More Potty Talk

Jane, our 21 month-old, saw Malan’s bum the other day and immediately pointed and said, “EWWWW POO-POOO.” We laughed, A. Because it was funny and B. Because we want her to think poo is gross so maybe she’ll do it in the toilet. Malan on the other hand is three and a half and is only allowed to talk “potty talk” when she is physically in the bathroom or the need is imminent. This ban will likely remain in effect until she is old enough to become unpotty-trained. In keeping with this policy, and due to the fact that I don’t need to go, I am writing to you live from my bathroom.

On a more serious note, I have a problem. The offices and “cubes” where I work are basically in a cage. You need an electronic key to get in or out and the bathroom is located in the main lobby just outside of the cage. When you come out of the cage, the main lobby secretary is staring directly at you. I always say hello in the morning so I just smile awkwardly when I come out to use the facilities during the day. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m probably so skinny because there is frequent throughput from my metabolic machine.

One afternoon, after my third or fourth awkward smile, I got the feeling that she thought my trips weren’t totally sincere. My mind raced, “She’s probably making a mark on a pad of paper everytime I come out. Worse yet, she’s got a stopwatch.” It has ruined the whole experience. I wait by the door until she answers a phone call, hoping she doesn’t see me. If she does see me, I either hurry, so she doesn’t think I’m in there all day, or I go slow so she doesn’t think I skip washing my hands.

Should I just tell her I have diabetes? I don’t think I can go on in silence. It’s like when there are two of you alone in a car and one of you breaks wind, you both know who did it. Maybe I can petition to have her desk turned the other way? Your suggestions would be appreciated.

The Nerds have finally taken over

Question: “Caleb, you work all day at a computer and you haven’t been updating this blog every twenty minutes, what gives?”

Answer:”If we had all just voted for Bo Gritz in the early 90s we wouldn’t be having this Big Brother problem.”

Consider the following:

IT Nazi: “Caleb, my real time update of your every move indicates that you have visited espn.com while at work.”

Caleb: “Dude, IT Nazi, you go to espn.com too? I had no idea we were on the same ‘project.’”

Caleb goes for high five and is left hanging.

IT Nazi: “Your project is cash flow, and how could you possibly think espn.com qualifies as work?”

Caleb (thinking): “How can a man work when he is too busy wondering what he could be reading about on espn.com?”

Caleb (saying): “You’re right IT Nazi, I’ll never use the internet again, I’ll only take bathroom breaks when I actually need to go, and I offer 7 years of indentured service from my firstborn son.”

IT Nazi (thinking): “Fool, I would have caved on the bathroom breaks.”

IT Nazi (saying): “Your terms are acceptable.”

I haven’t used the internet at work since. Really, they just told me my first day that they monitor everyone’s internet usage and I live in fear. I have been trying to change to address of this blog to a website that sounds like a site I would use for my work. The problem is that every site that sounds plausible, like Wellsfargo.com, is already taken. Crafty IT Nazis.

True Fact: I read the 7^th Harry Potter for 45 minutes in the bathroom at my last job.

Reasonable Question: “Why stop at 45 minutes?”

Answer: Espn.com was streaming playoff games.

Welcome to Ogden...

...On the way home from work I saw a rough-looking young man walking down the street with an old woman. They were both chatting up a storm and I thought, “How nice of that hoodlum to take his grandmother for a walk.” Suddenly the young man turned and crossed the street, but they both just kept talking away. Turns out it was just two crazy people talking to themselves that happened to be walking side by side. I wonder if either of them said out loud to his/herself, “Look at the nut-job talking like there’s someone there.”

I wish this was a hypothetical...

...So you walk into the bathroom at your place of employment and there at one of the two urinals stands a 60+ year old man with his pants dropped to his ankles, baring the big white bum his momma gave him to the whole world. Do you:

A. Turnaround and run
B. Elect to use a stall and stay in until he leaves
C. Use the urinal next to him and try not to choke from holding back the laughter like an 8 year old that passes gas during family prayer.

