniskirt was one of the early forms of dress and that it was simply reintroduced to extremely conservative humans in the 60s using cotton, silk, polyester, and spandex. I've seen National Geographic - miniskirts rule in

Africa
(the Maasai Tribe)
Oceania
(the Maori)
and the Americas.
(Chumash Native Americans)

They don't cover much, but the people of the world, throughout time seem to agree, mini, micro, maxi, grass, scraps, etc. that the waist is the proper anchor, and it’s been that way since fig leaves were the miniskirt du jour.

Pants fastened around the thighs makes ZERO sense. Even if you liked the look, you can't run, you can't stand up straight, you can't walk, jump over fences, nothing.

It seems pretty obvious.

Foreverever: Thanks for the expose historical cultural history and anthropological fact finding on this one! You are always good at looking up facts and asses, Employee835. So now that we've seen through human history the exposing of legs and butts is rather common and that the waist line is the suitable place to secure your lower body covering, we need to examine why someone would want to go against societal and almost humanistic properties of dress.

So we all know saggin' is completely dysfunctional. You have to walk slow and hold your pants up and if you drop something you just have to leave it and shuffle away. We know this style came from prisons where belts were forbidden because, of their use for suicide or weapons or whatever. So then it goes into our street culture glorifying violence, drugs, sex, and the prospect of being in jail.

But, i don't think these guys and sometimes girls are wearing saggin' pants to tap into that prison style. They're just doing it to fuck with us. To make us feel uncomfortable as the youth have always been doing since the dawn of time.

I do like the idea of going pantsless. These body legging things coming out of Berlin are cool and when they're flesh colored they make it look like women aren't wearing any pants for a split second. So where is all of this going? Toward a ring in hell possibly. But, it might just be one of those things we think is funny and stupid and i'm kind of content with that.

Employee835: That’s just it, they are fucking with only a few people. I certainly find it born of pure dipshittery, but it’s not my call to tell people to cinch it.

I'm also glad you mentioned prison style. Here is a video of a prisoner warning kids NOT TO SAG. In the first few minutes, he clearly states, "You know what they do to people who sag in jail? They stick they fingers down they butt."

So if saggin' is about bringing the prison to the streets, then it's for those who don't see the need to run, jump, or walk, but could use a random, unsolicited ano/rectal exam once in a while. All the guy is saying is that saggin’ is dumb and it tells others that you may already be someone’s bitch, but he moves on to bigger issues.

The Video

Do you think that the peeps on the streets have severely misinterpreted the meaning of the sag?

Foreverever: Yhea, I think this sag thing like most of our fads and cultural inconsistencies was totally taken out of proportion and then you have the norm kind of freaking out about it. Kids are always going to be trying to one up each other. At first it was just wearing them low so you're butt crack hung out. Then so your butt, hung out, and i guess now they're around your knees. So whatever, if you're doing it to draw attention to yourself then you've succeeded and maybe that's what saggin' is all about.

In jail "saggin" as a way of saying your available and on the streets as a way of saying i'm here, my butt is hanging out, and i'm walking really slow?

Employee835: My original question was this, 25 years ago, it was obvious to many kids that it was dumb, but we went with it, and for a time, some of us got on board with the House Music and the Rave wear, but ultimately a number of us went back to form fitting clothing. I'm just wondering why it is only now that cities like Dallas are making anything about it, and why it matters so much.

In the NPR article, the Mayor says: "The No. 1 mission is very simple: pulling up your pants. That's all we want, we don't want to throw folks in jail because they wear their pants low. So we're going to make it man's law and not city law."

It feels like WE ARE AT A CRISIS. WE HAVE TO LEGISLATE. WE HAVE TO STOP IT. Someone is going to sit their naked ass on a Bus!

Foreverever: I think what's happening in Dallas is that the Mayor and town council people or whoever are stupid. Like really, 1000's of kids are going around like this causing havoc? Traffic comes to a halt, people jumping out of windows, rap songs and billboards need to be utilized to make dudes pull their pants up? They need to worry about teen pregnancy, guns, and hardcore drug use. WTF? This is exactly what's happening in our country at a national and local level. Picking something stupid to worry about. Just let kids do what they do and you know they'll grow out of it or trip and fall in front of some girl they like and then pull their pants up. It takes a while for style trends to reach the Midwest and south. They're about 10 years behind the times when it comes to style. Dallas is going at it the wrong way. When you make something an issue it totally makes it gain more attention. And then more people will be pulling their pants down. If they made all the cops sag their pants for a month I bet all those kids will pull their pants up and start getting Gumby cuts.

It just comes funneling down from the stupid government. People have always been doing stupid shit and then other people have to worry about them and make it a huge deal. Where are our freedoms to sag and look stupid? Next they'll be kicking bikes off the road in LA based on "man's law" I really like that. "man's law" could you be anymore sexiest and hypocritical?. . .ha ah aha ha ha ha. .. Next time you see me I'll be saggin.

*****

And we’ll close with this word from Notthead.

We could go on, but we are going to leave the last word to you.

Thank you for checking in with us, and whether up or down, keep your pants clean for work, you wouldn’t want them to think you weren’t serious about your office job.

Why is the Indian Still Crying?

2007-10-22T11:50:00.001-07:00

"And in honor of Bobbi Klein, we will now have the Bobbi Klein Memorial Recycling Program," proudly proclaimed the Owner of the company.

I don't make this shit up, my imagination does not stretch as far as reality.

Bobbi Klein was a coworker who crept slowly into her untimely death. I knew the following things about her:

She loved her Nat Sherman MCDs. She set up a wicker chair outside in a little nook by the transformers where she and others took turns for private, uninterrupted smoke time. As the others, she extinguished her life support butts into the decades old gallon can of Folgers, filled with ancient, water-logged butts of varying brands.

She drove an early nineties Ford Probe bearing a personalized license plate that indicated to any 12-stepper that she was in at least one program. EZDUZIT. Don’t get it? Good.

She loved to shop. Loved collecting shit. Couldn’t control it.

Her desk was positioned in a corner, but it felt and sounded like it was in the center of the room.

She spoke many languages LOUDLY over the phone. This made everyone laugh and ponder such worldliness.

She was lovely and hilarious, and an extremely talented actress in her time.

Her poodle was her world.

And she recycled.

As if her life weren’t busy enough, she took it upon herself to recycle as much as she could of the white paper trash our office generated. She set up a large, blue, wheelie bin in the hall for such a purpose, in addition to supplying the office with the smaller blue recycling bins that fit neatly under desks. At the end of each week, she would take her tired ass around the office to gather up the waste paper, she’d wheel out the big bin and load her car with our trash, then take it home, cram it all in her own recycling bins, and you know the drill.

This was her deal.

When she left the office on disability, the big blue wheelie bin disappeared, the recycling ended, and we began the practice of hanging dolphin carcasses from six pack rings, along the hallways and in every office, as well as in the break room. We started using polar bear paws as ashtrays, we’d have water balloon wars using balloons filled with antifreeze, and my favorite, skeet shooting using actual pigeons.

I don’t know much of her life after she left the office. I don’t know if anyone told her that we all got busy reenacting our own living version of the Garden of Earthly Delights. She rested, sold the bulk of her things, and in a space of time much longer than what her doctor predicted, she deteriorated and died.

A few months ago, the owner, a good friend of Bobbi’s gathered all of the employees to make the sad announcement of her passing. He told us with head hung low. And in honor of her life, we are now recycling.

*****

Dawn, Sam, and another former Dolphin Hunter yelled at me and berated me when they caught me casually throwing away paper, lots of paper into a regular black trash can.

"Is that how you are? What the hell are you doing? We recycle here!" Barked one or more of the good witches, I can't remember, their horrified faces all blended together as one swirling hallucination. I wasn't in the mood for a fight, so I plucked my volumes of paper from my trash can, coffee drips included, and recycled just like a good earth lover.

I have not ever followed the new recycling program rules. When no one is looking, I continue to use the blue bins as if they were trash cans, and the trash cans as if they were blue bins.

I don't hate the earth and the children of the future, I love penguins and dragonflies. Just hear me out.

So when Sam and Dawn chided me again last week for throwing my ding dong leftovers in the blue recycling bin, I told them to talk to Jerry.

Sam came back barely able to breathe, laughing so hard that he could not tell the story without an inhaler.

"Jerry just told me that he dumps all of the recycling in the DUMPSTER! He was told to do that until they signed us up for an actual recycling program! And they haven't done a thing about it since we started. The Bobbi Klein Memorial Recycling Program is the same as trash."

No shit. You should team up with M. Knight Shymalan to create his next plot twist.

We have three windows that I peer out of all day, dreaming of my time in Eden, before all of this pesky knowledge broke out and we all realized that we were NAKED and therefore we'd have to work to cover our stinky parts with designer jeans and handsome coats from the Banana Republic Heritage Collection. On one such peer-out, I saw Jerry hoist the contents of the big blue wheelie bin over his shoulder and into the dumpster. I did not gasp and puke at the big reveal a la the Crying Game, I just rolled my eyes and blessed the dead.

And that's why the Indian is still crying.

Another Day, Another Receptionist

2007-10-15T15:40:00.001-07:00

It’s not as bad as Murphy Brown, but we just can’t keep a receptionist and we all know why – the receptionist is located perfectly at the intersection of countless, incessant, sundry Douche Bag vectors. When I say we, I mean those of us who stand detached, on the sidelines watching men clubbing seals.

Can’t do a thing about it from our Alanon boat. We're just here keeping our side clean.

They all pretty much start out the same - optimistic, eager, wide eyed, on-time. The phone list seems like a type of Schindler's List. They page people with a question mark.

Stanley? You have a call on 103?

