Now, Open Your Ear ‘Cause Slavery Will Appear When Corporate Cutthroats Control Your Career

Thursday. Ok, I know I am lame. I haven't posted in like three days for various odd reasons. None of these reasons excuse my lameness, of course, but I have been really busy here lately. To make up for this unplanned hiatus, I thought I would share some random thoughts about my working environs with you all:

Someone here drives a green pick-up truck with a sticker on its back window of Calvin urinating on the word "work." Even if one thinks that stolen images of Calvin peeing on things are funny, is this really the decal you want to proudly display in your employer's parking lot?

There is a bamboo plant that sits on a file cabinet right next to my desk. It isn't mine; it actually belongs to the person sitting in front of me. The plant looks sickly. I am told that this is because four or five years ago when my co-worker worked for the Big Boss Lady, she asked the BBL to water her plant while she was on vacation. When she returned, the plant was bone dry, yellow and dying. She has been able to keep the plant alive since, but it has never regained its original splendor. When she got another plant about a year ago, she asked if she could put that one on my file cabinet. I agreed, but ever since people keep walking by and commenting that my plant looked like it was yellow and dying (it doesn't help that a vibrant, dark-green bamboo plant triple its size sits five feet away). I was sick of hearing it so I mixed up a special concoction of Miracle Gro, green food coloring, and caffeine water to kick it back into shape. Even though it has some ways to go, I am now happy to announce that it is no longer a sad, yellow, drooping bamboo plant. It is now a moderately content, greenish-yellow bamboo plant with fronds that are actually standing firm (yeah!). Of course, people still walk by and tell me that it looks sickly, but I tell them it's getting better...

Someone asked why two bamboo plants flanked my desk. I told them that I was trying to lure and trap a panda. He asked if I had any luck. I told him no. He suggested that maybe the pandas weren't aware of the bamboo, so I put up a sign that read "Free Bamboo for Hungry Pandas." I didn't work. The only thing I caught was odd stares from my co-workers. That is, more odd stares than usual...

I get into the office early every morning before the majority of people show up for work. Every single day one or two of the early workers will complain that the office is way too cold and ask someone to turn up the thermostat. After lunch, the same people complain that the office is way too hot and stuffy. I have an idea: why don't we just leave the freakin' thermostat alone until the office fills up and the added radiant body heat makes up for the couple of degrees of coolness? By the time the temperature adjusts to the morning change, the office is full and the afternoon sun shines through the windows heating this place up naturally. There is no need to play with the controls, just set it and leave it alone. The way the temperature fluctuates around here, I think I'm hitting menopause or something.

Last football season, a bookkeeper friend of mine and I had a bet over who would win a professional football game between the Washington Redskins (his favorite team) and the Denver Broncos. The loser would have to buy the winner a coffee mug depicting the winning team. Well, up until about two days ago I had a beautiful black mug with a pewter Broncos logo on the front of it. However the Broncos logo fell off while I was rinsing it out the other day. I really hope this is not an omen of the season to come.

I was told once that an inventor was trying to invent the strongest adhesive ever but couldn't get the formula right. On one occasion, he was able to create an adhesive that was extremely strong up front, but would quickly degrade. Instead of throwing it out, he instead invented the Post-it note.

I don't know if that's true, but I do know that the mother of the Monkee's Michael Nesmith invented Liquid Paper...

Well, that's enough random thoughts for now. Sorry, no music review today. I am still lame with no new music to discuss. I've been looking, but so far the music fairy has come up empty. Hopefully I will have some new stuff soon.