An Unstoppable Force

Follow me, if you will, as I compare the life of this blog to that of a fearsome bear. Pay attention, dear reader, and you shall see how truly apt and terrifying this analogy is. Hopefully your soul will not shudder to visit this blog again in the future, but there is a distinct possibility that it will.

You see, my a comeback for this blog was much like a bear emerging from hibernation. Bears, like this blog, become frustrated with the world around them on a seasonal basis and determine to while their angst away in a depressive sleep for months. Though the blog's angst wore off after just a few months, it, like a bear, preferred the comforts of sleep and chose not to wake up for over a year.

But then the horrors of post-hibernation set in. A bear has the rude awakening of spring, with all the thorny plants, tiny bugs and uncomfortable sweating that go along with it. Similarly, my blog was nearly crushed by an unexpectedly debilitating mouth surgery that kept me from coming to work for a couple days. How can a bear be awesome when it is so threatened? And how can I blog when I'm not at work?

Now, at last, the bear and I can settle into a simple routine. Fish eating. Yes, another thing bears and blogs have in common--a love for the taste of fresh fish. It is part of the perfect symmetry of the universe.

Rivers and Streams

Today's commute to and from work is far too jammed and tedious. According to a recent survey, the average American owns 2.5 cars and drives all of them to work every day, thus filling our streets and highways with several unmanned vehicles. I have tried to convince some American drivers to take only one car to work, but to no avail.

In lieu of a more reasonable solution, then, I suggest we take row boats to work!


The rivers and streams that fill our modern metropolises are currently wide open for the row boat commuter. Sure, they may not take you directly to your destination, but the benefits of taking a row boat to work (being in a row boat, rowing your own boat, no pollution) cancel out the fact that you may never arrive at work.

And rowboats are cheap! You could probably make your own out of aluminum foil and balsa wood for less than $20! Or, for those of you who are used to the luxury vehicles, you could purchase your own pre-made rowboat for what is probably a totally reasonable price.

If you ever see me driving to work again, please yell at me for my failure to take a row boat. And I will yell back something to the effect of, "You're right! Thank you, model citizen," or "How come you're not taking a row boat to work?"

And Another Thing

Take your child to work day is coming up later this month. In general, I'm totally indifferent to it, as long as no one expects me to say anything to anyone less than half my age (you're OK by me, 13-year-olds). And having kids around makes it feel OK to nap at my desk.

But this year my company is planning some activities for the kids. I work for an insurance company, so you can pretty much guarantee that these activities will be boring and/or pointless. These activities include a tour of the building, practice job applications and interviews, make your own powerpoint presentation, and hip hop dance lessons.

I'm almost getting tired of doing commentary on absurd things like this. An insurance company teaching hip hop dance lessons. Oh, the white people!


Not to mention these are going to be kids--they just learned to walk four or five years ago. And may I reiterate that we're an insurance company and have no business teaching any kind of dancing, let alone the least insurance-company-y kind of dancing there is.

Worst of all, apparently the kids don't even get to use this whole go-to-work day to get a day off of school anymore. What a cop-out.

No Hope

Today is shaping up to be a long day. Each week I'm more impatient for Friday to end, and this week I was ready to be out for the weekend as of 12:30pm yesterday. So this extra day and a half of working is not something I'm enjoying.

Since I'm starting to think that dying of thirst in the desert would be a slight improvement, here's a short play about me dying of thirst in the desert.

ME: Woe is me! I'm dying of thirst in the desert!
(Ghost of Genghis Khan appears)
ME: Whoa, a mirage!
KHAN: I am not a mirage. I'm the ghost of Genghis Khan.
ME: What are you doing here?
KHAN: I'm here to guide you out of this desert.
ME: But there's no way out! It's just desert forever!
KHAN: (slaps me in the face) INSOLENT FOOL!
ME: Ow.
KHAN: But you are right. There is no way out.
ME: Then why did you slap me?
KHAN: The better question is, why am I not slapping you right now?
ME: I guess you're right.
KHAN: Indeed. (slaps me again)
ME: So what do we do now?
KHAN: Do you know if they have any Mongolian barbecue places around here?
ME: It's the desert.
KHAN: Where I am from, they have Mongolian barbecue in the desert.
ME: But you're from Mongolia.
KHAN: True.
ME: Do you know how to get to Mongolia from here?
KHAN: (pause) No.
ME: Great.
KHAN: (pause) Where are we?
ME: The desert.
KHAN: Ah yes. The desert.
ME: We're screwed, aren't we?
KHAN: Not we. You.
ME: Why aren't you screwed?
KHAN: Because I am a ghost. Also because I conquered China.
ME: Oh yeah.

