monster sarcasm rally

Today's guest columnist will be Douglas Adams, author of books you should read, and what he has to say is this:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

That he agreed to do this column is surprising for three reasons.
1. He's famous and I'm not.
2. I pay crap.
3. He's dead.

Client testimonial...

Thanks to Blogger I was able to get far more of my real work done today. Ordinarily I spend the vast majority of the work day reading and writing blogs. Today, thanks to Blogger, I was able to spend nearly eight hours focused on the work I'm paid to do. Since I couldn't access either the Blogger dashboard or anybody's Blogspots, I managed to get more work done today than I have all year so far!

Enhance your productivity today by joining Blogger!

These words were written by sic @ 16.08

I bought my lunch today. I went to the same little vegetarian take-out place I always do. On impulse, I decided to buy a blueberry thing. It was sort of somewhere between a pie, a crisp and a turnover.

Now here's where I have to reveal yet another of my dirty little secrets. The blueberry things are nicely packaged up and stacked one on top of the other. Most people would just take the one on the top. Not I. I go through the entire stack and choose the biggest one. Maybe it's because I figure if I'm paying for something, I want my money's worth. Maybe it's just because I'm perpetually hungry.

I got back to work and sat down to eat my lunch and made a profoundly upsetting discovery. My blueberry thing wasn't blueberry at all. It was an apple-cranberry-raisin-cherry-blueberry thing. Apparently, the entire stack was not the same kind of thing. While I did indeed get the biggest of the lot, I failed to notice that it wasn't what I wanted. I hate raisins. I hate cranberries. I despise cherries. Apples are fine, as long as they're peeled (which these were not).

Blech!

(sigh)

It has come to my attention that the editing process is considered tiresome. Several of you have pointed out the numerous flaws inherent in the system. In order to accommodate your wishes and whims, we will institute an entirely new set of procedures.

The Old Way

1. You submit your report to me.
2. I read it and make changes.
3. I return your document for your perusal.
4. You go through the document, unmaking all my changes.
5. You submit the document to publishing.

The New Way

1. You submit your report to me.
2. I write meaningless blog entries for half an hour.
3. I return the untouched file to you with a comment telling you how wonderful it is. Once in a while I'll add a comment about how reading your document has changed my life.
4. You feel good about yourself and your skills as a writer.
5. You submit the document to publishing.

Clearly, the New Way has numerous advantages over the Old Way. We will all (except the publisher, but she's chronically cranky) have less work to do. We will all feel better about ourselves, thus enhancing our sense of self worth. Additionally, since the New Way takes less time to complete, all parties will have more time to spend focusing on the things in life that really matter, like the current market value of our investments.

The Ferengi is undoubtedly annoyed at me. I've spent the afternoon giggling maniacally.

Players perform various tasks in front of unsuspecting non-players to compete for points. Some of my favourites are:

• Phone a co-worker you barely know and leave this voice-mail message: “Just called to say I can’t talk right now. Bye”.
• To signal that a conversation is over, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
• In the middle of a meeting, suddenly exclaim, “Yahtzee!”.
• In the elevator, ask a stranger, “Have you accepted me as your personal saviour?”.
• If your office has a water cooler, kneel and drink directly from the spigot. Make sure you have a witness.
• Answer your phone by screaming as loud as you can.

And finally...

• When no one’s watching, remove the paper tray from the photocopier or laser printer and, with a felt pen, write the word Satan on several sheets at random. Reinsert tray.

I was reading Saint Confused's blog this morning, and he asked a very good question.

'Why is our largest obstacle usually ourselves?'

I posted a quick response, but it got me thinking. Simple, I thought... I can run from anybody, anything, anytime... Except me. I am stuck with me. When I wake up in the morning, there I am. I work with me. I eat with me. I socialise with me. I am all around me. I cannot escape me. It's overload.

I need a break from me.

I'm not trying to imply that there's anything wrong with me (aside from the obviously twisted mind). I think this is a typical human feeling. Imagine being sentenced to spend 24 hours a day with another person. Everywhere you went, they'd be with you. Every thought that flashed through your head, they'd know about. Every feeling, every word, every deed... All of it. It would be too much.

I think that sometimes — just for a little while — I'd like to go somewhere that I wasn't. You know?

From an e-mail...

'So, I should systematically replace the systemic use of the word 'systematic' with 'systemic' throughout the document, as per our conversation the other day, right?'

My computer is in pieces on the floor under my desk. They had to disconnect everything so that they could shrink my cubicle by a few feet. They've sent me to another computer elsewhere in the office while they work. It hasn't got the software I need to do my job, but — as luck would have it — it does have internet access.

