Five Things That Drive Me Nuts About My Office

This post applies to the things that drive me nuts that happen in any communal work setting. Inefficiency and lack of accountability are infuriating tolerances around my place of business that will have to wait for another day.

Mice/Rats roaming the office

We have recently experienced visitors running throughout our building as if they own the place. And as most of find them dirty and repulsive they have made attempts to control the problem. However being in one of the “politically correct” capitals of the U.S. apparently they are trying to eliminate them humanely. That is not by killing them? Or is it? I’m not sure which. This is because the first time around they set out a bunch of glue traps all over the place. Great. But how is catching the little critters and letting them struggle to get away to death more humane than a snap trap that instantly kills them? Then they but out a second round of traps that I’m not sure what they are so I don’t know if they are meant to kill them or meant to be a mechanism of catch and release. Release where? Another building? The sewer? Some other place of infestation? Needless to say we still have a problem that has been going on for months and I don’t project them going away anytime soon. I’m in favor of letting some cats loose in there.

Disgusting community refrigerators

So we all have had varying degrees of shared refrigerators in the work place. Although recently addressed at my current work place due to the conglomeration of about 4 or 5 refrigerators in one break room producing a toxic stench that do doubt kept the aforementioned rats and mice away, many of us can relate to having to share a refrigerator at work with people that think it is their own personal trashcan that somebody else will clean out.

Terrible email etiquette

Everyone gets the email messages that go out to the whole building or to a specified large group of people. Invariably, someone will reply to all with a question or comment that really only the sender needs to see. We get an email everyday that the “Taco Truck” is here. This applies to just about every place of business in Austin; it’s part of the culture I guess. Anyways so one person sends it out which I just directed email from him to my trashcan so I could stop getting infuriated. If I wanted to get fat like everyone else there I’d know when the taco guy arrived and be the first in line to gorge myself. The problem is when this guy is out of the office, someone else is sure to step in to tell the whole building that he’s here!!! And I’m infuriated all over again.

Lesson one: DON’T REPLY TO ALL IF ALL DON’T NEED TO BE REPLIED TO!

Lesson two: MAKE A LIST OF PEOPLE THAT WANT TO BE NOTIFIED EVERYDAY OF THE TACO MAN AND NOTIFY ONLY THEM!!!

Lesson three: If you think it will piss me off because it was unnecessarily sent to me don’t send me the email. I’m so tempted to “reply to all” and say that every time it happens.

Lesson four: All Caps is really inappropriate for an email. So is red unless you are responding to questions asked in the body of the email and you need to differentiate your answer from their question. Red All Caps are always inappropriate.

Out of control b-day celebrations

Everyone likes to feel special, but not everyone cares about their birthday or being the center of attention. Some of us just like ice cream. That doesn’t mean that a mandatory singing of the Happy Birthday Song has to accompany the cake and ice cream does it? No one can sing well anyways, so what’s the point? If singing is mandatory, I’d rather skip it all together and just celebrate with my family like normal people. But I do conveniently show up late now so that the singing is hopefully done in time for me to line-up for the ice cream. How anti-social of me right???

Cards sent around to sign with checklist of everyone in dept

We randomly get a manila envelope passed around with a card inside and a checklist of everyone in the office to check their name off and pass it on to someone who hasn’t checked their name off. Sometimes they ask for money for a gift. At least they can’t tell if YOU gave money or not. Sometimes they don’t even tell you who the card is for? So you want me to sign a card for someone I don’t know? What if I don’t like them? Or what if they hate me and seeing my signature would do them in? (Dramatic I know, since I don’t have any mortal enemies that I know of at the office). Still why don’t you just put the card in a central location and send out the dreaded mass email letting us know it’s there if we want to sign? As long as no one “replies to all” asking a stupid question, it’s an appropriate use of email in my book.

Lola's Corner - From Sweet Little Puppy to Big Giant Poo Poo Head

Lola's taking a much deserved night off. Since she didn't get any new pics to share with you all, we decided to share some of the best of pics of her life starting when she came home to recently.

Send Lola your favorite pet pics to lolafrog@gmail.com. Enjoy..

Venice Part 2

So these are more pictures of Venice outside of the square. I hope you enjoy.

If you ever go to Venice, I highly recommend wandering through the streets. They call it getting lost, but you can't really get completely lost as you will usually see some kind of sign directing you to either the main canal or the shore. I just don't remember how they are labeled, but you can figure it out.

