posted
...made up in my head using the power of spontaneous thinking.
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
How many times have you said a swear today.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there."
Poastapherst:
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
Phone a guy at a school in Scarborough and put him off an idea he's got for their prospectus. Not very interesting.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
Pinned to the side wall of my desk is a photo taken by MiniGree. It's of R2-D2 in Return of the Jedi, taken from the telly. Artoo is trying to hide behind some ferns. I like it because it looks jaunty and silly, and sits in nice incongruity with all the other work- and education-related stuff around it. Actually, next to it is a sheet of paper that came from some silly morale-building exercise we did at work. Everyone taped a sheet of paper on their backs, and then people had to write what they thought of you on it. The best comment on mine is "Drier than desert".
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
Nothing specific to mention. Liz made me a cup of tea. Andy laughed at a pedantic email I sent. Ho-hum.
How many times have you said a swear today.
I don't know if I have. I do like a good swear though. I might say one in a bit, get me loosened up.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there".
A friend of a friend once told us that as part of preparing to travel round the world he made sure to learn that phrase in 11 languages. I never found out if it came in useful, but I'd like to have that skill. I'm guessing we'll struggle between us to get beyond English, Spanish, Dutch and French. Oh and Italian. I don't want Babelfish translations, I want actual real phrases that people know would work.
Anyway, god, what a shit thread, but I've written it now. Happy Friday.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
I had to prepare a Powerpoint presentation and send to a consultant so he could either butcher it or claim it to his own credit
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
I have a modern art installation consisting of a plastic Shaun the Sheep, around whose neck is lassoed an Incredibles keyring, cunningly juxtaposed with a pencil eraser into which has been stuck one of those brass-coloured split pin things you use to attach papers together, on top of which is affixed by MAGICK! (magnetism) a fluorescent yellow plastic fridge magnet in the shape of a hand doing the \m/ rock! gesture.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
My desk-mate Phil dragged me downstairs to get a coffee.
How many times have you said a swear today.
Probably several, on the way to work, plus the occasional muttered "buggeration!" (which is my current swear of choice) since I got here.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there."
English. French if I had a dictionary, but not if limited to current contents of brain.
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posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to. Send three 76-page paper catalogues (or catalogs as I'm supposed to call them) to a Chinese print house. I've been doing this job for nearly seven years and I get the fear every time I have to sign off a catalogue. My main concern is that I may have copied some text when writing a TMO post and inadvertently pasted it somewhere in one of the product descriptions. It hasn't happened yet...
One of the companies that advertises in the catalogue has sent some artwork, a crop of which is shown below. I can only assume this is intentional:
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk. My classy ergonomic keyboard is resting in the sun, in an attempt to evaporate the full glass of water I spilt on it the other day.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do. A girl from the probation office held the lift for me and smiled in what I think was supposed to be a friendly way. Her grin actually looked quite frightening, but I get that a lot. I think I'm a bit autistic at faces.
How many times have you said a swear today. None yet. Not out loud.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there." "J'ai laissé ma boisson là-bas, sur le piano." But my French is rusty as fuck these days.
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Today I’m mostly ‘building’ printers. This basically entails getting the new printer out of the box, powering it up. Give it a host name, create a print queue on the server, then do all the admin stuff for the warranty and the equipment database. It’s easy work, but tedious. I’ve been meaning to get these done for a couple of weeks but left them till today. I’d happily leave some till next week but I’m having the week off so I’ve got to do them all today.
It’s not like I absolutely hate it, it’s just boring is all. Work generally isn’t too bad.
Stuff on my desk
There’s loads of vaguely interesting stuff on my desk. The mounds of scribbled, messy paperwork. The various electronic bits and pieces, piles of cables spilling everywhere. But there’s not really much by way of personal stuff on there.
I get to see a lot of desks, and some desks are filled with personal items. These can be things like little toys, the kind of shit one might get from a Kinder Egg (unsurprisingly, these people are usually fairly rotund), photos are another big one. Some people have their desks crammed to bursting point with assorted crap just to make themselves feel special, so they can escape the tedious reality of their humdrum existence if just for a minute or two each day.
