Friday, February 18, 2011

I could win an Olympic gold medal for Conclusion Jumping!

I don't know if it's something connected to estrogen or if my probable adult ADD just randomizes illogical cause-and-effect scenarios, but I've decided that if you could compete in the Olympic Conclusion Jump, I would probably excel far beyond the gold medal.  I'd win the platinum medal, or the unanimously coveted bacon medal, which would obviously be one step above platinum.

I'll take a real life example just to prove to you other contestants how you don't stand a chance.

Me:  MEH, I just got an email from Boss Lady that my employee evaluation is today.

MEH:  Oh, good luck.

Me:  It's Friday.  My employee evaluation is on a Friday.

(I pause.  Let that sink in.)

Me:  I am going to be fired.

MEH assures me that if I were on the chopping block, my bosses would not wait until my annual review to give me the ol' heave ho.  (Ha ha... "ho.")  Some of you may even be scratching your heads, wondering how I got from "my review is on a Friday" to "I should probably start looking for another job right now."  If you're wondering, you obviously don't stand a chance in the Olympic Conclusion Jump.

Here's how it works, you guys.  Somewhere, at some point in time, I may or may not have read something that said that there was a higher percentage of firings on Fridays.  People don't get fired on Mondays because they're more likely to jump off the roof out of depression.  Is this true?  I have no idea.  Will I base a number of (in my mind) logical derivatives from this piece of potentially fictional news?  You bet your bacon medal, I will.

If there is a higher percentage of firings on Fridays and I am going in for some serious criticism about my performance, it makes sense to me that my bosses would usher me into the Office of Intimidation, smile at me and tell me that while I have excellent email communication skills, upon further review, I just wasn't meeting the standards of excellence that I've previously mentioned

I'm clearly concerned with my looming unemployment - clearly.  It's just that I plan on having french fries for lunch again today, so I'll probably have a heart attack within the next year, anyway.

Bacon medal, here I come!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Things I think would make great Valentine's Day Gifts

1. Promise to parallel park my car for me whenever you're in the car and I have to parallel park so that I don't get all anxious and hyperventilatey about it.

2. Cookies.  Make them, buy them, give them to me instead of candy because I like cookies so much more and I'll probably share them with you, but just don't eat them all, okay?  Otherwise, present NULLIFIED.

3.  This.  OH MY GOD, WHY DON'T I OWN THIS YET?!  (link me)
 Jaws T-shirt Nommage
4. Some kind of BBQd red meat.

5. Maybe you just tell me on the regular that you appreciate me all the way down to the guts and black stuff inside me and not wait until one day a year when it's all obligatory, and then we can just think of this day as February 14 - the day that we don't need to celebrate anything out of the ordinary because we've done a fair job of making all the other 364 days of the year pretty extraordinary.  Just a suggestion.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Sometimes, this is actually how I hear conversations.

Scene: An office. The phone rings.

TAB: This is TAB.

Coworker: Worthless Peon, good morning! How are you today?

TAB: (grunt).

Coworker: Listen, I really need your help with something. Can you track down this piece of information that I know you don't have access to so that I don't have to spend ten of my valuable seconds composing an email to send to corporate?

TAB: Um, that's really not my responsibility...

Coworker: I know, but if you don't do it, I'll send you an email every five minutes asking for your help anyway, and I'll CC absolutely everyone in every office so that eventually someone will come in your office and yell at you to just help me out so that I'll stop bothering everyone with a flood of poorly spelled, grammatically atrocious emails. Ha ha!

TAB: Oh, in that case, let me just get a pen here so that I can take down this information... Coworker: Okay, I don't have any information that would actually help you with the thing that I'm asking you to find, so how about I give you a bunch of random numbers and figures that in no way pertains to this problem?

TAB: Great. I am definitely listening and writing down all of this information. I'm practically at the edge of my seat, salivating and hanging on your every word. Please continue. I don't have anything else to do today, anyway!Coworker: Well, it wouldn't matter if you did, because I would demand that you drop whatever it was you were doing to fix this problem that I created for myself.

