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

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copyright 2000 by benjamin wyskida and andrew myatt.

Volume Thirty-Three:
What The Hell is a Crannie? Nook is Generally Better.

Today's Golden Cubicle Award Goes to Mr. Andrew Paul Myatt, of Bethesda, MD:
**The other night I had a dream that I was hanging out in Mike from Budget's office, for some reason. Little by little, a steady stream of motley characters poured in: other co-workers, random friends (including other nettwerkers, interestingly enough), my girlfriend. We all got in circle and started clapping our hands and swaying and singing gospel music. When I got back to the office, my boss asked me where everyone was. I answered sheepishly, "Praising the Lord."**

My new slogan while commuting is: "Crack Whore don't sit next to me."

http://www.askjesus.org

I think my bosses have just been making fun of me. You know something's up when a person walks to the room where you're sitting - but only walks about five feet in - and then goes back to the next room to continue talking. And laughing. What am I, the office eccentric? That's not a good job and I don't want it any more!

http://www.morethanconquerors.simplenet.com/MCF/

Something I learned today: "The Soviet Empire fell, we sent them McDonald's, they started sending us fast-food versions of their Petipa."

I thought of putting a sign on the decaf coffee pot that read "Decaf is for wimps," but I only thought about it; I didn't do it. Then I looked up recipes for Canned Salmon on the internet.

The other day coming home on the metro the nice-looking older gentleman in a business suit sitting next to me started reciting T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" out loud. I decided it was time to switch seats.

I've become addicted to the Otis Spunkmeyer cookies downstairs in the coffee-shop.

Should I really be working for a company when my only true incentive for accurately copying the data down is to avoid the methodologically painful and laborious process of erasing the number?

We do a lot of interlibrary loans of microfilm out of my office. The policy list we send out with each order of film clearly states that no rubber bands are to be used in packaging the film upon return. Needless to say, I have got a huge drawer full of rubberbands which I can never use. Sometimes, in a rage, I take brand new, perfectly good rubber bands and throw them in the trash can, but then I feel guilty because there are so many starving children around the world who don't have any office supplies.

http://snacks.cyberpunks.org/snacks.html

The kids are starting to like me better. I can tell because they come over and beat up on my plant more now. It's lost two branches this week. The most popular counselor here is infamous for her half-dead beaten-down plants.

My coworker keeps nagging me. Every time I leave something incomplete, fully planning to do it later, she notices IMMEDIATELY and nags me about it. I can't scream because she's technically RIGHT, of course, but I feel like I'm working in a fucking panopticon. (For those of you not in the know, the 'panopticon' was Bentham's idea for a perfect prison: inmates are under CONSTANT surveillance and thus modify their behavior accordingly; after awhile, no need for actual constant surveillance because they'll ALWAYS behave as if someone in authority was watching. A very useful concept for commenting on parents, bosses, the government, the media, organized religion and, of course, the Nettwerk Ubermensch.)

www.novia.net/~todd/rap2.html

In lieu of breakfast and lunch today, I ate half a box (the *big* box) of Pepperidge Farm goldfish. Now that it's late afternoon and I feel yucky, I'm thinking that wasn't such a great idea.

Our office really IS haunted.

Volume Thirty Four:
This Sentence Is in English

Todays Golden Cubicle Award Goes to Elizabeth Anne Rose, of Seattle:
**I have been helping the kids at work do their resumes this past week. The toughest one to write came today - one of the kids has absolutely no experience and has never had a job - except for selling crack for which he just got out of prison. So I guess he wasn't that good at it. I don't know what to put on the resume. I haven't decided if this is funny at all or just really sad.**

If stealing government property were not a federal offense, I would now be the proud owner of a PLEASE FLUSH COMMODES sign.

I got on the bus this morning and my bus driver said, "Good morning." I said, "Good morning, how are you?" She answered, "It's Thursday." ...???

http://www.fnwire.com/features/satire-jeevesinterview.html

I just sent an inter-office email which included the following sentence: "According to the 50-B dated 4/2/95, [name] became SES on 4/2/95."

I was falling asleep at my desk all morning, so I ate sugar for lunch.

There's a woman in my office, a white woman, and I've noticed that whenever she is talking to black people she, um....talks black. I'm trying not to be offensive here, but I think you know what I mean. It's not totally blatant or anything, but there's a big difference between the way she talks to Tom than the she talks to, say Yolanda

This morning I was walking down the hall and I heard several female giggles coming from the mensroom. This office might not be as boring as I thought.

I spent all day making fake hotmail accounts with names of people my friends knew, and then sending them e-mails pretending to be from that person. i.e. if someone is dating Bob Smith, register Bob_Smith16@hotmail.com, and then write a letter saying "hey, its Bob. I'm on my new account. You're dumped."

I discussed a recent experience taking ecstasy on the phone with a friend who works for the government. He was worried somebody might be listening, and got all weird. Then we pretended I was talking about something else.

I sent my assistant to a glamorous, $300 a head conference because I felt like sufing the internet all day.

I used the bathroom down the hall, and a woman who works here went into the bathroom after me, lit a scented candle, and then left. Hmmmmmmm.....

My boyfriend taught me a neat way to get into payment-required internet porn sites for free, so I1m trying it out. I just put both phone lines on hold, so if my boss calls the voice mail will pick right up and he1ll think I1m working.

A man wearing a black beret, sunglasses, and a black leather jacket with at least 6 inches of fringe hanging off the arms got on the bus and walked down the aisle nodding to everyone on both sides of him announcing loudly that someone needed to tell a joke. I suppose we weren't entertaining enouugh for him, but he sure as hell was entertaining enough for me.

As an addendum, I stole the candle.

I was trying to think of words I had NEVER said at work. Menstrual came to mind, as did canoodle.

I'm getting really sick of all of this work, and there are way too many scantily-clad gorgeous girls walking past my window. Damn this spring weather. Damn working at a University. I'm bored, horney, and alone in my office. This is a bad combination.

My shit stinks.

Something I learned today: Summary of the short play "In vitro" by Yvan Bienvenue: "Having just killed his girlfriend and her doctor at a Montreal abortion clinic, Francois bursts into a farmhouse kitchen, pumps a shotgun blast into the ghettoblaster playing Christian speed metal music, and demands a Mason jar into which he empties the fetus he has been carrying in a wastepaper basket. This eruption into the lives of Isabelle and Benoit, two Jesus freaks leading a chaste and quiet existence in the countryside, leads to a tense siege and a dramatic exploration of domestic violence, the need for love, and the search for personal fulfillment in the contemporary world. Unfortunately, the search ends with two bloody ax murders..." Perhaps the Ubermensch would like to stage this?

copyright andrew myatt and benjamin wyskida, 2000