It’s weird because when I visit people like this, I always feel uncomfortable sitting at their desks, like I’m invading their own private space. The worst is when you minimise an application and are met with a slightly-too-large-and-skewed image of a frightfully ugly baby, all dribbly and blotchy skinned. You try to ignore it but it’s difficult. Sometimes you’ll have a little timer bar slowly filling up across the middle of ugly baby’s grotesquely bloated forehead. It feels obscene, inappropriate for people to put this kind of shit on their computers. On more than one occasion I’ve had to console a weepy staff member whose entire collection of ugly baby photos has been destroyed in a tragic hard drive failure. It’s almost like telling them the baby is dead. “I’m sorry, I tried all I could, but in the end there was nothing I could do. We lost the photos”. I mean, like I should be guilt tripped because some hormonal mother is too stupid to store her photos in a place other than her bloody work computer.
Anyway, I digress.
As I say, there’s very little by way of personal items on my desk, but perhaps that in itself is interesting. There’s a bottle of water on my desk which has been there since the first day I cycled to work. I did intend to refill it and use it every day (we don’t have a water cooler here) but I forgot on the first day and it’s now still say here. The water level is slowly getting lower and lower. I’m hoping eventually the water inside will disappear completely. It’s got a long way to go though.
People what are nice to me
None. Not one person has gone out of their way to be nice to me today. The closest would be my colleague giving me a hand lifting a box. But that’s not niceness, that’s just us doing our job. Maybe today will get better. Probably not though.
Swears
I have uttered just the one swear today, when I accidentally powered up a printer without the network cable attached. I said “Oh bugger”
Pianos in forrin
I could probably muddle my way through in French if I had a French words book. And English of course.
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to. Deal with anyone at a certain public sector organisation, which is our client. Every single arsewipe there takes three weeks to get back to a phonecall, then says 'oh no, it's not me you want'. Even the press office wouldn't send me any press releases as is was 'too time-consuming'. GGGNNNNNN.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk. An electronic sudoku game, or a tube of hand cream amusingly called 'hand relief'.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do. Not yet. And I shall sulk until they do.
How many times have you said a swear today. Countless, I'd imagine. I do it automatically, without even realising. I think I scare the horses.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there." Finnish: A haaff lifft mØ drünk sru tinkleschteiner, yØnda.
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
Remain in situ until 4pm.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
I have a tissue box holder in the shape of an Easter Island head. Tissues come out of his nose.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
I am alone today, in what is usually an office of five people. Everyone who has come in today has stared blankly at me, then either left or said "Meera?" which I take to mean "Hello Pepper, is Meera about today please?". So, no.
How many times have you said a swear today.
Once. I left a voicemail for my brother in which I let off steam about the lack of manners of my butthole colleagues.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there".
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to. Reformat a fucking Community Profile that I thought I'd finished months ago.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk. I have a burned DVD of 'Hold Onto Your Scarf, Tatjana' on my desk that I haven't watched all the way to the end yet. I sometimes watch little bursts of it on my PC if I can get away with it.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do. Yeah, I've had a lot of very positive vibes at work today.
How many times have you said a swear today. I've been effing and blinding all day.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there". 'Ere, vada that buvaree on the striller? Martinis off, that's mine, that is.
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
Bah! I've got to document the entire IT department of an engineering consulting company today. Neither myself or the guy who's in charge of the IT dept are very keen or interested. I might sneak off early.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
There is a strange key-like device sitting by this PC. Oh wait, its a screwdriver. But its the weirdest one I've ever seen. The top looks a bit like the top of a coat-hanger which then goes off into the screwdriver bit.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
Ummm. A lady let me get into my car before parking next to me. That was nice.
How many times have you said a swear today.
I swear a lot. Honestly couldn't say how much.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there."
I could find out in Setswana but it'd be cheating because I can't speak it myself.
posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
I've already done it. I had to go and install a monitor for a colleague. It was on the 9th floor. There were two reasons I didn't want to do this:
1.) I have to collect this from the engineers. I have no problem with the engineers, they just take forever to give me a monitor and let me out of there. They're bored you see, so they want to keep all the company they can in their build room. That was quite good though, because another one of the analysts came in and told us a great story of a 15 year old girl stealing his KFC and then punching him the face, the night before. But anyway, I didn't want to go and do this because of the wait and then the subsequent call queue waiting for me when I get back. My office can be a little straight laced sometimes. More than a few people have commented on me wearing baggy jeans. In my building, hip-hop has never existed. It's the same with everything like that though. I wore a tank top last week and someone said "it looks like you're wearing an apron!" What do you reply to saomething like that and sound witty and cool and actually stylish? "No, it doesn't look like I'm wearing an apron actually, hahah!" So there I was lifting a fucking huge monitor down the stairs because the journey back involves having to work the other side of the building. Then one of the managers sees me and gives me a friendly warning 'you don't want to be carrying that Mikee, you want a trolley' I know I want a trolley, but I don't have time to dick around with the social commitment required to obtain one.
