The Curse

Curses and Cube City go together, and I'm not talking about profanity.

I seem to plague almost every Cube City that hires me. All but one of the many Cube Cities that I've worked in have:

1. Been bought out...and subsequently cleaned out, or
2. Barely survived massive layoffs and countless reorgs, or
3. Totally gone under.

If you currently work with me, you might want to pack your things and move to another Cube City. The cost of living is too high here.

Survey Said?

In case you're wondering why we participate in employee surveys here in Cube City, wonder no more.

We participate in employee surveys so that we can learn the results eight months later, when we:

• No longer care about the results.
• Have developed a completely new set of problems.
• Cannot take action on eight-month-old results since we've developed a completely new set of problems that have made the old ones totally irrelevant and useless.

How do you rate this blog entry with your own Cube City survey experience? Here's the infamous Likert scale to help you specify your level of agreement with the absolute truth:

• 1- I strongly agree with the omnipotent Scissor Girl.
• 2 - I need codka...lots and lots of codka.
• 3- I'm in complete and utter denial about my professional life.
• 4- I don't understand what you mean by "results" since I never see them in Cube City.
• 5 - I can't relate because I don't participate.

Sorry, I'm Closed

The Cube City factory is closed for inventory and pest control today.

I will reopen when I am able to successfully prevent rats from re-entering my cube.

Mail-Dominated World

In recent Cube City past, we were going through some layoffs and things were tense. I didn't know what was coming next, and a part of me didn't want to know.

Several days after the layoffs, I went to my safe place to find a letter in the mail from the company's 401k plan. The letter stated that my vested balance was too low for me to continue in the employer's plan. There were some very detailed instructions about how to roll my 401k funds into an IRA or other plan. Apparently I had been laid off without my knowledge.

Of course, I received the letter on a Friday and had to wait and worry until Monday to discuss it with my employer. It turned out that several people had received the letter in error, and I was one of those people. I don't know what that really means or how such a mix-up occurs. Was I on the cut list at some point and they forgot to remove my name before sending out those letters?

I don't know, but I guess it would be easier to lay somebody off by mail. Friends have even told me stories of being laid off by email. It really is a mail-dominated world out there.

Crankin'. Tossin'. Packin'. Shippin'.

There are times when I mistake my job in Cube City for a factory. Not that I've ever worked in a real factory, but I've heard stories from high school friends who worked at a nearby cotton candy factory. I also studied Roseanne in her many years of working at a factory.

I produce an insanely high volume of work each day. It's like I'm working on a quota system, and the quota keeps going up for as long as I can keep up. I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity, but that decision is not up to me in the Cube City factory. I assemble things as quickly as possible, cranking them out of my brain and tossing them onto the conveyor belt for inspection (assuming the inspector shows up for a hard day's work). Then I pack them up and ship them out to the client. I crank, toss, pack, and ship all day long. If I make it out of Cube City without getting an arm or leg chopped off, I consider it a successful work day.

I know we are doing more with less in Cube City these days, but I don't have to like it. So I'll think about working in a cotton candy factory. It sounds like a sweeter deal.

The Boob Job

There are some jobs that we should never talk about in Cube City. Well, okay, we can talk about them, but that's where it ends. Please. I'm talking about boob jobs.

I used to work with a woman who longed for a boob job. She'd talk to her husband about it on the phone and would share the status of those conversations with anyone who would listen. I didn't mind her keeping me abreast of the situation. I figure we all have reasons for what we want or what we do, and that's all that really matters. It's also nice to learn about something that enhances another person's life. You can put a price on new boobs, but learning? Learning is priceless.

My co-worker eventually got her boob job and was so thrilled about it that she started showing anyone who would look. She wanted us to admire and touch her new boobs in the restroom. She was really proud of these newborn twins and spoke in great detail about how they were born and raised. Okay, I can understand the excitement and pride...but I don't need to see the finished product. I also don't need to get in trouble with Human Resources, especially since I am not willingly admiring or touching the twins. I'm here to work, not to work it. Cube City or bust, please.

Silence Is Born

It's been very quiet in Cube City lately, and not just because Yammer Man doesn't sit next to me anymore.

