Twas the Week Before Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas, in cubicle-land
Not a worker was working, you must understand.
The bosses left early for holiday drinks,
Their winter equivalent of hitting the links.

Employees were nestled all snug in their cubes,
Sipping hot chocolate and watching YouTube.
Productivity reached an insurmountable hump,
As they turned off their brains for a post-lunchtime slump.

When from Larry’s office there arose such a clatter,
I took my time getting up to see what was the matter.
Fairly sure it had zero importance to me,
I casually strolled over, just to see.

The sun streaming in through the vertical blinds,
Lit up a great horror of the holiday kind.
When what to my eyes should appear so bizarre?
A Secret Santa gift to Larry, from Marge in HR.

With ceramic white fur and a Santa Claus hat,
I knew in a moment it was a cookie jar cat.
Poor Larry hadn’t words for the gift he’d received,
So he coughed and he snickered, and he passed it to Steve.

“Now listen! Now look! Now hear my admission!
I sank twenty bucks into this stupid tradition!
A gift card to Starbucks is what I bought Nathan,
And all that I get is this Goodwill donation?”

And then, in a twinkling that seemed quite a pity,
Steve let out a sneeze, and down fell the kitty.
It crashed to the floor and it smashed all around,
And then through the doorway came Marge with a bound.

She was dressed all in red, from her shoes to her hair,
Her sweater emblazoned with holiday flair.
She’d been headed out back for her afternoon smoke,
When she followed the laughter from some sort of joke.

Her eyes - how they widened at the sight of her gift,
Her cheeks were likes roses, her nostrils they sniffed.
From her droll little mouth erupted a roar,
The cigarettes dropped from her hand to the floor.

Her skin was of leather, like a burnt up old elf,
And I laughed when I saw her, in spite of myself!
A wink of her eye and a twist of her head,
Soon gave me to know that she wished I was dead.

She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work,
Salvaging cat pieces, then she turned with a jerk.
“I thought you would like it, not tear it apart!
These jars are exclusive to only Walmart!”

Larry sprang from his desk, his spirit renewed,
Apologized to Marge, and vowed to have it re-glued.
“It was a beautiful gift, full of character and style!
Now please do not mess with my personal file.”

They made their amends and I made my retreat,
To find my own Secret Santa gift left on my seat.
I exclaimed to myself and threw the card in the trash,
“Happy Christmas to me, it’s twenty bucks cash!”

Customer Service 101

Oh, there you are. I’m glad you’re out of your meeting. I had a call come in from a new client! Yes, that one. You’ve been chasing him for over a year now, haven’t you? Well, congratulations! They’ve got a new project starting up and they want us to handle it. I know, it’s unbelievable. So I told him that you were in a meeting and would call him back as soon as possible since we adhere to a “two hour rule.” That’s what you told us about in our customer service training seminar last week. I also thanked him for his patience and assured him that we appreciate his business. Then I told him that you might possibly be a serial killer. I even made sure there was a smile in my voice.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Oh, crap! I forgot to take down his number. I am so sorry. I assumed you already had it, and in between explaining that after work you like to park outside your ex-wife’s house with binoculars and a box of Chinese takeout, I didn’t think to jot it down again just in case. It must be on your desk somewhere though. I’ll help you look for it.

You seem mad. Stressful meeting?

Well you’ll be happy to know that I also asked him if he had any plans for the holidays, just like you taught us during our training seminar last week. “Get to know the clients and make them feel special,” that’s what you said. He told me that he'll be visiting his sister and her kids in San Diego. I told him that you usually spend Christmas Day strung out on bath salts, picking up and dismembering hitchhikers along the interstate.

We should probably add him to our Christmas card list, don’t you think?

Oh, one more thing. He said that after three o’clock you should call him on his cell - ah, geez. I did it again. I forgot to write down his cell number. You know what though? I did get his email address. Just like you requested we do at our customer service training seminar. I told him that if you were unable to return his phone call for any reason, that you would at least send an email as soon as you finished sending photos of yourself to those underage women on Craig's List.

Are you crying? Cheer up! We scored a new client! And if we hadn’t had all that customer service training last week, I may have just put him through to voicemail.

