Office Parties

There are few corporate events that rival the "office party" in the ability to embarrass, humiliate, and (in doing so) immortalize your reputation amongst your coworkers. As such, I avoid parties of this nature unless there is an easliy accesible look-out spot from which to view the sordid debauchery without putting myself in harm's way. So, as you can imagine, I was a little hesistant when all my co-workers decided to attend our company-wide party, to celebrate our newly built office building.

I wavered, I backed out, I reconsidered, and several more repetitions of the same three actions later . . . I found myself standing around a massive courtyard schmoozing with 300 people drinking beer in the searing heat. In truth, I must admit, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There was free booze. My coworkers and I pondered the great questions of life ("So do you think that chick over there is trying to pick up on the dude wearing the nice shoes - she's ALL over him?)And 45 minutes later the festivities were officially old, the goodie bags were discovered to be lame and shamefully promotional, and we were ready to roll.

Just as we were on our way, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an extremely friendly fellow who started an extremely friendly website that is a place for friends - and he's friends with everyone. (HINT HINT WINK WINK)

You may recognize him in the photo below. He's a good guy actually. As in, he didn't run for dear life when accosted by two hyper giggly chicks vying for a photo op. :-)

Random Things that Occur in My Office at Regular Intervals

1.) In house Mini-put golf tournaments

2.) Hallway Dance class

3.) People speaking in Russian accents. (?????)

4.) Plastic Motorized hamster sitings

5.) Nintendo Fight Night matches and foozeball games in the arcade room

6.) Cubicle yard sales

7.) Instant messages containing cartoons charaters with the heads of various employees photoshopped on them

8.) Analytical conversations about simulated images of womens' asses. (We sell cellulite cream, stuff like, "OH! We need to make her ass WAY more ripply")

9.) Bimonthly afternoon group trips to the pet store to restock our aquarium and gather fishy supplies. Our office fish are Robby, Marty, Lola, and Cindy Crawford(she has a mole, so...).

10.) No one doing anything that even resembles work on Friday afternoons after 4 pm . . . kinda like right about now.

Our friendly office psychopathic serial killer/possible child molester

Today, I'd like to talk a little bit about one of my bosses. We think he's crazy. At first glance - you would probably think, normal upstanding citizen with a little too much hair gel. But then, he might look at you, and his shoulders might start to hunch and he would move, no, leer very erratically and manacingly in your general direction, and then he might even lean in ever so slightly as he passes by you and in his deep raspy whispering voice utter with just a little too much force and absolutely no smile, "Hello There." And then a little chill might run down your spin and you'd walk briskly away thinking, "That guys a fucking WEIR-DO!" Yeah, that's one of my bosses. Luckily we don't have to speak to him much, or be in the same room with him, since most people begin to sweat, fidget or hyperventilate when he's around. My only run-in with the man went a little something like this.

Setting: Break room (There is a coffee maker and an expresso machine on different ends of the room)

Sarah: [preps coffee maker]

Friendly Office Psychopath (FOP): You prefer coffee . . . . to expresso . . . . [voice sounds distant yet ominously close]

Sarah: [turning head to face Mr.Fop] oh, um yeah.

FOP: Ah...I see . . .[looks contemplatively down at puke orange break room counter]

Sarah: Yep.

LONG SILENCE ENSUES

FOP: I used to be that way. A latte here. A mocha there. But I've moved on . . . to the hard stuff. [does not smile or make any facial expression whatsoever]

Sarah: Yeah, I'm not much for expresso. I'm kind of a sissy coffee drinker of sorts.

FOP: Ah. I see.

{Exit Sarah at a hastened pace}


We're all making bets here on what year he'll be incriminated for something foul.

Setting the Scene

So this right here is where the magic happens - Sarah's little grey lifeless cubicle. Well actually, my office "real estate" is quite spacious. I even have my own closet to hang up my coat(I have yet to use it). My cube decor is relatively conservative in comparison to most of my co-workers, but I didn't want to go posting pictures of the others' personal workspaces on the internet without their express permission (and you know how long those permission slips take so I'm just skipping it all together), but I will describe some to you. Just a few examples would be:

Co-worker Purple - has 7 varieties of My Little Ponies stuck along the front side of her cube along with a large stuffed animal manatee. Yes, a manatee. Look it up.

Co-worker 80's power pop pink - has a large dangling frog, a small collection of beanie babies and a large collection of Hot Wheels Monster Trucks scattered around her desk. One car actually has a white Mohawk glued to its top. Bad Ass

Co-worker steel blue - is ALL about the Sponge bob... nuff said.



Moving on with our office tour bring me to the large displays of random crap one sees atop various cubicles, with the most elabote being the montage of used holiday decor.


Mostly we have plastic bowling pins, nerf guns, and dart board supplies dotting the office landscape, but there's also an inflatable dolphin hanging from the ceiling in the south wing that I consider a very nice addition to the collection.




What also lends an "edgy" feel to our otherwise, sponge Bob-y, my little pony-esque, plastic bowling pin decorated office are massive industrial pipes covering our ceiling, providing providing refuge for retarded birds and massive croaking insects.

A warning to the reader

As many of my friends and family know, I have lots of free time at my job. And I get bored. VERY BORED. For awhile I utilized my idle time very effectively and happily roaming around the internet, chatting with friends on messenger, reading obscure blogs (to which this blog aspires one day to become), working on stuff for twixt, and so on. My travelblog took up a lot of time I would otherwise have spent cruising myspace or overheardinnewyork.com, but lately I've just lost all interest in the quotidienne time wasting activities to which I am accustomed. I have actually sat in front of my computer for extended periods of time and just, well, sitting there. It's pretty fucking pathetic. Today was one of those days. And I realized that so much of this time could be put to good use, even it is wasn't good, at least it would be put to some use. Then I remembered that ever so long ago I had this blogspot and posted up all the abstract poetry I used to love writing (which I was smart enough to take down so as not to embarrass myself) and that in truth, as boring as it is here for me, I work in a company that is rife with random entertaining shit, and if I could just sit back and observe and record what goes on around here, it might actually come in handy somewhere along the proverbial road. So, I've decided that when I've hit my wits end and nothing, nothing at all, can hold my interest, I can just set up shop here and talk about what a quirky group of people I work with and how bizarre my office functions. So, let this first post be a warning to you all - I am bored, I am wordy, and what you are about to read is being written because I have absolutely nothing better to do - proceed at your own discretion . . .