Sandman Works in Finance?

As yet another beautiful Sunday afternoon fell upon the Washington DC region, a few things became increasingly clear. The Nationals have realized that they were once the Expos, and have continued their freefall in the Wild Card standings. The world has too many stupid moviegoers, as Dukes of Hazzard claimed the box office with $30 mil in ticket receipts. And finally, local man Chris Condon has a lot of homework to do.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

There’s not a whole lot that can be done for the first two. The Nats are not getting the run support they need and idiot filmatics will storm the box office yet again to vindicate Rob Schneider’s worst movie yet. But something can be installed to aid the third: Chris Condon can come into work such a lovely Sunday afternoon to write a paper.It was really an easy decision to try and work from work instead of home. Even though home has everything put away and all the Ikea furniture built, it lacks a certain something: INTERNET. No sense getting Cox in here before the wedding, since I’ll have about enough time to watch the SportsCenter “Did You Know” on cable. Instead, we’ve moved our grad school ops to comfy cubicular confines.

Working on a Sunday afternoon allowed me to do something unique – something that I guarantee every single one of you reader-types has contemplated at some point in your professional careers. Opportunities like this are rare; Kevin Costner has made more baseball flicks than such occasions arising. As I sit at my desk in a quiet office on a quiet day, with only the whirring of computers to keep me from absolute silence, I realize that this is my chance to seize the moment. I retract my hands from my keyboard. I remove the pen from my ear. I push aside the financials binder I’ve been working with. And then, ever so slowly, I place my arms on my desk, drop my head, and…

Take a Nap.

Honestly, how many times in your standard work week have you regretted not going to bad one hour earlier? Or maybe it was that one last round at Happy Hour that is making your computer screen look fuzzy. Whatever the reason, everybody has looked at their desk at some point and contemplated mistaking it for a pillow. So yesterday, with nary a soul around (I can’t believe I just used “nary.” I’m sorry.), I stretched out, leaned over, and fell fast asleep for twenty minutes.

When I woke up, I realized I had done what so many have pondered and what so few have intentionally done. And as I got back to work on my paper, I thought about other activities that I would love to do in an office setting but will likely never get the opportunity. I call these the Bachman Turner Overdrive Five – a list of tasks inspired by BTO’s call to take care of business (even if it means workin’ overtime.)

The BTO 5 are as follows:
1. SPORTS TIME! – Nothing is more enticing than zooming up and down the halls of a cubicle maze on a pair of trusty skates. Most office carpet is thin enough to emulate the concrete that lies a sixteenth of an inch below it, so speed and traction are both well-represented here. To be extra daring, bring a stick and ball along for the ride.
2. CASUAL TIME! – Only after Hurricane Isabelle in 2003 did I get to wear sandals and shorts to work on a normal day. Comfortable footwear is essential to productivity, so make sure to leave the dress shoes at home given the chance.
3. MOVIE TIME! - Let’s see – empty office? Nobody home? Reserve that large conference room in the corner for yourself and grab the popcorn. Surely by now you’ve figured out the AV system in there – pop in a movie, kick back and enjoy. I recommend Die Hard – ultimate office building movie.
4. SNACK TIME! – Other than your water bottle and maybe a frequented candy dish, your food options at your desk are severely limited. It’s time to expand that palette. Set up a mini-grill and a cooler next to the file cabinet and throw down some hot dogs (or Fritos, if you’re Mitch Hedberg). Just be sure to avoid the sprinkler system. And NOT too much charcoal, either.
5. NAP TIME! – Ding! Check please.

Yellow Jerseys, Blackened Grills

July 26th would have signaled the one year anniversary of "You're a Blog." The celebration party would have been awesome. There would have been celebrities, good food, all our favorite commenters, a roast of Editor-in-Chief Chris Condon, and we all would have had a good laugh about it.

Too bad the invitations for the bash were mis-dated by seven days.

As YAB continues to battle its own Achilles Heel of Daily Blogging Pride, we offer a different kind of recap on the year. Since it only took us five lousy posts before we presented a clip show to our (at-the-time) four readers, recalling the highlights isn't that novel. Instead, we give you a year's worth of subliminal funny. We've brought it.

