chemaccino good, but not good for you

Monday, October 20, 2003
 
goddam motherfucker.
I get home from a week in the woods with overprivileged 8th graders to listen to a message on my voice mail from Office Pimp informing me that they never received my time sheet for my last week at that last assignment.
I knew that dumbass bossman would never get around to faxing it in. I told him I'd take care of it for him, but oh, no, he wanted to do it himself.
Asshole.


Friday, October 10, 2003
 
Time off for good behavior
I'm going to be away for a week, and therefore not posting for at least a week. Oh, I'll be working, except in the woods, not in an office.

The other day, I realized that chemaccino now has about six months' worth of posts.
Below, for your amusement, are some of my less regrettable posts.
Like summer re-runs. New to you?

The Biotech Company
What Would the Godfather Do? one HR lady to rule them all
Mentwhoring: one and two
Redemption through Drama a psycho client keeps calling the office

The Internet Start-up
Urban Jungle Fauna the carpet also has large, unsightly stains
The Lightbulb Saga: from start to finish
Urge To Kill Rising the first of several posts about the lazy employees

Non-Company-Specific
I am the Ninja Queen of Complicated Copying Tasks 'nuff said.
The street where I work a poem about mail drop boxes
There's one in every office a catalogue of the office types you don't see on the sitcoms


Thursday, October 09, 2003
 
Dumbass New Hire vs Paperwork
Part II: I-9

Um, Steve, we can't accept your Driver's License at the only document here. See, there's a list on the back of the sheet that tells you what you can use for each column. If you want to use your license, that's okay, but -see how that's in List B? That means you'll need to have something from List C as well. Yeah, there are all these directions written out. You can use them to figure out what documents you can use.

Okay, just so you know, this space where it says "Maiden Name", that's for your name from before you got married, if it was different. Yeah, so, whatever you wrote in there, that probably doesn't apply.


Am I wrong to be amazed and appalled? I know these forms are tricky, but they do tend to explain themselves well, and I don't care if you were born in 1981, you probably have filled out one of these before.


 
omigod, omigod, omigod.
I went into his office to drop off some paperwork, and this book was sitting on his desk. I'm hoping it was a joke gift. How awful.

According to amazon.com: ...this men's manual to life in the 21st century offers more than 500 rules that make for lighthearted reading and manly musings.


 
Commuting Sentences
So, I'm driving to work this morning, and I'm stopped at a red light, which just turned red, and I know I'm there for a while. I glance in the rearview mirror to spy on the people in the car behind me because hey, sometimes it's interesting what people do in their car when they think nobody's looking.

The car behind me is a kind of a bright blue, but I can't tell what type or car it is. Smallish. There are two dudes in it, specifically, two youngish, slim, caucasian, overprivileged/underpaid-ski-dudes, if you get my drift.

The one not driving is smoking.
A joint.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, it could be that he rolled his own tobacco cigarette and just really likes to pinch his tobacco cigarette near the base, take a big toke, hold that tobacco smoke in while squinting, then exhale his tobacco secondhand smoke. I suppose it could be so.
Let's just assume that when I say "joint", in all fairness, it could be anything rolled in those papers.

So I think to myself, well, I guess that's not so cool, but at least it's not the driver smoking.

Then he passes the joint to the driver.
Pinch. Squint. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Shit.
Light turns green, I stay straight (pardon pun), they turn right. Lucky me.
Let's hope they were almost to their destination, shall we?

P.S. While the driver was toking up, the passenger totally picked his nose. Ha, ha! You are so busted, dude!


 
Let the wild rumpus begin
Just got a phone call from bossman.
He only just this morning realized he's working from home today, so if I could leave my timesheet on his desk for him, that'd be great, thanks. And be sure to finish whatever projects you're working on. And create documentation outlining how to do all the ongoing stuff you've been doing, along with the filepath to the notes so they can be updated in the future.
And, uh, thanks for helping us out the past few months.

We are not amused.