After a while they get teeth, and the more toothy ones page like you just roofied their child, the Math Whiz. Some page with flirtation. The guy who elevated it to an art form made the men feel extremely uncomfortable. Terry (you naughty boy), you have a call (implied giggle) on 102 (end with a silent, but heavy smirk). Each has had their own special style and flair. No one can do phones like the receptionist.

Each is a natural born listener and entertainer. That's the person's job. They are anchored to a desk, prone to any wandering, bored, stir crazy asshole who is tired of YouTube and just needs another human to pretend to care.

Receptionists provide us with mental CPR, but they don't necessarily like being the company shrink.

And as such, they hold your endless stories about your kid, your prosthetic butthole, your dumb spaniel, your drunken boyfriend, your ex-wife, your doctor's office, your insurance company and all the bullshit you are going through, they know which of your balls is fake and which is real, they know which of your kids is a crack head, and which one is dating the coach. If you can create drama, the receptionist receives it. The receptionist knows a lot about a lot so you better be careful.

At my company, we are careless. We can't keep them. I don't need to tell you why. I'd rather have you imagine a herd of moose trying to open a bottle of Corona, it's a better image than the amazing feats of micromanagement and inconsistency that I witness at the front desk. Many many years ago when I was new to my post, the outgoing receptionist took me aside, made a grave face - you've seen this face, it's ghastly, it warns the Indiana Jones guy not to proceed or he'll get his head chopped off. She gave me this face and said, "You better be careful, they're going to FUCK you." It's not yet my turn, and I see she was right.

No one has been kind enough to warn our new person. Some of us already have a small wager going that in 7 months, we are going to get the email that ends in: and we wish her well in her new endeavors.

For now though, I wish her well in her current endeavors.

Drum Roll? Puh-lease.

2007-10-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Crispin B commented on our post, BIO CUBICLES, reporting on the phenomenon in her office, of the unconscious drum roll in passing, executed mainly by men.

This is not an isolated incident.

In the old office, my desk was positioned in such a way to indicate GATE KEEPER, PEOPLE TRACKER, and TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. The main thing that would happen is that someone would burst into my space looking rather dazed and windblown, one hand still hanging onto the door jamb, as if they were resisting being sucked into the Poltergeist Doorway of Evil Light, and that person would ask very urgently, “Where’s Jerry?”

I’m busy watching auctions, I don’t know where Jerry is. Are you new here? It’s not my job to keep track of Jerry. Jerry gets up from his desk to oversee, manage, trouble shoot, meet with clients, talk to vendors, piss, get coffee, talk privately on his cell phone about 328 times in any given day. I gots no clue. Come back later, use the phone, page the guy, leave a post-it, do whatever it takes to get in touch, but don’t have me relay the message, and above all else, don’t let the tree swallow you whole. Get out of here Carol Anne.

I wrote this to indicate to you that, even if I don’t know where the fuck Jerry is, I notice a great deal of everything, even when I don’t want to. Included in that is the walking drum roll in its various forms.

The one I found infinitely fascinating was drum solo walk by, courtesy of this dude Mike F. This was his routine: Knuckle drum roll with right hand on the open door when entering, one step, two step, reach out with left hand, fingertip paradiddle on black free standing two drawer hanging file cabinet. On a particularly punchy day, he might do a two-finger flam as an added bonus, atop Carrie’s cubicle, but only when in a really good mood though. And then finally, a triplet on his desk.

Another person does a Joe Morello drum solo on the same handrail, using what sounds to me like a Pilot V-ball roller ball pen. How do I know? The tapping goes plastic plastic metal.

I don’t drum, I prefer my right hand as Land Speeder, skating along the handrail in the main hall, complete with whooshing sound.

I have not yet seen a woman do a walking drum solo.

It’s not clear to me why the gender divide. Is it that men are more in touch with their inner ape?

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve never seen a woman air drum by herself or make the accompanying noises. Do you guys like drums? Or is it a more internal moon rhythm that you guys groove on? On a similar note, I also don’t think I have ever seen a woman do a machine gun or helicopter or a really big blast, but now I’m digressing.

You tell me. I’d love to hear your reports of walking drum rolls, tap tap tapping, knocking, humming, blasting, what have you.

Clear as Douche, Part Twat

2007-10-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

The going away party was sadly anemic because members of the Douchebag Alliance who, earlier in the week, were among the most enthusiastic about the event were conspicuously busy doing other things at lunch, like going to lunch with other people at other places with or without buffets.

We heard the fired person's side of the story, and to be honest, I'm not sure what to believe, but the story did leave the few party goers feeling rather cross at THE MAN, and all things THE MAN. No one mentioned members of the Alliance, but I did notice that all of the party goers had passed my preliminary Douchebag Detection Test that I had administered in secret, from afar, using historical data of their individual behavior. In other words, yesterday, I made a quick list of Douche or Not Douche and all of the people at the party fell squarely into the Not Douche section, despite my other hang ups about them. This was comforting.

I feel that it's only fair that I should acknowledge that I have behaved as a Douchebag at times, but I certainly do not have a laminated Douchebag Alliance membership card with stars and feces smeared all over it. So my Douchebag Detection Test may not be the most reliable in the industry, but I try my best to keep it all above board. That's what you do when you are a lost soul, just trying to make your way, earning your living, as part of the machine. I'm far from righteous - I show up late, I file reports to this blog when I should be making money for the company, I roll my eyes during company meetings, and, AND, I'm on ebay a lot. I don't buy anything, I just browse. And with all this in mind, I don't carry the card.

*****

At the end of the day, my group was informed by the Uber Uberboss, that the company was forced to let someone else go for uncorrected, chronic, underperformance and poor attendance, despite the company's efforts to assist the person in righting himself. Another sad cloud cruised in, although this one seems to have little to do with the Douchebag Alliance, and more to do with a single person probably just feeling numb and fed up, but showing up anyway for lack of better imagination. I know. I am this person.

This numb person, a long time ago, was my supervisor, and when I was new and heartbreakingly inexperienced, he took the time to help me cultivate some semblance of skills as well as confidence in myself. As the years turned, I surpassed him in some ways, and I found myself managing him from time to time. There were times when I felt frustrated with him, but I could never ever forget what he had done for me. For the last two years, I noticed him surrender gradually to a place of quiet, isolated, mental quicksand. (note: I've never seen quicksand myself, just heard fantastic stories about it, the first of which was featured on Scooby Doo. In case you need to, here is how to get out of it. Be safe.) He had become more and more numb and resigned, stuck, tired and wilted from whatever the fuck was going on inside his secret life, at his work station, in his heart, in his love of toys, but I never thought he'd let himself go so far that suspensions and interventions couldn't free him, or at least jar him into wakefulness.

I feel for these people, they are my friends and I have come to rely on them in the face of all of their shortcomings and personal difficulties. The person for whom we threw the party became overwhelmed with emotion as we all shuffled out of the restaurant. I know that that person will be a great deal happier in the new work place. For the numb person, I am sending my best. We've had many good times douching around together, and I will miss them both.

Clear as Douche

2007-10-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

First, sorry to the Doucheblog. I'm not trying to co-opt your theme. Douchebags just happen to be the main participants in my day as well.

*****

In a moment of shocking clarity, I saw something today that I had been ignoring since 2003. There is a strong and very united Douchebag Alliance operating inside of this company, some of whom are my own friends.

It’s the same kind of conspiracy clarity that Tom Cruise seems to be prone to in his movies. You know how it goes, a brotha is just minding his own, and next thing he knows, he realizes that all of his seemingly righteous efforts toward equity and fairness have been slowly and gradually accumulated to work against him. Haha noble guy, you’ve been punk’d.

The main difference in my situation is that I'm hardly noble, more Ferris Bueller as Dawn pointed out today.

I have zero evidence to support my assertions, just a certain sixth sense that flashed when one of the suspect douchebags walked by and caught my gaze. I saw the circuitry under his skin for just a few milliseconds. This D-Bag, by the way, has been fired before for a major violation of the rules, and has been, and is currently at the heart of many glaring conflicts of interest. This person, and another person in another capacity, make up a DoucheBag all star team that can do no wrong. These people meet regularly in closed-door sessions and leave them looking unnaturally self-satisfied, more so than any mutual masturbation session can do.

And of course the alliance has support staff. I see them and I seethe.

Here is what is confusing to me – what is their mission?

A quick note - I have often relegated these thoughts to your good old, basic paranoia, but lately I’ve seen bullshit that can only be the work of a determined gang of assholes working to strike fear in all of the employees’ hearts.

And that may be their mission. I’ve been such a chump. I have more research to do, or I might just ignore it altogether as I have been attempting for so long.

More to come. I’m sure.

*****

This is the email combo that I received shortly after the clarity.

Re: New [Employee]

In anticipation of our new [employee] starting Monday, effective immediately [the old person] is no longer working for [the Company].
We wish [it the] best on [it’s] new endeavor.

If you have any questions, please see [Poo-head].

Thank you,
[Poo-head]

Followed by:

Re: I am gone

Hello all,

By now or maybe not you will learn that they got rid of me today. I am truly hurt.....NOT!!!! I didn't expect anything less. I will be at [the Restaurant where the going away party is planned] tomorrow still. I will miss all of you and wish you all the best.

Keep in contact. My number is XXX-XXX-XXXX.
See ya.....off to the mall!!!!!!!!!

[the Old Person]

*****

I know nothing of this situation, just smells like the Alliance.

Co-worker Annoyance Substance Abuse Interaction: Part 1

2007-10-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

So it’s Friday afternoon. Bored at work and I was thinking today about an interesting office occurrence. This phenomenon I can only described as Co-worker Annoyance Substance Abuse Interaction or C.A.S.A.I. This is the first installment in these co-worker descriptions.