And now for few observations on what I've written so far...

By 'while they work' what I actually mean is that they disconnected my computer and put it on the floor. Then they left. That was more than an hour ago. Maybe they'll come back. Maybe not.

On the shrinking space... Have you ever seen Office Space? Milton complains that they keep making him move his desk and he doesn't like it. They move his desk back a few inches at a time until there's no longer enough room for a chair. Then they move him into the furnace room in the basement.

We're trying to hire (yes, 'trying'; after weeks of trying we've yet to succeed) another person. They're shrinking my cubicle by about two or three feet in width. The space next to my cubicle is currently home to the colour printer. They tried to move it next to the Ferengi's cubicle. She had a hissy fit, claiming that it was unreasonable to ask somebody to sit next to that thing. The noise is unbearable! They tried to move it next to somebody else's cubicle. Again, it was determined that the noise was unacceptable. Never mind that I've worked in between the accursed beast and the ever-humming fax machine for nearly a year now.

The problem with the spot I'm using now is that everybody in the office can plainly see what's on my screen. It's fairly obvious that I'm not doing any work, so maybe I should go and pretend harder.

'Well, at least he's good looking. Maybe he can get by on that.'

Okay, I'll admit. I was the one who said it.

That's great; I'm quoting myself.

There's no such thing as a stupid question.

There are, however, plenty of stupid people. And sometimes stupid people ask questions that don't make any sense. They string a series of perfectly sensible words together in a nonsensical fashion and then — just for fun — turn the whole thing into a question.

When you fail to provide the answers they are looking for, you will be labelled either stupid or difficult.

I will like to find music that makes you feel happy when you are Arabic for dancing?
Why are Tuesdays always green?
Why does InDesign always (insert random nonsense here)?
When you're driving standard, what's the driving gear called?

(Three of the four questions above have actually been asked of me.)

I've been in a rather good mood this week, thus making me very un-funny and largely uninspired as a writer of satire/sarcastic wittiness/drivel.

Hopefully next week will be worse, by which of course I mean better. Or should that be the other way around?

Hmm... It's beginning to dawn on me that my workplace may be a bit unusual.

We're looking to hire another person, and my boss asked me if I knew anybody. I suggested a girl from my church. I don't know her very well, but from what I do know, I'm sure she's fully capable of doing the job.

She sent a resume. He called and set up an interview. After the interview he came back to me and said he wouldn't be hiring her. She's too nice.

Huh?

He asked me how I thought she would deal with everybody yelling at her. Hmm... Hadn't thought of that. His final word on the subject was that he didn't believe she would be able to yell back.

What kind of job requires people to yell at their co-workers?

Remember those extra reports I told you about earlier in the week? Of course you do...

The Ferengi has now advised me that our boss had no right to order so many. The right thing to do, she says, would be to wait for her to return from vacation and ask her what to do.

Oddly, I am of the view that three things work against this theory.
1. The boss can order as many reports as he wants. He's the boss.
2. If the boss tells me to do something, I should probably do it. Well, if I want to keep my job, that is.
3. I am not obligated to obey the commands of people who are not my boss and do not outrank me in any way. This is particularly true when said commands conflict with what my boss has told me to do.

One final thing... Ferengi, should you ever stumble across this page and by some twisted miracle recognise yourself, there is something I would like to say to you.

You're not the boss of me! Na na na na na na. (Blows rapsberry)

This morning I sent an e-mail telling one of the guys that he was confusing two similar but different words. I was having trouble discerning which one he actually meant, because he had intertwined the meanings so completely. I copied the definitions of both words from the dictionary and asked him to come and see me so that we could discuss what he was trying to communicate.

Instead, he e-mailed the princess and asked for his help. The princess sent an e-mail back entitled 'The Two are Interchangeable'. In it, he cited definitions from a different dictionary. While the definitions differed somewhat from Cambridge's, they clearly showed that the two were not synonyms. In fact, the definitions he sent compared the two words and discussed the differences.

...but this is funny.

'In an announcement that has alarmed voters across the nation, Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he will personally attack the U.S. if Sen. John Kerry wins the next election.'

You've got to love the Onion.

Today I shall tell you about the princess. The princess is one of the guys I work with. The princess writes reports and I edit them.

Excuse me; this entry will now be interrupted so that the Ferengi can yell at me. Our boss ordered extra copies of a printed report. This makes her angry, so she takes it out on me.

Anyways... Back to the princess... He writes reports. I edit them. I don't know why I bother. The whole process would be much smoother and simpler if I simply handed the document back untouched and told him it was wonderful.

