What Color is your Fucking Parachute?

The results of the workplace MBTI are in! I work with a bunch of Feelers! Sympathetic, agreeable for the sake of harmony, tolerant, means-oriented--you know, the folks who think we have all year to consider everyone's feelings while walking hand-in-hand on the Yellow Brick Road to Getting Shit Done.

I can't get enough of jobs!

I just learned from a fellow in HR that I am to assume the responsibility of putting on a large benefit event, a task that falls under the "other duties as assigned when your co-worker quits and administration wastes no time to implement a hiring freeze" section of my job description. Although I have some reservations about my long term ability to deal with people--that is, people and their insatiable need to have personalities--I'd like the company to know that I am a team player and will leverage my limited skills to put on this little wingding. In the meantime I shall continue to appreciate my current job, where other people's personalities are evinced only by the modifiers they like to dangle and misplace within my copy. Who knew wingdings could give me such job security?

That's News to Me!

What happens when you write a 24-page annual report and the people responsible for approving it take months and months to do it, therefore rendering the financial statistics obsolete? You call it a newsletter! You use all your power to ignore the professional stock photos, booklet format, comprehensive information, and the total absence of news articles, and you call it a newsletter, damn it! You call it a newsletter and then you shoot yourself.

Celebrate with Administrators!

There was, at one of the largest research institutions in North America, an academic library that dangled decrepit elevators in rotting shafts. The top floor housed me and a bunch of old books and maps and a coffee maker whose on/off switch a co-worker of mine claimed she was too weak to traverse a reading room to turn on, therefore causing both of us to settle bitterly for bitter Folgers crystals at our desks most of our embittered days at work. A year after I decided I'd had my last drop of Folgers and quit my job to move back to this shithole Los Angeles, I learned from another library denizen that he was hastened out of his real estate on the basement level to make way for a new barista-equipped coffee house. Hardly expressing much sympathy for him, I was eager to brainstorm with the best and offered these potential names for the new addition: Coffee Rings, Ye Olde Wilson Coffee Shoppe, Basement Beverages, Sober N' Safe Buzz, Hangover Headquarters (or just HQ to save money on signage), Dregs Not Unlike Yourselves, Don't Spill or We'll Charge You Processing Fees to Replace those Periodicals, and Magazines Ain't Coasters. My bitter former co-worker on the top floor came up with the brilliant Undergrounds. Even my basement buddy, who had every reason to resent this coffee house, offered The Incunabula ("The Ink" for short, he adds) to the administrative minds who would ultimately dub the long-awaited coffee palace: Academic Blend. At last! Pour me a sloshing cup of that Academic Blend and let its utterly inspired genius flow over my blunted nerves!

Be Mine Forever and Ever, Will You?

I shrieked when I opened up the envelope you set on my adjustable office chair with the stained lumbar support. I wish you would have given me the entire perforated sheet of Leonardo DiCapprio valentine cards, but I can't be so greedy. I get greedy only when it comes to you. My name's Sylvia, not Slyvia, but you lost only a few minor points from that. Can you get me a job at the student ID kiosk at school?

Hey, I didn't catch your name!

To the person who cut me off and slammed on her brake to make a U-turn ALL IN SAME SPLIT SECOND on Jefferson Blvd. at 4:35pm today, please meet me for lunch at the S&W Diner in Culver City tomorrow so we can maybe spot a celebrity while sharing a patty melt and milkshake. I can make a few lighthearted jokes, flag down the waitress to refill your Coca-Cola, and ask you if you'd like to order a slice of pie unless you don't have room for dessert because you sure as hell don't have room in your brain to drive safely, you patty melt and milkshake fucker!

Two Words: Carpal Tunnel

Next to my desk are windows I never open. Fresh air...it's not like oxygen is going to make my job any better.

I dressed up like a skank for this?

When I think back on our recent office Christmas party, I am reminded of the time I received a hole in the head and oh the joy it brought me! The vision of my usually unsociable co-workers chatting beside the Panasonic copier reminds me that it takes nothing more than a good attitude to achieve this mindblowing level of jubilation. Party on, my comrades whose job categories are separate from mine! Enjoy one another! Smiles are as plentiful as the cheese and cracker platters which I gleefully waited for in line at Costco behind a family-owned convenience store owner! This party is for you, though not for me, but I get lots of different kinds of "joy" out of it as when I make napkin pinwheels only to be snapped at by a receptionist (or shall we say, a perfectionist) whose duty is to measure by god-given precision of vision my layout of these pretty paper stars in relation to each other on the buffet. There is no other time than the holidays when I truly believe that giving is much more satisfying than receiving, and so logically I did not feel unsatisfied when I did not receive any door prizes. I thought about giving more this year, like giving everyone the finger before I walked out of the room, but I thought I'd keep that bit of joy to myself.