Coffee + Sugar = Insanity

This is by far is the most common and deadly C.A.S.A.I. It is what happens when a coworker consumes 3 Starbuck grande mocha pumpkin frappachinos, with 3 Stevita sweeteners each, and touch of half and half along with 2 blueberry muffins, a package of Twix, and a handful of mini-dove bars or any other combination of caffeine based substances with sugar based substances.

They are instantly transported to this other level of human reasoning where they can’t keep from getting up and walking around the office constantly. When they return to their cubicle they always bump into something because, they’re so wired and giddy. You hear the familiar whinny ouchhhhhhhhh, snickering and strange kind of muffled grunting sounds that occur after they’ve hit their knee on their desk and you know that it’s totally started and you have no way of escaping the onslaught. As they sink themselves into their chair you can begin to hear the rustling of pens, paper, computer keyboard, mouse pad, stapler, food wrappers, phone being turned on speaker phone, etc., as they commence to rearrange their desk over and over again for the next 15 minutes you know now would be a good time if you were a smoker to go outside and puff. Also during this time impromptu singing and humming usually takes place. The worst thing that can happen at this moment is that either the phone rings or somebody comes by to talk to them.

What happens next can only be described as what it looks like when a 16 year old is in drama class acting out a skit on drug abuse for a school drug awareness program and they’re trying to dramatize the affects of speed, cocaine, and pot all at the same time. The ironic thing is that the 16 year old is actually high and that in their over acting they begin to over act even more so, due to the effects of the bong hit they had in their parents mini-van before school started. They start being aware of their drug use and they will name what drugs they are on (sugar/caffeine) and then quickly deny it and say they were joking. They also for some reason will begin to have an English or Australian accent and start using words for no apparent reason such as instead of saying, “okay, sounds good.” They’ll say, “Yes Madame, thank you missy miss, righty-O, that’s marvelous, want some chocolate, just kidding it's 8:20am. . .haa ha ha ha ha ha ha haha*.”

*actual ha haha hahaha ha haha ha ha ha is said, not laughter. . .

To You

2007-09-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

I am greateful to you for indulging my reports from my desk. Thank you for your clever comments and your hilarious emails. I have been sick lately and have not been to work as often as I had initially agreed. This bothers me.

When I am at work, I pray that the Taliban confuses this place for a center of Korean Missionaries, just so I can get out of doing things that I get paid to do. But when I am home sick, I find myself deeply bored. I put a moratorium on my magazine reading because I end up just feeling like shit about not having that Corvette, the six pack abs, the modern, pre-fab dwelling, Bose noise cancelling headphones, GAP anything, the career of the superstar waif, an ass you can build a bridge on, and all that other shine-o-la that will complete me.

Laying in bed sweating to the sound of my own wheezing is great coneptual art, maybe for Yoko, but not for me. And although it is fun, shopping on line does get extremely boring as well, especially when I discover that once again, I have amassed a pile of things, clothes, and gadgets that don't bring me any closer to Nirvana, or Courtney Love, in fact, I'm more resentful because I have to keep finding places to put them, keep having to wash them, keep having to keep them charged, keep having to upgrade.

I am in-between netflix DVDs, which means I have to suckle on Baby Boom one more time, or maybe Lebowski.

And another thing, Fuck all this soup bullshit. Where is my therapeutic corn dog?

I have nothing to report other than the dust bunnies near my bed that remind me of the Mayflower - the moving van, not the boat. I'm sorry.

I am willing myself to wellness. Please bear with me.

I will file more reports from the office shortly.

Your Grateful Worker Bee,

Employee835

Reach Out

2007-09-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

As I exited the restaurant with Sam and two others, a man dialed a number on the payphone just outside. He had a shopping cart with him.

This is what he said verbatim, I memorized it:

Hey baby what’s up?

Here, there and everywhere…

Where the fuck I’ve been?

What do you mean where the fuck I been?

What’s she got to do with anything?

No, what’s she got to do with that?

Nooo, I haven’t BEEN to fucking Linda’s

No, I HAVE NOT SEEEEN Linda.

What the fuck would I be doing there?

Why the fuck would I be at Linda’s?

You just better shut the hell up you fucking cunt.

Angry hang up.

Sam suggested that somewhere across town, at another phone booth, is a woman. She is also with a cart and mad as hell.

Ever Get That Not So Fresh Feeling?

2007-09-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

I drove as though I was whipping a team of 150 blazing horses on the freeway today. I should not be here, but I got tired of answering work questions from bed.

One question is fine, but a series of questions just winds up my mind and catapults me into worry about the things that I am not doing while I recuperate. I've had vertigo and vertigo- like symptoms for the last few days and yesterday was the perfect senior ditch day. I stayed in bed almost until noon, went to lunch with the partner and a friend, then to the friend's to lounge by the pool, capping the day off with the perfect senior ditch day massage. The only thing missing was the convertible Ferrari and some ex-cons at the parking garage to harsh my end of day mellow.

Someone noted that these blog entries make my job seem like a fun place to work. This is partly true, and what is also partly true is, if this place suddenly imploded into a whirling vortex to the center of hell, I'd be right there on the sidelines, throwing Molotov cocktails to lube up hell's sphincter.

I spent the morning in my own post Katrina flood of toxic anxiety dreams, all of which aggressively pointed to suicide. I could not lift my head, nor could I tell if I was sleeping on the bed or on the wall. I was spinning counterclockwise like a drunk, and every time I closed my eyes the spinning accelerated. I thought sleep would help, but you know how sleep goes during these times, it is one horror scenario after another, based on all of your own life’s glorious banality. This morning’s terror dreams were based primarily on the whereabouts of the digital camera I thought I had lost.

Each time the phone rang this morning, I was required to answer very specific questions requiring concise technical back story. I felt mired in my own sluggish, stuttering, speechless, stupidity; and I felt angry at the caller for posing any question at all during a time when I just wanted to enjoy my dizzy high. I felt partly like a) a drunken air traffic controller, but more accurately, b) the President at press conferences.

I just knew that it was going to go like this for most of the day so I thrust myself into vertical and livid mode and barked, “fuck it. Just fuck it. I’ll be right over. Just let me tame my hair and I’ll be there in an hour. You keep asking the same question.” I realize now that it’s probably because I wasn’t answering any question.

That person flaccidly disagreed with my resolve, and then asked me when I would be in. Immediately Sam, my favorite co-worker/surgeon, called begging me to stay home.

“Don’t worry about it,” I reassured. “I found out yesterday that if I drink a lot of coffee and I take ibuprofen, it dulls the spinning sensation enough that I can drive and talk at the same time.”

“Oh, is that what they taught you in medical school, Doctor 835?” he chided.

“What about your fucking med school, Doctor? You’re the bastard who thinks its okay to cut people open with X-acto knives. My med school is way less riskier than yours.”

“Oh, so you’re going to be cranky, wired and woozy?”

“I think I’ll be fine. It’s technically not a DUI if it’s just vertigo.”

*****

I do love earning, but right now my shit is tired and I don't have the energy to relocate to another place of employment. Let's face it, workplaces are for and by douche bags. It's especially the case when you have men running a ship of mostly men – in other words, most work places. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to update the adage to, “Well you know what they say, it’s a douche bag’s world.” You can argue with me all you want about female douche bags, who do exist, but they don't occur in loud, proud, shock-jock worshipping hoards, as do men.

As I write this, one of the main Douche Bags is on the other side of my screen, douching around over a bowl of mixed nuts.

I'm in the office because some minutiae spanning ten years has to be prepared in such a way that some important person, the hands down, Grand Duke of all Douche Bags, can understand it better. He is the principal reason that this thing has gone on for way too long, and it's my job to make a bulleted list of the events and hold ups caused by the Grand Duke, without making it seem like his Dukiness had anything to do with it. And I have to have it done by yesterday.

Ultimately I'm happy to do it, because it is helpful, but I want everyone reading this to know, I NEED TO BE ADOPTED BY OPRAH. I rarely clean up after myself, but I can TRAIN any housekeeper to do it.

Work can be such bullshit, not because of anything in particular, but because humans – frail, self-seeking, overly complicated, lazy, shit-faced, burned out, shop-a-holic, missing-link humans – no different from myself are at the heart of it. We make work suck. I make work suck. So sitting in the office of the main requestor today, I tried not to be the suck-making one, just answering questions, pointing out key details, etc, but what I really wanted to do was my impression of an air raid siren.

Let me be straight with you. My work is pretty much A-OK. If you told me in college that this is the job I’d have and the life I’d lead, I would have very little complaints. But I’m not in college, and I’m a sucker for more and better and I have serious authority issues that I generally pat on the head and soothe like rabid dogs, with the help of thousands of dollars bulldozed to my therapist’s office. I have not enjoyed work lately, and that’s one of the reasons I started this blog. I needed a way to report to an outside world of innocent understanders, the kookiness that I witness and participate in every day. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I’m ready for adoption.

*****

I don’t like waking up before dawn for any reason, not even for a vanpool of barely legal teens on ecstasy. I have shown that I do really well in rat-race environments, especially in train stations, escalators, crowded streets, tall buildings, taxis, and other urban crap-o-la that you see in time-lapse movie sequences designed to indicate the unending rhythm of modernity. For today, I’ve had it, but here is the rub – I’m not big on sleeping in cardboard boxes. Here is the other rub, if adopted by Oprah, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Maybe after a few dozen years, I would stop shooting up, and all of my toys that other people have been putting away for me would get boring, and I MIGHT start thinking about giving to the community. I’m not sure.

For now, I keep showing up to the A-OK job that I’ve grown weary of and am now blogging about. And I keep asking myself, is this what it comes down to? I’m drained, therefore I blog?

It took me a few hours to condense all the facts as requested. I had to make several phone calls to people who hadn’t heard from us in years just to get some facts straight. Even though I wanted to nose dive into my keyboard, I was able to prop my head up with a lot of coffee and sheer force of will. Words on my screen and on the pages looked like horses on a carousel, just whooshing past me again and again. But I did it as promised. I sent it to the requestor, a complete, factual, accurate, and concise record of the minutiae. By the time that person left for the day, he hadn’t even looked at what I sent.