Nurse Ben

Somehow, probably from my relative lack of blogging, the days in the corporate swamp are getting longer and longer. Maybe I'm getting more efficient at what I do, though I don't think you can increase your efficiency at doing nothing. Or maybe there's just less work, or I'm just doing less of it.

Whatever it is, it's time for me to move on to a new profession. In the midst of my hours of boredom on Friday, one of my coworkers suggested that I get a nursing degree. I laughed it off, and then I decided it was a good idea. There may be better ideas, but I don't have time to think of any.

Starting in September, I'll be taking night classes at the local nursing school. I expect all of you to start calling me Nurse Ben. I may not answer or take it seriously at first, but I'll need to get used to it.


EDIT: Just got the news--I was not accepted to nursing school.

Candy and Blankets

Today is one of those days where I could spend the entire day wrapped up in blankets and eating candy. I just want to really warm and fuzzy and fully of candy. Who doesn't want that?

I can imagine it now. Lying on that couch upstairs, all four of my blankets surrounding my body like a coocoon, heart beating a pleasant 60 times per minute, watching Point Break a few times in a row while fairies fly around and feed me delicious candy I've only dreamed about.

A little bit of heaven on earth, that's what candy and blankets would be to me today. But instead I'm working in some dismal office building that's a cool 55 degrees, trying to scrape out some pieces of chocolate that all melted together in a bucket last week. I may very well die within the next two hours.

Working on Christmas Eve

As you might have gathered from the subject line, I am working today, and today is Christmas Eve. You might not have gathered that Christmas Eve is today from the subject line, and I considered changing the subject from "Working on Christmas Eve" to "Working Today, Christmas Eve," but I decided against it. I expect that to be the most weighty decision that I make today.

The thing about working on Christmas Eve is that there's nothing to do (or there better be--I swear, if I have to do any work today--but that's off the subject), which is different than any other day because it means that there's slightly less to do than usual. So, to make sure I fill the time, I'm coming up with a "plan of attack." And you have to read about it.

Or you would have had to read about it, but there's this French guy in the office for some reason, and his accent is incredibly distracting. Why is there a French guy in the office on Christmas Eve? Is that my Christmas present? If so, second-worst Christmas present ever.

Glitter is Everywhere

I don't mean to be a negative Nancy, but I hate glitter. A lot. There is nothing fun about glitter at all. I also hate fireworks, and that's sort of related because fireworks look sort of like glitter, but it ends up being a different story all together.

Today, I got a "gift" from my coworkers here at the local dog factory. This gift, while not literally a box full of glitter, was figuratively a box full of glitter. I open it up, and suddenly there's glitter all over my desk, my hands, and my parents. I even think some of it traveled back in time and got all over some farmer who was standing in the spot where my desk would eventually be.

Normally this would be the kind of disaster that would cause me to burn the building down. But I'm trying to control my arson urges, so instead I drew pictures of penguins and lemurs for a half hour and burned those down.

Did I tell you I worked in a dog factory?

Vitamin-C-Induced Hallucinations

I'm about to take a serious overdose of Vitamin C. About 1,000 miligrams. That's one whole gram. Hopefully, this will prevent me from getting sick. But the main reason I'm having it is because I'm bored and I'm hoping it'll make the last hour more interesting. Here goes.

10 minutes later...

On the walk to the copier, my legs felt long and stretchy. I imagined myself wearing one of those tall, striped hats. The copier itself, however, was less than thrilling. It produced the 36 copies I asked for in excellent form. Now that I'm back at my desk, I feel slightly less fulfilled than before.

2 minutes after that...

I've discovered numerous mistakes that I've made before I took the vitamin C. It would seem that I am actually a more effective employee under the influence. However, I refuse to correct any of those mistakes.

Also, vitamin C does not make my hands any less cold and dry. Does this building have heat? No wonder I'm getting a cold.

15 additional minutes later...

If I ever quit this job, I've got to go out with a bang. So here's the plan. My last day, I'm gonna make three or four different fake treasure maps and give them to my coworkers. And I'll give 'em a note that explains how you have to decipher a series of clues to get to the treasure, but when you find it, you have to dig it up because it's buried. And while they're out hunting for the fake treasure, I'll take everything that's in alphabetical order and mix it up. Then I'll see what I can do about filling the office with llamas and balloons.

30 minutes into the future from now...

I'll fall asleep while driving on some side street and coast to a stop in the middle of an intersection right in front of the local marching band. Hopefully they'll carry me home in their tubas.

