So. My fellow cube world inhabitant. The IT guy.
He thinks everything is funny. If someone says hello, he replies hello while laughing. If someone calls him to report that their computer just blew up, he laughs and says he'll be around to fix it.
Also, he talks to himself. This is not an admirable quality in a cube mate. He'll ask himself out loud, "Am I sure about that?" When he solves a problem, he says "yay!" - out loud. And then he says it again in a very low voice, and then a very high voice. YAY, yay, yayeeeee!
There is only one just revenge - downloading Lea Michele's version of Faithfully and playing it in our cube on repeat. Check and mate.
Showing posts with label Cube World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cube World. Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
For Real?
Is this the Twilight Zone? Punked? Some modern day Candid Camera? Seriously, because it is just way too strange around here for this to be real life.
Over Christmas, the employees (meaning everybody but the contract employees) did a Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. Sometimes I am extra glad to be a contract employee because I get out of stuff like half-day seminars about employee benefits and the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. (That's 2 Starbucks coffees people. I could give you a lovely bar of gift soap, or I could have 2 coffees. I think we all know what's better for everyone in that scenario because I assume you already have soap.)
Anyway, because the most exciting part of my job (besides the coffee sitting on my modular office furniture) is listening to all of the conversations around my cube, I come to find out that a lot of my fellow cube dwellers ALSO gave their supervisors gifts in addition to participating in the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. Is that supreme sucking up or what? When I was in a law firm, the associates never got the partners gifts. Except maybe if the associates were in really good spirits, we would refrain from flipping off the partners as they left our offices (or not). Sometimes the secretaries made the lawyers some Chex Mix or cookies, but the gifts, if any, flowed down, not up. This allows the earth to continue to spin in the correct direction.
In other bizarre news, although I am not in the class of employees eligible for employee benefits such as the 401(k) and the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange, I am, apparently, required to participate with the regular employees in the annual practice of a self-evaluation performance review. I file papers, but I suppose I could stretch that out to a review.
To: Human Resources. From: AG
"This coming year, I will try to file papers faster and more accurately. I was filing the company's documents based on the color of the paper, then by font size, but if you think that alphabetizing them by client would be more appropriate, I am nothing but a team player. While I have the floor, I would like to request a company wide policy that any correspondence to me from a fellow employee, or to the outside world from this company, not be signed with "namaste," "aloha," or "live laugh love."Just a thought. XO, Loves ya!!!!!!! AG.
Over Christmas, the employees (meaning everybody but the contract employees) did a Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. Sometimes I am extra glad to be a contract employee because I get out of stuff like half-day seminars about employee benefits and the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. (That's 2 Starbucks coffees people. I could give you a lovely bar of gift soap, or I could have 2 coffees. I think we all know what's better for everyone in that scenario because I assume you already have soap.)
Anyway, because the most exciting part of my job (besides the coffee sitting on my modular office furniture) is listening to all of the conversations around my cube, I come to find out that a lot of my fellow cube dwellers ALSO gave their supervisors gifts in addition to participating in the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange. Is that supreme sucking up or what? When I was in a law firm, the associates never got the partners gifts. Except maybe if the associates were in really good spirits, we would refrain from flipping off the partners as they left our offices (or not). Sometimes the secretaries made the lawyers some Chex Mix or cookies, but the gifts, if any, flowed down, not up. This allows the earth to continue to spin in the correct direction.
In other bizarre news, although I am not in the class of employees eligible for employee benefits such as the 401(k) and the Secret Santa $10 limit gift exchange, I am, apparently, required to participate with the regular employees in the annual practice of a self-evaluation performance review. I file papers, but I suppose I could stretch that out to a review.
To: Human Resources. From: AG
"This coming year, I will try to file papers faster and more accurately. I was filing the company's documents based on the color of the paper, then by font size, but if you think that alphabetizing them by client would be more appropriate, I am nothing but a team player. While I have the floor, I would like to request a company wide policy that any correspondence to me from a fellow employee, or to the outside world from this company, not be signed with "namaste," "aloha," or "live laugh love."Just a thought. XO, Loves ya!!!!!!! AG.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tabs 16-30
What do I have to do in this organization to get a damn inbox?
