The @-Work Nettwerk
Mundane Tasks and Capitalist Pig-Dog Commands

---

Intro Page Previous Installment Next Installment

Volume Nineteen:
Violently Happy

Today's Installment is in response to Andy Myatt's suggestion that we have a positive @-work nettwerk to show that we aren't all trapped in a sad abyss of post-graduate drudgery. The question was posed, "What do you like about your job?"

In response to your responses: OKAY, OKAY, FINE! I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE POSITIVE FOR ONCE. You have reaffirmed my faith in cynicism.

Today's Golden Cubicle Award Goes to Bradley Sroka, who writes: *Things I like about my job? I don't like my job. *

I like it when I have to make big stacks of copies, and then when you take them off the tray and they're all done, they're really nice and warm. But then it makes me sad to think that all these trees are dying just for these useless booklets that no one reads. but then, after that, I get to use the binding machine and that's kind of fun because I feel like I work in a factory in the 50's or something (that's how old this thing looks) and I imagine all this great 50's educational documentary music playing in the background. (doo doo doo dee doo doo doo doo...) "and that's how your meeting booklets are made, boy and girls! so next time you are at a meeting, enjoying your booklet, just remember all the hard-working men and women that made it possible!" (...doo doo doo dee doo doo doo doo doo...) "and it was all done right here in the great U.S. of A!"

One thing I like about my job is that all the television I now watch as a direct result of work-related intellectual atrophy gives me a better understanding of what constitutes entertainment for the masses. Let them watch "Friends," she said...

I may not like my job, but today my supervisor growled and barked at people as he walked, then told me to stop following him. I like that; it's funny.

Volume Twenty:
If Y2K Kills People, I Hope It Kills Martha Stewart First

An important announcement from the ubermensch: In response to overwhelming citizen outcry (we are a democracy here at the nettwerk) I have come to realize that I probably should have given the Golden Cubicle Award to Elizabeth Botten two issues ago, but I was trying to balance long entries with short entries and so it was strategically places elsewhere. Now, for those who STILL cry for Vanessa Williams and the 1984 Miss America Pagent Tragedy, don9t weep for Jenny Jones: She will retain her prize. Today, however, here and now, I humbly reprint Elizabeth Botten9s entry, and declare the first ever "Retroactive Co-Golden Cubicle Award"

*The Christmas decorations have gone up, the Secret Santa names have been chosen, and the office is a buzz with holiday cheer. The primary task at hand now is planning for the upcoming Christmas party. However, since the eggnog will not be spiked I don't think there will be another moment like the one that occured at a recent going away party: Ms. X walked into the conference room, took one look at the platter of feta cheese and said, no joke, "That looks like my yeast infection." When Ms. Y said, "What!?!" Ms. Z--whose primary language, it should be pointed out, is not English, and who has not grasped some of the finer points of American idomatic expressions--said, "Ms. X has a pussy problem."*

Today's Golden Cubicle Award Goes To Ms. Elizabeth Ann Rose, of Seattle, Washington, who may or may not have been raised up in Compton:
**I had to go into the buildings next door to my office -- a laundromat and a parole office -- because someone parked in the lot we share had left their headlights on. The parole office was rather nice. It was the laundromat that creeped me out. There was a man standing in his shirt with no pants or underwear on - doing his wash. I guess he really ran out of stuff to wear this morning.**

I often go outside on break to have a cigarette and stand in the sun, enjoying the limited daylight that a Minnesota winter allows. Today, I looked up at the sun and just thought the dumbest thing: "Hey, neat, the sun is full."

For all the lady @werkers: http://www.restrooms.org/standing.html

Today my pregnant co-worker Thao asked me if I would be her partner for her labor/birthing class. Apparently, her husband claims not to have enough time.

Yesterday, my bus was late. I stood and waited for it. The painful irony here is that it does not do the same for me.

This will likely be meaningless to anyone who does not work in accounting - please bear with me: I HATE INTRA-INSTITUTIONAL BILLING! I HATE INTRA-INSTITUTIONAL BILLING! I HATE INTRA-INSTITUTIONAL BILLING! I HATE INTRA-INSTITUTIONAL BILLING! I HATE INTRA-INSTITUTIONAL BILLING! Thank you for your patience.

My office building has three floors. I got on the elevator at the second floor but I was only going up to the third floor. There was someone else on the elevator when I got on. I started thinking about how lazy I must have appeared, taking the elevator when I was only going one floor. So, when we got off at the third floor I tragically limped away, as if I were hurt.

I was driving past the community bank yesterday and their public service sign (the kind with movable type) said, "Buckle up or eat ass."

Does anyone else ever notice how in public bathrooms, there is often a collection of toilet paper circling the toilet, as if a previous occupant collected items from their environment (i.e. toilet paper, hand soap, paper towels) to build a nest in the stall, but left it to find a more suitable home? Pretty weird.

Oh shit. I just remembered that it's not my job to surf the web all day. I have like two weeks of work to account for. I don't think they'll like honesty in this situation. I know I wouldn't. This is what they get for teaching us to bullshit instead of how to be productive people during our college years. Since I work in a university, it's actually their fault, not mine. I feel better now. Oh yeah, they also taught us how to rationalize anything.

I like the kids at my work. They are a never ending source of amusement for me. Last week, one of my students set his eyebrows on fire during my class. He was trying to make the flame on his lighter really tall, but it wasn't lighting, so he bent over it to look inside to see what was wrong, tried to light it... and singed his eyebrows and a few hairs.

I've been wanting to send in this movie, and I finally found it. Pretty much sums it all up I think: http://www.hudz18.freeserve.co.uk/badday.mpg

One really cool thing about working with a bunch of hoodies is that I am privy to all of the latest gangsta lingo. Some of my favorites: Hella - adj. a lot, really, very, "hell of a": Damn, yo these kids are hella short. There hella people livin'in New York. Trippin - v. talkin' shit, out of your mind, off your rocker, you wish. You're hella trippin' if you think I"m gonna pick dat up, yo. Tight - adj. cool, hip. Man, that movie is tight.

I just sent my hoodies virtual crack. I hope I don't get fired.

So, uhm, if you wave a large knife at a coworker one morning, and later tell him to put his headphones on and stop laughing at you... but do this in a purely GOOD NATURED and LIGHT HEARTED way... what does that mean?

I came up with another brilliant performance art piece. Today I began referring to my cubicle as my "cell" and will pick up prison fatigues, the black and white striped ones, to don each and every day at work. I figure, it's lame but at least it gives me something interesting to do. I think I'd rather break rocks than enter data, anyway.