As it is, I correct his his grammar, which is not so much wrong as it is better suited to poetry than research publications. He comes whining back to me that Microsoft Friggin' Word's grammar check didn't have a problem with it! Alternatively, he finds an example on the Internet of somebody who said things the same way he did.

The way things work around here, he has the right to overrule my edits and use whatever bad grammar he chooses. He won't, though. He'd much rather stand at my desk and try to convince me that his way is the right way, the only right way. He's a tiny little man, with a soft, high-pitched voice. I just sit here and glare at him. As he gets more and more upset, his voice gets higher and higher. Sometimes I stand up just so that I can look down my nose at him. But I digress...

One time I refused to see things the way he wanted me to (mainly because he was wrong) and he eventually squeaked that he was just trying to discuss things rationally and logically so that we could come to an agreement, and there was no need for me to get so emotional. Then he stomped off in a huff.

Here's a hint: calling me emotional is never going to win you an argument.

I've been bored at work lately, and I've been reading and writing blogs to wile the time away. I've been using the handy little 'Next Blog' button to stroll through random blogs.

I've learned something in my travels. People in Singapore use the most appalling grammar imaginable. And the spelling is atrocious. The problem is by no means limited to blogs from Singapore, they just seem to represent the worst abuses of the English language.

In order to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I've decided to post a mini guide to better writing.

1. Substituting 'u' for 'you': For the record, there are three characters in the word. Thank you.

2. The use of 'LOL' and 'he he he': I assure you, your blog does not need a laugh track. If it is funny, I will figure it out all on my own and will laugh at the appropriate points.

3. 'Your' versus 'you're': Try substituting the words 'you are'. If the sentence makes sense, then the word you're looking for is 'you're'.

4. 'Cuz' is not a word. How do I know this? Because it's not in the dictionary, that's how!

5. Similarly, 'Dat' is not a word, either. How do I know that? See above.

Thank you. Now please pay attention to what you write, or I shall come over there and kick your sorry butt!

She threatened to quit again today.

Basically, she's mad at one of the guys for doing what she told him to. She's mad at the boss for not enforcing her (incomprehensible and ever-changing) standards. She's mad at me because it's all my fault.

I'm sure she's mad at you, too, so you'd better watch out.

'Remember, always be yourself. Unless you suck.'
-Joss Whedon

'Love me or hate me, but spare me your indifference.'
-Libbie Fudim

'Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.'
-Dr Seuss

We had our little fire drill. All our sorry butts made it out alive. Well, except the traders, of course... It would be unreasonable to expect traders to stop trading just to practise getting out of the building alive. They were exempted from the drill.

Actual emergencies must be scheduled for after market close. Emergencies caught taking place during business hours will be duly ignored. Groups, individuals or deities convicted of arranging emergencies that do not meet the accepted criteria will be subject to fines and/or imprisonment. Thank you for your attention.

Um... Anyways... My point was that I went to a nearby building, found a comfy seat and read my book for an hour. I returned to the office just in time for lunch.

We're having a fire drill today. Notices went up all over the building a few weeks ago. When the alarm sounds, we're to leave the building, report to our designated meeting spot, and stay away from the office for 60 minutes.

I've been looking forward to it all week. An extra break! I'm all ready. I plan to go and sit with a cup of coffee and a book for an hour. I think it's great.

Unsurprisingly, the Ferengi is angry. Taking an hour off work is inconvenient, she says. She actually yelled at our boss this morning. Yelled. She raised her voice in speaking to the boss about the fire drill, as if it were all his fault.

That's just dumb.

Wow. I've been blogging for about a month and a half. I haven't given the address to anybody I know, so the only people who read my blogs are the ones who stumble in here by accident. As such, feedback is pretty much non-existent.

One of my posts has warranted two unsolicited comments. Two! I'm pretty excited about that, and so I've decided to return to the comment-inducing topic: the Atkins fad.

I don't know anybody who is on the Atkins diet. Well, I don't know anybody who admits to being on it, at any rate. Everybody I've talked to agrees; it's just stupid.

The guy at the health food store explained how it works. Carbs are what fuel your body. They are what gives you the energy to get through the day. If you don't eat enough carbs, your body starts burning muscle. The result: you lose weight. And since muscle weighs more than fat, you lose it fast. If this sounds like a good idea to you, then go right ahead.

I, for one, am proud of the muscles I have. I like them, and I plan to keep them.

What on earth do they want with an editor if the writers are just going to overrule all my changes anyway?