2.) It was on floor fucking 9.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
I have one picture of an unhappy man that says 'I CAN'T BRAIN TODAY, I HAVE THE DUMB' on my desk which is a nice all round cap of the type of zany japery I am allowed. I have a dozen magnets that only work on one side of the desk partition. I have a yellow network port for testing laptops on but it is currently cut off for the third time as every time we do a desk move someone disconnects it. There is nothing jolly about my desk. I need to change this.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
Alan promised to make the coffees. He has not done this. Note to self: Destroy Alan. Do not get caught by police.
How many times have you said a swear today.
Quite a few. We have some kind of free reign on swearing. We're allowed ....and often do. I called my mate a 'fucking cocklover' for not paying my housemate the 60 quid he promised to stump up for living with us for 4 months.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there".
I cannot assist, for I spent all my years of French looking up Mrs James' skirt. She was called a Mrs too Fancy that! Married teach-snatch. I am brazen.
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I'm just basically filling up the rest of the time between me and my train journey to say that actually, I'd quite like to live with Ringo. Thinking about it, we'd chat about being in IT and drink beer and have a laugh all the time and play computer games. Then when we've played computer games he'd take us for a spin around the town in his car then we'd watch a shit film and laugh. Followed by a guff that really upsets him. Then we'd be mates again. It would be rad.
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I'm all excited, as social activity has been planned for me at the last minute, and it will rule. I will be in Islington - I wonder if I'll see Vikram? I shouldn't think so - I'll be somewhere where you can sit down, and the music isn't too loud.
I'm still waiting for something nice to be done to me, despite having bought someone a yoghurt and given someone else an apple. Maybe I'll glare at someone on the tube until they give up their seat.
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posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to.
Turn up in the first place. I woke up this morning having shut off the alarm as many times as I could reasonably justify, and then trudged my way into the office (further references to this experience below), made my way into the building, opened my office door, and sat down to turn on the PC without first turning on the light. As such I've been working most of the day only by the whitish glow of the monitor, which has only gone to reinforce the fact that I really don't want to be here (a) in general and (b) today in particular.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk.
My desk is a disaster. Piles of papers and trade magazines, along with assorted gadgets. Best thing on the desk is a photo of me with my daughter as a newborn. She is wearing the "i already know more than the president" shirt, the first piece of clothing I bought for her. Plus points for proud daddyhood, but minus lots also for the reminder that said president is still in office.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do.
Nobody has been nice to me today. Closest would be the woman who shorted me on my change when I got my coffee this morning, which really wasn't very nice. But it was only a few cents, so it could have been worse.
How many times have you said a swear today.
Oh, too many to count, and that was just on the rather horrific drive in. I'll spare you all the repeat rant about driving in Massachusetts.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there."
I could probably almost manage this in Spanish, but I suspect others (mart) have that nicely handled already. So I'm really not making much in the way of a contribution here, am I.
Yes, yes. Happy Friday.
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posted
Name one thing you've got to do at work today that you don’t want to. i have to invite referees in for the peer review process. it's the boring part of just clicking and clicking after the hard work of finding them via pubmed searches and inspired thinking.
Tell us something interesting about one thing on your desk. on my cubicle wall i have a picture of d'angelo barksdale preston bodie and wallace. and one of the wu-peanuts strips. and a perry bible fellowship strip on my desktop.
Has anyone been nice to you today? Who was it? What did they do. ooh as i'm writing about what happened on friday, i guess it would be a chat with my mate liz. she always makes me laugh.
How many times have you said a swear today. a lot. not out loud. because there's no talking at work. really, it's deathly quiet. like a library or some other studious industrious place staffed with science geeks.
Between us all, in how many languages can we accurately say "I have left my drink on the piano, over there." 1. english. and badly.
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