 
From: God
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:33 AM
To: The Adminwhore
Subject: RE: Dumbass Smiting

Dearest Adminwhore,
Thank you for your request. It will be processed in the order it was received.
Best Wishes,
God

-----Original Message-----
From: The Adminwhore
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:25 AM
To: God
Subject: Dumbass Smiting

Dear God,
The new hire is a dumbass. Please smite him.
Yours Truly,
The Adminwhore


 
Honestly. Seriously. I have no idea why there is still material for this blog.
People just keep finding new ways to shock and annoy.
That said, today is my last day at this particular assignment. As such, I expect to encounter much in the way of bloggable happenstance. I already have two in my brain. God, this new hire is a dumbass.

Dear God,
The new hire is a dumbass. Please smite him.
Yours Truly,
The Adminwhore


Wednesday, October 08, 2003
 
Dumbass New Hire vs Paperwork
Part I: Medical Insurance Enrollment

Open Letter To Dumbass
To the new hire who used a felt-tip pen on his enrollment form:

IF you have to fill out a medical insurance enrollment form
AND that form seems to have one page that presses through onto attached yellow and pink sheets,
THEN it is expected that those sheets will get filled out as well
AND it is expected that one would use a ballpoint pen or other pressure-related writing implement to acheive this goal
OR that one might flip to the back sheet to ensure that all sheets were filled out.

In the future, please follow the above directions.
If I ever have to re-write your form information again, I'm selling it all to phone companies and direct marketers.

Sincerely,
The Adminwhore


 
If I have to be told to "never lick envelopes again" by the goddam Pitney-Bowes holding loop, I swear to God I will kill a human being.

I have been on hold for so long, that I have already put it on "Handsfree" so the loop comes out the speaker so I can do other things. I'm trying to tune it out as I do stuff, but they keep issuing this mandate not to lick, and I can't help tuning back into it.


 
Bathroom Break
Remember when I said that everyone has to walk by my desk and out the office door to go to the bathroom? Well, I just made a trip myself, and upon my return, I could not open the door to the office. It was locked. I just spent 10 minutes hanging out in the building hallway. But it was productive; while I was locked out, I signed for a package. I finally got back in when I heard someone on the inside of the office whistling, and I pulled on the door to make a pounding sound.


Tuesday, October 07, 2003
 
There She Goes... There She Goes Again
A Thousand Petty Gripes

------------------------------------------
Could you get some yellow highlighters?

-----Original Message-----
From: [adminho]
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 11:09 AM
To: office
Subject: Office Supply Order

Hello!
I will be placing an order for office supplies with Staples this afternoon; please let me know if there is anything you would like added to the order.
Please remember to check for items in the office supply room - we might already have what you want to order!
If you do want something more ordered, please be as specific as you can, otherwise I will have to guess at what you want. www.staples.com has a great search function, but for most items, it is enough to give me a description and dimensions.
Thanks!

------------------------------------------

The beauty of this reply from the same woman as last month, is the addition of the line about checking the supply room, which came about from the email exchange posted earlier today (below). Of course, it's only funny if you know about the BOX OF YELLOW HIGHLIGHTERS IN THE SUPPLY ROOM.
As soon as I received her email, I went into the supply room, grabbed five of the highlighters, and politely delivered them to her in her office. I told her with a smile that there are plenty more in the supply room, should she need them.

Sometimes it's just easier to be the magical office supply fairy.


 
While I Was Out
Important issue addressed in my absence

From: [bossman]
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 12:09 PM
To: [Sr. Project Manager]; [adminho]
Cc: Office <--- [please note: this means EVERYONE]
Subject: RE: Looks like we need printer/xerox paper 8.5x11" ASAP

Actually - paper is in the supply closet….back room

-----Original Message-----
From: [Sr. Project Manager]
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 10:49 AM
To: [adminho]
Cc: Office<--- [again:EVERYONE]
Subject: Looks like we need printer/xerox paper 8.5x11" ASAP

Please order some.



 
How is it that
(1) this blog would come up in a search engine query of
interpretation of the matrix reloaded
and
(2) someone would visit this blog as a result?
If people come here looking for movie commentary, they will be disappointed.


