Such is the story of my life.

Thank you for you time in meeting with us on Tuesday December 20th. Unfortunately, based on your experience
and other candidates that have applied, we cannot offer you a position at this time. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Bleh... At least the blog is safe

Things I did at work today.

1) Stared at a Word document for 90 minutes. Occationally type things like "stoopid losers work here" and "you must avenge my death, rat sucker."
2) Crawled under my desk to hide from the world.
3) Found an old banana peel under there.
4) Searched for jobs... nothing looks fun.
5) Tricked a co-worker with short arms into thinking there was a kick me sign on his back.
6) Decided that the phrase "Your village is missing it's idiot" is way overrated and overused.
7) Tried not to let my disappointment in everything show.

Sigh...

Merry Xmas aka Don't cross Christ out of Christmas

Since this will be my last post before Christmas, I just wanted to say...


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!

If you see Santa, let him know that I haven't receive my bottle of Hennessey yet and that I know where he lives.

I am half a man.

This just in. I am half a man. Well, apparently I am, anyways. Read on!

In an email sent to the department, quoth the Nosy one, "we have 1 and a half sales support staff." Really, I am a half of a person? You know, even slaves were counted as 3/5's so I don't even rank that high. Maybe that is the reason that I was told, 'The rest of us are going to eat lunch in the executive dining room, so we will be gone for a couple hours. If you want lunch, you better go before 12.' Yep, they get some free fancy lunch and I am forced to eat an hour earlier than I normally do because I have to be their phone monkey.

Anyway, back to the email. Now that we have "1 and a half" sales support staff, we were "asked" to start doing a new task. Wait, let me restate that so it's truthful. We were told that I would have to start doing a new task. It's just an addition to another task that we are supposed to both be doing, but I seem to be the only one doing it. Therefore, I will be the one to take on this new task.

Seems to me that if I am only half an employee, I should only be required to do half the work.



Part II.

The interview went good today! Yep, I had an interview for a "Junior Developer" position. It sounds like it's something I might actually like. Mostly creating Access DBs, Crystal Reports and the likes at first, then possibly getting into more programming about 6 months down the road. I hope they call me for a second interview.

Nosy nosy nosy...

I can't stand it. Everybody here is so nosy. Not just Nosy Church Lady. E-v-e-r-y b-o-d-y. They want to know everything about everybody, especially me. (Because I don't tell them or because I am so hot? Probably both.)

NOSY!

I hate when people obviously lean over to glance at my caller id when the phone rings.
I hate when people stand right outside your wall when I am on call.
I hate when people ask me what I did last weekend and a simple "nothing too exciting" isn't good enough.
I hate when people think that they are free to dig through my pile of crap* on my desk.
I hate when people stare at me when they walk by.
I hate when people tell me that the print on my computer screen is too small**.
I hate when people assume that I will help them with anything.
I hate when people ask me what I am eating for lunch everyday.
I hate when people look at the pictures on my desk for more than 5 seconds.
I hate when people touch anything I have on my desk.
I hate when people I work with call me at work when they are not a work.
I hate when people slap me on the back.
I hate when people give me advice.
I hate when people enter my cube without asking.

Et cetera...


* The "pile of crap" is my affectionate term for the pile of papers that I keep. They are not quite garbage (because there is a small chance that I will need something in a couple weeks), not quite worth keeping (because after a month or two, they will be garbage), they are just a pile of crap.
** I have my resolution set to the highest setting possible for two reasons: 1) I can fit more crap on the screen. 2) The smaller size writting makes sure that less people can see what I am doing.

Well, doesn't that just take the berries!

You know that feeling you get when you are about to do something that you know you should be avoiding? I'm not talking about sitting outside of a convenience store just before you are about to put a gun in the clerk’s face, I’m talking about normal, everyday things that you know you are going to hate. Like a black hole, it sucks you in past the point of no return and you are forced to sit there and take it.

That happened to me. Today.

Scenario: Company installs new copy machines. I, being the department (pseudo) admin, am invited to a “copier training session.”

(Yes pseudo-admin. I perform some tasks that would qualify me as an administrative assistant, but department contact I am not. Unfortunately, with the title, comes the job.)

I do not need copier training. I know how to copy a piece of paper. I can make it staple, print double-sided and all that fancy stuff. The first email and voicemail message about the training goes unanswered. Hey, she’s not in my department, so what do I care. Finally, I get another email message saying how important it is for me to attend. The black hole has me.

First of all, I arrive to the training on time. The trainer however, did not. I was sent back to my cubical to wait for a call to tell me when she arrives.

The call comes and I walk over to where the training is to be held, at the copier. A one hour training session standing at a copy machine… need I say more? Yes? Ok, I will.

