Cooking the Books

We’re going to use a baking analogy now in order to accurately depict my last three hours at work. It’s not because I have an particular affinity or talent in the kitchen to produce well-crafted dessert – on the contrary, I once made a Black Forest Cake that took 11 hours and I nearly suffocated on powdered sugar inhalation – but rather, because the numbers and calculations of what I do all day aren’t very exciting. Not even, “Hey, Everybody Loves Raymond is on!!” exciting. Yeah. Dull.

Let’s say you baked a cake for a special occasion. Sure, you could have gone to Wegman’s like any other time-pressed schlock with 22 bucks in your pocket, but you wanted to make this really special. Because you may want to teach someone your methods you decide to video the whole cake baking process. That way, you have a well-documented video that can either become useful for future cake-baking protégés, or at the least, You Tube fodder.

And let me just say, you had no idea baking a cake could take so damn long. There’s a lot of specific details and measurements and protocol to follow, but people are counting on you to come through with this cake. But it’s not like you’re going to be judged on your creativity artistry. Instead, it’s how close you stick to the foolproof recipe that will determine your ultimate success. You follow every step to absolute precision. You measure thrice, pour once. There’s no way you’re screwing this up.

After all your hard work and 45 minutes at 350 degrees, your creation looks beautiful. You don’t say much at dinner because you want to get to the consumption of said cake. Everyone else catches up and it’s time for the great reveal of your delectable hard work. Everyone congratulates you on how excellent your presentation looks and how excited they are to have a forkful. At last, the first bite is upon you! You reach down, cut off a small slice and take a chomp.

It tastes like feet.

What the hell? There’s no way this cake should taste like feet. Not only were you precise in your measurements and accurate in your ingredients, you kept the cleanliness of your workspace with stainless integrity. What went wrong? Your dinner guests are spending time coming up with excuses as to why they are no longer devouring the cake, and you are sitting there aghast. But then you remember one thing.

The videotape!

A careful review of procedure will surely reveal what the hell went wrong. After everyone leaves for the evening, (5:00), you connect your camcorder to the TV and relive your painful afternoon minute by minute. Just as you guessed, you’re a freakin’ perfectionist. You did everything right. Ingredients were added in the correct order, the correct baking utensils were utilized, and hell, your rendition of “Whistle While You Cook” remained completely on-key. There’s only another couple steps on the tape before you put in the oven. You’re just about to give up and grab a Twinkie from the pantry.

And them you see it.

Inexplicably, (and coincidentally when you were grabbing a Twinkie from the pantry earlier), your co-worker—um, I mean – roommate comes into the kitchen and sees you’ve been working on a cake. He decides to help, because well, he’s a helpful kind of guy.

He adds sausage to the batter.

That explains everything.

Moral of the story: Make your spreadsheets READ ONLY. Otherwise, you can lose complete control of a financial reporting masterpiece.

Telecommuting It In

From a 4/05 post titled “7 Deadly Office Sins”:
Do NOT bring up Office Space at work. It’s a funny movie, and it’s very good. But no matter what reference you make to it while at work, your work situation will never, EVER be as funny as the movie.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. This is my confession.

Well it’s not exactly bringing up Office Space at work if you are not physically at your office, is it? After all, the quote I would like to use to preface this post is fitting, but for the actual place of use, I guess I didn’t technically do anything wrong. I’m really quoting Office Space ABOUT work, not AT work, so you know what? I didn’t commit one of the 7 Office Deadly Sins. But since I’m typing here in the Confessional, I might as well confess a sin I plan to commit sometime in the near future. Father, I am sorry for when I pretend to be on the phone when that crazy woman down the hall comes and tries to orate on what it takes to be a good parent. My bad.

Ok, on to the quote:
Joanna: So you're gonna quit?
Peter Gibbons: Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh... I'm just gonna stop going.
Joanna: When did you decide all that?
Peter Gibbons: About an hour ago.
Joanna: Oh, really? About an hour ago... so you're gonna get another job?
Peter Gibbons: I don't think I'd like another job.

Translation: Working from home is great.

Over the course of the last two weeks, while home trying to introduce the outside world to a brand new human being, I was able to do all of my work-related computing from the comfy confines of our apartment. And I gotta confess, it was pretty sweet.

Normally, you take off work on a weekday because you have a reason that will not allow you to come to work that day. Vacations are popular; not only will you not be in the office, you’re not even planning on being in the town/state/country. No one can contact you, and if they do, we think it might be time to turn that Blackberry into the most expensive skipping stone ever to be launched into the drink.

And then there’s the glorious Monday of a 3-day weekend. However, the government has not decreed you to stay home from work just for the hell of it – they feel that you must be celebrating something. Which is why so often that Monday will have a barbeque, picnic, or ball game planted in the middle of your off-day agenda.

And I don’t take sick days. They're for sick people.

Which leaves virtually zero days during the week in which I may wake up in my bed and have a completely clear, non-work schedule ahead of me. Sure, they’ll be diapers to change and clothes to wash, but that beats sitting at a desk, doesn’t it? And sure, I can log some hours by getting work done on the laptop, but would they know the difference if I’m wearing shorts and sandals and sitting in the Big Brown Chair? (all rights reserved) Heck, no! In fact, I’m thinking of moving all operations to homebase – if I’m getting my work done – who cares if I’ve got Cool Runnings on over my shoulder? I don't think anyone would mind if Sanka Coffie chimed in on the occasional conference call. Hell, he does my taxes, I'm sure he could contribute.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, the blog slows down when I’m at home. As the Magical YAB Post-Partum Tour rolls on, we’re doing our best to amend that (I think this Post #6, and Wednesday’s not even over yet). I guess the reason is simple:

I must have left the funny locked in my office drawer.