Oh For God's Sake

This is almost as bad as the huge "Comming Soon!" sign I saw outside a shopping plaza last week.

Free Caffeine

Look, free coffee this week!  So when you go through the drive-thru, do you just blow past the first window where you would normally pay?  Or do you stop, wait for the cashier to acknowledge that you're a cheap s.o.b., and then pull up? Maybe it's safer to just go inside.

Boss’s Voice The Absolute Worst, Study Shows

I just noticed this post still sitting in my "Scheduled" folder from May 2011....way to go Blogger.  So here you have it, 16 months later.

 
Introduction

A 2011 double-blind study, conducted by pretty much everybody that has ever worked with you, confirmed that the sound of your voice is, without any margin of error, the absolute worst. While initial results suggested that your voice was somewhat grating on Monday, moderately frustrating on Tuesday through Thursday, vomit-worthy on Friday, and mocked incessantly over beers on Saturday and Sunday, further analysis has concluded that, for real, you should just stop talking. 

Research Method 

The control group, who enjoyed listening to a voice other than yours, continued to live in blissful ignorance of your existence and displayed no desire to bring brass knuckles into the workplace. The experimental group, on the other hand, was subjected to a horrifying, and just plain gross, sequence of longitudinal waves (your voice) that caused auditory discomfort and regular Sunday night sobbing sessions (particularly when the longitudinal waves claimed that they asked for that status report a week ago when all of the test subjects knew damn well that never happened). 

Conclusion 

“An experiment such as this is invaluable to society,” says lead researcher, Vladamir Borscht. “Now, when Boss’s Cell shows up on caller ID, we have the scientific evidence we need to just not fucking answer it.” 

Further studies are needed to determine whether the mere sound of you breathing is enough to kill somebody.

I'm going to need you to work through lunch

Another Sad Day for the Burger King Sign

DIY Fall Frames

Well here they are!

They came out even better than I expected.  I almost bought some cheap sticker letters, but then I saw these wood ones and am so glad I did.  I painted them black, glued them to some scapbook paper, took the glass out of the frames, and that was it.  I also have an "L" last name so I can even keep the L ones out year round.

When Ordering Sandwiches For Your Boss Isn't Fulfilling Enough

Before I had a kid I used to do a lot of scrapbooking.  This was back when I could spend an entire Sunday watching Lifetime movies with a cup of coffee, a glue stick, and a package of stickers that said cool things like "Ho Ho Ho!"  Ironically, now that I have a child whose face could potentially fill 14,000 pages of scrapbooks, I've stopped completely.  I mostly stopped because I no longer had the time.  But I also stopped because while scrapbooks are nice, they usually end up in a box somewhere, never to be looked at again.

But now....now I have a house.  Now I have walls and tables that need to be decorated.  And probably much to my husband's chagrin, the arts & crafter in me lives on.  Don't worry, I won't start knitting sweaters for the lamps or anything like that.  But I did feel that old spark of creative glee when I decided to put together this vintage family photo display a few months ago:

You see, when you work as a secretary the most creative thing that you do all day is locate an address on a Google map.  Sometimes you get to put the word "DRAFT" onto a Word document in block letters.  So you often forget what it feels like to actually enjoy doing something.  Sometimes I get that feeling after I write something that I think is good (so, like, once every four years).  Or sometimes I get it when I'm playing the piano (once every ten years, usually at Christmas).  And I definitely used to get it when wandering the aisles of the craft store.  It's a great feeling - like you just drank four cups of coffee, only you don't have to pee.

And so, long story short, I recently started searching Pinterest for Fall craft ideas (although some would advise against it).   You could spend your entire lifetime just clicking through Martha Stewart projects.  Then, after you die, you would need to have your head cryogenically frozen and re-attached to a robot with pinking shears for hands in order to complete them all.  Anyway, I love this staircase silhouette, though it's way too creepy to have in my own house:

http://www.marthastewart.com/266748/staircase-silhouette-halloween-decoratio

Since I don't want to traumatize my three year old the next time he heads upstairs for a bath, I will instead start with these cute Fall frames from A Diamond in the Stuff:

I will let you know how it turns out.  And if I do start knitting sweaters for the lamps, you can catch me on the next episode of Divorce Court.