Just under our banner for BY05 (Blog Year 2005), we have thrown in an extra joke by means of the tagline. ESPN's Page 2 does it on a daily basis, and as a minor homage, we did it on a weekly basis. Some of you have caught them, and some of you read using XML and miss out. No matter, here they are now.

Ladies and gentlemen, the year…in taglines.

7/25 – Where wearing a yellow jersey in a cubicle does not make the day go faster.
8/1 – Dancing in the electronic riptide.
8/9 – Where we don’t take the Madden jinx lightly
8/16 – Where we are the first Jamaican Blogsled Team.
8/23 – Where we'll be here long after the boys of summer have gone.
8/30 – Where O’Boises are still O’Boisterous.
9/6 – Where we’re ready for some football!
9/13 – Where Condon gets his write on.
9/20 – Where brevity is not the soul of blogging.
9/27 – Where it feels like we’re running to stand still.
10/4 – Where we could erupt at any minute.
10/11 – Where we play a crazy game of poker.
10/18 – Where a Carlos Beltran homer just landed in our inbox.
10/25 – Where the hottest new show is Desperate House, M.D.
11/1 – Where Terrell Owens practices the Ray Lewis dance for hours.
11/8 – Where the Polar Express has a 40 minute layover for food and fuel.
11/15 – Where the wine glass and coffee mug just resigned from our cabinet.
11/22 – Where Chief Massasoit and Squanto come to kick back and watch some football.
11/29 – Where we are once again taking applications for Jeopardy Cyborg.
12/6 – Warning. Reading this blog can cause cuts, abrasions, or death.
12/13 – Where the little drummer boy just joined the German rock band Tannenbaum.
12/20 – Where we like a little wassail with out toast.
12/27 – Has anyone seen our old lang sign?
1/3 – Viva la resolucion!
1/10 – Where trainwrecks, contrary to popular opinion, aren't very funny.
1/17 – Where the Minnesota Vikings buckle like a belt.
1/24 – Where the nominees are.
1/31 – Where the groundhog goes for the weather.
2/7 – Where Cupid just got ARROWED.
2/14 – Where we’re under the table and scheming.
2/21 – Where our award show has a first name…
2/28 – Where we're wondering if New Orleans accepts the Big EZ Pass.
3/7 – Best homeless sign ever: Family killed by ninjas. Want money for kung fu lessons. Need revenge.
3/14 – Where we insert generic tagline here.
3/21 – Where we’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
3/27 – Where strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
4/3 – Tagline! You’re It!
4/10 – Where we, have no, idea, how to, use, commas,,,
4/17 – Where we think that the Emperor’s Royal Guard look like giant Twizzlers.
4/24 – The Brawny Man’s Guide to the Galaxy
5/2 - Where our train of thought just left the station.
5/9 - Where we make you take finals but offer free stuff.
5/16 - Where we play chicken with the train, play chicken with the train-train. Uh huh.
5/23 - Where spelling out varieties of fruit in a pop song is completely unacceptable.
5/30 - Where Tom Cruise goes for his therapy.
6/6 - Where we can't afford to pay attention.
6/13 - Where we believe that pants should not be granted freedom of travel.
6/20 - Where we have an excellent idea where the funny is.
6/27 - Where this blog needs ketchup.
7/11 - Where Chicken Chesapeake is chicken stuffed with crabmeat
7/18 - Where crashing a wedding is not covered on insurance.
7/25 - Where somebody put too much charcoal on the grill.

The Secret to Corporate Success

Ohhhh, so that’s how they do it.

As I near the completion of my first year of further edumacation in the business discipline, I feel that I have learned many things from my program. The law of diminishing returns applies to amount of time studying. Always grab an extra soda at the beginning of the class, because they’ll be all gone by the second break. Don’t leave your cell phone lying out. How easy business would be if the only raw materials I had to buy was lemons and ice. Yep, folks, this is learning at its finest.

Unfortunately, the road to knowledge I have chosen may not be the one most productive. A graduate degree might not be the way to a cushy salary hike and the oversized leather executive chair that all have come to expect. As I found out while sitting in a financial review meeting yesterday, the cost of success isn’t two years of extra homework; it can be acquired for $24.95 on the Internet.