'Tis the season for team member birthdays. It's like a bunch of couples got together at the same time of year and said, "Why don't we create some quiet copywriters? Want to? Yeah? Okay, let's go!"

Just about every copywriter on my team was born in July or August, and they're all really nice people. But when you're trying to be friendly in Cube City, it's just not the same as being friendly elsewhere. I was trying to decide how to get the team together to celebrate their birthdays because, in truth, I am glad that they were all born and that we've managed to keep our team together through good times and bad. The thing is, we're a weird bunch when we get together. It's like social awkwardness runs amok. We sit down for lunch or cake or *gasp!* both and celebrate the silence rather than the occasion. When we do talk, we cover topics like the obesity crisis in Wal-Mart shoppers as well as in cats. It's just uncomfortable. We'll be doing this multiple times over the next two months.

Here's the problem: You can't win in Cube City, no matter what you do. It's awkward if you don't acknowledge someone's special day, and it's awkward if you do. I figure it's best to just celebrate the silence, but the celebration will really begin when Quiet Copywriter Birth Season is over.

Tiptoe Through the Cubicles

I recently moved away from a neighbor in Cube City who knew no boundaries. He started his work days promptly at 6:30 in the morning. He might have even slept there at night. I don't know. All I know is that when I dragged myself into the office around 7:30 or 8:00 each morning, he would start talking to me. I couldn't even put my computer bag down before he started asking me for the status on a project or about something he needed from me, usually in great detail. If he wasn't asking a question, he was complaining about things way beyond his control that could not, and would not, ever change. He was Yammer Man.

I started tiptoeing to my cube each morning, being as quiet as possible, but it didn't matter. Yammer Man had bionic hearing. He drove me insane. I tried everything to avoid his wrath. I even tried disguising my voice, saying things like, "Scissor Girl isn't here today. She's sick," but nothing worked. I was destined to be bombarded with questions and yammering that should never, ever happen until you've had a chance to accomplish as little as possible in your first hour at work.

I've been enjoying the quiet mornings lately, as I now reside among cubinites who can't handle mornings. If walls could talk, I'm sure they'd tell me they're really happy that Yammer Man is a safe distance away now. But I'm glad that walls can't talk. I've already heard it all in Cube City.

Monday Mourning

I cried all the way to Cube City this morning -- not just because it's Timesheet Monday and my personal inbox is filled with the weekly countdown to the weekend, but also because it's been over 9 months since I lost my Belgian Tervuren and I still mourn the loss of her like it was yesterday.

It's times like these that help me remember the important things in life -- Cube City and its demands not being one of them. I found out this morning that the litter of Belgian Tervuren pups I've been anxiously awaiting arrived last night. Five boys and three girls. It's unclear if I will get one of the girls, and I don't want a boy. But I'm surprised at how mixed my emotions remain about the possibility of starting over with a new puppy. You can't replace your best friend, and yet sometimes you need a catalyst to get you to start a new chapter in your life.

I know that change is the game of life. Even in Cube City, you can be in the same job your whole career and have to deal with countless changes...or you can hop from one job to the next and get change on a bigger and more constant scale. But change is hard, no matter how you experience it. I'm not ready for another puppy, but I am ready to move on.

My Conversation With Stupid

Here's a conversation I recently had with an Idiot in Cube City (ICC). It's not the first conversation of this nature and probably won't be the last.

ICC: Hi! So...I want to change teams and have already talked to somebody who wants me on their team.
Me: Oh, wow. Okay. I knew you had wanted a change, and that has never left my mind. The opportunity just hasn't been there to help you out. I wasn't aware of an open position, but I know that can change too. So...there's an open position?
ICC: Well, I was told that they wanted me.
Me: Well, that's great! It's always good to be wanted.
ICC: I hope you don't think I've been going behind your back. I'm just excited about this opportunity.
Me (dream response): You are a dumb ass if you expect me to buy that you are not going behind my back. Clearly you are! Say what you mean and mean what you say, dumb ass.
Me: Hey. If you see an opportunity in this world, you have to take it. I think you should go for it. I'm excited for you! So tell me about it. How soon could you make this move?
ICC: Oh. Well, I don't really want to leave our team. I mean, I do but I don't.
Me (dream response): Oh, interesting. Since I'm not crushed that you want to change teams, you are now the one who's crushed. Yes, it's true! You can be replaced! And the thing is, you're such a problem on our team that I'd be thrilled if you left! How easy my life would become! Go! Be gone with you! I'm begging you, please!
Me: There are pros and cons to being on any team. You have to do what's best for your career and think about what's going to take you to the next level -- whatever that looks like. This opportunity sounds like something for you to think about. Any transition we make will be gradual across teams, I'm sure, so you'll have time to really think about it, try it out, and see what you think.
ICC: Great! Thank you for your support. I really hope you don't think I was going behind your back! I'm just really excited about this opportunity!