Douche bag.

BIO CUBICLES

2007-09-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

BIO CUBICLES

This post is inspired by the idea of our little community that we live in at the office actually being a diverse ecosystem comprising separate habitats that all come together to form the office environment. Recently I have been noticing the range of different cubicles that are just in my particular office. I actually work in a very lax office environment so we can basically do whatever we want in our cubicles. When I first started working here I was given a book to borrow that was all about making your cubicle into your own little paradise. This was kind of a joke because the cubicles in the book ranged from a Tiki bar theme to a hip hop cubicle with a boom box and 20 inch rim. But, there was some truth behind this book. Inside each of us is a different personality and we usually express ourselves in the clothes we wear, cars we drive or don’t drive, and kinds of coffee we drink. So it’s natural to see your personality over the months and years seep into cubicle. Below are some cubicle types that I and Employee 835 have noted in our own environments.

RAT’S NEST

An explanation of what this cubicle represents almost needs no description. Imagine that really spooky house in your neighborhood that has Christmas and Halloween decorations up year round. It seems like nobody is ever home. And when you finally have that sleepover when everyone sneaks out of your parent’s basement you dare each other to go up and peak in the windows of the spooky house. When looking inside you and your coca cola classic strung out friends jaws drop as you see piles and piles and piles of junk. Almost completely covering the window it’s just a sea of maelstrom that you can barely make sense out of. It’s different than a dump because, a dump is supposed to be a dump. This is someone’s house and it has that eerie quality that you just can’t understand how so much paper, trinkets, nick knacks, newspapers, dishes, books, kitchen utensils, yard sale crap, clothes, shoes, and anything else that looks like it was stuck in the bottom of a dumpster found its way into this place. Also noted in this cubicle are live animals usually found and rescued such as a baby opossum from a roadside and a chameleon form a trip to Bolivia.

UBER COOL ART Q’B

A rare cube, Uber Cool Art Q’b primarily contains posters of key, obscure art events past and present, post cards and other invitations to similar events, and posters with foreign words. This is the most boring cube of all, primarily because you can’t really understand the text and images contained within it. You might recognize some aspects of Dwell Magazine, or if you’re lucky, you may have heard of one of the bands, but it’s ultimately way too fucking cool for your own good. It is designed to remind you that you are not in the know, that you may as well stop looking up flavorpill because you are too late to the party. Go back to your sad, unfocused cube.

CBGB BATHROOM

You might be asking yourself, “What did CBGB's bathroom look like?” Let me refresh your memory. Let’s start with the walls, covering almost every square inch are flyers, posters, stickers, phone numbers, post-its, random rants, bits of poetry torn from a book, graffiti, etc. What makes the CBGB BATHROOM so interesting is that while the walls are almost beyond recognition as being a surface that separates you from other rooms and the outdoors the floor is remarkably clean (at least upon first glance) and the space is rather neutral and clear of clutter. The bathroom stall with the door torn off, reminiscent of a cubicle entry way and almost the same size as a cubicle, fascinating, contains no toilet paper like a desk without a tissue box, just a commode and it screams, “You’re here to pee, so pee already, god dam it!” It’s a place to get the job done but, along the way you can take stock at all of the collective consciousness that gets stored on this privy’s walls.

MONK CELL

This cubicle invokes the medieval image of a solitary figure sitting in a dimly lit room hands clasped and staring at a crack in a wall and a beam of light is reaching through and touching their consciousness. But, did you notice the room they’re in? It’s empty. Totally idea for being more in your mind instead of this stupid materialistic world. The monk only needs basic elements when searching for and contemplating the incredible magnitude and infinity which is God. They have a small bed (office chair), a small wooden desk (same), the bible (computer), a window (phone). That’s it, all they need in order to perform their duties.

MY LITTLE PONY BIO-CUBICLE OF HORROR

This cubicle is hands down one of the scariest and perplexing of all cubicle styles. It’s treading on looking at the inside of an insane person’s world a lot like that scene in SE7EN when they find the killers apartment and it’s a creepy, crazy maze containing an unknown secret agenda and world view of the creator. So the MY LITTLE PONY BIO-CUBICLE OF HORROR contains a few elements that can be seen in offices around the world. The first is memos and company announcements all printed on the same colored paper. You might be wondering what this means. Well you know all that junk you have like, department phone lists, birthday lists, procedures for safety in the work place, holiday schedules, and pay schedules. Take all that stuff put it on the walls of your cubicle really nice and neat and every month reprint them on a different uniform color of paper. I’m getting excited because, October is coming up so they’re going to be all Orange! Fun! Speaking of holidays this cubicle is always decorated for all the major holidays: July 4th, Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. If you have the pleasure of gaining full access to the cubicle meaning your either a boss or a busy body you will now that one draw of the desk is always stocked with dove chocalate, twix, skittles, and other assorted snacks. Hhhmmm it’s like that fat kids locker in middle school and you just wonder how they can never have enough junk food. Another strange phenomenon with this person is keeping their cubicle always at 98.6 degrees. Why this occurs still puzzles me. The temperature in the office in the summer might be a little chiller because; the AC is kicking and its 107 degrees outside so it could be rather shocking at first. But, instead of putting a sweater on this cubicle comes with its very own personal heater that is placed at foot level and blasts heat all morning. The drone of the fan and the seeping warmness of the cubicle seem to permeate through all the other cubicles creating an almost global warming effect on the entire office environment.

LEARNING ANNEX CUBICLE

Learning Annex cubicle is marked by its own clock as well as a motivational poster of a man crawling and scratcing his way up a cliff, titled ACHIEVEMENT. Fuck you.

This cube is orderly, with charts, binders, and smart seeming bullshit. It is dedicated to personal and career growth as evidenced by the books titled, Managing Fear, Presenting You, Lean Manufacturing, etc. There are guns in this cube, this is clear.

MY WONDERFUL FIANCE CUBICLE

This does not require much explaining. It is the satellite office of BRIDES magazine. Lots of pictures of her with her fiancé in VEGAS, at the Grand Canyon, Scuba Diving, Girls night out, cut outs of roses and inspirational snippets from Oprah Magazine. She is really good at her job, you really like her, and you can count on her, but you avoid this cubicle because it will convert rapidly into Breeder Pride Cubicle.

BREEDER PRIDE CUBICLE

This cubicle is dedicated to the worker’s family and all of the cute shit the family is up to. You must watch your language when you are in this cubicle because all of the precious little children in the photos and drawings will simultaneously scream and cry blood when they hear you. I don’t care what you do in your bedroom, but don’t go around parading it in public, especially in the workplace. If you had it in mind to kidnap a kid for some small ransom, this is the place to start. In less than one minute, you can know how many kids this person has, their birth order, each of their names, as well as their schools, age, grade level, and extracurricular activities. You could easily swing by the school at the end of the day and say, “Carlie! Hey, your dad sent me here to take you and Jeremy to soccer practice because he’ll be working late tonight. He told me to give you this picture that he keeps in his cubicle so you’d trust me enough to jump in my car. Never mind the duct tape and Chloroform. Get in!”

This cubicle is also the source of a great deal of emails containing links to another great, interminable flickr.com photo stream of what happened with the kids over the weekend. Hey look at us! 180 shots later and we’re still picking pumpkins!

FANATI-CUBE

As with the inhabitant of My Wonderful Fiancé Cubicle, the Fanatic requires little explanation, and years of therapy. This cubicle is an altar to all things South Park, Smurfs, NASCAR, Stanley Kubric films, James Dean, Star Trek, Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Tweety Bird, Dolls of the Revolutionary War, ABBA, Snowboarding, Horses, Corelle, Hot Wheels, you name it. If you can google it, there is a Fanati-Cube for it. Its inhabitant may or may not live with the parental unit, and you regularly wonder what kind of partner they have. It’s fun, and depending on the subject, it reminds you of a time when you didn’t obsess about your future, your bills, or your gut. It can be a marvelous escape for about three minutes. Fanati-Cube does not bear any design focus, it’s just a big collection of one kind of crap, and it represents only a small fraction of the inhabitant’s total collection. It’s as impressive as it is retarded. On one hand, you feel impressed by the depth and extent of the person’s addiction, as well as the thousands of dollars of merchandise represented in the cube, including all the special edition crap, complete with signatures; and on the other, you just know that when Armageddon comes, they will have nothing useful to offer you in trade.

LOU GRANT CUBE – also known as Drinking Alone Cube

This cube is dedicated to my friend Anna Haase-Reed. There seems to be a lot of brown in this cube, for no reason. It feels like a rat’s nest, but it possesses a certain order and timelessness. If you look around, you may find a teletype machine or an old car phone. There’s booze in this cube, you just have to know where to look. There’s also a briefcase with locked latches that lives underneath the old mimeograph. It’s not dusty, but you’ve never seen anyone touch it. The old, dirty coffee mug that’s only been rinsed, never washed in its entire service life has a crust thick enough from which to make core samples. You might find data in that sample that goes back to the moon landing, perhaps to JFK’s assassination, or even the Korean War. Lou Grant Cube is the company history preserved, and this cube will definitely go down with the ship. CEOs will come and go, but Lou Grant Cube will always be there, in the same spot, soldiering on, year after year.

MYCUBE

What we have provided is a simplified framework for understanding the bio-cubicle. We know that you are not going to be “boxed-in” so to speak, so we now invite you, if you are so inclined, to send us your own reports of bio-cubicles you have made contact with, as well as your own.

