Surviving the Workday

Never Been Thawed is a mockumentary following the lives of the members of a club of frozen dinner collectors in Mesa, Arizona. The premise takes a little getting used to, and the movie has a slow start during which countless repulsive meals are featured.

Yet, and this is a big yet, it has some of the most hysterically funny satirical workplace scenes of any movie: Clown Cuts where “smilists” cut your hair, The William Jefferson Abstinence Center where we follow the calls of an “intercourse prevention counselor” (Keep her on the phone, so she’ll avoid the bone), an anti-abortion cafe called the No Choice where anti-abortion hecklers can have a cappucino in between protests at Planned Parenthood, and gigs with The Christers, a Christian punk band that seems only vaguely Christian.

Roughly 50% of readers will be deeply offended by this film, but some of us found it was funny.

So Ms T suggested that we select an area of expertise for this blog. It was obvious to me in looking at my collection of links that my specialty should be weird workplace news. Ms T also suggested a regular column. Genius! This will force me to do that writing I’ve been neglecting.

Just look for the red stapler when you want your fix of wacky workplace hijinks. I’m going to aim for every Friday.

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Robin who blogs as Miss Conduct at the Boston Globe requested experiences with friends and family members who have different values around money for a book that she is writing about etiquette:

What I’m finding harder to write about is relationships with people who have different values around materialism. Can someone whose idea of a perfect Saturday is to hit the mall and shop till she drops, fueled by the occasional triple latte, be friends with someone who wants to bake cookies and then take a nature walk? How do you cope with the in-law who insists on showering everyone with gifts from Neiman Marcus when the rest of the family has sworn to buy only handmade gifts this year? The co-worker who starts in on sweatshops every time you show up with a new outfit? The neighbor who buys a new car every two years–and then complains constantly about his credit-card debt?

I’m not looking for answers–though if you’ve got any, I’d love to hear! What I want are perspectives, stories, thoughts, feelings. If you don’t want to leave them in the comments, please e-mail me.

So there you have it with her email above and a link to her original post here, if you’d like to describe an experience in comments.

I do have an acquaintance whose life seems to revolve around shopping. We are family friends from childhood, and for years, I set aside time to shop with her once or twice a year until I went (mostly) sweat-shop-free and now I just don’t see her. Also, I made a snotty comment about Disneyland.

I’m not feeling particularly word-driven today, but this work-related cartoon is funny: reverse land.

I have a short essay up on Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood about not becoming a minister, and other stuff. If you haven’t been to Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, it is creative nonfiction/essays about specific locations around Manhattan. My essay is about Washington Heights/Fort Tryon Park, 10034. You can navigate by map or by story in the side column.

You can enter the contest at Pimp Your Work by leaving a comment that responds to the question. The prize is a $25 B & N gift card.

And Ms. Kitty has found your fun for the day in Office Hijinks, a collection of office-related material on Miss Cellania. I particularly like the Best Out of Office Reply:

1. I am currently out of the office at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Please be prepared for my mood.

Indeed.

Again, I abuse my blog for free market research.

I’m continuing on the journey to discover more about what people want in dog gift baskets (though they aren’t in baskets): Pet Contents Survey

My morning writing partner and I are using prompts since recently we seem to spend a lot of time staring at the blank screen . Here’s our morning prompt from Writer’s Digest.

Look around the room and pick an object. Write one paragraph describing the object in full detail and a second paragraph explaining where it came from.

Here’s mine from this morning. Feel free to play along, if you’d like, with what’s in your workplace. You can post in comments. Every object has a story:

In my office, there is a tropical tree with four brown leaves; I’m tempted to remove them as I type. There. Now they’re gone. Talk about compulsive. I’m not sure what sort of tropical plant it is. It has a bamboo-like stalk, and wide dark green leaves. I’ve seen this tree in restaurants and office buildings. 
 
The tree used to be in my former boss’s enormous corner office. At that point, most of the leaves were brown because we had someone whose job it was to water plants and he overwatered everything as that was his entire job. Really. My boss would trim the brown away with scissors, a practice I found a bit creepy (but she was also an editor, so trimming is really what we do). While she was out of town at her mother’s funeral, our nonprofit was evicted and I took her plant home rather than leaving it in the office to die. I asked her if she wanted it when she returned, but a dying plant after having her mother die wasn’t what she wanted. Four years later, the tropical tree lives in the desert and is still alive.

It’s hard to say what’s my favorite part of this video: the disembodied bouncing McCain head? or when the lead singer washes her face with McCain?