Betrayed by Leprechauns

These leprechauns are driving me bananas.

It all started on Friday. They were nice at first, giving me candy and convincing me to play games with them and stuff, and it was great. I thought I'd have a bright future with my new best friends the leprechauns. We'd eat nothing but candy and do nothing but play games forever!

But then after I passed out from eating too much candy, the leprechauns ruined everything. They gave me a whole lot of work to do, but they ripped up all the papers so I couldn't read them, and they smeared my office with goose crap and even got some in my hair, and they turned over the garbage can. When I woke up, they said that the didn't know what happened. One of them said that I did it in my sleep.

So now I have all this work to do that I don't understand, and I'm still sick from all the candy we ate this weekend. I don't want to work at all, and these leprechauns still won't leave me alone. I told them I don't want any more of their candy, and I knocked over their backgammon board, but they keep bothering me. And now they're throwing backgammon chips at my head.

You know one good thing about leprechauns, though? You can drop kick 'em really far. Or at least I think you can. We'll find out shortly.

Computer Incompetence

There are lots of ways to separate the weak from the strong in a corporate office. Jousting. Scavenger hunts. Who can survive in a tank full of bees the longest. Who can eat the most bees in an hour. Home run derby.

We're all familiar with those contests, but apparently my company is slightly more devious. They decided to switch our computers from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. The one lesson we can learn from this "migration" is that old people don't know how computers work. I'll give them a little grace because they're old, and one day I'll be old too and I won't remember what a toolbar is.

In nature, this is why they have lions. The idiots get picked off and gored so they don't slow down the rest of the herd. So what we need is something for which the lions can be an appropriate metaphor. Or maybe we just need lions. That'd be easier, probably.

In my opinion, we should have gone the bee-eating route.

It's Time Somebody Did Something About This Incessant Beeping

A few days ago my work computer crashed. I was just doing what I do at work--nothing--when all of a sudden the screen turned blue and told me something about it dumping all physical memory. And four hours later, I had a new computer.

There are a number of benefits to having a new computer, but that number is small. At the moment the only benefit I can think of is that the new computer works while the old one doesn't. I thought there was another good thing, but it's not coming to me right now.

Among the significantly larger number of bad things is that this computer beeps like a robotic mental patient. Not that semi-pleasant Windows "ding" either; this is a much more serious beep. And the maniac beeps at almost everything I do. I get a new email, it beeps. An error message comes up, it beeps. It beeps every time I go to a different screen in my work program.

Were this a normal computer, I would be able to mute the volume or something, but this computer is different. It decided to lock me out of volume control. You know that little speaker icon that you can use to adjust the volume? I don't have it. And you know how you can go to sound settings in the control panel? I can't. And you know how you can remove the sound board from your computer? Then please tell me because I'd like to know.

It's only a matter of time before it takes its beeping to the next level. It'll start with beeping whenever I click, then whenever I press a key, then whenever I move my chair, and pretty soon it'll start interrupting me and telling me I'm wrong all the time and lying about me behind my back. And then he'll start reading my thoughts and controlling my actions. But I can't work without a computer.

Just in case, though--if I start beeping, pour a Mountain Dew on me. Thanks.

Implosion

Christine has nothing to blog about today, and neither do I, but I need to do something to relieve the pressure (or is it non-pressure?) of this horrible work-filled day.

I may have set a personal record for most work done in a single day. I did 7 critical incidents (and there's still an hour lift in the day--this better not be a jinx), and I spent the majority of my free time fretting about those incidents along the other traumas of daily life. It was not a fun day.

Allow me to reflect for a moment: it's hard not to be depressed when everything going on is depressing. It's not like there's no hope, though. Of course there's hope. But please, God, deliver on some of it!

I just got a chocolate-covered almond from a coworker. While I don't much like chocolate, and I'm mostly indifferent to almonds, but this may mean my day is finally on an upswing. Probably not, but at least I can thank God for these little kindnesses that sustain me.

Hawaii

Today is Hawaiian Shirt Day at work. Of the people I have seen today, only one of them is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. You might expect the low degree of celebration to make this theme day bearable, but you would be wrong.

The theme doesn't end with shirts, apparently. That's just the beginning. From there it goes to glitter tattoos, oversized cocktail umbrellas, and yogurt. Again, seemingly bearable, but they are forcing these things on us. My coworkers held me down so they could put a gliter tattoo on my arm.

I don't get the yogurt.

I should have brought a model volcano or burned down the building or something. That would have been more like Hawaii than yogurt.

Actually, that tattoo-forcing thing was only half-true.

