Uh, I Suppose We Should Play Work While At Work…

Before I go any further, I need to give the biggest props of all time to AndreAnna! Seriously folks, drop by her blog and tell her how much she fluffernuttin’ rocks! If you look up, no not at the ceiling, at my blog’s banner, you might notice it has changed. Or you might not noticed it has changed, but I assure you, it has changed for the better!!! She was more than nice enough to have it created for me and for that, I thank her. Is it my birthday? No. Is it my pretend substitute birthday (Aug. 16th if anyone is wondering)? No. It was just a really nice blogtastic gesture and it inspired me to bore delight you with more stories of recent office goings on. I put up yesterday’s post and realized I had forgotten three key occurrences and something that just happened, which has to be blogged about.

You may not think that anything could top hand eating coffee mugs or hand eating coworkers, but we had a fire drill late the day of our staff meeting. Mr. Fingernail Biting Socially Oblivious is our department’s safety warden, so we all know we are in good hands. I need to mention that our company’s fire drills are intended to be a surprise, except to safety wardens. Although our special little safety warden can’t help but tell all of us in order to increase his importance. This of course never works. So, knowing that we had a fire drill schedule and the exact time that said fire drill would commence, Mr. Socially Oblivious went out back to smoke a cigarette. The fire drill announcement is made and we all go outside grumbling about how much work we need to get done and how much time this is wasting, etc. etc. OK, I’ll be honest. I was not complaining, for I welcomed this company-sanctioned recess by walking outside while singing Disco Inferno. Apparently Mr. Socially Oblivious never realized that the fire drill had begun, which is too bad. The best part of fire drills is normally getting to see Mr. Socially Oblivious parading around in his orange safety warden hat with his megaphone urging us to leave the building. Granted, we normally take our time, but that’s just because he’s yelling at us with a bull horn and abusing his power.

That excitement was trumped this time by what happened when the fire drill ended and we all filed back inside. As we were walking back to our offices, we ran head on into Mr. Socially Oblivious, the man who I need to remind you has been entrusted with our safety. He had a puzzled look and told Mr. Lay Low that we needed to evacuate the office immediately. When told that the fire drill was over, Mr. Socially Oblivious said ‘No it’s not. They can’t begin it without me.’ So, if you ever see my burnt down office on the news, you can blame my death on him.

At the end of the drill, my boss said he would be right back and that he had a quick errand to run. Fifteen minutes later he entered the building and walked past all of us with his two scoops of ice cream. Not one mind you, but two. Normally he takes us out for ice cream or at the very least, tags along with us. But on this particular day, with the entire staff in the office for the first time in a few weeks, he went by himself for ice cream. A move like this could be interpreted several ways, especially by a bunch of coworkers who over analyze EVERYTHING that happens in our office. Mr. Lay Low boldly suggested that Boss Man was just warm and wanted to cool down. Female Coworker asserted that he wanted some time alone, which sent Mr. Socially Oblivious into a panic about why he wanted time alone. I maintained that Boss Man wanted us to act more proactively with our jobs and think independently. By us seeing that someone else was eating ice cream, he wanted to see if we would take it amongst ourselves to get our own ice cream. This theory of mine was not accepted.

To further avoid doing actual work, Mr. In The Office Two Times A Week Guy taught me a new trick he recently learned. In DOS, we can type a message that will pop up on the screen of the coworker we indicate. Figuring there was growing concern over my treatment of Female Coworker, we targeted Mr. Socially Oblivious first. I arranged for an alert box with an ‘ok’ button to pop up on his screen that said ‘run time error JB 007.’ Now any sane computer literate person would stop when they see the numbers 007, but not Mr. Socially Oblivious who still thinks he can talk to his computer ala Star Trek. Being somewhat afraid of his computer, he doesn’t always pay attention to it. So, long after I had forgotten even sending the message, he asked me to come over and take a look at a ‘weird error message’ he had received. Recognizing the importance of beating my boss into his office, I ran across the hall and explained that it was probably a glitch and I would hit OK and see what happened. I swear he tensed up and almost cowered as I positioned his cursor over the button. Surprise, nothing happened. A few minutes later when I sent Female Coworker an error message stating ‘System ID Input Recognition Misunderstanding,’ she cussed out loud that her computer was having errors. You should have seen Mr. Socially Oblivious as he puffed out his chest and said he knew how to fix it. Mr. In The Office Two Times A Week Guy and I almost had to leave the office because we were laughing so hard.

I returned from lunch today and noticed that my Windows Media Player with all my Kenny Rogers tunes was closed. I didn’t remember closing it down, but then I do lots of things I can’t recall so I didn’t think too much more about. That was until I got an error message from Mr. In The Office Two Times A Week Guy stating that ‘Due to a high volume of noise pollution complaints, your CD's have been stored in a secure location. By replying to this message, you authorize destruction of your CD's.’ Then I realized that it was he who closed my Media Player down. Fearing not being able to ever again hear ‘Islands in the Stream’ or ‘Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers,’ I panicked. He later came into my office to return them to me with the understanding that I would NOT play them again. I asked him if Jerry Reed was permissible and he asked if that was a threat or a joke. Not yet having my CDs back in my hand, I told him to never mind and that I would put Jerry on the ‘do not play list.’ Tomorrow I’m bringing in Lucy and Ethel’s copy of ‘High School Musical’ just for him. And my boss wonders why none of us ever meet our deadlines…