Monday, October 06, 2003
 
So today I'm only in for a few hours to help out with an invoice mailing. I didn't want to be in at all - I'm scheduled for Tuesday thru Thursday. But hey, I'm flexible.
Anyway, so I get here and I can't log into Windows on my computer; something's happened with my password. And bossman isn't around to tell me what to do. So I get the ball rolling on the whole using-the-computer thing, and sit at my desk sipping water.
Then it hits me. It's the perfect time to put up the decorations.
Damn.
What's funny about putting up cotton cobwebs of the cube walls is that it looks messy and ghetto. I put some on the fish tank, too, which cracks me up for some reason. But I gotta say, that spangly garland shit is irredeemable. It's so... ugh. Tacky.


 
It's like a law.
The days you spend much time and effort buying breakfast or packing a lunch are the days when there's free food in the office.


Wednesday, October 01, 2003
 
The Horror..... the horror.....

From: [bossman]
Sent: Wednesday, October 1, 2003 8:08 AM
To: [adminho]
Subject: office decorations
Could you start on the Halloween decorations? we have a box of stuff in the supply room if you could take a look ...it would be good to add some life to the surroundings...


I am just so not about holiday decorations around the office. You want to have a Costume Friday, I think that's fun, but I wince at these plastic pumpkins and cotton cobwebs. Oh, and the spangly bat garlands, they're tasteful. If you get my drift.
It is tasks like these that remind me I am a whore to other people's tastes and whims.


Tuesday, September 30, 2003
 
Delivery of a dozen roses!
Who could they be for??
Oh.
For the preggers lady who thinks I'm a moron.
They're from her husband. It's their anniversary.

Fortunate people irritate me.

UPDATE: (9pm-ish)
I just want to clarify that I have nothing against people getting flowers in the office, it's just that I wish they had been for this other woman there. She's not married and doesn't have kids, her cubicle is tiny and in the worst location in the office, and she's nice to me and I would have been happier if the flowers had been for her. I felt bad walking by her cube with them... luckily, her back was turned.


 
The copier is broken.
The copier was obtained free-of-charge from the previous tenant.
Free copier with no service plan.

The copier is broken.
The copier will stay broken because it has no service plan.
Long live the new table.


 
How many temps does it take....
When I came in this morning, there were two bags of lightbulbs on the desk and an email from the bossman explaining that he was tired of waiting for building management, and could I install the lightbulbs he had bought?

In order to install the lightbulbs, I have to stand on someting to reach them, and the obvious thing to stand on is a chair. The funny part of this is that all the chairs here have wheels and swivel-bases. The wheels make little-to-no difference on the thick industrial carpet, but the swivel is something else. Let's just say it's more challenging to screw in a lightbulb when you start spinning with it. And standing up on the chair without the swivel throwing me off was a whole other trick involving some yoga moves.

I have to say, though, it was worth it to have some decent light around here. It makes a difference.


Monday, September 29, 2003
 
Oh, Brother. Spare me.

Once I had some scissors -- they cut well...
They at least made the graaade...
Once I had some scissors -- ...what the hell?
Brother, please return my blade.

You in khaki pants -- gee, you look swell
Smug 'cause you're full-time and well paaaid....
But, despite all that, you're going to Hell
Unless you soon return my blade.


(Apologies to E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney.)


 
It's all in the open now
And I'm glad. Glad, glad, glad.

So, the temp company told me that you have to leave us soon. You know, you could have told me.

No, I couldn't have; they told me that they are supposed to tell you, and that I shouldn't.


I've thought about this whole witholding-of-my-imminent-departure, and I think it's most likely a ploy to keep this client company from having the ahead-of-time knowledge to hire someone permanent at a convenient juncture. It would be convenient for them to try to hire someone on their own when they know I'm leaving soon; that feels natural. But then when there's the immediacy of a two week window, they become grateful to the temp company for being able to find a replacement so quickly. And, of course, once that person is installed, the client will be lulled into not thinking about hiring someone for a while.
Deliciously diabolical.


 
Still, the lightbulbs have not been replaced. Unbelievable. They still have the sticky notes I put on them as markers, and AND, there are more that have gone out.