The Company's Paying for It

Great balls of fire. We're going to have a raffle at the company Christmas party. Gee, I wonder what we're going to win. Perhaps a free pass to get out of next year's party. Oh. Oh. Maybe even just a free pass to sit with people I'd actually recognize from work. Hey, maybe we'll be able to upgrade our company logo mugs and plastic tumblers for better middle management. Now we're really thinking.

Wacky Lunch Hour Fun

I'm standing in one of the aisles at Trader Joe's over my lunch hour, trying to find a box of the exact kind of tea the receptionist gave me on Friday. That day, the kitchen was out of tea bags, so I thought she'd have one to spare. I was right, but as she handed me her very last tea bag at 4:13 in the afternoon, 47 minutes till the end of the work day, she said, "Will you bring me another tea bag on Monday? It has to be this kind," she pointed at the box before dropping it into the wastebasket. I nodded, "Yeah, okay" and accepted the tea bag, not knowing I had just entered a serious contract. I intended to give her a replacement tea bag, but the weekend was long, and I had nothing to give to her on Monday. She said nothing, so I thought it would be lame of me to bring it up and make her feel stupid. "Hey, about that tea bag...I'll have it for you tomorrow." Tuesday is today, and I was the one who felt stupid because she did ask me for the tea bag. "Did you remember to bring the tea bag?" I looked at her water-filled cup and said, "No, I'm sorry. You don't have any, do you? I'm sorry. I'll go to Trader Joe's on my lunch break and get you some." She said, "No, that's okay. Don't worry about it." But did I believe her? No. It was not okay, and she made me feel it. Anyway, I got back from the grocery store with a slightly nicer version of the tea she had. Same ingredients, only more fragrant. Flavor remains. Antioxidants, the same. I showed her what I'd gotten and she looked at me with a slightly deranged smile--skeptical, but too polite to roll her eyes and sigh. Having picked up on this, I said, "Would you like to try it at least?" She said, "Do I have a choice?" I threw the tea bag on her goddamn keyboard and walked off in a huff.

When things cooled off, I got an email from her, saying, "So, are you going back to the store to exchange these?"

Sylvie Tales

Write to your local PBS station, and it might be me looking at your letter, making faces, genuine faces of astonishment:

"...all your nature shows use the word evolved continuously.
Why don't you find just one piece of evidence that supports this theory...before
deceiving all the children you pretend to love so much. Don't you think kids
would have more self esteem knowing they were created by a loving God instead of
their ancestors coming from some green slime?"

My reply:

Dear Madam,

Kids have long been deceived by vegetables that evolved just enough for biblical inculcation. Please don't hate me though; I lack self-esteem is all.

Sincerely,
Sylvia

Step Increases, Holla!

All that 9 to 5 stuff is wack. I got it goin' on with 8:30 to 5, when I be situated at the pimpest job of all. Check out these dope reasons explaining my stable-as-all-hell direct deposit cash flow:

1. Answering the phones has long been an unfortunate area of responsibility for me, my syntactic and vocabular decisions overly clueless. Now, however, I have been gifted verbatim the genius language of upper management. No longer will I have to embarrass my institution with my peasant-informed phone greetings!

2. Fuck jeans. They are so low-class anyway.

3. Only special and specific colors appear on the approved-for-replenishment list of paper colors. These are: blue, grey, ivory, lavender (not violet), yellow, goldenrod, and tan. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Take Advantage of YOURSELF!

I'm a motivational speaker now. When I brought it up to my boss at work, she was skeptical. She was like, "Don't take this the wrong way, but are you serious?" I said, "I like salsa music, but that doesn't make me a jokester." See, that kind of strength comes from within. The spirit drives all of you. Without a strong core, you are just mealy apple matter. The core holds it together. So when you feel like life has dealt you a really shitty hand, build a card tower, and then blow it down with one powerful breath from within like a mighty wolf. The world is full of pigs always trying to bring you down. You have to fight the powers that be. You can't let them build brick houses on your spiritual landscape, because that's your property. Put your heart and your soul first. You can do anything, but not before you know how to do it, so come see me this weekend only at the Minneapolis Radisson. Bring two friends and get a free Starbucks coffee.

Bomb Ass Employee of Da Month

Da Bomb Ass Employee of da Month is back, yo! After my long ass vacation, I was pretty sure the people at work missed me and the enormity of work I churn out by the minute, but no. After my announcement at the front desk, sister payroll from cubicle 24 was like, "You got a nickel for my five cents?" All of a sudden I felt all average and shit, so I started doing paperwork at light speed to prove my worth, and my supervisor was like, "If you're going to play origami, I'll give you some work to do." I was like, "What, you mocking my Asian status or something?" She was like, "Nah," and she quickly backed off like I was her manager. Later, I felt bad, so I folded her a paper crane.