A Bunch of Duty

Hey, cube dwellers, Scissor Girl is skipping Cube City today in lieu of jury duty.

I hate jury duty. Actually, I hate that I'm summoned so frequently while others are so infrequently (or never!) summoned.

What gives? I've been summoned so much that I've done research on how to get summoned less. I've followed the proper channels to get off the jury pool radar, but nothing has worked.

I swear, if I have to sit through one more "how to be a JURE-or" instructional video, I'm going to cut myself with my scissors.

It would be different if I was retired and had the time to do grand jury service, which I think would be fascinating. I mean, that's when you hear snippets of all sorts of cases and decide to indict or throw them out. But I'm not retired, and the cases you hear for regular jury duty are mostly DWIs.

I've never been selected for jury duty, but I've always been stuck there the whole day. It's very taxing, and to me, it's just a bunch of duty.

Smoker's Cough

There's a woman in Cube City who's been telling me for several months that she has a cold. She can't seem to beat it. She coughs a lot. She also smokes a lot. In fact, her last name ends in "alot." I'm starting to believe that she has smoker's cough and doesn't even know it. The cough is pretty bad. It always sounds the same too. I think this woman could benefit from smoking cessation classes...but based on her history, I think she'll need a lot of them.

The Hovering

There's a guy in Cube City who hovers.

Me no likey.

He's an equal opportunity hoverer, though. It's like he hears something interesting as he passes a conference room door and doesn't seem to realize that it's none of his business. He doesn't seem to care that you see him hovering either. He'll just stand in the doorway, hovering, wondering what information he can glean from the conversation he's not supposed to be a part of.

Perhaps this is how you solve mysteries, by hovering, but I think you probably get more information by being discreet.

Unsolved Mysteries, Vol. 1

Here we are in Cube City, almost a week later, and I still have no idea why the star has fallen. Some cube dwellers have speculated about the topic. Others have pieced together some clues in order to postulate a pretty good rumor...but there are still lots of holes, so the mystery is far from solved.

Not knowing something confidential in Cube City is an absolute rarity. People have big mouths, and news travels fast. Yet all is quiet on the cubicle front. People's lips are sealed. I don't get it. The suspense is killing me!

I hope somebody provides answers before the passion I feel about this topic subsides. If you've put the pieces of this puzzle together, please reveal the full picture.

History Repeats Itself

It's been about a month since Office Assistant #81 started working in Cube City. It seems that she can't get anything right. Her memos are riddled with typos and inaccurate information. I think a whole week went by with her sending out notifications about who's out of the office, and the same person who was placed on the Out-of-Office list in error kept replying to all, "I am here."

Argh. How long does it take a cube dweller to realize that some unfortunate history is repeating itself? I know the office assistant's boss is embarrassed by public displays of errors, so I have a feeling that she won't be around much longer. I hope I like Office Assistant #82.

The Falling Star

While we're on the topic of falling stars, it appears that someone I know in Cube City has been demoted. If so, it's certainly been a quiet demotion. It might not even be a demotion, but perhaps just a lame title change casualty from another messy reorg. (I totally suspect it's a big fat demotion, people.) All I know is that this person's email signature was incredibly long a week ago and is now incredibly short.

I find it interesting that some announcements are hush-hush while others are broadcast through company-wide emails. It's like the people who are perceived as stars are a protected class, and everybody else is just dangling in the atmosphere. I once worked in a Cube City with a very lame and unqualified person who got promoted because she went drinking...among other things...with the lonesome company leader. I remember how humiliating it was to have people come up to me after her promotion was broadcast through a company-wide email. They would make it all worse by saying things like, "OMG, I can't believe she's your boss! She's so stupid! How did she get that job? She has no skills! She has the creativity of a table! I'll bet you are looking for another job!"

I'm not a big fan of the stars in Cube City, and I'm certainly not a star fucker, but I have to say that all plasma should be created equal.

The Rising Star

Last week was crazy in Cube City and ended with a shocker: A rising star was fired. Not laid off. Fired.

I have no idea what this star did to get fired, but it had to be pretty serious. You just don't get fired in Cube City when you've built a reputation on hard work and have consistently helped contribute to the company's growth in multiple ways.

Well, okay, so people who help the company grow get fired all the time. But this one just really caught me by surprise.

What's most irritating about the whole thing is that this person and I butted heads in the beginning. It took us a long time to understand each other and build a working relationship. In time, we learned to like each other. In a bit more time, we learned to respect each other. And it sucks that this person got fired AFTER we started liking and respecting each other. I wouldn't be so disappointed about it all now if we were still butting heads. In fact, it would've been the best news I'd heard all week instead of the worst.

I know this star will rise again in a different Cube City. But now I wonder who will fill the position and if we'll like and respect each other. I'm getting fired up just thinking about it.