Unfortunately I chose C. Honestly, you think the guy could have figured out how to use his fly sometime in the last 70 years. I wish I had had the presence of mind to say something like, "it sure is drafty in here." This is also the first time I have wished that I owned a camera phone. Apparently this isn't his first "sighting." If I can get a picture it is going on the blog. He doesn't work in my office so I'll have to lure him out. Maybe I'll leave a free bowl of punch in the lobby and spike it with some kind of prostate enlarging chemical. Old Cheeky will be in there every 10 minutes after that. Anyway, good luck getting rid of this mental picture.

I'm back.....

... by semi-popular demand.


It's true I have a new job. I'm coming up on my one-month anniversary. They might as well just fire me now and get it over with.

So, I didn't get a job because I didn't like unemployment, it was great. I spent time pondering important questions like:
"How much can a guy get for a teetotalling kidney these days?"
Unfortunately I was no longer getting paid to write this blog, so I quit. I wasn't about to let the blog people fire me too.

My new job is cool. By cool I mean I'll have lots to write about.

For starters, last Thursday was the worst day of my life. I'm an hourly worker, which means I have to actually be at work for an hour to get paid for it. Long ago a very wise man decided he should get paid whether he worked or not. He called his plan "Salary."

There are two types of salary workers: smart and dumb. The dumb ones think they should actually work more than they get paid for in an effort to impress their boss. Their hope is to "move-up," resulting in a slight pay raise and way more responsibility for which they will work tons more hours. Their kind tends to die young and not reproduce. Thus the number of smart salaried people is ever increasing.

True example: "Janice" "works" in a corporate office. She goes to work from 10 to 2 because that is how long she can stand to leave her dog at the doggie daycare. She spends most of her time watching her dog on the daycare webcam. One day a coworker entered her office finding her in tears, "What's wrong Janice?" "None of the other dogs are playing with my dog." Janice went home early and still got paid.

This lead me back to last Thursday. I was at work, because I didn't get paid like the smart salary people to go to Iggy's and watch television's gift to mankind, the NCAA Tournament, on more plasma screens than a man has eyes to follow. I felt like a Jehovah's Witness kid on Halloween. Every house on Earth is handing out limitless free candy and I'm stuck at Kingdom Hall counting the number of times the word witness appears in the book of Isaiah. I should have waited 'till April to get a job.

Jim gets fired

That's right, I'm unemployed. I'm not sure why, I was too busy working on the blog to find out. But I haven't had as much time to write since because I'm not at work.

However, it all went down in an "office"-like fashion:

I was working through a temp agency and kept answering the phone when the agency lady would call for my boss. They would talk at length and I would sneak up to his door and listen. They never seemed to be talking about me.

The next part should be on an Office episode:

Michael (walks slowly and slyly over to Jim's desk, wusses out, turns around and then comes back): "So Jim, there's going to be a woman that's coming to work with you today."

Jim: "great"

Michael: "We are actually hoping to see how good she is at your job. Maybe you could let us know what you think at the end of the day."

Jim (dodging spit): "cool."

Jim (thinking): "you twit, of course I'll tell you she's incompetent."

-end of conversation

I actually told the first girl that I was going to tell them that she was no good. I did so and she didn't get hired.

I had too much of a soul left to rat out the second girl and that was it.

Now that it's over I'm starting to realize what I had:

Secretary: could beat Mimi from Drew Carey in an eye shadow contest and talked to herself more than Mr. Rogers.

Field Crew: Treehuggers, and by treehuggers I mean that they don't eat meat. What's wrong with these people? If I am ordering a pizza, at least a pig better have been slaughtered at some point.

Boss: Actually named Michael. For Christmas he gave us all gift certificates to Snider's Family Meats. We hadn't had sensitivity training yet.

Don't worry, this isn't the end of the blog. I'm sure there's another crappy job out there for me somewhere. I also have some stories on archive.

