Strudel

Awkward conversations during a Christmas dinner with colleagues you barely know, or worse their significant others you may have never met, are often rescued by topics such as the weather, local sports and of course movies. Imagine that I am the least likely to know actors names... but I proudly mention that I guessed this one correctly on my first try.

During dinner the girl sitting across from me mentioned she recently watched a movie with that Strudel actress in it which was quite good. "Strudel actress??" we all wondered.

"You know Marilyn Strudel or whatever!"

Meryl Streep.

How to lose at dating girls

First date, wear a suit and a shirt with monogrammed cuffs but don't pay for a girl's coffee. Ask her to go shopping with you for date #2 because all girls must love to shop. And to dress men up? Um, that'd be a big N.O., not this girl anyway.

Second date, graciously allow her to plan the evening, but then email her instructions to show up at 4pm on Sunday for dinner (dinner that early??) at a restaurant of your choosing because you already made the reservation. Commence licking your knife, sword-swallowing style, for the entire dinner. Do not offer to pay for her $4.95 salad at the family-style dining establishment. Proceed to pull out your calculator and "do the math" because you don't want to over tip the wait-staff.

Third date. I can hear you saying "Why are you going out with him again??" The problem is that there is a balance sheet on men... the pro column has things like "Has job +10," and "Owns property +10" and the con column only had things like "Inflexible about time of Sunday dinner -2," "Stingy tipper -2," "Licks knife while eating -4."

Licks knife while eating: go ahead and let that sink in.

So third date. The plan was to go to a Japanese restaurant. I said yes because there's not much weird you can do with chopsticks except possibly put out an eye. As long as it isn't my eyes, I'm ok with that. Then, I was emailed that the plans had changed to a restaurant 30 km from my house at an impossible time, and there was no negotiating on the reservation or location. "Inflexible to alternative plans - 2" and "Not understanding of choosing a restaurant geographically located within his or my vicinity - 2."

"More knife-licking at dinner -2"

As the waitress placed the bill on our table she asked him "will you need the debit or credit card machine?" to which he replied and looked at me "I don't, but perhaps you do?"

Quickly I added:
"Cheapskate - 2"
"No good at small talk or social interactions or any kind of conversation - 2"
"Wears hiking boots for a casual date - 2"

A cookie cutter engineer, thinking he's completely different, just like all the other engineers.

Stranger than fiction

Subject: wanna marry me 

Message: ok, let me tell u a little about myself, i'm a well established guy. i'm a student. as a matter of fact, i use prosthetic arms. let me know if u wanna chat.

Dear Well Established Student, no thanks, but I have this itch you could scratch....

What do you do? Trick question.

It's always super awkward going on first dates and having to repeat yourself over and over again. Every once in a while someone makes it interesting though...

Me: I'm a web designer
Him: So what does that mean?
Me: I take care of the development and posting of the websites.
Him: How much work could that be?
Me: We have actually quite a few websites that I take care of, some online systems, a few databases, a wireless portal, a search site, the intranet and then, of course, the public website. You might be surprised how busy I am each day, almost everything has a web frontend now adays.
Him: Ha! You said intRA-net.  You mean internet.
Me: No... intranet is internal, internet is external website.
Him: What.

Invention idea.

I would like to invent a battery for smoke detectors that won't run out of juice in the middle of the night.

Something's not right...

The biking guy has a personal massager for his stiff muscles. In his legs. From the biking you see.

I can hear vibrating coming from the cubicle across from mine... and I can see the chair but not the guy's head. He's either slumped over or slid way down in his chair.

I hope, my dear reader, you are as uncomfortable at this point as I am.

Schwetty...

A douchebag I sit across from bikes to work and I'm guessing his trip is about 15 km in the mornings, it takes him about an hour. Often by the time he comes into work he'll have muscle cramps and hurting bits so on occasion he has asked me for Advil or Ibuprofin, because all girls are a source of band-aids and personal-care supplies. Yesterday he comes in and I didn't take notice of him due to headphones. Not much of a morning person anyway, but I'm listening to music to drown out the chitchat and arguing this group really seems to enjoy. Douchebag comes up behind me and pokes me in the shoulder; I turn around and he's not just still gasping for breath, but he's also dripping with sweat. Gigantic beads of sweat dripping onto his shoulders and onto the floor of my cubicle. He's holding a sandwich baggie full of Advil and says: "Hey why don't you help yourself to some of these since I'm always asking you for some of yours!"

Looks legit, I'd say! Being offered a sandwich baggie of Advil by a guy drowning in his own sweat... I wave him off and tell him it's no problem and I'm good for Advil. I do not throw up into his baggie of sweaty Advil, so way to go me!

