Show and Tell, Corporate Style

A girl I used to work with (that’s right she up and quit) once told me a story about her prior place of employment (she sounds so fickle doesn’t she, moving jobs so often). She said that they had a company newsletter which included a “share your story” section. Employees were asked to send inspiration success stories so that others could read them and feel good about themselves and the company. It made me nauseated. I mean really, not only do I have to feign niceness to everyone’s face but I now I have to write a story for you all, too? No thanks. I do have to admit though that by “sharing her story” this ex-employee did make me feel better about my job, because I don’t have to share my story with anyone.

Fast forward 6 months. I have to share my story. I have a team meeting once a week and it’s now a requirement that we go around the room and say what cool, fun, interesting, exciting, earth-shattering, ground breaking things we are working on. Wait, are you asking me to tell you what I do every say (besides this blog)? Super.

This is how the meetings have been going:
Person 1: Let’s see, this week I created fire. So that was Monday. Then I continued to spend the rest of the week saving the planet from evil destruction. Oh, and cured cancer in the meantime.
Person 2: Ididalotthisweekiwasverybusyididalottherewasallthistuffididbusybusybusy (some people don’t like to talk in front of groups).
Person 3: Wow! This week was so totally amazing. I had a super fun time working with all my team members to further my ultimate goal and make a really positive impact on the company. !!
Person 4: Ummmmm, let’s seee, ok so thisssss week I mvaeipfjmibhihiehi (slow talker)

You get the idea. There are 13 people on the team and last week the meeting took an HOUR AND A HALF. I hope by sharing this story you all feel empowered to never share yours.

Low Blood Sugar Ponderings

Whatever happened to Popples?

A Fan of Becoming a Fan

When you’re stuck in a cage all day you have to find small, mindless tasks to amuse and distract yourself. One of those ways is this blog, and a more popular way is checking face book obsessively every 3 minutes, waiting for people to status update. My favorite thing is when someone who doesn’t update often posts something, because I sort of forgot they were my friend and that reminds me to go to their profile and check every single one of their pictures and read all their info and infer things about theirs lives even though we probably haven’t spoken in years.

Actually, I lied. My favorite thing is when one of these stalking adventures leads me to someone else who HAS A PUBLIC PAGE. Finding a public page is like winning the lottery, both unexpected and exhilarating. When I find a public page of someone I knew once upon a time I get lost in the moment and have to pull myself away. Like right now...

But that’s not what all this is about. What this is about is the complete and utter abuse of fan pages. I mean really? 3 of your friends are fans of sleeping! 4 of your friends are fans of sunshine! 7 of your fans are friends of breathing! Why do poeple feed the need to become a fan of something obvious and necessary for our survival? And then I start to wonder about myself, how did I become friends with these people? Apparently I’m a fan of becoming friends with unoriginal and easy amused people. Seriously, you need to tell everyone that you’re a fan of I hate Douchebags? That’s so weird because I looove douchebags. Oh, and to those 3 people (you know who you are), God does not need a fan page.
Humans in Cages likes this.

Overheard at the Water Cooler

If my flip flops have rhinestones on them, does that make them work appropriate?

The Mystery of the Aerosol Glue

Warning: This story may contain information or images that could be frightening.


In order to make posters, which we do frequently here, we use a product called spray mount which is basically aerosol glue. At any given time our designers might have 15 to 20 cans in his office.



One dark and stormy morning, we came in and all the cans were gone. Missing overnight. An email was sent to the team.
Designer: Did anyone take the spray mount? All of the cans are gone.
One by one, people replied: no.
Where did they go then, they couldn’t just get up and walk away? Did we have a thief on our hands? At that moment, I got up and opened the door to my office. Lightning lit the hallway and standing there I saw them, the CEOs two young boys, arms full with spray mount cans. They looked at me with a gleam in their eye and took off running. I ran into the designers office and threw open the door. “I have cracked the case! I know who the culprits are!” I relayed my story to the designer who nodded and smiled. Alas, this information was no help as these were the children of the CEO and they basically owned us. They were in control. We wondered aloud what they could possibly be doing, surmised that they were probably huffing and dropped the issue.

