I HATE MY JOB: A Journal Of A Day At The Office

Suddenly, the smell of burnt popcorn circles back through the office.  Must be time for lunch.  I don’t understand how someone could make popcorn for years and continue to burn it everyday.  Maybe we need to peel the onion on that.  Of course, it’s the Executive Vice President.  What a dumbsh*t!  He can’t fax, photocopy or tie his own shoe.  Seriously, I don’t know what he brings to the table.  I pull the trigger on lunch and search through the refrigerator for my sandwich.  I move moldy bread and several Tupperware containers of three month old pasta.  I can’t wait until that fat pasta-eating bastard has a heart attack so I can take his office and become a stockholder.  I reach to the back of the fridge.  Where’s my cheese?  No sandwich.  SONS OF BITCHES!  Somebody must’ve took it and ran with it.  No nooners in the conference room today!  Why can’t they increase the share of their own Goddamn pie?

I go back to my computer.  Suddenly, I’m slammed!  Two new urgent emails to schedule upcoming emails.  Forward Guy forwards me another chain letter.  Hey, send this note to a million people and maybe I won’t strangle you!  I scroll down.  A new memo.  I go to open it and my computer freezes.  Fire-drill!  Great.  I was on the fast track and now this?  I immediately call I.T. Geek to come over.  This little nerd gets paid $100,000 a year just to tell you your computer needs to be shut down and restarted.  “Put your ankles on my shoulders,” he says.  I give him a strange look and get up from my seat.  Clearly, he’s on top of it.  He hits the ground running, fiddles around for three seconds and assures me he has “fixed” the problem.  My computer is now SLOWER than ever!

I finally check the memo that was so urgent.  “Sorry I didn’t get this to you sooner but…”  Apparently, I’ve been requested to attend an office pow-wow A-SAP-tual.  The Flirt is turning forty again.  But, for free cake and seven minutes away from my cube I’ll drink the juice and execute the sh*t out of the “Happy Birthday Song!”

Somehow, the birthday “party” spills over into an impromptu workshop.  The Execute Vice President of meetings drones on and on… “There’s going to be some organizational changes around here.  We need to throw the deck together and leverage our resources so we can continue to add value to this company.  We need to think outside the box and keep raising the bar.  We’re not reinventing the wheel here, people.  We’re going to be powerpointing a new office culture around here to impact the bottomline.  If you have any questions ping me and we can table this issue later at a re-envisioning session…”  I’d like to promote synergy by gathering everyone together and collectively beating his head with a baseball bat.

I tend to zone in and out of these things and often find myself singing, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.”  I then prioritize my thoughts and go forward with, why can’t this roof be on fire?  I guess I’m not a team player.

I return to my desk to assess the bandwidth.  I need to be ramping right now.  I’m finally able to close the loop and do some actual work.  I can’t wait for this weekend’s agenda.  I’m really going to make it pop!  Only four more Goddamn days to go before I can socialize with the fam.  Hopefully, they didn’t overshoot the forecast.  We’re planning on taking the boat out.  We are going after the long-tail.  Time is money.  I’ll stay under budget by going for a jog on the beach with Rufus.  Then, I’ll echo up the food chain and escalate things by teaching my idiot son Mitchell how to drive without killing anyone.  There’s no I in team.  I look up at the clock.  Wow, time flies when you’re f*cking miserable!  I start to get up from my desk - closing time - only to be harrassed by Crazy Cat Lady.  Who put her in charge of office morale?  “Oh, is it 11 PM already?  Looks like somebody’s knocking off early.”

I clock out, pick up my check from the previous week (it’s competitive salary) and leave, only to have to repeat this all over again bright and early tomorrow morning.  As I step out the door somebody yells, “Remember, Friday is Hawaiian shirt day!  Jazz it up!”  Jazz it up! Thank God, I don’t talk like these people. That would be a real Lose-Lose.