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

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copyright 2000 by benjamin wyskida and andrew myatt.

Volume Thirty Five:
ILOVEYOU

Todays Golden Cubicle Award Goes to Sarah Loff, of the nations capitol:
**One of the bosses cleaned out his office and tossed just about everything - business cards, files, software, office supplies, the whole lot. I keep thinking I'll walk by one day and see him sitting there in the corner of an empty room with holes in the walls and wires dangling from the ceiling, like Gene Hackman at the end of "The Conversation," except he'll be playing a flute there in the dark instead of a tenor sax.**

I'm having these weird eye spasms.

To: All Staff
From: The Management
RE: Instructions for removing the pole up your ass for your review:
1) From a squatting position grasp pole firmly. (Note: It is advisable that you use both hands).
2) Give it a hard yank.
Please ask your supervisor if you have any questions.

Do you ever walk past someone in the office and wonder: "How can someone that looks so clean smell so bad?"
I do.

See Elliott Smith pout. I hate him. Job is generally dull.

As my co-worker and I--we are both white by the way--were waiting a very long time for the elevator I mused out loud to no one in particular, "Wuz up when we're tryin' to go down," with a ghetto-flavored accent. Just as I said this a black woman got off the elevator and looked at me as if I were insane. I guess the lessons of the @werk network vol. 34 (This sentence is in English) were lost on me today.

I almost lost my entire organizations website, only to find the zip disk nestled peacefully next to the toilet two hours later.

So the really sad thing is, even though I'm unemployed and have absolutely nothing to do all day, I still wear a variant of the same outfit for several days in a row.

Instead of the ILOVEYOU virus, I thought about sending the I WANT TO SHOVE MY FIST UP YOUR ASS virus, but I din1t think that anyone would open their mail.

I took part in the Carnival Against Capitalism on May Day and all I have to show for it is glitter adhered to my scalp. I decided it looks like fairy dandruff but I don't think anyone will really find it enchanting.

After waiting with bated breath for my temp agency to ask if I speak Spanish (I don't, they didn't), I accepted a position today with "latino.com."

Do you ever have trouble keeping your contempt/hatred of your job from seeping over to your feelings about your coworkers?
I do.

If you change your desktop appearance font to Comic Sans MS, work becomes a helluva lot funnier.

Yesterday my co-worker was sent the "I Love You" virus. I actually felt jealous that no one had sent me an "I love you" message.

Every time I start to feel a little crazy at work, I look up at a macrami ALF (from the T.V. show) that a friend gave to me to see just how crazy I can really get.

Volume Thirty Six:
Hot, Sweaty, Summery Moist Beef!!!

There has been no nettwerk in weeks, I know. (busy busy...) so there are so many entries I couldnt pick a golden cubicle winner. Thus, I deny you. The power of being ubermensch!!!

My boss quit today.  Now what?

I wasn't sent the "I Love You" message, but I did get an e-mail titled "Will you please have sex with me?" from "Rhonda" a "19-year-old college coed" inviting me to visit her website.

My co-worker and I were forced to go to Sexual Harassment training last week. It wasn't completely useless, however.  Now I can sexually harass members of the @work netwerk listserve like a pro.  For example:
Ben:  Get over here and (*#*$*#(%&@ my (%)#*@#*&%) then (%@#&$(%*&@  me, or you are fired. 
Andy:  Why don't you bend over and show me how nicely you fill out those chinos.
Brad Sroka:  Are you a natural blonde? 

Last week, I lost my voice the very same day that I was supposed to start training my replacement.  Now there's a sitcom episode in the making!

We also watched an educational video at sexual harassment training.  Let me set the scene for you:  A woman is bending provocatively over her desk, a basket of assorted bakery items is set to her left.  Her boss comes up behind her remarking, "Nice buns," right as he takes a whopping bite of a big ole' sticky bun.  This is the kind of education not even a top-notch liberal arts college can provide. 

This moring I sliced my finger open on my desk, and knowing my boss has a healthy supply of band-aids I innocently opened her top right-hand drawer. There I found, not only a rich assortment of Lion King and Looney Toons bandages, but also a voo-doo doll. . .with pins stuck in it. 

In all my wildest dreams, I never imagined the heights one could achieve through temping -- I now hold the highest scores (on all three levels) on minesweeper in FOUR different offices in the city of Seattle!

I gave myself a white-out french manicure today.

There are two doors leading into the bathroom in our office building.  However, only the outside door is connected to a mechanism that will allow handicapped persons to open them.  Someone has been continually shutting the inside door, and I have been continually opening it so if the woman on our floor, who is in a wheelchair, has to pee the odds that she can get OUT of the bathroom are in her favor.  I also hate touching the germy door handle with clean hands, but I digress.  While I was in there the other day, some woman came in and shut the door.  On my way out, I opened it.  I had made it as far as the hallway when I heard her yell, "Goddamn."  I turned around, she looked at me and said, "I thought so" and slammed the inner door.

http://www.stinkymeat.net

On Friday the  "big boss" came in for the day. I was told I could not play on the internet or read and had to "look busy". Unfortunately, I only had enough work to last me 2 hours.  The rest of the day I spent shuffling the same stack of papers over and over and over again.  For six hours. It really, really, sucked.

http://totl.net/VisibleMars/

The receptionist has hayfever right now, and when she sneezes, it souds like someone is hurting a very small dog.  and then it makes me picture her up there with a large supply of little dogs, stepping on each of their little tails.

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/lnsemsf/

I went to get another cup of coffee today and as I picked up the coffeepot, the floor beneath me felt and looked like it was swelling up, as if something was trying to burst through the carpet.  I'm not crazy.. but perhaps is time to lay off the caffeine and Cronenberg movies.

Today I was typing "Minneapolis" and my finger got lazy on the "o", resulting in "Minneapoolis", and I thought, how fitting that there should be a little crap in the middle of town.

So I was on on the phone with a Law firm in Fayetteville, NC.  I was put on hold for a minute, and the background music was "I Fought the Law and the Law Won".

I saw a cute boy at lunch today.

Today a co-worker came in carrying a rubber fish mounted on a plaque with a sign that says "Big Mouth Bass".  When you press the little red button the fish lip-synchs to "Take Me to the River" and "Don't Worry Be Happy" while it flaps its fins.  That made my whole day. 

A simple desultory list of items I have purloined from my various jobs: staples, binder clips, paper clips, toilet paper, colored markers, those cool little white-out strip things, white out, highliters, pens (dozens? maybe), one of those neat little covered-razorblade letter openers (with a super-convenient magnet on the back), a box knife, envelopes, manila file folders, purple file folders (and I made myself labels for them at work, so now I have very professional-looking folders for my bills), manila envelopes, manila envelopes with padding, postage stamps, tea bags, coca-colas, chocolate, a deck of '52 fun things for adults to do at parties' (think 'mock prom' or 'italian fest,' not wild sex orgy), red paper, pink paper, blue paper, green paper, more toilet paper, resume paper (with matching envelopes), and a 3-ring binder. My new goal is a three-hole punch, but I figure I should bide my time on that one.

Well, I finally did pour scalding hot water over my hand the other day. Unfortunately I can still type, as long as I ice it down every few minutes. I also found out that nobody in the office will even bother to ask what happened.

Finally, I was sent the following query from Ms. Lauri Watkins, of Seattle, Washington. I assume she is angling herself for the golden cubicle award, but in the event she just wants ANY OLD AWARD, I pass it along to the list for anyone who may be interested:
**Goddamn it ben, i'm cute and funny. whose dick do i have to suck to get an award around here?**