Gasping, Dying, but Somehow Still Alive

2007-09-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

It’s the end of the day super stretch and I should just throw in the towel. I’ve been cruising on coffee and a positive attitude all day, clenching my jaw as in my rave days, but without the ecstacy or the Dr. Seuss hat, under which I would have snuck my water bottles. Time to slump over the steering wheel of my car.

I have been as efficient and as engaged as I could possibly be considering my three hours of sleep. News of the day: Someone just reported that the Target in my neighborhood has sold out of fans. Just a note, it’s been going hot like this for a while, so why do we wait so long and then all panic at the same time, as if the nukes are headed straight for our heat-softened glutes? I just know that somewhere in the southland, a news crew is reporting on a run of fans at the Santa Fe Springs Wal-Mart, complete with B-roll footage of business men in fountains, dogs and kids shaking their tails at the beach, and crowds stewing and marinating in piss-filled public pools.

Carrie earlier started a discussion about the size and age of the universe, which ultimately led Dawn and I toward contemplating suicide.

“After a while, when you consider how big the whole thing is, you begin to realize that nothing we do matters. Why have cereal for breakfast when you’re just going to be dead and forgotten anyway?” reflected Carrie.

“Yeah, it’s like the existential guys had it right all along, and even the Nihilists. Man. Why am I even here? Are we here?” piggy-backed Dawn.

And the answer is no, no one passed out brownies earlier. It’s the heat. When you are already sweating and it’s only dawn, by lunch you are just begging for a tractor-trailer load of Grim Reaper guys to slay you where you stand.

I’m not yet ready to die. I have a night picnic to attend. Just me and my man, provided I don’t spontaneously combust.

Hot Hot Hot

2007-09-03T21:58:00.001-07:00

Fuck the daytime, LA Summers can only be done at night, and best if you don’t have to work at all.

I have to work tomorrow which means that just as this day is finally becoming perfect, I now have to battle the supercharged wrestling midget inside of me who just loves to stay out late, and this midget will go with or without the mask. It’s a shame really.

All in all, I had one of the better summers on record, and this was the perfect summer weekend. Kept it indoors in the daytime, rolled out the intrigue and uber-socializing at night, way late at night, eating well the whole time. This is what summers in this town are for.

Today, on the last day of the long weekend, I, along with my boyfriend and my closest friend laid low for most of the day, trying not to make too many unnecessary movements, but we waited too long to act, so by the time two of the three of us were sufficiently overheated, our trip to the Beverly Center didn’t provide the cooling relief that we sought. I do some of my worst thinking in the heat.

On Labor Day, every Monday thru Friday working fucker has the same bright idea as you, particularly if you live here. You have only a few choices, the ocean, the mall, or the movies, and there is no escaping traffic. We tried to languish in the one bedroom with AC, but it was pointless as well as awkward, so at near 6pm, not wanting to face holiday beach traffic, nor see another movie, we opted for the mall, where it was proven once again that we are just lemmings. LEMMINGS. We do as the rest, hoping that our own nose-dive will somehow turn out differently.

The parking garage was a cluster fuck, you couldn’t get onto an elevator, and it was warm inside. Shops were beginning to close, save for Bloomingdale’s so we tried on jeans, but everyone knows that jean shopping is more depressing than getting bad news from your mechanic. It is nature’s AND society’s way of reminding you that you are uglier than you thought. Your derriere is bizarre, your thighs are a pair of baby manatees. Forget about pocket placement, that won't help your sad, hopeless ass, you should bank your hard earned $200 and get thee to the nearest euthanasia center. This and similar thoughts raced through my mind. My companions, if they were similarly struck, did not seem to show it.

After jeans, we gorged ourselves at the food court. No big deal. We had a healthy lunch at Urth Café earlier.

Getting out was misery. The cars generated more heat from blasting AC, all beaded together in string clusters, clogging and penetrating the exits, making the trek to our car feel like a stroll through Hell’s softer side. It just sucked.

Now it’s night and I’m looking to party, but I’m your standard issue M thru F sonofabitch, which means that I have to find a way to stay cool enough to get sleep for the shortened work week. I have to try not to think about budgets, the gigantic slabs that may have fallen through the cracks, the emails awaiting me with fangs and venom, the phone calls I have to make. I can forget about sleep, I'm already in the future. This day is a bullshit, anti-climactic end to one of the best summers ever. I say it every year, Fuck Labor Day.

Shout Outs

2007-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Where are you right now?

Spare Us the Cutter, Part 2

2007-09-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part 1

Sam is among the clearest thinking individuals I know so I found myself teetering on the edge of disbelief that I was actually rounding up X-acto blades, rubbing alcohol, and a sense of trust in the god that makes fingers stay on hands.

I’ve seen this before - people wrongly putting their fate in someone they trust, just because they trust them with things like secrets, or sewing buttons on blouses, when it’s clear they should not trust that person because that person is no more trustworthy than the shysters on the street who tackle you into buying home theater speakers from a van. I’m thinking in particular of the many sorry ass brides whose codependent loyalty, whose hopes for the impossible, allowed them to agree with their trusted aunts, who eagerly volunteered to make their dress, knowing full well that they would look like a side of beef wrapped in a mound of lace doilies.

This little skirt steak was about to be flayed open by his coworker, better known for his ability to keep commitments and secrets, his math skills, and depth of Star Wars trivia, not for simple out patient procedures.

Sam scrubbed the blade and the handle with a menacing vigor. We agreed that the shop latex gloves would be too dirty to begin with, so he was going to bare-hand this one. Dawn offered me a wallet to bite on. He positioned my hand on a stack of paper towels. “This is going to bleed, we don’t want it on your desk or your keyboard.” And he began to slice my skin.

I am so glad for pain receptors. All the little lambs in the slaugterhouse screeched at full velocity down Agent Starling's throat before anymore blood could be drawn.

“FUCK YOU! What the hell am I thinking letting you do that?” I grabbed my hand back. “Holy fucking shit. I’m driving to the hospital. This is not the dark ages, they are right up the street.”

He looked at me as if I had just tortured and killed Christmas.

I was happy to be far from Sam, and happy to have regained my late-showing common sense, but I quickly came to understand at the urgent care unit why I even allowed Sam a chance. He had the right spirit, just not the right tools. The place felt like a way station for tortured souls. Names were called every five years, the beings associated with those names groaned and shuffled to the little portal that beckoned them. Wailing, crying, and pleading provided the accompanying din. It was about as clean, efficient, and confidence inspiring as the DMV.

After sucking the marrow of my magazine’s bone, I heard my own name and raced to the portal. They weighed me, looked at me, looked at my hand, took X-rays, and gave me a tetanus shot in the left arm.

Doctor One was given the wrong tools, but tried to make it work anyway since she knew that it would be almost impossible to find what she actually needed. Although it was fruitless from the beginning, the lidocaine allowed me to play along and continue rereading my magazine so I wouldn’t have to watch her personal version of The Old Man and the Sea.

After 45 minutes of repeated lidocaine injections and a great deal of frustration, Doctor Two was summoned. She wore yellow crocks. Unorthodox.

The two of them worked together, Doctor One held the skin open, while the un-gloved Doctor Two, poked, jabbed, dug, and picked at the lead. They left the room often, returning with a different tool, but never the right one. At one point, I asked them if I could just be allowed to live with the lead particle and just trust that my body would eject it, and even though they agreed that sure, it would work its way out eventually, I could see that they weren’t going to let this one go.

We all get the look. The I’m-going-to-get-you-you-little-bastard look. And we pick at that little ingrown hair, that loose wire, that tick, whatever your little bastard is. We love the challenge of getting that little bastard and we each make our own special face. Sam had this look, and they had Sam’s look too, only they had the advantage of lidocaine but nothing more. Dr. Two, the one in charge now, worked barehanded, using only a scalpel blade, because someone had stolen all the handles. They also used paper towels, and were equally baffled by this seemingly simple procedure.

I was getting bored. I read every printed word in my Automobile Magazine, even the ads for male enhancement pills. I didn't want to look at what they were doing, but it just seemed wrong, and I actually wished so badly that I had brought Sam's sketch with me to illustrate the better approach. Finally, when I could no longer take it, and after a great deal of struggling while sporting the look, they whittled the particle down to a cracked pepper and worked it out. They high-fived each other with their eyes. It took two hours. Someone else dressed the wound, and shot me in the left butt cheek with something else. I limped to the front desk and I filled out paperwork.

I was so eager to get out of there, that I didn’t notice how spacey I was, nor did I realize I could not move my left arm. My pinky didn’t hurt nearly as much as my entire left side. I don’t regret going, but I regret the shots. I couldn’t think straight when I returned, and now, days later, my butt and arm remain sore. They just love to give shots at hospitals.

So here I am, still not at full range of motion in my left arm, and Sam still believes that this all could have been done here at my desk. I see that he is proud of his part and disappointed in me for wussing out. Once you get the look, you need to satisfy the look. So I think for his upcoming birthday, I’m going to get him a sterile scalpel with a handle, a really nice pair of tweezers, some lidocaine from Tijuana, and I’m going to slide sideways on an old wooden bench.

Ultra Hold in the Can

2007-08-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

Caution - Pointless Toilet Report Ahead.

After lunch breaks, the next most important break is the bathroom break. My boss noted that the day he learned to punch in first THEN pinch it, was the day his whole earning life changed. "You get paid to shit." I therefore, try to go as often as I can.

In a space where there was formerly one kitchen next to one toilet, the kitchen was removed and an additional toilet was built in its place. In the days before the twin poopers, life was simple. You turned on the light and fan, closed the door, quietly took care of business while exploring the world map, sprayed some Lysol or whatever the custodian left on the napkin dispenser, and you did your best to sneak out of there while no one was faxing on the other side of the door.