As I approach the copy machine, I see about 8 women, all at least twice my age. One clearly has a temporary badge pinned to her shirt, so I can identify immediately who the trainer is. As I draw nearer, the trainer says to me, ‘Oh, looks like you’re the one making us wait, huh?’ Huh? No, I can’t even dignify that with a response.

If you’ve ever been around many older women that work together, you could imagine the scene. Multitudes of questions on the simplest of tasks. Asking things that are clearly beyond the scope of a copier. Example: ‘Can you make a copy of a check, front and back, and have it print on the same sheet of paper in just one step?’ I seriously don’t know why you would want to be able to do that, but clearly it cannot be done. (After the trainer said no, I heard somebody say ‘Oh, I was hoping that this new copier would be able to do that.’ Duh.)

There is a good possibility that the trainer missed her train the trainer sessions. She was bad. Mumbling, forgetting to reset the copier after reducing an image and breaking the machine. That’s right, she broke our new copier.

She opened up the front panel to show us how to clear a paper jam. She removed a couple of the inside parts. She showed us how, if you don’t put it all together just right, the door will not close. She could not get the door closed. 15 times she adjusted and played with knobs and switches to try to get the door to close, but it wouldn’t. ‘Well, doesn’t that take the berries.’ She proclaimed.

They finally called up somebody else to help her. ‘One of the plastic latches for one of the inner parts is broken,’ he declared. Brilliant.

At least I looked busy for an hour. The training was a joke; I learned nothing.

The other guy that came down to fix the machine after she broke it said to me as I was leaving, ‘Did you get all that?’ Yeah mister, I got it. Next time, I need to be more careful of the black holes.

Bleh!

I thought I would get better response than this! Oh well...


Space adventures blog

Stardate: 1 jillion (number)

Watch out Lookingbusy (Name of your favorite blogger), there’s a train (Noun (Large object) heading right at you! I saw Lookingbusy (same favorite blogger) jiggle (Verb) out of the way just in time. You can never be too pretty (adjective) here in space. Besides dodging space junk, we have been busy searching for noisy (adjective) dildos (noun). We have visited smarmy (adjective) planets and distant staplers (noun) but all we have found so far is sanitary napkins (plural noun). The aliens we have met are all smelly (adjective). One particularly sticky (adjective) alien gave us a hard time. We had to give him all of our birds (plural noun) just so he wouldn’t jump (verb) us. Space life sure is green (adjective).

Posted by The Great Bambino (Fantasy/Nick name for yourself)

OK, I lied...

Madlibs will be tomorrow. We need more entries! C'mon, I know there are lurkers here. Go down to the Real MadLibs post and make your entry. Do it NOW!


For today, I leave with you a joke.

Two muffins are in an oven. One muffin says to the other, 'Wow, it's hot in here.' The other muffin says, 'Wow, a talking muffin!'

You might not think that's very funny, but try telling it to a seven year old.

Real MadLibs

The other day I saw somebody (I don’t remember who) was doing MadLibs, but it sucked because they gave the story and you just had to come up with funny words. Today I am doing real MadLibs. Post your words in the comments today, tomorrow I will post the story and fill in the funniest words submitted.


Please give me a:

Number: _____
Name of your favorite blogger: ______
Noun (Large object): ______
Verb: _____
Adjective: _____
Adjective: _____
Noun: _____
Adjective: _____
Noun: _____
Pural Noun: _____
Adjective: _____
Adjective: _____
Pural Noun: _____
Verb: _____
Adjective: _____
Fantasy/Nick name for yourself: _____

Things that can get you in trouble at work.

Don't make the same mistakes I did.

1) Calling your boss Punky Brewster. (As in 'Can I go home yet, Punky Brewster?')
2) Playing Limp Bizkit without headphones, even at a reasonable volume between 10 and 12 when you are collating.
3) Suggesting to everyone that the department manager sleeps in a casket and turns into a bat at night.
4) Starting a bon fire in your cubical.
5) Letting a mouse loose just to see how many women get up on top of their desks.
6) Laughing hysterically when you see a man get up on top of his desk because he saw the mouse.
7) Printing 200 copies of this picture on the color printer.
8) Looking out the window with a binoculars for 2-3 hours at a time.
9) Wear your close backwards a la Kris Kross.
10) Whistle your favorite Kanye West song non stop.

Where do you get your ideas?

I was just wondering where everybody gets ideas for what they are going to post. I realized today, that most of my ideas happen during my walk to, use of, and subsequent return from the can (you know, the crapper.) It is how I got the idea for this post. :)

$400 for that?

I googled "Tryingtolookbusy" and the only thing I found, other name my blog, was this drawing somebody was trying to sell. No, it's not me and no I didn't draw it.