One thing I miss about being an attorney is that, when you are an attorney, nobody in administration questions your need for supplies. I could ask for green highlighters, bic medium point (NOT fine point) red pens, 3 transgender albino pygmies and a Diet Coke, and the supply person would ask if by noon was too late. Here, when I ask for tabs for my binder numbered 16-30, I actually get e-mails back asking why. And, really, how do you explain that. When you need tabs 16-30, tabs 1-15 (that we do already have, I am reminded) will not do, nor will tabs A-O. After way too many e-mails back and forth making my case for tabs 16-30, all I can conclude is that I am going to have to wait to see if they get approved in next year's budget. But when they finally decide, I may miss the memo because, as noted, I do not have an inbox.
One thing I miss about being an attorney is that, when you are an attorney, nobody in administration questions your need for supplies. I could ask for green highlighters, bic medium point (NOT fine point) red pens, 3 transgender albino pygmies and a Diet Coke, and the supply person would ask if by noon was too late. Here, when I ask for tabs for my binder numbered 16-30, I actually get e-mails back asking why. And, really, how do you explain that. When you need tabs 16-30, tabs 1-15 (that we do already have, I am reminded) will not do, nor will tabs A-O. After way too many e-mails back and forth making my case for tabs 16-30, all I can conclude is that I am going to have to wait to see if they get approved in next year's budget. But when they finally decide, I may miss the memo because, as noted, I do not have an inbox.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Cube World Hell. Only, It's Not Warm.
This is the fourth day in a row that there has been no heat for the cubes in my part of the building. It is -8 degrees outside. We are working with our coats on. I could go to the grocery store and purchase, say, a salmon, and I could just leave that salmon right out in my cube and it would be adequately chilled until I was ready to go home and put it in the fridge.
I only have two people signed up for the seminar that I am putting on in Arizona tomorrow. Although this doesn't cover the costs, I can't cancel. First of all, people need their CLEs in December. Also, I will be so glad to be warm for a change.
In other news, I found out today that my Cube World job got extended for another year.
I only have two people signed up for the seminar that I am putting on in Arizona tomorrow. Although this doesn't cover the costs, I can't cancel. First of all, people need their CLEs in December. Also, I will be so glad to be warm for a change.
In other news, I found out today that my Cube World job got extended for another year.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Fucking Bluebirds
Do you remember yesterday when I had cartoon bluebirds chirping around my head and cartoon chipmunks dancing at my feet. Fuck 'em.
All it took was 8 hours in the Cube From Hell and I am back to "What the hell?" I know. I know. My husband just orchestrated the world's most perfect 40th birthday for me, and I have the world's coolest 8 year old for a son, but I am not a happy person for 5 out of 7 days of the week. I'm a weepy pissy grumpy unpleasant person a good majority of the time because of this damn job.
In times past, I would feel bad about feeling that way (I'm damn lucky to have a job, etc., etc.). Then I saw Ghost Town. It's a lovely movie with Ricky Gervais and Tea Leoni (and in my head I am cute like Tea Leoni without the sex addict husband). Anyway, you should watch this movie if only for the scene where Ricky Gervais goes in for a colonoscopy and gets frustrated about all the questions he has to answer to the charge nurse just so someone can stick something up his ass. But the main point I am trying to make here is that there is another scene where Ricky is telling Tea that he really has no grounds to be frustrated with his life, given how lucky he is compared to everyone else. Tea then explains to him that he has every right to be frustrated because you only have one life, and the world's other frustrations, while important, shouldn't change the fact that you deserve to be happy. She's cute and brilliant.
This past weekend, while staying at the hotel, I seriously wondered whether I would be happier being a hotel maid than sticking with my current job - and I don't even clean my own house! That's how bored I am at my job. And yes, I am asking around for work and even offering to fill in for the jobs that this company has posted as open.
My husband asked me this morning why they keep me around here. Valid. The best way I know how to explain it is by analogy. My cousin is an information technology guru and works for a company doing IT. Much like me, he is bored crazy because he has nothing to do. He has nothing to do because people have no idea whether an IT issue takes 15 minutes or 15 weeks to fix. Although he begs for other work, people need him to be available when there is an IT issue. He spends lots of time just sitting around being available for issues to pop up, and when they finally do, they usually end up being 15 minute issues. That's me, only replace IT with minor paralegal issues.