(I feel like I should hawking my find in a TV commercial wearing a blazer rife with neon question marks, no?)

This meeting was held in the office of one such man who had found the path to executive-ship. The salary, the chair, the everything. I do not know if he pursued the same method of further edumacation that I have since embarked upon, but one thing is clear: he has made it. And then I saw IT.

What? Pronouns aren’t descriptive? Fine, here’s a picture of IT.

Sitting on the table in front of me was this calculator. Although, I don’t know if I can vouch for sure that there was a table under it. After all, this is the BIGGEST CALCULATOR THAT EVER WAS. You could operate this thing with two hands if you wanted to. And unless my company starts hiring kangaroos to crunch numbers, this is the farthest thing from a pocket model I can possibly imagine. The display might as well be a drive-thru monitor at McDonald’s, and the numbers are so big you could use them as templates for NHL jerseys.

Am I exaggerating? Is Jeremy Roenick King?

So, yeah, at this point you may think that I am trying to convince you all that the man in charge became the man in charge because he had the world’s biggest adding tool. (You’re an adding tool.) Well, your thinking is wrong. The YABNews Desk has no archival evidence that bigger technology is always better technology. A cell phone is far more useful than a telephone booth. A microwave is way better than a microwave. I even concede that my laptop Attica is a better machine than my old compumate, Mookie. And finally, the little calculator I have with the tiny buttons and the miniscule screen can do battle with the aforementioned “NASA Can See Me from the Shuttle” model.

So why are we still talking about this?

Go back and look at that calculator one more time. Notice anything … peculiar? (Other than it’s the size of Texas.) That’s right – an ANSWER BAR! Most calculators have an enter key that yields the final result of your complex computation. This one has an answer bar. I have to think that an answer bar can be far more useful than wanting to know what the square root of forty-two is (6.4807407). Just think of the questions you could ask your calculator…

What is 24 to the 4th power?
ANSWER = 331776

Who is the answer to the Flyers’ Stanley Cup hopes?
ANSWER = FORSBERG

What am I having for dinner tonight?
ANSWER = CHICKEN

But these are all frivolous uses. There are more important things at stake. Which brings me to my conclusion. In order to become a powerful executive, buy an ANSWER BAR calculator, and ask your way to profitability.

Mowing in the Name of Citrus

I am sitting in my financial management class on a Saturday morning that came up on me way too quickly. This course, only two weeks young, has proven rather entertaining, as the professor rewards the witty by cleverly mocking those who deserve to be mocked. Pull no punches. I think that once you reach college-level education and beyond, those you knowingly ask silly questions should be open game for professors who must endure them. “There are no stupid questions?” Ok, fine, but only if such questions set the prof up for a slam dunk punch line.

Teaching methods in the accounting and finance fields are pretty standard. As they both function essentially as applied sciences, professors cannot get too creative when it comes to method of instruction. Dead Poets Society, accounting is not. You cannot do ratio analysis while standing on your desk, nor can you compute dividends while kicking a soccer ball and listening to classical music. Mr. Keating would probably implode in front of the class due to the subject’s rigidity. Not good.

Accounting is taught in two veins: for companies that produce goods or services. Each type of business is taught using the same model: apply the laws of accounting to a real-world example. And no matter what teacher, what classroom, what college, whatever, those real-world examples ARE always the same:

“Suppose you want to have a lawn mowing business…”
“You want to start your own lemonade stand…”

Apparently, every single rule of accounting can be explained by either selling a watered-down citrus product or by keeping your neighbors landscaping trim. Who knew?

Now most of you probably haven’t realized this, as entry-level accounting classes are reserved for those who want to pursue a business career or lost some sort of tragic bet. But as a veteran of several of these courses, I can totally vouch. If you are to understand how to balance sheets, state income, or make cash, um, flow, you’re going to do it by pretending to run your own lemonade stand or by firing up the old mower.

What if?