Check it out! http://danschultzfineart.com/images/drawings/dhtml/tryingtolookbusy.html

“How to get ahead” or “Advantage Player”

Some of you may be wondering what you can do to look like a model employee with minimal effort, so I am putting this little guide together to help you out. This is not complete, of course, so if you have any tips, please let us know!

• Try to find a job where there is a lot of turn over. Managers and supervisors hate turnover, so if you are in a job that has a lot of it and you stay there longer than most of the other employees, they will be very happy with you.

• Try to find a job where they will be hiring more people after you are hired. Being the “new guy” is not enjoyable and you will be in a higher standing with your boss if there are other people who know less about the job than you do. (However, when you are the new guy, make sure you make use of the following phrases on your co-workers {Never your boss}: ‘No, I’m not trained on that’, ‘Sorry, I haven’t learned that task yet’, ‘Could you please help me with my TPS reports, apparently there’s some memo that I didn’t get.’)

• Brownnose. And get good at it. Who cares what the other employees think? You are there for you.

• If your boss is of the opposite sex, especially if your boss is a man and you are a woman, make sure you smile nicely at them every time you see them. You would never want to cross the line to something that could be considered flirting, but charming your boss should be something you do daily. Overuse of manners is definitely encouraged.

• When the boss gives you small tasks, something that they want done by the end of the day, do it right away and hand it to them as soon as possible. They will be impressed that you did it so quickly and still have time for the rest of your work.

• When the boss gives you large tasks and sets a deadline, you don’t have to start these right away. You should break the task down into 2-4 parts which you can space out over the deadline. Let’s say your boss gives you 2 weeks to do a project. First, you need to put it off for at least 3 days to think about it. Then you can work on it for about 2-3 hours in one day. Take a couple days break and then work 2-3 hours on it again. By then, if you still aren’t done with it, you still have 3-4 days left to complete it. You should turn it in 2-3 days early, but never more than 4 days early or the boss will give you shorter deadlines in the future.

• If the boss walks by and catches you looking at a website, you had better make sure that they don’t catch you again that day. A good idea is to have your email or a spreadsheet open behind the browser window so that you can bring that to the front as soon as you hear someone coming.

• Don’t have a clean desk. At the same time, don’t have an overly messy desk. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Your desk should have a bunch of work spread across it, even if it is just papers and looks like work.

• Every once in a while, come up with some “fantastic new idea” for you boss. It could be anything that you don’t already do. You could make a little flip board that says where you are, (lunch, break, copy room, vacation, left for the day, etc) which you can leave on your desk if you away from it. Your boss will be impressed with your ingenuity.

• One way to get ahead with coworkers: When they start complaining about another coworker or boss, you never want to agree with them, but you want them to think you agreed with them. It is kind of a tricky task. You will just need to make sounds, not words; at least not words that say you agree. Example: ‘Wannabe Bimbo told that customer that she needs to fill out form B when they really need forms C and D and need to be changed with accounting. I told her how to do it. She’s so dumb.’ Your response: ‘Hmm, really?’

Three things happened in this situation:
• Your coworker thinks you agreed and are on their side.
• Your coworker ranks you higher than the person they complain about.
• If the boss ever finds out about your coworkers complaints, you can say, ‘Yeah, she came and complained to me all the time, even though I never wanted to be involved.’

Hopefully you have some more tips to help us all out. Let me know!

Things you can do with an extra 5 dollar bill.

Got an extra five? Got a stoopid friend? Here are some things you can make your buddy do by telling him you will pay him 5 bucks.

* Make him suck on a cow's udder.

* Give him a stick of butter and make him shove the whole thing in his mouth.

* Make him put on lipstick and earings and mascara on one eye only. Then he has to go into the local Walgreen's, buy some mascara and tell the clerk he ran out.

* Take your dog to his house. Tell him that the dog just pooped and if he doesn't wipe it's butt, it is going to rub it all over the carpet, because that's what he does. Offer him 5 bucks if he wipes your dogs butt.

* Tell him to throw a snowball at a police car.

* Go to Burger King. Have him say to the chick behind the register "Hey babe, you're hot. How 'bouts you hookin' me up with a free Big Mac? ... Next time I see you at the Seven Eleven, I'll give you a free slurpee, c'mon. :)"

* Roll up a 8X10 sheet of paper and make him walk around with it in his mouth all day likes he's smoking a 10 inch cigarette. He should ask for a light whenever possible.

* Make him sing Dancing Queen on the karaoke.

* Have him follow that up with Beat It or Walk Like a Man.

* Have him go to a nursing home and pretend to be a panty salesman. He could ask the old women how much they currently spend on panties and that he could provide them with substantial savings.