Things have become much too complicated lately. Both restrooms are unmarked, but one has a distinctly Wimmin vibration over the other. In fact, many a man has noted a feeling of silent scorn when seen exiting the unmarked Wimmin’s room. Both restroom doors now feature a door closer, that is actually a door ajar-er, hence my meeting with Child Molester. Poor guy. Instead of a simple light switch, the device in each has been replaced with something bearing a button marked delay, a button marked off, a linear timer, and a blue l.e.d., AND in the Wimmin’s restroom, we now have the choice of spring scented Lysol, Biodegradable Orange Mist, or hairspray.

It takes a while, but I can eventually close the door by leaning on it, but not too hard because I've actually pre-peed on myself a couple times. (I have a tendency to wait until the very last second to drop what I am doing, then bolt to the pee-hole) I am also able to turn the light on in only two, maybe three tries. All of this gets a little hairy though esepecially after a big blast of coffee, and all my body wants to do is open the gag can of snake peanut brittle. It’s the hairspray that’s been bothering me. I know what it's for, but why now after all these years? It makes the place seem like a burgeoning counrty club. So yes, I’ve been using it just to feel a little less weird about its presence. I liked it so much that I bought my own. The brand is Garnier Fructis Style. It contains fruit micro-wax technology, a concept so extraterrestrial, wikipedia has not yet figured it out. You should try it and let me know.

Office Bloopers #1

2007-08-29T13:51:00.001-07:00

I thought this would be a good post to start coming back to and provide a little comic relief from Employee 835's finger drama. .. Okay, somebody just purified themselves with some teenage mist next store. .geeezzzz. WTF? It's not the girls bathroom during the 8th grade dance around here? Is it? Anyways, yes office bloopers. As we've read this is constantly happening to Employee 835 so here's just a quick one.

I'm in the bathroom doing #2. Pull on TP and it falls out of the thing and rolls out of the stall and across the bathroom! Hahahahahahaahhaaa. No other witnesses.

Spare Us the Cutter

2007-08-23T05:39:00.000-07:00

“Yeah, I forgot about the ice. I should have iced it to numb it,” said Sam, talking eagerly and confidently, from the dirty end of the Stupid Bong.

It’s now a few days since I stabbed myself in the right pinky knuckle with my mechanical pencil and I can still barely move my left arm. And Sam is still thinking of ways to improve the procedure, in case the need arises again.

On Monday morning, as I confidently reached my right hand into my right pocket, my right pinky knuckle met with the tip of my mechanical pencil, which pointed upward in my pocket. The tip, with graphite engaged drove deep underneath my skin, leaving a fair amount of the graphite lead in the skin. It did not hurt, it just looked horrifically stupid.

The details of my mini-freakout, including the gulping of a snickers bar for comfort shall be excluded from this tale. This story is dedicated entirely to Sam, stalwart battlefield medic and all around, valiant quack.

Sam saw me struggling at my desk, under a pile of first aid supplies, peroxide, tweezers, and candy wrappers. He is the man you go to when you have a problem because he will cause the problem to be resolved, by his own hands, or he will nudge the problem into the right hands. He quickly assessed the situation and decided that his own hands could and would cause the solution.

He immediately began working at my knuckle using the sharp tweezers that Matt keeps in his pen cup, making sure to wash off the blood every so often with peroxide. When he realized, from my incessant bleating, that all of the progressively painful wriggling and clipping of the visible portion of the graphite was fruitless, he quickly drew up a very sober seeming, two-step approach to the problem. He enthusiastically explained the problem in figure one.

“See, half of the lead broke off and the part we’re seeing is all under the skin.”

And then he went on to explain the solution.

“So what we have to do is cut into the skin like so, and we may have to cut out these little pleats on either end of the cut, kind of like an episiotomy. Once we cut the skin, we’ll fold it back and just knock the remaining lead loose. See? Just like that.” Yes, just like folding back the sarcophagus and knocking the remaining mummy loose. Just like that.

After shooting a dirty, confused, incredulous look, I began looking through my wallet for my medical card and I started to dial for REAL HELP.

“Oh SEE how you are?” He said, using his index finger as conductor’s baton.

“What do you mean how 'I' am? Yes, I’m going to a doctor. I’m not letting you perform minor surgery on me at my desk with a razor blade and blue masking tape.”

“It’s not a big deal at all. It’s just under the surface. Look, you can see it, it’s just right there. It just needs a little nudging. People do it all the time. All we need is a brand new X-acto blade that's never been used, and we can do it right here. Why waste your day in urgent care, we can do it right now, come on.”

He held up the sketch. “See?”

I paused and imagined Blind Justice with her stupid scales and I borrowed them for a minute. I began piling thoughts on either side of the scale, in no particular order:

1. My day is really busy and I have no time to waste at the Urgent Care Facility that aslo doubles as a Pizza Hut.
2. On the other hand the other coworkers, Dawn in particular, seem pretty upset by what they have seen and heard so far, and I'm not sure they should handle any further civil war battlefield surgery at my desk.
3. But it would be nice to get this all out, and Sam has communicated what needs to occur more clearly and more concisely than any doctor has ever done for me. I know exactly what to expect.
4. And, I'm sure that with enough peroxide and alcohol, we can make a semi-sterile environent, and then we could just slather up a bunch of Neosporin on the cut once it was all over.
5. But, haven't I learned anything from how my parents mis-handled similar situations? Don't I remember the time I was 12 when they didn't send me to the hospital after I cut my eye open with a wrench? Don't I remember that my eye swelled shut for a week and that my grandma, during our week-long road trip pumped me full of non-FDA approved antibiotics that she got from a friend who went to Tijuana?
6. But I'm not really interested in forking over that $100 emergency room co-pay. Man, fuck Blue Cross.
7. Maybe this will be different.

Sam looked at me expectantly during the time freeze, while I played with the borrowed scales, moving things on and off, left to right, and back again. When I felt ready, I un-paused. I gathered myself and all of my blood, and I went in search of new blades.

To be continued.

Office Odors

2007-08-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

So you might be like me right now and you’re sitting in your air conditioned office with you carpeted walls around and below you. The faint hum of the lights and this weird dentist like office chair which you feel the same pain in as if you were at the dentist, except at the office no hot nurse/doctor is sticking their hands in your mouth. So if you find yourself in this world of pain and suffering then here’s a new thing I’ve noticed.

Office Odors

In a modern day office as opposed to a tire repair shop, Home Depot, and a first grade class. The element of a “smell” is all but, eliminated in our high tech world. This mainly has to do with the fact the computers hardly give off a smell as opposed to a first grader and everything else is just walls, pens, and paper and they don’t really smell like anything. So where do the odors come from? Well, your co-workers of course. I’ve discovered three distinctive odors that I smell on a regular basis and I just smelled one of these recently until the air filtration system whisked it away.

Smokey

This is a smell that is becoming harder and harder to experience in these days of healthy and organic lifestyles, but every once in a while you’ll have the opportunity to interact with it. “Smokey” occurs when one of your co-workers takes a smoke break and on the way back to their cube a distinctive smell of cigarette smoke passes by with them. This could only occur in two ways. 1. “Smokey” has just finished chain smoking three cigarette’s in twenty seconds and the chemical reaction that is induced by the raise of nicotine in their body actually causes them to emit a cigarette like smell. 2. They are walking back to their cubicle with a half lit cigarette that they are snubbing out which they put back in the pack and finish smoking later. In my experiences I believe number two is responsible for the “Smokey” smell.

What the fuck is that? Nuked barf?

You know you’ve experienced this one. Usually it hovers around the kitchen and is connected to something that was recently heated up in the microwave only rarely does “W.T.F.I.T.?N.B.?” make it’s way into the main office. Once this odor is detected in the regular office environment everyone usually has to get up and take their smoke breaks early or go out for lunch hoping that their appetite comes back. But, usually you just smell “W.T.F.I.T.?N.B.?” coming from the microwave and you feel discouraged to cook anything in it with fear of your own food becoming contaminated by the odor. One theory is that whatever was cooked in the microwave didn’t actually cause this order but, that every 100 times that something is nuked in a communal microwave it will spontaneously create this smell as the odor molecules are being mixed and heated to a million degrees once again. Think of all those different foods that have been heated up in the same oven: turkey pot pies, last night’s Chinese food, hot pockets, and cups of water for tea. Who heats water up in a microwave, gross?

Perfume Counter or Bleach Body Splash

When your eyes start burning or you get that itchy feeling in your nose and then in the back of your throat you know this odor has come along. I feel that it should be classified more as a chemical weapon but, odor will do. This smell is always found among the cubicles and can always be traced to its original creator. For some reason its unknown by the odor’s wearer that they have just doused themselves in a mix between pine smelling windex and baby lotion. At some point in this person’s life they felt compelled to routinely spray a mist of a fragrance chemical made primarily from alcohol and a mixture of colorizing ingredients all over their bodies. Sometimes it’s functional as in spray on suntan lotion or other times as a scented splash of watermelon and coconut for that bus ride home. Usually the later is what happens at a specific time and to ensure that they are fully coated they tend to spray enough that a “splash” floats over into your space and you’re wondering if second hand contact with body splash can cause you to begin smelling like an old woman’s handbag. One safety consideration I have is that isn’t our skin one of the most important and biggest organs on our body, I know some of you would beg to differ and have video proof, but, what I’m saying is that if our skin protects us from outside germs wouldn’t an airborne chemical that we can breathe in and have land on our bodies be deemed dangerous? I think we should put these people outside with the smokers but, that might be a problem when the alcohol mist comes in contact with an open flame. . .

Papi Got a Brand New Gag

2007-08-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

In a workplace where you regularly cross paths with the same individuals, after a very short while, you develop and share a very special greeting with certain co-workers. They come in the form of elaborate hand shake and slap-me-some-skin combos, fist knocking, forearm/body check, thumbs up in passing, Dokken Rock Lock, what have you.