Three days later I was skipping down the hallway and singing to myself when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I slowed down and walked over to the dark corner in the back of the building and that’s when I saw it - them. There they were, rows and rows of stuffed animals all glued into oblivion and left to rot in their pet cemetery. The boys had not been huffing the glue after all; they had been using it to glue all of their stuffed animals that were now just a mess of tufts of fur and ears sticking out. I stifled and scream and backed away from the graveyard. I numbly went and told the designer. We agreed that some things just should not be messed with and the stuffed animals were too far gone, we couldn’t save them. We left them there and never said a word to anyone or went back to visit the site. I can only hope they did not suffer. And hey, at least the boys weren’t huffing.

Low Blood Sugar Ponderings

Why do we have to keep pretending that twitter is useful?

This Just Makes Me Sad

Wow, super fun ways to add flora and fuana to the cage:

MSN Article

When I think of summer, I often dream of lounging barefoot in my front yard with a good book or great friends nearby. To recreate the summer sensation of a beautiful front yard with the grass between my toes, I decided to bring my yard to my desk. Because real grass is unsuitable and astro-turf only reminds me of a putting green, I discovered DreamTurf to cover the floor of my cubicle. Their synthetic turf looks and feels like real grass, but with no watering, fertilizing, or mowing required!

Countdown to fun? Astroturf in the cube?? A "garden" on my desk??? I'm not making this up, this was a featured story on MSN.
MSN Article

Overheard at the Water Cooler

"I should not know more about her intestines then I do my own."

Umm, Pandora? How do I tell you this…

I really love that I can listen to music at work. I’m not even being facetious; it actually makes me very happy. I used to moonlight as a sales rep where that wasn’t really an option, what with being on the phone all the time, and this is one of the The Little Things I have not taken for granted.

My platform of choice is Pandora (I mean, no of course I don’t listen to streaming music at work!). I can tell them what I like and they just spit out songs like it, I mean how genius! When a song comes on I hate I have no qualms about giving it the major thumbs down, I even feel satisfaction in it. “There, Pandora, I dare you to play that artist again. See how fast I thumbs down it.”

Recently though I’ve noticed something. When a song comes on I used to like but I’ve gotten sick of, or I think I should like, I feel like I can’t say no. I’ll skip through it and hover my mouse over the menacing thumb down but the guilt takes over and I leave it alone. Oh, Dave Matthews, we shared so many good times in high school. Remember when we got so drunk at that party when Kathy’s parents were away? Or, hey –it’s Coldplay! I mean, everyone loves Coldplay! What’s not to love about Coldplay? The truth is, I’m so sick of Dave Matthews and I really don’t love Coldplay. It was so easy turning on Jack Jackson and his bubbly toes, why can’t I let go of Smashing Pumpkins? Pandora, why am I so scared to tell you that? You’ve never judged me before; you always make it so easy and just do the things I like. I'm just afraid you won't love or respect me any more, and I can't live with that. You mean so much to me. So until I come to peace with myself, we’re both stuck with Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Just a Thought

Your bicycle in not faster than my car so stop cutting me off.

Low Blood Sugar Ponderings

If I walk around the parking lot at lunch, does that take the place of going to the gym?

The Kitchen is Stressful (especially in the morning)

Ok so here’s the thing, I like to have coffee and breakfast at work when I get in. I know I could do this at home in the privacy of my own apartment but due to The Dreaded Commute it seems best that I make every effort just to get to the office and then I can worry about the rest of it.

So every morning I get in, turn on my computer and go to the kitchen for coffee. PEOPLE IN MY OFFICE: please let me explain something to you. I enter the kitchen to make coffee and it’s VERY, VERY difficult to talk to any of you without consuming coffee. This is where being invisible would be very helpful. I try to get in and out with the least amount of human interaction but inevitably, this happens:

Me: (pouring coffee)
Person Standing There: Hiiii!! How are you??
Me: Fine. You?
Person Standing There: Goooood, good. Gosh this weather is so crazy, right? I mean, it’s soooo hot out there
Me: Yeah, I know
PST: I think it might rain later. Did you hear that? Did you hear if it was going to rain or not later?
Me: Um, I’m not sure. (Looking out the window) it does look like it might rain.
PST: Ugh yeah. Ugh, I hate rain.
Me: (reaching behind PST for milk) ‘scuse me.
PST: Oops! Sorry! So, did you see that email yesterday about alkmvlzxckmoksdhgiowhnvhivokerngi (I’m sure those were real words, it’s just that I hadn’t had COFFEE yet so I can’t UNDERSTAND them).
Me: ummm
PST: I mean, crazy right?
Me :Crazy (backing away slowly towards door). Ok, well have a good day!
PST: Yeahhh, yeah you too!!

Don’t even get me started on the scene around lunchtime.