Odd phenomenon #1 and the traveling trophy

I've learned two things from starting this blog.
First, everyone else hates their job too.
Second, I have some serious angst. I really wish I was making some of this up, but it's all true.

My very first day at work I started noticing that I had several copies of different invoices etc. as I was entering them in the computer.

Me: "Funny joke, way to mess with the new guy."

After a few more duplicates: "Kinda funny, but I have seen the Lorax and I know where the wasting of limited resources will eventually get us."

After catching my boss' wife making a copy of a copy and putting them both in my inbox: "This is clearly a personality disorder."

She can't seem to help herself. She gets a form, makes two copies, and gives me one of the copies and the original. She then loses her copy in her personal tornado for the next month. When it resurfaces she makes another copy and gives me both. She makes FEMA look efficient. Now everytime I see her near a copy machine I hear the music that plays when the Wicked Witch of the West goes flying by.

Realizing that our bogus insurance plan will not cover the medication necessary to cure the disorder (Arsenic), I asked my self the most important question in work history: "What Would Jim Do?"

I decided that Jim would fashion a traveling trophy out of paper clips and scotch tape and award it to the individual amongst a secret group of employees who gives the boss' wife a form that would result in me receiving the most copies possible. I have 5 copies of the current tropy holder's time off request for a vacation next July, and my job is in no way related to the granting or tracking of time off.

I'll try to post a picture of the trophy soon. Maybe I'll sell them from my online gift shop.
Stay tuned and keep your "Office" experiences coming.

I'm really gaining some momentum here.

"Hey you posted on your blog yesterday, where could you possibly be getting all this free time?"

Answer: "At Work."

Lots of productive things happen at work. I'm pretty sure the Internet was invented by a bored dude at work.
Bored Dude at Work: "I wonder what the score of the game is. In fact, I wonder what the score of every game is and how much money is in my bank account and what day of the week it will be when I turn 67 and qualify for maximum social security benefits so I can finally retire because my company's lame retirement plan gets less interest than home teachers on Super Bowl Sunday."
The Internet soon followed.

I'm thinking some good will come of this. More on that later.

My wife brought up one possible problem: "What if your boss finds your blog?"
Good question, but then I realized, "My boss can't find his butt with both hands, how would he ever find my blog?"
I guess if he ever does find it he will probably think: "This can't be our Caleb, he sits in his office all day working on his computer while I provide flawless leadership to the flagship company of my profession."
I think I'm safe. If not, sorry boss about the both hands comment. You also can't keep all of your spit in your mouth when you talk, but hey, who's counting?

P.S I turn 67 on a Saturday.

I'm certain that Hell only exists from 9 to 5

Hi, I'm Caleb and my wife is a blogaholic. I'm not sure I like the idea of piggybacking off her blog. It's kinda like climbing the rope in gym; I feel a little too exposed in front of a group of girls and I can only imagine the awkward ways that I might get burned.

Yes, I go to work for 39 hours and 25 minutes a week.
No, I do not like it.
Why 39:25 you say?
Answer: We round to the nearest quarter hour, so 7:53 counts as 8. (for those looking for the calculator on the computer, 7 minutes a day for 5 days a week)
Isn't that dishonest?
Answer: No, dishonesty would be the soul-sucking I receive for 7 hours and 53 minutes day with little compensation and no benefits in return.

Example (actual conversation):
Boss: "Caleb, never throw anything away."
What I actually hear: "I am the king of impossible demands and the earth will one day be my cesspool"
My actual reply: "Sure, no problem."
What my reply meant: "I have thrown away everything for the past six months and no one has noticed so why stop now?"
Boss: "Great, 'cause this is really important."
What Boss was probably thinking: "Great, 'cause people blame the shambles of my company on my overwhelming incompetence but it is more likely due to Caleb throwing away precious paperwork."
Me: Nod
Thinking: "come on 4:53."