Rodrigo Marquez usually greets me with a middle finger or with some form of metal rod or bar as mock weapon. After four years, I find it funny because I have to. It’s a choice in the same way naked pyramid with a bag on your head is a choice. Another greeting I "choose" to find funny after four years is Karate Kid Hello from Jesus Jimenez. I made the mistake in September 2003 of doing Danielsan’s signature Crane Pose while passing Jesus. Jesus held on to this tighter than Clear Channel’s death grip of the FCC.

I get the Crane about two or three times a day and by my estimate, I've received it a total of 2400 times to date. If I had to, I could carve a perfect marble replica of Jesus doing Crane, from memory. Not even his family would know the difference. All four boys would be screaming "Papi! Papi! Papi!" all day until I gave them the bad news. Kids, this is marble, your father is at the racetrack.

Yesterday morning, Terrence in shipping walked in on me studying the world map, in the office bathroom, on the toilet, with my pants down. I locked the door, but it did not completely engage the strike plate. It looked closed enough. So just as I was following my regular post-coffee load lightening, the door swung slowly open. I could do nothing but smile and wave, much to Terrence’s surprise.

Not a big deal. We laughed about it later.

Today, as I entered the shop, Jesus stood with Terrence and others, namely Rodrigo at the double doors. Through the glass, Jesus began pointing frantically at my eyes, his eyes, Terrence’s eyes, and he could not control his excitement. I opened the door to the energy of eighteen border collie pups that hadn’t been beaten in five months, all screaming, "Child Molester! That's his new name. Maybe you should have him check his glasses. I hope you are okay my friend! You should be careful next time."

I'm not sure how I walked away without participating in the scat party that followed. I'm also not sure how Child Molester is going to be elegantly incorporated as Terrence's new moniker. What is my new name? They used to call me Monica, after the person I replaced. It took seven months for me to earn back my everyday name. What I do know is that the Crane may soon be retired and a new, more unforgettable greeting is in the works.

Pig 3

2007-08-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

Melanie, a woman in another department, I think she falls into the category of BS-er, as defined by foreverever, she told me about how they crammed her and another person in a half-sized cube until Phase 34 of the office renovation was complete.

She explained that she would need a mirror in her new location, better than the wide angle rear view job that’s currently taped onto her computer. I offered her the Pig. Her eyes lit up.

Office vibes, dude.

2007-08-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

I think three types of people exist in my office and here they are with their Google image search comparison.

Workaholic

These people love to work, duh. We all know one and our bosses are usually one. Especially in the arts because, you have to love what you're doing to be able to have it as your career. They usually have a routine schedule, they don't take lunches and they just seem to be doing three times as much work as everyone else. They maybe doing more work and they probably are but, what makes them unique is that they really care. They have this mixture of a Friends cast member/Darth Vaderesque style to them in the work place that makes you feel comfortable to ask them questions but, then sometimes scared when they say your name in the copy room. These people are also sugar freaks and chain smokers. It's a really powerful office personality to have. Like a really awesome deck of MAGIC cards. . .

BSers

These office peps are very laid back but, surprisingly get a lot of their work done. They tend to not freak out about things and seem to always be at their desk doing lots of work and constantly getting up and going to the copier. They tend to always show up and leave on time. In actuality they probably work about 2 hrs. a day and spend the rest of the time on the internet. They always get things done and only occasionally forget about an important item or do something in error. Because, of their tremendous ability to get things organized and completed in a timely manner they usually receive praise for their undervalued contribution. This furthers the BSers cause in the work place and you will find that a majority of office employees are BSers. If you're reading this then you must be a BSer. The Google image search connecting with these individuals with a business/party lifestyle is "Keytar" or "Mullet" This images contains both.

Cows

These are the most annoying people to work with ever. They are a hybrid of the two other office personality types. They have tendencies to slack off and also become over involved in their job. Here are two examples to distinguish them. Will often take 2 hour lunch breaks but, not tell anyone. Instead they leave their desk in a state that it looks like they're in the office somewhere. Shuffled papers, Excel document open, and other assorted details. They will be gone for what feels like forever and then finally show back up to work. What then happens which is very mysterious is that these people become really dedicated to their jobs and emotionally invested. After hanging out at "The Grove" they'll begin to go off on someone who has forgotten to fill in some calendar correctly or asks for some help. You will usually hear two cows speaking together in either very low whispers or high pitched squealing with lots of "I knows .. ." and "Can you believe it?" Sometimes it becomes so heated the cows need to hide out in the closet to continue the discussion.
These people remind me of the participants in those stupid theme days from middle and high school. These days usually occurred during "Sprit Week." Each day would be a different themed day to come to school dressed up like an idiot. Days included: Twin day, Pajama Day, Hippie Day. . . You can just Goggle any day you can think of to find images of these lame followers before they make their way to the workforce. Below "Nerd Day"

Pig 2

2007-08-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

Paul, my boss took matters into his own hands today and retired the Pig in an undisclosed location.

Two guys peered over my screen early this morning to re-install the Pig in its new location. Dawn's notes on the work order instructed the technician to place the Pig somewhere on the wall above my desk return. The two men who came to install the Pig pointed out that that location was slated for certain future phase 3 upgrades. One man asked, "Where else would you want it?"

This caused my team to stare dazedly at each other, as if the man queried, "which one of you wants to eat this ball of hair and duck shit?" This non-committal look-around is what prompted Paul to remove the Pig from the office altogether.

Piggy in the Mirror

2007-08-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Matt informed Paul, our leader today that one of the partners, Dave, the more sober of the two, ambled into our bullpen last week, just before the weekend and engaged us in a rather lengthy stroll into esoterica surrounding the Pig. Matt suggested that it was the end of the week, and that Dave may have been drunk, but the greater surprise was that I was the main contributor to Dave’s dialogue about the current placement of the Pig.

This is true.

The Office is the experience where small is big, big is negligible, lame is funny, funny is inappropriate. The receptionist just peeked over the screen and whispered, “I got a new name for you – it’s Poindexter.” Nothing to do with anything. I’m not wearing glasses, don’t have a funny sweater on, and when last I checked, I still don’t look like the Japanese guy, Toshiro Takashi on Revenge of the Nerds.

If this statement were made to me at a cocktail party, I would smile and note it silently to myself, remembering never to make the mistake of befriending that person, ever. Since this happened at work, while at my desk, I mustered a very generous laugh, displaying my gorgeous uvula to the receptionist. Another fine example of how the Office can convert lame to funny.

Recently, the team that brought me my privacy screen decided to adorn the screen with the Pig - the sculpture that has watched over me for the last four years in my previous location. It is a stainless steel mirror cut in the shape of Piglet of Winnie the Pooh. In the old space, many years ago, it was mounted over my desk as a quick method for viewing similar sculptures. This sculpture was rejected for several reasons and had been allowed to stand guard at my desk.

Over the years, it has sustained many injuries. It's most significant defacing occurred when it was used as a test to see the effects of nickel-plating on stainless steel. It now looks like a burn victim, with a deeply etched chemical scar running the length of its face. One side is stainless, the other side is sad. And since it takes an hour to clean, I have allowed years of fingerprints on its surface to accumulate and further degrade its luster.

This Pig is the perfect friend - always soldiering on despite your lack of concern.

On Thursday, Dave swaggered into our corral to talk specifically about its haphazard placement not befitting of the venerable Pig. In an office, the daytime inmates are starved for any conversation so this single statement led to a very long conversation involving all members of the team, with me at the head.

Dave: Don’t you think that it seems rather sad how it’s perched on the screen there?
Employee 835: What’s worse is that I only see the top of its little head.
Dave: And I’m not so sure that I like it reflecting back on Ben.

And this conversation, which made the News Hour with Jim Lehrer look like Springer, carried us almost into the end of the day. It gave me numerous opportunities to showcase my part in office history, pointing, gesticulating, and telling story after story of the Pig’s heroic moves from one office to another, starting with Dave’s desk, back before he was Partner and it’s ultimate role as my adoptive guardian.

The miracle of offices is that the most self-indulgent of conversations can be so fascinating to others who would otherwise give half a rat shit in the outside world. Because members of my team can stay on YouTube for very short bursts, this reciprocal phone book recitation that occurred between Dave and myself provided them with much more excitement than that overweight black guy who raps about the Indoor Flea Market.

There was a time when I felt that it was my job to care about all the things that I could pile onto my caring wheel barrow. My efforts now seem to be concerned with not hurting anyone, or maybe even just showing up on time. I had been making more of an effort lately across the board, but not on Pig day. I chose not to get out of bed at 5:30 am as usual. Instead I got out of bed at 9:20 am. I arrived at 10:15. I listened to the NPR affiliate music program. I could barely hear a thing because the windows were fully opened, and my focus was on making the guy in the 2003 Lexus IS300 fall in love with me. My throat was scratchy because I had a gyro the night before, with tzatziki. The dairy really clogged up my nasal passages and gave me a good helping of post-nasal drip. I played up my concern for my health. Although I came in more than three hours late, the day just dragged, and I couldn’t even find the enthusiasm to spank it on the internet.

This Pig talk came at a perfect time in my desire to be better. I don't really care where the Pig goes, but it's the office where small becomes huge. One of my more subtle talents is the ability to commit to any conversation re The Vapid in the way Meryl Streep can commit to the role of a Rabbi in Queens. You should see her play a rabbi. I showed caring that afternoon. I showed commitment. I spoke as if narrating a documentary on the History Channel of the Pig's provenance. As Dave dismissed me in his usual way, I matched his notes with perfect, gentlemanly one-up-manship. This was one of our best tête-à-tête’s in the years I’d been here. I sensed Dave preparing for his final words - and as the visitor to our pen, he was entitled to the last word – and I wound up my lungs.

What Dave said as he exited the room was tremendously forgettable, as was the content of our entire conversation, but in the spirit of commitment, to showing my caring teeth, I gave it my best, most humor-inappropriate belly laugh, allowing this most enthralling volley of office humor to expose my beautiful, howling tonsils.