Poor ICC doesn't stand a chance in hell of escape. Just because another team wants you doesn't mean there's an open position. And there isn't. But we can all dream.

Poor Me. I don't get to reap the benefits of ICC's escape. But in a Cube City where change is either painfully slow or totally non-existent, all we can do is hope and dream for other opportunities to come our way. Here's hoping and dreaming for fewer stupid conversations in the future.

More Cube Q&A

Q: Why peer reviews?
A: Peer reviews give spineless fother muckers an opportunity to let you know what they don't like about you -- except that your peer isn't identified and nothing specific about your offense is allowed in your review to ensure that your peer isn't identified. This peer review process allows for pure ineffectiveness in Cube City, as you don't know who doesn't like you or what you're doing that bugs them. Therefore, you cannot improve whatever you're doing to offend a peer, and your peer can never see the end of the problem. Basically, your peer then gets what s/he deserves for being a spineless fother mucker and you get the shaft.

Next question?

The Sniffer

I sat next to The Spitter and The Sniffer in my Cube City past. Yes, it's true. I've been truly blessed with a bottomless pit of idiosyncratic cube neighbors.

The Sniffer was really sensitive to smells. If she smelled a perfume or cologne she didn't like, she'd sniff people out until she found the offending smell. Then The Sniffer would inform the offender that s/he could no longer bring that scent to the workplace. The Sniffer was just that crazy to assume she had a voice that people feared. Of course, people did fear her voice...because she was crazy.

One day, the smell of sweet vanilla bean coffee wafted through the morning air in Cube City.

The Sniffer snapped.

"Sniff...sniff...WHAT IS THAT SMELL?" The Sniffer screeched.

Nobody answered. We all cowered in our cubes, hoping The Sniffer would go sell crazy someplace else.

The Sniffer proceeded to barge into people's cubes, making her loud dramatic sniffing noises until she reached a computer programmer who was enjoying his morning brew. We all popped our heads out of our cubes to watch the crazy show.

The Sniffer stuck her nose in the poor guy's coffee mug, sniffing loudly all the way in. She then came up for fresh air and angrily pointed her index finger at the computer programmer guy. "You!" she screamed. "You're the one with the coffee smell that is making me SICK!"

The computer programmer stared at her blankly. I mean, really, what do you say to a crazy person?

The Sniffer screamed, "I forbid you to bring that coffee to work ever again!"

The computer programmer amazed us all with his bold rebuttal: "Are you crazy? I will drink this coffee whenever and wherever I want to!"

The two began a bitter battle of words, and it's unclear who won since we had massive layoffs later that day and they were both let go.

What's most interesting to me is that I could smell the layoffs coming and The Sniffer couldn't. I guess her sense of smell was limited to consumer goods. Correction: Other people's consumer goods. She never hesitated to bring french fries and other stinky food items to her desk each day. She was simply a crazy old bat who was set in her ways and oblivious to her hypocritical practices.

Am I alone in my array of experiences with crazy cube neighbors? Who's the craziest person you've ever worked with?

Ice Cube City

In Cube City, everything is an emergency. Everything is due yesterday. The world will absolutely, positively burst into flames if we don't meet our deadlines.

Flying by the seat of our pants is the norm in Cube City. But that's a blog entry in and of itself.

Today I am thinking about how I used to fly by the seat of my skirt. It's a well-documented fact that Cube City has some thermostat regulation challenges. The office climate is Ice Cube City all year round for reasons I have yet to figure out.

