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.

The Dreaded Commute

So, I live in Boston and my office is located inconveniently in a suburb about 45 minutes away. This means a lot of quality time in the car signing to radio and talking to myself. Occasionally, the commute becomes extended because I get stuck behind a tractor. Yes, an f-ing tractor.

Today, the commute became extended because I got stuck behind a school bus. Now, I don’t mean to date myself and be all, when I went to school we walked five miles without shoes, but I did walk to the end of my lengthy street to the stop where all the kids on the in the neighborhood waited together. This is not the case anymore and I really think we need to revisit the current bus route. The. Bus. Stops. Every. Two. Feet. I’m not even kidding. I’m talking 4 separate houses on a half mile street. I don’t think we’re giving these kids enough credit, I think if given the chance they would prove that they can, indeed, walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course, it only added to my annoyance that I had to wait for a boy to take his sweet time getting on the bus, walk all the way to the back and sit down and make faces at me through the window. Punk.

Overheard at the Water Cooler

"I don't think people apply for jobs in the summer, so we won't post the open positions until Fall"

The Company Softball Game: An Introduction

Every summer the company hosts an annual softball game and BBQ. They try and play it off like it’s a fun relaxing day to spend wonderful quality time with your co-workers. It’s not, I assure you.

At our meeting today a new manager at work, Jan, asked if we the marketing department would be competing, and suggested forming a marketing team. The can of worms was opened. We reluctantly informed her you cannot do this because there is, in fact, a draft. Captains are chosen and then there is a draft of everyone signed up to play. I know what you’re thinking, become a captain yourself and stack the teams but that’s why we have the commissioner to regulate. You heard me. So the teams are drafted and everyone shows up for the big day. Every year the HR department tries to convince the new people that this is a fun low-key event and those people sign up and end up leaving the game in tears, or worse a stretcher. In recent years I can recall a full on blow-out fight in the middle of the field over a mistake in the rules, the batting order sheet ripped up because it “wasn’t good enough”, a man 3 days away from retirement being taken away in a stretcher for knee surgery, and of course hysterics of lower-level employees who fear being fired over a missed out.

So one by one everyone informs Jan that no, they will not be playing. Except Gregg of course (Mr. Manshower), he’ll be representing. So Jan wants us to think of something peppy and “market” him if you will. Perhaps we should all wear matching t-shirts with Gooooooo Marketing! and other funny slogans. Or hats even, team M. But then we decide we don’t look good in t-shirts and hats mess up your hair. So maybe we should make signs like bizzar-o, out of shape, B-squad cheerleaders. Ding ding ding! I think we have a winner. The plans are really still in the beginning stages and the game is still a month away. More to come…

The Man Shower

Not too long ago, my boss got pregnant and we threw her a baby shower. It went exactly how you think it went. We got a cake and each had to contribute to the donation pool so that we could wrap up a gift card to target and a stuffed teddy bear we all ooh and ahhed at as she opened them. There was a balloon and (more) pizza and a lot of small talk about diapers and the joys of children. It was…fine. Perfectly adequate.

So, a few weeks later we realize that Gregg, one of the guys in the department, has a wife expecting and we haven’t done anything. Well, that’s set the busybody Tiffany into action to put together THE MAN SHOWER. The outlook meeting request just said man shower with a winking emoticon and since I’ve never been to one, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turns out, it consists of a donation to the gift pool for a gift card and a teddy bear, some cake, (even more) pizza, and maybe a balloon. Now, I may not be the most observant, but this looked suspiciously similar to the baby shower. No beer or chicken wings like I had envisioned, in fact one woman came over to me and had the same conversation about diapers and the joy of children. What a sham. Man shower indeed.