TAB: And rightly so, Coworker. My office supplies include anal lube because with the frequency that I am bent over and "put in my place," so to speak, things can get quite sore. Let me just finish up these notes here... Do you have any more useless facts and figures, or shall I get to ignoring your problem right away?Coworker: Well, I need to make sure that this gets done as of yesterday, because it was due on Monday and I procrastinated asking for help, so if you could just go back in time and make sure I'm doing my job correctly, we won't end up having this conversation. Did you get that down, Slave? That this is a HOT RUSH and you should be completing it right now? As I am still speaking to you? I mean, are you already working on it? Have you finished it yet?

TAB: Just about. I'm just finishing up getting this information and coming up with a brilliant answer to your problem that will be painfully obvious. In fact, I am literally leaping out of my chair to hunt down the five people that I will need to talk to in order to ascertain what it is, exactly, that you're even asking me for. I'm definitely concerned with how you look to management.

Coworker: Great! I'm glad you've been so attentive, because you should also pay attention to the fact that you're going to do all the legwork for me and I will take the credit. I hope your notes were thorough, Worthless Peon, because I might even change my mind about what it is I'm asking of you!

TAB: I'm usually prepared for that, Coworker! Don't worry, I have everything written down here. Enjoy your obscene salary, you overpaid, useless twit.

Coworker: I surely will! Thanks for making me look even better!

Monday, February 7, 2011

I'm trying to love you, Football, but you're boring so it's hard for me.

There are some things in life that I believe I will never learn. Things that I can't comprehend, mistakes that I continue to make over and over, and subjects that I have some kind of mental block against - that no matter how many times I study, evade my understanding. The finer points of string theory, most things related to chemistry, psychological reasons why some people are as useless as a butthole on your forehead, and football.

And, like all good Americans, I hate that which I do not understand. Except for string theory - I think that has some serious potential to be fantastic. Plus I feel like I have a better chance of understanding that than football, which is saying something.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the "experience" of football, especially if there is booze attached to it. Tailgate parties, sports bars, pubs, BBQs... generally, any time I am challenged to make something heart-attack inducing bite-sized, I'm going to be on board. ("These wings would be better if they were wrapped in bacon!") I can also get behind having a home team, but I moved around a bit and my college didn't have a football team, so I missed out there. I also don't mind large sweaty men in jerseys who yell at the television and at the refs and paint their faces like William Wallace in their wife's Suburban. Actually, I commend you for your spirit. That's how I get when Shark Week rolls around every year. (Seriously.)

I've had football "explained" to me at least once a year, from several different people. As a kid, I was too wrapped up in soccer to properly give a shit about anything that wasn't soccer (or ballet, come to think of it) but I knew that the Super Bowl meant snacks and funny commercials. My Dad tried to explain it to me, but I never remembered how those conversations ended because I'm sure EM and I would just take off to go do something more interesting, like watch grass grow. Later in high school, I was in marching band and so was forced to sit through games, unmoved and unthrilled by anything happening. Even when my guy friends tried to inform me about the horrible call that just happened, I would inevitably ask something stupid like, "A safety is what now? He struck out? Oh, it's like a touchdown? Is that like a 3-pointer? Penalty kick? No? Can I have some of your nachos?"

I've dated football players and die-hard football fans who tried, in vain, to make me understand The Greatest Sport In The Universe. It never ended well. I'm determined to learn, if only to prove to myself that if I can understand verb conjugation in most Latin based languages, surely I can understand something understood by millions of men and 5 or 6 women. Probably.

I watched the Super Bowl yesterday and tried to absorb commentary on fumbles and incomplete passes, the point system and the lineup, but ended up bored and making cookies in the kitchen. Some day, I'll learn... it's just that I *really* want to get this string theory thing down first.

Wanna cookie?