A few Ice Cube City ages ago, I worked with a frequent flyer who decided that she was going to fight the hypothermic conditions at work. One day she came back from a business trip with an airline blanket tied around her waist. It was the most fabulous idea ever: The stolen airline blanket skirt. The frequent flyer simply carried that fuzzy red blanket off the plane with her, tied it around her waist, and took off.

When the frequent flyer showed up at work piloting her new hypothermia-free outfit, she was all the rage with the women in Ice Cube City. Soon thereafter, more stolen airline blanket skirts started to appear on the women in the office. Whenever the frequent flyer went on a business trip, she came back with a blanket or two for the frozen cubies. She was our hero.

We all took a little bit more of the blanket because of her.

Sick About PTO

It seems that sick days in Cube City are becoming a thing of the past. Now our vacation, holidays, and sick time are all lumped into "Paid Time Off" (PTO).

I sort of miss having official sick days. It felt good to call in sick, especially because I usually went to work when I didn't feel well and saved my sick time for when I was just sick of going to Cube City. That was about as close as I ever got to working the system.

I don't really know how to get excited about taking PTO because it feels like I'm not getting away with anything anymore. Sure, I'm getting away, but where's the feverish excitement in it all? I guess I'm just a little sick that way.

Sometimes I dream...

...of going home for lunch and not coming back to Cube City.

Ever.

Working the System

The more I think and blog about it, the more I am certain that Cube City is synonymous with prison.

Here's where I'm at. I'm trying to learn how and when to push back when the workload demands are beyond insane. What irks me is that people don't seem to stand together in Cube City. There are a few alliances here and there. But if we all broke out of our cubicles, stood together, and said, "These deadlines are beyond insane and I will not take this anymore," we'd have the control over our warden. We'd be making the rules rather than following them. But no.

Why? Because everybody in Cube City has different goals, just like prisoners:

• Some cubies feel like they're being watched and want to make sure they don't get into more trouble.
• Others are fearful about what will happen if they are released from their cubes before they are ready.
• Then there are the cubies who have learned how to work the system and are keeping it a secret. They know they've got it good, and they want to keep it that way.

Think of the liberation we could have if we stood together against insanity. After all, employers wouldn't be able to grow big businesses if they didn't have employees doing the work. Sometimes it is easy to forget that we do have power in Cube City. We just have to find a way to outwit the warden.

Who's ready to rebel against solitary confinement?

Wednesday

One of my biggest pet peeves in Cube City is when I'm trying to check personal email and my workload gets in the way.

Well, not really, but...yeah, well, okay, um, actually I do find it annoying.

But anyway, a few friends and family members send personal emails to me on a daily basis. Some of these people are not on the best terms with the written word and don't really know what to say, so they'll insert the current day of the week in the subject line of their emails.

As if that's not torturously anti-writer enough, they'll proceed to write about the day of the week and how it ranks to Friday. They'll do this for every blasted day of the week, often rehashing the previous day.

Example 1
Subject: Monday
Message: I can't believe it's Monday again. But once we get through today, we'll have only four days until the weekend!

Example 2
Subject: Tuesday
Message: Well, it's Tuesday, which is better than Monday. We're a little closer to Friday!

Example 3
Subject: Wednesday
Message: Happy Hump Day! We're halfway there!

Example 4
Subject: Thursday
Message: Tomorrow is Friday! We've almost made it another week!

Example 5
Subject: Friday
Message: TGIF! Hope you have a great weekend, even though Monday always comes around way too fast!

Uh-muh-guh. This type of full-circle email monotony is excruciating for someone like me. It's like this countdown every day of every week, reminding me of the drudgery and pain commonly associated with Cube City, and sometimes I just can't stand it.

Is it Friday yet?

The Spitter

I've taken up residence next to some total characters in Cube City over the years. One of the most memorable characters is a guy with a really intense spitting fetish.

The Spitter had to be spitting something at all times. I think it's how he felt whole in a half-assed place, really. If he wasn't spitting sunflower seeds into a cup, he was spitting tobacco. I could hear the little "pit...pit" sound he made while in spitting mode throughout the day, and it drove me a little batty.

