Flying Low

Whoever designed my new pair of pants didn't properly compensate for gravity as my fly always seems to settle at half mast. I gave up on correcting the situation early this afternoon. So for every time a co-worker tells me "psst, hey buddy, you're flying low." I look down, say "Oh! so I am" and continue on with my business, leaving my pants region well ventilated.

Does that bother them? You betcha. I figure it plants a feeling of unease much like seeing a crooked picture frame or having "to be continued..." pop up on the screen right when a TV show gets interesting. A feeling that all is not right with the world. A feeling that requires some sort of closure. And the longer it stays to percolate, the worse it becomes. That's my theory anyway.

So if my theory serves correctly, it starts off as a small subconscious thought like "Hmm. Odd guy, that one."

Leading to the next thought: "Doesn't...Doesn't he know that's not right?"

Then "It's still down. What the hell is wrong with him?"

Then [blind rage doesn't convey well in the written medium]

I'm half expecting M and a couple of his cronies to ambush me after work to zip me up.

Spam

I opened up Outlook to check the company mail first thing this morning and to my horror, this screen popped up:

Of those, only three emails were from legitimate customers.

I googled up a handy spam cost calculator that suggests our company is losing $2275 per annum in employee productivity as a result of all this spam. I would disagree. Spam is costing me $2275 per annum in lost time with my gameboy.

Anyway, this stack of junk mail got me thinking. If I were to use spam as a measure of humanity (I consider its existence a function of society), then I would be led to believe that people are unhealthily fixated on the following items:

1. Fake Rolexes.
2. Bukkake, specifically from Bukkake barns
   
3. Absconding funds from Nigeria (my finger is pointed directly at you Mrs. Mariam Abacha, wife of the late Gen. Sanni Abacha).
4. Christian Mortgages (I'm partial to those of the secular variety myself).
   
5. Prego teens engaged in activities that got them in that state in the first place (wrong wrong wrong).
6. Male enhancement pills.
7. Housewives.
   

There must be a sizeable market for these products otherwise they wouldn't continue advertising them... right?

Training Day

I'm starting to think that I didn't make myself clear when I said I was leaving in mid January. I'm pretty sure I did. I've been leaving my flight itinerary, lonely planet guides and maps around my office to drive the point home (I make passive aggression an artform). I even confirmed my departure date over the phone during my lunch hour last week. Loudly, might I add. For all to hear. So why, for the love of God, aren't we taking the new computer guy's training seriously?

It was his first day of training today but all he did was sit on his thumbs (the boss wanted me to work on the accounting program instead of training him). To his credit, the new guy did make a valiant effort by pretending to work. He spent much of the afternoon typing random numbers in notepad and clicking refresh repeatedly on Outlook Express.

By day's end, I was told to get him working on the accounting application as well. That's right. They want me, a non-accountant to teach a non-accountant how to do accounting. I wonder what our accountant gets paid to do then.

The New Recruit

The boss decided over the weekend that he really wants to go to Mexico. Like, on Thursday. So we had to hire my successor. STAT!

We called up a guy at 9:00, interviewed him at 10:00 and hired him at 10:30. He starts tomorrow.

What the hell just happened?

Foiled!

Well, that plan worked out better on paper.

The filing cabinet muffled out most of Hung's atrocious voice but left enough of the instrumental backing to keep the receptionist happy. Bah! I'll have to come up with a new way to steal Christmas.

If It's Christmas Music They Want...

I think I've established that the receptionist lurvs herself some Christmas music. I think I've also established that I don't share her opinion on this matter. Regardless, the office's democratic procedure has decided that the radio stays on, Christmas spirit and all.

Since it's something I have to endure, I might as well have some fun with it.

Here's the plan. I've charged up my mp3 player and loaded it up with William Hung's "Hung for the Holidays" album. I'm just a couple of button presses away from setting it on "random repeat." I'm going to show up a couple of minutes early tomorrow morning and rig it up to the office radio. The whole setup will be locked away safely in my filing cabinet and cranked to "acceptable office levels." I haven't decided whether I'll sing along too (surprisingly, singing brings out my accent). I'll probably just hide out in the server room for most of the day. The player is rated for 10 hours of battery life and the workday is 9 hours. This has potential for awesome.

I imagine this breaches the Geneva Convention on so many levels.