Today, Dawn cc’d me on an email. She issued a work order to have the Pig moved above my desk, per Dave.

WHACK DAY!

2007-08-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Me and a friend have come up with a new nickname for Wednesday which is usually referred to as Hump Day. I used Hump Day in a greeting today and then just afterwards I got an email that was this:

Subject: H.D.I.A.S.N.
Hump Day Is A Stupid Nickname

I immediately felt the same way. Why did I say Happy Hump Day! That's so stupid. Why do have to use those words to describe one of the most diabolical of all the days of the week. Equal distant from Monday and Friday. A strange limbo day that seems to leave us hanging there waiting to get closer to the much loved weekend and further from the much revered Monday.
The emails went back and forth. Other nicknames were thrown out there: Slope Day, Ditch Day, Halfway up the Mountain Day, Play Day, and then Whack Day.
Once Whack Day was mentioned it was all over. We had found a new nickname for Wednesday. It truly feels like Whack Day. I hope that now we can all celebrate together and begin using the term Whack Day with our friends and enemies in describing Wednesday. Maybe hip hop Dj's will start spinning Whack Day mixes, advertisers will start using it: "Get whacked on Whack Day at Godfather's Pizza with two for one pizza deals" and our whole country can begin to truly embrace it's Whackness. . .

Half a (night) Person

2007-07-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

For 17 months now, I’ve been busy finding ways to bill clients for my time spent perusing cars and casual encounters on craigslist. I haven’t been that successful at it, but at a meeting that occurred last week, it was strongly recommended that we bill 80% of our time. This entry is being paid for by four clients.

I am not new to the work force so it baffles me that it still smarts to go to bed early on Sunday night, in hopes of being well rested for that period during the week when I check my fun bone on the shelf and dedicate my waking and sleeping in the pursuit of profits for the Man, and toys and bill payment for me.

I write this entry as I am installing Adobe CS3, which is large enough to allow me to guiltlessly fritter my time away at my desk. The privacy screen is serving me well today. No loose heads peeking over the barrier.

The end of a tape measure just poked my left arm. Sam was on the other end of it, happy to announce that we are exactly 86 inches apart. Duly noted good friend.

Last night I did not sleep well. I could blame the weather, I could also blame the AC unit near my head, my ill-fitting earplugs, my naked partner, my anxiety about not getting enough sleep, Harleys passing on the street. I could spend my life making a list of the things that keep me up at night, and still I have to show up to work, relatively on time.

I stopped at 7-eleven on the way in because I saw an ad on TV for the Five Hour Energy Drink. The ad purports a gentle high without the achy, ready-to-rob-a-Denny’s, Michael Douglass-starring-in-Falling Down feeling. The ad shows a happy woman, time is compressed, then the same sleepy, depressed woman, slumped over her task chair; the voice reassures that this will never happen again if you do shots of their product. It comes in an opaque, plastic crack vial in the shape reminiscent of whipits. You down it in one horrendous, enamel disintegrating shot. I winced so sharply that I swerved abruptly from my lane, nearly causing a Chips accident starting with the teetering gardening truck adjacent to me. It tasted like what I imagine to be sangria made of antifreeze and berries, with a coy kiss of nitric acid.

Of the many times I awoke in the night, I imagined the time. I try my very hardest not to look at the clock in the night because when I do, the doomsday machine in my sweet head fires itself up and establishes a countdown procedure that cannot be terminated. My brain escalates to Defcon 1, and all contingency plans as outlined in the BIG MANUAL OF WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN are rehearsed to perfection. Although I did not see the time, the machine GATHERED the time, and therefore, I was busy all night pre-resolving my many different versions of Dr. Strangelove.

I am now three hours deep into the five-hour energy period. I do not feel jittery or agitated or even light-headed. I feel no more alert or smarter, still unable to make snap decisions. I don’t feel focused, but I’m WILLING to focus. I’m not clenching my jaw. All in all, I would say, I’m content. I wouldn’t call it the Friday feeling, it’s more like a prozac-based smoothing out of the edges. For the cost of a caramel macchiato, I have given myself a mild temporal lobotomy. This is actually quite lovely.

I will check in at 11:45 am, when my five hour period expires. I hope that my present state does not devolve into my own version of Flowers for Algernon.

…………

It is now 11:45 am. My jaw feels tight, but I have very little desire to drive the stake-bed truck through the front lobby. My weight remains the same. My day is humming along, I have not noticed any change in my internet usage, but I am not taking as many senseless trips out to the shop or to the parking lot to look at my car as a means of working out the jitters. I am not bleary-eyed, which is the biggest surprise. My mood is pleasant and semi-focused. Much time has passed and the woman in the ad is still seated upright with great posture and a winning smile, although she could use a little more water and some gum.

…………

2:45 pm. I am recovering from what felt like a shot of the dirtiest vicodin this side of Fontana. At roughly 12:20 pm, my eyes rolled back into my head and I could only move my feet in the kind of shaky shuffle seen in physical therapy after the patient wakes from a 12-year coma. Dawn drove Sam, Carrie, and me to Starbucks for lunch. I kept my sunglasses on for comfort, head hung low. Dawn suggested food and lots of water. Check. I eked out some words and they gave me some food and water. The woman in the ad looked as though she had been following the Dead one decade too long.

…………

It is the end of the work day. At one point an armored Sheriff’s bus carrying inmates crossed my path and I said my thanks as well as a thousand small prayers that I may never have cause to ride that bus. I was not close, but my post energy drink mind was so clouded that I could easily envision my arraignment.

It’s not the drink’s fault. Work just makes me sick. On vacation, I can happily thrive on 2 hours sleep per night indefinitely.

I am rat number 4,923,458,373 in this marathon. In a few minutes I will tidy my desk, clear my internet cache and browsing history, I will forget about the things I want to buy on ebay, and I will get into my car that is almost as old as me. It will be a long and slow drive back home. This “dream job” has afforded me a number of opportunities and freedoms and it definitely "corrodes my soul," as a certain poet said.

Today, I made someone else richer, and I am that much closer to the weekend. I don’t pretend to understand the point of this, and I’ve curtailed my attempts to wrap my mind around existence. I don’t know much. In seconds, I will be cruising down the highway. I will be fighting the urge to drive while sleeping by blasting Stretch Out and Wait. In between long stretches of road with my eyes barely open, I will look over the hood at the chrome headlight surrounds of my car - the car that I should have owned when I was 17. I will catch the glossy sun on the red paint and I will just howl loudly.

The woman in the ad is no longer at her dreaded task chair. She succesfully slogged through another self-medicated day, and she's ready for a glorious summer evening of staying up way past her bedtime.

Learning on the Job

2007-07-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

The team moved into our new office, and as a courtesy to me, my desk was outfitted with a neck-height privacy screen. NECK HEIGHT!

What I have learned in three days of sitting here is that privacy screens actually invite intrusion. All who walk by now feel compelled to stop, divert from their intended path, and peer over my screen. Oh it looks like so much fun for the disembodied head to taunt me and recycle the most basic office humor. The head usually takes on a very animated voice, and then addresses the most obvious features of the landscape behind the screen. “Wow! That shirt is very green.” It seems even more fun for those more sophisticated to peer over the divide in mockery of fellow peerers.

A note about the screen. It is made of one-quarter inch thick, steel plate, to which a charcoal-colored, directional patina has been applied on both sides. It is securely anchored to the ground by a 2-inch angle iron cleat, with four studs epoxied into the concrete floor. It is also anchored into the desk with four lag bolts into a similar cleat. When the jihand makes its way to this zip code, I will make sure to stand behind this screen, cradling a litter of kittens. It is four feet wide, while my desk is seven feet wide. It does not start from the wall the way my desk starts from the wall, rather it floats three feet away from the wall. It is this three-foot gap that caused me concern in the first place. As it stood, the bullet proof screen effectively cut me off from the rest of my team, but allowed passers by on the way to the copier, the restroom, the partner’s offices, the atrium, the front desk, the supply closet, anyone who wanted – and all did, to wave to me, make a finger as gun shape with point and click gesture, as they passed. “Heeey 853! How you doin? Workin hard or hardly workin? Come on, smile man!”

So the person in charge of this design fuck up rectified the situation by filling that gap with a piece of frosted lexan, taped only to the edge of the metal screen, as a temporary measure. It butts against the wall, but is not fastened to the wall. It more flirts with the wall. As long as no one touches, breathes, or waves hello in the direction of this gap filler, I can have privacy up to someone else’s neck.

I have tried various solutions, including extending the height of the lexan barrier, but it seems that greater measures invite greater intrusion. Just to be clear, I can't prevent the intrusion; and if that's the case I don’t want to see only the head.

This barrier should be revised, but not removed. If removed, I will be able to see everyone entering and exiting the restroom, and thus will become the restroom monitor. The person who currently bears that designation is Sam, who sits to the left of me. Yesterday, Sam and I heard sounds from the restroom that could only be described as the Slaughtering of the Giant Jello Filled Whoopie Cushion Man. I did not see who it was. Sam did and has since come to regret it.

I have considered pigeon spikes, or applying a layer of poop to the top of the divider. I’m thinking about a scarecrow too. I have spoken with the power broker of design who brought me such an amenity. He suggested that a further improvement would be phased in – date TBD.

Until TBD, I will have to employ such techniques as counting backwards silently while smiling, or feigning autism. More learning opportunities in the area of interpersonal skills are afoot.

This is office life. As I peed, or did something like that, which caused me to be alone with my thoughts, a grand marquis flashed before my eyes, the letters spelling the phrase “Is this what you wanted?”

I caught a reflection of just my frowning face in the mirror. I looked back at myself and egged, "Come on, smile man!"