After which he goes to the kitchenette beside his cubicle (directly kitty-corner from where I sit) and proceeds to have a wipe-down/sponge-bath. In the kitchen we all use. I do not throw up or say anything mean. So way to go me!

Then the guy who sits across from the kitchen and directly beside me comes in from his own bike ride to work and proceeds to inform me that he is going to be changing in his cube and would appreciate if I don't look over for a bit. No worries Douchebag #2, I'm so not interested. Then he hangs all his clothes to dry out over our shared cubicle wall, including some part of his gear that looks like a man-bra. Again, I do not throw up or say anything mean like "all your wobbly bits fit into that tiny bit of lycra?" so way to go me!

Yes, we have a bathroom, that is barely 10 steps down the hallway.
No, I don't know why they don't use it.

How to tell I work with nerds

...besides, you know, the pocket protectors and lack of any personality:

"We should be able to calculate the velocity of the wind by the angle of the rain."

This may be my superpower

Mid-afternoon power outage throws the office into a disarray. I get up to go for a walk and there's people stuck in the elevators banging on the doors and people come out of the bathrooms all disoriented.

I say to the help desk: "Why is the internet not working!!"
Glares all around...
"Guys! 'Lighten' up, it's a joke!"

See what I did there?? When the power goes out I'm still really funny!

Pro Tip!

It's easier to not work when your account is locked out.
It's even easier when IT "accidentally" deletes 250 accounts.

Collaboration

Working on a document with a special user and I send him instructions with pictures and arrows, and speech bubbles that say things like "Click here!" "Press next!"

I get back only one complaint:

At the bottom of page 6 is 'view this list' and 'amd' (hopefully you see what I am talking about.) what is amd?

I respond:

Haha, AMD: Administrative Maintenance of Doughnuts... (take a break here)
Just kidding! I have no idea... just a blip I guess. Must have been typing too fast to make any sense.

The sounds of pain and suffering

A colleague has been getting phone calls during the work day from their kid who seems to have a defective phone. So it goes like this all day yesterday and today:

ringtone: "Happy Birthday Happy Birthday!"
"Hello?"
"Heeeeello?"
"Hellooooooo?"
"Hello? Whatever my kid's name is? Hello?"
"Hello!"
"Hello? Hello?"
"Hello."
"Hello!"
"Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?"
"Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"I can't hear you."
"Hello?"
"Hello!"
"Hello!"
"Hello?"
And repeat.
Starting with "Happy Birthday".

Freudian Slip of the Fingers...

Following a series of rather unfortunate events through which both of my index fingers have been injured and rendered useless, I am stuck at the office typing with my two middle fingers. How fitting... *Eff you, work!*

Just picture it. You'll laugh too.

Disruptive

Someone is disturbing my train of thought on a beautiful Saturday afternoon by blasting Cher... there's only one solution! Blast some country to combat the caterwauling...

Yes, that's right, I like both kinds of music: country AND western!

The preponderance of good over evil-wordy-documents.

Burried in a wordy 60 page document I find this gem: "there are a preponderance of data management storage solutions"

To-do list:
look up "preponderance" so I can fake knowing what it means in the next meeting.

Stupendous compendiums

PS: Today my boss used the word compendium in a document. There was a compendium of presentations in a certain folder.
PL: Never use a shorter word when a longer one will make you look more like a wiener.

Ninja Stealth Fail.

Guy walking down the street with a full motorcycle helmet, no bike anywhere in sight.

Helmet says "Ninja" so maybe that's ok...

Speaker phone

Kind of annoying when you're in a cube-farm and some yahoo insists on using speaker phone rather than getting a headset. Kind of funny though when it's a recorded message that is broadcast into the shared space: "...because you are a preferred customer press 1 now to claim your special gift! To claim your free travel voucher please press 1 now! You've won a surprise gift, press 1 now to claim your prize!..."

I piped up "Just press 1 already!"
Someone else added "I think they want you to press 1..."
"Press 5 and really mess them up!" added another guy.

Listen you...

File name: name_BetaVersion_Draft8_FINAL.pdf
As my head explodes someone, somewhere is snickering.

The falconer

AP: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13407712

PL: CRAZY.
AP: I bet he’s a falconer.
PL: Probably, he's got the pants to do it.
AP: I wish I was a falconer.
PL: Step 1. Get a falcon
      Step 2. ?????
      Step 3. Get chicks & profit!
AP: I’ll work on number 1 first. I think there was a falcon flying around here recently..or maybe it was a pigeon – I’m no scientician.