Postscript: Have you ever watched a DVD in the background of your work computer and gotten away with it? If so, the comments are your forum to brag.

Just Like "24"

8 minutes ago.

8 minutes ago, the peaceful buzz that is a busy office was altered by something that would on all other occasions blend harmoniously into the sweet sound that is commerce. Everyone who’s anyone has a desk telephone in this joint, and no one finds it strange when the phone chooses to ring every once in a while. Rings are usually limited to one or two – three at the most – before it drives the person in close proximity so batty that they have no other choice but to pick the damn thing up and converse.

9 minutes.

It’s been 9 minutes now that something just has not seemed right. Have you ever been standing in a public place such as a subway platform or outside a supermarket when one of the dying breed of pay phones inexplicably starts to ring? As you’ve seen in the movies, fugitives and poor people often use this outlet as a way to receive phone calls without, you know, actually having utility bills. But when neither demographic is around, and it’s you and the ringing phone and no one else, what have you done? To my recollection, I’ve only picked up a ringing pay phone that wasn’t meant for me. I was on GW’s campus between classes a few semesters ago, and the person on the other end demanded to speak with Josh. When I asked the guy to describe Josh, he told me, “He wears pants and shoes. Aw, never mind.” (Based on my attire, I guess I could have been Josh.)

11 minutes and counting.

It’s 11 minutes and counting, and it’s pretty staggering that no one has taken any action. Somewhere in this office, there’s a phone ringing. It’s not in the next office, but I can hear it and I can be annoyed by it. I’m pretty certain that this is some sort of telecommunications malfunction. At least I hope it is. Otherwise, it appears that the caller is the most persistent caller in the history of the world. Wow, he must have something pretty important to tell – wait, what? – the guy who occupied the abandoned vacant cube by the printer?

12 long, long minutes.

12 minutes in to this nightmare, I’m going to go check this out myself. Hang on.

14, yes, 14 minutes.

Yeah, I went over there. Yeah, it’s still ringing. I tried to turn the volume down on the phone, but to no avail. It wails on, and no one seems to care. Why did I not take any actual corrective action? Because NO ELSE HAS MOVED A MUSCLE. And I’m not going to playing the role of “over-sensitive cubevillian.” Not today anyway.

22 minutes!

I take that back. I sure as hell am.

Ahhhhhhhh. Much better.

Stairway to Fritos

“Big wheels keep on turnin’”

As I’ve surely commented many times in the past, my building contains a lobby shop to benefit the employees contained within said building. Now if it were to truly benefit said employees, everything in it would be free. However, there’s probably two reasons this doesn’t happen. First, the rules of commerce state that if one wants to run a successful retailing operation, one must earn revenue to offset and possibly outrun thy expenses. Secondly, this would be the only way someone would ever actually leave a convenience store in possession of a Zagnut candy bar. And as we all know, such an unlikely event occurring would cause the universe to implode.

Yet another reason to support capitalism.

As we’ve touched on in the past, the Lobby Shop serves many purposes. It’s a dry cleaning headquarters. It’s an incentive forum for child labor. It’s where men can learn how hard women have it in life. Oh, and they sell the finest meats and cheeses for all its subjects. But what’s more -

They listen to Classic Rock.

”Come on and take a Free Ride. Come on and sit here by my side.”

The very idea of pumping music into a store to improve customer morale is not an unusual idea in the retail industry, nor is it lightly researched. As a WM marketing major, I swear I did at lease three case studies on such a phenomenon. The premise is simple. Music makes people happy. Happy people spend money. And shopping in complete and deafening silence makes people think they’re being watched, thus turning them into self-conscious, uneasy, uberfrugal moneymongers. So yeah, a little muzak doesn’t hurt nobody.

“Girl, you really got me now…”

I guess I first noticed this format flip from crappy office music, the likes of Phil Collins and Celine Dion, to “the latest and greatest from the decade that played what you want to hear” a few weeks ago, when I stopped down at the Old Shoppe for a candy bar (and yeah, it wasn’t a Zagnut.) As I scanned the racks for a decent snack, I found myself tapping my feet to Black Water by the Doobie Brothers. (You know – “Old Black Water, keep on rolling, Mississippi moon...) And then last week, while shopping for a greeting card, it was Aerosmith’s Dream On. This morning, though, it finally hit me. Wolfman Jack must run this lobby shop, because we were rocking out to Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Stones. The Stones!

(James Blunt. Get out. Seriously. We who are about to rock, buy gum and stamps.)

“Come on baby, light my fire.”

The best part about this? The employees of the Lobby Shop are completely oblivious to their excellent choice of music station. (Normally, I’m not a classic rock recordhead, but I guess when it comes to this, nothing makes me what to decide on a variety of Sun Chips quite like the guitar riffs of Three Dog Night or Creedence.) Behind the counter is an ever-rotating unit of four Korean women, all in their late-forties or so. They’re all very, very friendly, and very helpful when I come seeking 24 dress shirts with medium starch, but do they realize their excellent choice in muzak? It’s like they don’t even realize it’s on!

So those who have come here to work can now also come here to rock.

“Come together. Right Now. Over me.”