He was a resourceful spitter too. If he didn't have a cup to spit in, he'd use the trash can or even a half-full bottle of Dr. Pepper. At the moment, I can't think of anything more revolting than sunflower seeds and tobacco debris bobbing around in a sea of soda, but check in with me tomorrow. I'm sure I'll either think of or encounter something worse by then.

Hope

When you are returning to Cube City after a long holiday weekend that was way too short, all you can hope for is that you bought the winning Lotto ticket on Denial Sunday.

Thursday on the Rocks, Please

I love that I can drink on the job at any time in Cube City. It's a mode of survival here.

What I love even more are Thursdays, when I get to meet a fantabulous group of Cube City chicks for lunch, margaritas, and some talk therapy. It's wonderful to blow off a little steam with people who get what you're going through. And I think the margaritas make this already animated group shine in full high-definition color.

I'm so glad it's Thursday! It's like Independence Day every week. Have a great 4th of July, dear cube dwellers!

Ulterior Motives

Why are people in Cube City so sneaky? Answers. I want answers.

I remember when my first boss left my current gig. I'd been here for only three months and the learning curve was freaking me out on the inside. People told me that I brought a sense of calm to Cube City on the outside. Hagh! As if!

A few weeks after the dust settled from my first boss's departure, I received a calendar invitation from someone in the company I didn't know. The subject was something like, "Let's catch up." The meeting agenda couldn't have been more flattering:

• "I've heard so many great things about you."
• "I look forward to catching up and seeing how you're doing."
• "I've heard some of your great plans for the group and want to hear more."

Heads up, Cubies. Something smelled. The meeting host definitely had an ulterior motive -- an agenda within the agenda.

But I accepted the invitation anyway. I went to the meeting to find two other people in the room who hadn't been on the original invitee list. A shade shady. I proceeded to hear all about what was wrong with my group from their perspective and how they expected me to turn it around. Oh, and by the way, my new boss was unveiled in that meeting and they all looked at me and demanded to know, right then and there, how I felt about it. (Um, thanks for the gang bang followed by the public forum, folks. I feel really special now.)

I was happy to absorb their input about my group. After all, I'm here to learn, to grow, to contribute. What didn't settle so well was their deceitful approach to lure me into a room. They all lost a little credibility with me because of how they handled themselves.

Cube City is crawling with ulterior motives. It's bad enough that people are paranoid about losing their jobs and/or their minds on a daily basis. Ulterior motives merely add fuel to the fire. I don't know why people can't say what they mean and mean what they say. The next time I receive a "Let's catch up" invitation, I'm going to reply, "No, thanks. I don't catch up anymore. I catch on."

A Riveting 911 Story

September 11, 2001.

I think we all remember what happened on that fateful day.

What I remember even more is how the CEO of Cube City handled the tragedy.

Scene 1: My Cube
I was sitting in my cube that morning when a fellow cube dweller yelled, "Oh my God! A plane flew into the World Trade Center!"

A few minutes later, the same cube dweller yelled, "Oh my God! Another plane flew into the World Trade Center!"

I tried to reach local and national news websites after hearing about the second plane and couldn't connect to any of them. I knew something major was going on.

Scene 2: The Cube Kitchen
Our Cube City kitchen contained a television with one channel, and that channel was in Spanish. A bunch of us flocked to the kitchen and gathered around the television with our Spanish-speaking cube dweller Rafael. We started watching the drama unfold as Rafael translated the commentary for us.

Scene 3: Obscene
After about ten minutes of this activity, our CEO -- the dumbest CEO in the world -- entered the kitchen. He said, "I know this is riveting, folks, but let's get back to work."


Scene 4: Going Home
An hour later, our Cube City building was evacuated as a safety precaution due to potential terrorist threats. Suddenly the dumb ass CEO had realized how riveting this event really was. He even sent a company-wide email to inform us of the seriousness of the event. Dumb ass.

Scene 5: Yesterday
Yesterday, a fellow cube dweller told me a 9/11 story so strikingly similar to mine that I felt compelled to blog about it. I guess there are a lot of far-behind leaders in Cube City who are competing for the Dumb Ass Award because I really couldn't believe that this cubie's story practically mirrored mine.

What's your 9/11 story in Cube City?