This is the overhead view of where you'll "get lost."

well..no venice today

So for some reason I can't upload my pictures. I've done all the troubleshooting they suggest, none of which fixed the problem. So Venice part 2 will have to wait for another day.

So I will leave you with this.

If an idiot consistently makes idiotic statements, should he be aborted? Or is it too late? Does his mother have to make that decision? Or can his coworkers? Who's responsibility is it to inform him of his inappropriate idiocy? Can he at least be the poster-person for mandatory birth control?

http://sunshineinsight.blogspot.com/2008/05/mandatory-birth-controlwhat-concept.html

For those of you that haven't read it. Check it out.

The Inner Struggles of a Closet Hypochondriac

Just what is a closet hypochondriac? Those of you that can relate to the title alone know exactly what I’m talking about. To me, a closet hypochondriac is someone whose logic tends to overrule his or her irrational fears so that no doctor would ever label them a hypochondriac. I hope that others that are in the closet about this can rest assured that they aren’t alone and hopefully embrace it from a humorous perspective.

Those of you that can’t relate may now be asking yourselves, just what inner struggles could they possibly have? Well it’s simple, every time something new comes up that causes us to worry, which we logically know is irrational worry, nonetheless we worry. We then struggle with whether or not to go to the doctor. If we go to the doctor, they are going to tell us nothing is wrong, and we fear worse that we will be laughed at once we leave or labeled a hypochondriac in our chart. AHHHH!!! Not that!!! That’s where our logic kicks in and we choose not to go to the doctor. But after we’ve made that choice, we can’t stop worrying that something really IS wrong and this is the one time we really SHOULD have it checked out by a doctor, because if we wait TOO long, it will be TOO late and there will be nothing they can do. This is our internal struggle.

For me, my terminal disease of choice is cancer. If I see a bump on my hand that wasn’t there before, that I don’t know how it got there, it’s probably cancer. Or I’m going to worry that it is until it goes away. I’ve struggled with various back pain most of my life in one area. But I know how to treat and prevent pain on that side of my back. However, if I have pain on the other side of my back that logically I know feels like I strained a muscle, and it just needs time and perhaps ice and heat, I still worry that it’s cancer. Every time I get a new freckle somewhere on my body, I worry it’s cancer. I often have random bruises pop up on my body that I can’t pinpoint how they got there, so I worry I could have cancer. Even though I have a terrible depth perception problem which causes me to run into doorways, walls, or anything else in my way simply because I misjudge the distance they are from my body. Logically I know this is probably how one of these unknown bruises came about so I don’t bother going to the doctor freaking out. But I still wonder in the back of my mind sometimes until it goes away and I forget about it.

I thought I read somewhere once that the two most common diseases feared by hypochondriacs are cancer and MS. I’m sure there are other diseases feared out there. Please feel free to share your closet hypochondriacal disease of choice with the rest of us. It’s great therapy to get it off your chest. We won’t judge you. We might laugh in sympathy. But your choice to control yourself is highly respected. Humor is a great way to deal with a neurosis like this.

You know what the problem is, the Internet. Every time I get some new “symptom,” I have to go to the Internet and look it up. Cancer is always the first thing that pops up. Which is probably why cancer is the disease of choice. Everything is a potential symptom for cancer. What are we supposed to do about that? If we live long enough, won’t we all get cancer? Of course if I’m 90 and diagnosed with it, that’s ok. I just don’t want to be diagnosed with untreatable, terminal cancer at 30.

You see, what we should all fear are sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea (what a terrible name), herpes, AIDS, and the dreaded “warts.” All terrible diseases, but medical science has come so far that you don’t really need to worry about them nearly as much as you did 10 or 15 years ago or more, because there are cures, or effective treatments. You should fear the stigma attached with having to tell your potential spouse that you had syphilis or gonorrhea. You should be ashamed. That’s what we should all fear, not cancer. But cancer, while it’s not always a death sentence, is still killing people every day at all ages. It’s so unpredictable from person to person. And there are so many different kinds of cancer.

Thus the inner struggle continues. As long as logic always wins out to dictate when we do and don’t go to the doctor, we’ll all be ok. Just have a sense of humor about the fact that you’re a closet hypochondriac like me. There’s no shame in it.