It’s enough to make me think quadrupling the amount of funding for arts education in the public schools would not be enough.

This summer I wrote a poem, A Prayer for Ryan Seacrest, in which I asked God to make Ryan stop the cosmetic surgery because every time I saw his new face on a billboard I would almost drive off the road. Now Gawker has tips for noticing the differences in Ryan’s multiple faces. And, trust me, he didn’t used to look like either of these.

So take the National Grammar Poll of grammar gaffes by famous people. Vote for the worst.

 I voted for Paris.

Here’s a funny piece by Jon Carroll on how to improve Starbucks (other than retraining the barristas). My favorite idea is the Solitude Corner, a place with no cell phones and no eye contact.

so, it’s time for a quiz. Apparently I’m the most abused form of punctuation around.

You Are a Semi-Colon

You are elegant, understated, and subtle in your communication.You’re very smart (and you know it), but you don’t often showcase your brilliance.Instead, you carefully construct your arguments, ideas, and theories – until they are bulletproof.You see your words as an expression of yourself, and you are careful not to waste them. You friends see you as enlightened, logical, and shrewd. (But what you’re saying often goes right over their heads.) You excel in: The Arts You get along best with: The Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

 Via Linera

So it’s time for a quiz.

This one is about business etiquette, which is really just common etiquette. Too often, manners are dismissed as snobbishness, but what they are really about is making people comfortable. About a year ago, I took a seminar at work on this very subject and learned that it’s not just a matter of being polite–it’s a matter of making the client comfortable so that you can form a bond with them. The best advice was to repeat a person’s name as often as possible during the conversation, both to make it easier to remember and to make sure you got it right in the first place.

Watch out, there are some trick questions. And at least one that had me really puzzled (number 5.) Why on EARTH would it be okay to preorder for everyone? I can understand having a limited menu, but it seems to me that dietary restrictions and the like would dictate that it’s impolite to make that decision for people. Can anyone shed light on this?

so, it’s time for a quiz. Here’s a quiz on Mortal Threats from Psychology Today.

How good is your grasp of risk?

1. What’s more common in the United States, (a) suicide or (b) homicide?
2. What’s the more frequent cause of death in the United States, (a) pool drowning or (b) falling out of bed?
3. What are the top five causes of accidental death in America, following motor-vehicle accidents, and which is the biggest one?
4. Of the top two causes of nonaccidental death in America, (a) cancer and (b) heart disease, which kills more women?
5. What are the next three causes of nonaccidental death in the United States?
6. Which has killed more Americans, bird flu or mad cow disease?
7. How many Americans die from AIDS every year, (a) 12,995, (b) 129,950, or (c) 1,299,500?
8. How many Americans die from diabetes every year? (a) 72,820, (b) 728,200, or (c) 7,282,000?
9. Which kills more Americans, (a) appendicitis or (b) salmonella?
10. Which kills more Americans, (a) pregnancy and childbirth or (b) malnutrition?

Answers here (scroll down).

or you’ll be sharing a lot of bacteria with others this Super Bowl Sunday. I won’t as there is a large empty compartment in my brain where an interest in sports would go. In any case, if the idea of double dipping reminds you of Seinfeld, you’ll enjoy the story.

have a good time with this gift from Chalice Chick.

 Turn your sound down.

The word “hip” is egregiously misused in Hip Office: Ergonomic Workspace for Those on the Go. Come to think of it, the word “ergonomic” is also misused. I don’t think there’s any way typing in that position is ergonomic….yow.

Via Treehugger

Now, this looks like an ordinary dog-video at first, but it is not. It is one of those stories about succeeding at the impossible. And I’d add that you can teach a dog to do just about anything with a spoonful of peanut butter.

For Friday, here’s the Bad Boss Quiz via the Good Boss, Bad Boss Toolkit on the NYT:

1. Have you ever publicly criticized an employee?

2. Do you take credit for your employees’ work?

3. Do your employees fear you?

4. Do you expect employees to do what you tell them without question?

5. Do you believe employees should know what to do without you telling them or providing guidelines?

6. Are you a yeller?

7. Do you demean employees as a form of punishment?

8. Do you play favorites?

9. Do you hate delegating?

10. Do you check everyone’s work?

I won! I won! I’m not a bad boss. Of course, I’m hardly anyone’s boss.

If you’re a boss, take note of this list—these issues come up over and over and over again with employees in their complaints about the workplace.