I sit here wondering if we would have been better off had these been the only two new venture offerings for aspiring moneymakers. What if you could only start a lemonade stand or mow lawns, and no other products and services were offered in the world (at least for compensation). What kind of world would we live in if you could only have one of two jobs? Would it be that much different?

Wow, that was three open-ended questions in a row. Sorry. We’ll just called it a “Liz Grimm Homage.”

First off, going to work would be simple. Half of the population would leave work every morning to cut the grass of the world. Granted, without the need for skyscrapers, store fronts, or well, any place of business that is not a stand with icy pitchers of lemonade, there would be a LOT more lawn. Enough lawn for everybody who seeks employment. I assume professional baseball would still exist (players wouldn’t be paid to play), but since there’s lawn in the outfield, there’s still a need. Soccer should make a rousing comeback as well.

When those who mow lawns get tired, there is relief! They simply turn off the engine and walk over to their local lemonade stand, which I fully expect to be on more street corners than Starbucks. (Actually, they may just take all of Starbucks’ current locations. Same difference.) These people make money by quenching the thirst of the lawnmowers (people, not the equipment) They go home, have big houses from their earnings, with you guessed it – spacious front and back yards. Cyclical, no?
I’m sure I’m leaving out an assumption or two, but I think I’ve got it covered. Oh, there’s one more thing that you can count on.

No Enron-like accounting scandals. Hard to screw-up entry-level.

Raffy at the Bat

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the B-more O’s that day;

Chi-town had out their brooms, for a sweep those boys would pray;
And then, when Mora lined to first, Tejada did the same,

A sickly silence fell upon this long Camden Yards game.

A few had left their seats, Beltway traffic they did fear,
But the rest stayed and hoped for one loud and final cheer.
They thought, if only Raffy could but get a whack at that,

The White Sox would unravel, with Raffy at the bat.

But Roberts precedes Raffy, and so did Byrnes-y, too.
And the former was a rookie and the latter, just too new.
So, with the closer throwing fire and a curve that’s far from flat,
There seemed but little chance of Raffy's getting to the bat.

But B-Rob smashed a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Byrnes, just into town, tore the cover off the ball,

And when the dust had lifted and men saw what had occurred,

There was Byrnes-y safe at second, and Brian over there on third.

Twenty-five thousand fans, they got up on their feet
For the O’s were all but escaping from the harsh jaws of defeat
As if Ripken was still playing, the faithful roared loudly at that,
For Raffy, mighty Raffy, was advancing to the bat.

Mr. Palmeiro was quite the batsman, part of a club that’s quite elite,
His hit count over 3,000, overflowing his stat sheet.
But to call him a singles hitter, well that would be a lark,
For over 500 times he swung and drilled the pitch out of the park.

He has played for many teams, and has worn many a shirt,
From his Ranger days in Texas, with the Cubbies he did flirt.
But as if it were the nineties, a jersey he had worn once before,
The man with the mustache now played for Baltimore.

A designated hitter, with few others could compare,
Mighty Raffy could be counted on to blast one through the air.
Any second now, with B-Rob and Byrnes-y there on base,
He would step out of that dugout, and they’d see his smiling face.

They could picture all the headlines, from tomorrow morning’s Sun
“Palmeiro and his Walk-off, the Orioles have won!”
But before they start the presses, the hero must appear,
The on-deck circle remaining empty, for what feels to be a year.

The call was Lee Mazilli’s, Baltimore’s faithful skipper,
To give his man the green light, to step out and deliver.
And just as he was going to point Raffy to head out to the plate,
The dugout phone, it rang, he answered, and told the man to wait.

This was not the news Mazilli expected it to be,
The league’s office was calling, on a matter void of glee.
A certain test had come back, and to nobody’s avail,
The score of a certain slugger fell in the wrong of pass v. fail.

As the mighty Raffy took one step onto the field,
His manager had recalled him, this new news he had revealed,
And with Roberts standing only 90 feet from home,
Out stepped but B.J. Surhoff, a pinch hitter, all alone.

And as Surhoff swung and whiffed a third and final time,
The crown wondered how Raffy could commit this awful crime,
A hero reduced to nothing, “Liar!” they would shout,
And there is no joy in Baseball -- mighty Raffy has Struck Out.