Sick Days

Sick days are a near impossibility here at LSS Ltd. The boss makes sure of that. After a sick day (of which you are given three per fiscal year), one is expected to do a 15 minute oral presentation entitled "Why I Took Yesterday Off." It's informal, of course, but the boss always brings it up in conversation first thing in the morning, often requesting full details of the illness.

I took yesterday off due to a severe bout of insomnia (no sleep for 36 hours). This is unacceptable to him as it's not a "real" illness. I know this from experience. So this morning as I began with the daily backup, the dreaded interrogation started.

I told him that I ate something that disagreed with me. I believe my exact wording was "Things were coming out liquid," followed by a brief synopsis of the preceding day's epic bowel movements. Then I explained that driving through 45 minutes of rush hour traffic in a car reupholstered in feces would be unnacceptable.

His phone rang halfway through our conversation. I'll bet he was glad.

DIY: Drive Co-Workers Insane

First, go to an online dictionary and look up the word of the day. Then repeat it out loud no fewer than 10 times (louder than normal speech). Follow this by blatantly misusing the word in conversation.

I reserve this for times when I'm:
a. Really bored.
b. Angry with my co-workers.
c. Uninterested in hearing stories about their computers.

My Desk: A Grand Tour

You can tell a lot about a man's character by the contents of his desk. I think.

1. Pens I've stolen from co-workers.
2. Doodle - "Deathbot 3000"
3. I sketched this on my desk calendar yesterday while M yammered away about his home PC. I don't think he got the point - he visited a few more times later in the day.

4. Bubble wrap - like crack I tells ya.
5. Crumbly Pineapple Cakes. mmmmm
6. Letter opener/prison shiv
7. Key to nowhere. I spent half an hour trying to figure out where it goes. After all that work, I didn't have the heart to throw it out.
8. Paper clip bow (for launching pencils). This was my alternative to Laser Mallet. Laser Mallet won out because I didn't have a pencil sharpener.
9. Sanitary wet napkin. I like to keep one or two of these around considereng all the biohazardous material appearing on my desk lately.
10. Extra large paper clips (hidden in a regular paper clip box). Suckers won't even think to look in there.
11. Misappropriated/Rebranded business cards.
12. Tin of mints (empty).
13. Motivational Ninja vs. Kung Fu Panda.

One of Those Days

Ever have one of those days where you feel the fates are conspiring against you? A day in which interruptions are interrupted by interruptions interrupted by interruptions (my head asplode) therefore making it impossible to accomplish anything? Such was my day.

First thing in the morning, Senor boss man hands me a stack of dusty old binders and tells me to set up beginning balances for our Vancouver branch. Let me remind you, I have little to no training in accounting. I am aware of, but ignorant to these "beginning balances" he speaks of. So I spend half an hour lazily staring at purchases and accounts receivables for the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and One. Reminiscing of those days of my 21st year, of youthful indescretions and when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

Then the mail came, signaling a downturn of events. First, a letter from the phone company. It seems they'd been sending us a discount for Internets which we had discontinued a year and a half ago. They want their money back and they'll break legs to get it. Twenty minutes on hold and they're pacified. But wait. What are these 1-900 chat lines doing on the phone bill? Ah our Vancouver branch employees, I suppose, get a little lonely during office hours. So I spend another 5 minutes on the phone reprimanding them and sending them to their rooms without dinner. These tasks, I would imagine, are well outside of my jurisdiction as I'm pretty sure I signed on as a Systems Administrator when I took on this job. Hmm.

The rest of the morning followed this unhealthy precedent. M had decided to give half hourly reports on his broken home computer, bringing the limp remains of his recently departed CPU fan (I was tempted to give him a shoebox so he could bury it out back) and lamenting Future Shop's warranty policy (he wanted them to cover a DVD-Rom drive he purchased elsewhere).

Lunch hour had its own set of interruptions. Mid pork bun, the receptionist asked if I had any D batteries. She wanted to test some kind of electronic device in her purse. Stifling laughter, I told her no, I didn't. I never found out what it was but only a couple things come to mind that use those batteries. She doesn't seem the type to carry a large flashlight around.

The afternoon pretty much played out as the morning did. Doing work I'm not supposed to be doing. Not doing the work I'm getting paid to do. The only item of note was the lecture I got from the VP regarding beginning balances and how they are set up. My eyes were glazed over and my head was set to nod. I don't recall anything during that period.

I have one week to go. One week and the ball starts rolling. One week.

Contest Prize: Shirt Design

This is part of the prize package!

Hawt?

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It's worth a try

The 25 Year Drought

To conform with standard blog practice, I'm going to write an emo post tonight.

Among my circle of friends, it's a well established fact that there are but three certainties in life:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. My inability to get a date

So for them, I play a constant. A reference point by which they are reminded the horrors of bachelorhood, should they go wayward in their own relationships. That has been my role for the past quarter century.

After much introspection (having no social life gives ample time for that), I've discovered the root of the problem. As the kids say, "I got no game." I figure it's resultant from my two major weaknesses: A pretty smile and a knee to the groin (strangely enough, they go hand in hand). Over the past few years, I've learned that excess preponderence of this condition leads to self doubt, which leads to anxiety, leading to social awkwardness, which then further perpetuates my situation. It usually manifests itself through subtle behavioral tics such as reduced speech capacity, lack of coordination, and an overall creepy disposition.

So if I ask a pretty girl:
"Hey, would you like to go for a coffee?"

It comes out sounding like:
"Hur Hur. Wanna check out my crawl space? you can fit like, 10 bodies in there."
*heavy breathing*

-or-

"Want to take a ride in my trunk?"

-or-

"I love you"

It's not that I'm a bad guy. Or at least I don't think I am. I just get stupid around the ladies.

In a nutshell, the "25 year drought" is the ongoing trainwreck that is my social life. One cannot help but watch with morbid fascination as the carnage unfolds.

Thus concludes my obligatory emo post. Regularly scheduled postings will commence shortly.

Thank you for your patience.

Management