Guest Post

My former coworker Steve recently brought it to my attention that prospective employers will search the internet for their applicants' blogs in order to discern who would be the better candidate. In the spirit of improved employability, I suggested I start a fake "cover" blog for prospective employers to find for me. This blog will (apparently) be written by Steve. Here is Steve's first post on my fake blog:

"1/17/07 Wednesday: Today was a great day. I came to work an hour early as per usual just to help some of my co-workers clear their work load. Well as I was picking up a bagel for my boss (what a great guy!) I ran into an elderly woman attempting to cross the street. Well... one thing lead to another and the next thing you know I was helping her across the street! Can you beleive it? What a privilege to be alive."


NOTE: I googled my name, and this blog does not show up on the first page of any variation of it. I'm safe...for now.

The Day I Almost Stopped Existing

Yesterday was a difficult day. As you may have noticed, I didn't blog. That may not have seemed unusual to you, but I actually had quite a bit to say. Thanks to the Nazis in this hot dog factory, my blogging apparatus was blocked due to sexual content. I don't see any sex here, do you?

Thankfully they brought it back up today, but now I don't remember any of the cool stuff I was going to talk about yesterday.

I could sure use a bagel right now.

Blog Entry

Yesterday and today have been two of the busiest days I've seen at this job. Though I very much want to quantify it for you, I won't because you probably wouldn't understand it. So I'll quantify something else.

Here are two thoughts that I've had today:

1. I've enjoyed taking dumps more than I enjoy this job.

2. That's not entirely true. While there have been a few enormously satisfying dumps, most of them weren't that great.

Busyness

Most of you think I do nothing at my job, and while that's true almost all the time, yesterday was very busy. Let me explain.

One of the other companies in my building is called Animal Experiment Laboratories. I have no idea what they do, but one of their blue monkeys escaped yesterday, and everything went crazy. They closed down our office, but instead of sending us home, they gave every employee a tranquilizer gun and said we had to hunt the blue monkey until he was secured once again. There wasn't much of a strategy for it, though, so we all pretty much wandered around everywhere hoping we'd see it. A lot of my coworkers got shot, actually. That was kinda funny.

I ended up checking the women's restroom, and I found the blue monkey in one of the stalls. I was about to shoot him when he spoke to me. "Wait!" he said. "Don't shoot! I have some important information they don't want you to know, that's why they sent you after me." I lowered my tranq gun to listen. "The animal experimenters sent me two hundred years into the future two weeks ago," he said, "and there I saw a disturbing vision of what will become of society. It convinced me that I had to destroy the human race." I was shocked. I raised my gun to shoot the blue monkey, but before I could move, the gun was in his hands. He shot me in the thigh. As I passed out, I was just thankful that he hadn't flung poo at me.

When I awoke, I was on a cold table with a bright light shining in my face. My vision gradually came back, and I saw three giant waffles standing above me. The waffles had arms and legs and wore those white gloves like cartoon characters always have. "Syrup," one of them said. Another passed him the syrup, and he started pouring it all over me. I screamed.

Then it was 1, so I went to lunch.

After lunch, the blue monkey called me into his office. He told me I was fired. "You can't fire me," I said. "Yes I can," he said. "I'm your father!" I screamed. Then he told me he was joking. "You're not my father?" I asked. "No, I am your father, but you're not fired."

They gave me a free blanket and let me leave early for the day.

Happy Hallowhen Can I Leave?

When I was drunk in college, I liked Halloween. For the months leading up to Halloween this year, I hated Halloween. Today I'm indifferent.

My attitude toward Halloween changed when somebody at work suggested that we all wear Casual Friday costumes, also known as jeans. I took it one step further and wore a hoodie. I still don't like the idea of Casual Friday, but I like that I don't have to wear stupid khakis. To make matters better, nobody noticed that we're all wearing jeans, so I might just wear jeans tomorrow too.


Other cadidates for the title of this post:
Happy Hallowaste of Time
Happy Hallowhat?
Happy Hallowant Some Popcorn?
Happy Hallowait Here While I Bring the Car Around
Happy Hallowax Museum

Melt

I've been hoarding paper clips almost since the day I started working here. I have a decent number--not enough to completely fill my desk drawer but still far too many for me to ever use, especially since I never use paper clips here.

So I just came up with a plan: whenever I quit this job (please, Lord, soon), I'm going to take all the clips I've amassed and possibly some more and melt them down into a little silver ball. I think I'll throw a party. The Melting Party.

Maybe it'll become an annual event. People can bring whatever they want to melt, and we'll melt it all down in a ball. Or we can do a different shape every year. This'll be bigger than high school reunion.