Because I am doing minor paralegal work, I am able to pad my resume during my unplanned legal hiatus with work that is tangentially related to the law. And they pay me. But every day I absolutely buckle and wretch at the idea of having to face a computer, located in cube with a lonely individual energy saving light bulb, doing absolutely nothing FOR EIGHT HOURS. Eight hours. Eight. Really. Long. Hours. In half minute increments.
At some point it's just not worth it to spend the days like this. I knew I needed to leave my ex-husband when I started to take my frustrations with him out on my son by being grumpy and easily agitated. Basically, the most important person in my life wasn't get the best of me. That's how its starting to feel with this job. I get home and I'm just beat and mental from sitting around doing nothing all day and for whatever reason I just can't switch over into sweet wife and good mom mode. It's at the point where my family just isn't getting the best of me, or really even me at all. And, yes, I am actively looking for another job.
All it took was 8 hours in the Cube From Hell and I am back to "What the hell?" I know. I know. My husband just orchestrated the world's most perfect 40th birthday for me, and I have the world's coolest 8 year old for a son, but I am not a happy person for 5 out of 7 days of the week. I'm a weepy pissy grumpy unpleasant person a good majority of the time because of this damn job.
In times past, I would feel bad about feeling that way (I'm damn lucky to have a job, etc., etc.). Then I saw Ghost Town. It's a lovely movie with Ricky Gervais and Tea Leoni (and in my head I am cute like Tea Leoni without the sex addict husband). Anyway, you should watch this movie if only for the scene where Ricky Gervais goes in for a colonoscopy and gets frustrated about all the questions he has to answer to the charge nurse just so someone can stick something up his ass. But the main point I am trying to make here is that there is another scene where Ricky is telling Tea that he really has no grounds to be frustrated with his life, given how lucky he is compared to everyone else. Tea then explains to him that he has every right to be frustrated because you only have one life, and the world's other frustrations, while important, shouldn't change the fact that you deserve to be happy. She's cute and brilliant.
This past weekend, while staying at the hotel, I seriously wondered whether I would be happier being a hotel maid than sticking with my current job - and I don't even clean my own house! That's how bored I am at my job. And yes, I am asking around for work and even offering to fill in for the jobs that this company has posted as open.
My husband asked me this morning why they keep me around here. Valid. The best way I know how to explain it is by analogy. My cousin is an information technology guru and works for a company doing IT. Much like me, he is bored crazy because he has nothing to do. He has nothing to do because people have no idea whether an IT issue takes 15 minutes or 15 weeks to fix. Although he begs for other work, people need him to be available when there is an IT issue. He spends lots of time just sitting around being available for issues to pop up, and when they finally do, they usually end up being 15 minute issues. That's me, only replace IT with minor paralegal issues.
Because I am doing minor paralegal work, I am able to pad my resume during my unplanned legal hiatus with work that is tangentially related to the law. And they pay me. But every day I absolutely buckle and wretch at the idea of having to face a computer, located in cube with a lonely individual energy saving light bulb, doing absolutely nothing FOR EIGHT HOURS. Eight hours. Eight. Really. Long. Hours. In half minute increments.
At some point it's just not worth it to spend the days like this. I knew I needed to leave my ex-husband when I started to take my frustrations with him out on my son by being grumpy and easily agitated. Basically, the most important person in my life wasn't get the best of me. That's how its starting to feel with this job. I get home and I'm just beat and mental from sitting around doing nothing all day and for whatever reason I just can't switch over into sweet wife and good mom mode. It's at the point where my family just isn't getting the best of me, or really even me at all. And, yes, I am actively looking for another job.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Off to a Good Start!
Just here laughing that hysterical laughter most often heard by people who need their meds adjusted, or that realize there is really nothing left to do but laugh and write off the day.
This morning I had my first ever meeting at my cube world job with the executive committee. I was to present to them what I have been working on for the past 7 months and convince them why they should change my position from temporary to permanent. I practiced my spiel in the shower, in the car with my son, and then on the way to work. I arrived with just enough time to print out the agenda for the 9:00 meeting. Only, it turns out, the meeting was at 8:00.
This morning I had my first ever meeting at my cube world job with the executive committee. I was to present to them what I have been working on for the past 7 months and convince them why they should change my position from temporary to permanent. I practiced my spiel in the shower, in the car with my son, and then on the way to work. I arrived with just enough time to print out the agenda for the 9:00 meeting. Only, it turns out, the meeting was at 8:00.
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