My Sanity Seminar, Part 2

I'm off to a follow-up sanity seminar tomorrow, my dear cube dwellers. It seems I just didn't grasp the materials the first time around. Therefore, I must take a day off from Cube City to see if I can get it right this time. I'll report back to you on Timesheet Monday.

Delaying the Outlook

I find that Outlook calendar reminders are sometimes helpful but often a nuisance in Cube City. As I delve deeper and deeper into my old lady years, I have to remind myself of everything from cube dweller birthdays to the smallest of tasks -- like verifying that the information on a spreadsheet is correct.

Lately, I've been snoozing calendar reminders for tasks that seem less urgent in my world. I'll snooze them for up to two weeks, which is the maximum snooze time allowed by Outlook.

If I'm not going to take a moment to verify information on a spreadsheet this week, chances are I shouldn't keep reminding myself to do it at all. It gets to the point where I snooze my reminders for so long that seeing them pop up every two weeks for a year gets really annoying. Of course, by the time a year goes by, the information I need to verify on the spreadsheet has probably changed. The outlook for completion of snoozed tasks is not looking good.

A Golden Meltdown

The other day, a guy in Cube City came to me and said, "I want to get off this brand. I'm tired of working with certain people on the team, and I'm going to throw myself into my other work."

I sat there in an early-morning daze as my fellow cube dweller ranted. I thought about happy things, like caffeine, new car smell, and puppies.

My cube dweller continued ranting. He said, "I wish I could work with Golden Boy. I've heard great things about Golden Boy." (Note: Golden Boy's name has been changed to preserve his glorified reputation.) My cube dweller proceeded to tell me that he'd never get to work with Golden Boy and stated all the reasons why their career paths would never cross.

I let my ranting cube dweller believe that Golden Boy was all that. I wasn't going to tell him that I had scientific proof of Golden Boy's psychotic tendencies. My only interaction with Golden Boy was when he had a meltdown about not meeting an unrealistic deadline. I remember Golden Boy throwing a fit about not having enough people to get the work done and wailing, with clenched fists waving in the air, "THIS IS WHAT THE COMPANY HAS GIVEN US!"

Whenever I cross paths with Golden Boy in the hallowed halls of Cube City, it is his meltdown that I remember. I hear him crying, "THIS IS WHAT THE COMPANY HAS GIVEN US!" The memories I have of this boy are certainly golden.

Surviving the Drought

Have we really made it to Labor Day weekend? It's been a long haul in Cube City. I'm always amazed at the company-paid holiday drought. If you can survive from Independence Day to Labor Day, and then from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, you're golden. Trying to survive from New Year's to Memorial Day is the absolute worst.

The thing is, most company-paid holidays are just one day out of a week, so I'm not sure why we look forward to them so much. I'm grateful for them, don't get me wrong, but I think we build them up to be more in our minds than they really are.

In any case, the drought is over. Happy Labor Day weekend.

An Important Matter of Unimportance

I recently received a scare in my Cube City inbox. As we all know, I'm not important here, so anything that could indicate otherwise is cause for alarm.

I received an invitation from the CEO of my current Cube City for a really big client meeting. Well, okay, so the invitation was from his assistant, but it was his name that appeared on the invitation in my inbox.

I had immediate flashbacks to the days when I was the CEO's bitch in another Cube City. No way will I go through that again -- not without kicking and screaming first, anyway.

I made the long walk to my boss's office, knocked on her door, and asked if there was anything she'd like to tell me about a really big client meeting with the CEO. Sure enough, the invitation was meant for someone else, and I was reassured that I'm not important here.

Please Pitch My Photos

Last week in Cube City, I had to go to our in-house photo studio (I use the term "photo studio" loosely here). The devil made me do it. I was told that our business development team needed photos of a few cube dwellers for some pitch work, and I was one of those dwellers.

When I showed up at the photo studio, I stepped onto this white platform with a white background and instantly knew that I was doomed. You don't put a pasty white girl up against a white background if you have any knowledge of photography at all. But whatever. The photographer (I use the term "photographer" loosely here) had me turning my feet, body, head, and/or eyes in various directions, and I just felt stupid and awkward the whole damned time. I was really glad when the photographer told me that we were done and I could leave. My jaw hurt from fake smiling, and my ears hurt from listening to her say fake things like, "Great!" and "Perfect!"

Later that day, the photographer sent me a file path to my digital photos. I was supposed to pick 3 to 5 of the best photos (I use the term "best photos" loosely here) from the bunch.

OMG. There must have been at least 30 horrible, fuzzy, weird-ass photos of my pasty white head turned in a bunch of horrible, fuzzy, weird-ass directions against that blasted pasty white background. I forced myself to pick 4 photos for the photographer to use, despite hating all of them, because I didn't want somebody else picking the best of the worst to use at their own discretion (I use the term "discretion" loosely here).

I really hope nobody ends up using these photos if they actually expect us to win this business pitch. Instead, I think they should pitch the photos in the trash and let our work paint the picture.

Just Another Donut Monday?

Yesterday morning, closer to the lunch hour than breakfast, I received a company-wide email with the subject line of, "It's Just Another Donut Monday." My Cube City was offering donuts to all cube dwellers to help jump-start our Monday.

The only problem I had was with the email's subject line, which implied that this is a regular Monday thing. It's not. In fact, I believe this is the only time we've ever received an email about free donuts, whether on a Monday or otherwise.

The whole thing made me wish it was just another cinnamon roll Sunday.