Cake Wrecks

I'm fortunate to have a girlfriend who is talented at making baked goods into beautifully crafted works of art. You can bet, then, that my new digital camera and this great blog, Cake Wrecks, will combine together to further assure that she will never make a shoddy cake for fear that I will most definitely post it to be lambasted by the site's hilarious author.

Cake Wrecks

Bulldozed; Starting Anew

This site started as a way for me to derive entertainment from work by writing about it and then being inspired by that writing to do more writing. The problem is that my job is just not all that entertaining right now, and the truth is that most of my days are spent trying to entertain myself by learning about wonderful things on the internets instead. So, while the occasional work related post is still possible, I think as a writing exercise I'll just be posting about things I deem to be awesome, including, hopefully, photos that I take.

CEO at the Gym Pt.2

It's a mundane topic, I know. But it's all I have. This site is my one and only New Year's resolution, and I think the changes will be pretty enormous.

Today I learned the following lesson: If you somehow forget to pack extra gym clothes, don't allow the one t-shirt you have to look like this:



Okay, it may not be the worst thing in the World, but I just know it's going to come back to haunt me somehow.

CEO

Today I worked out with the CEO during lunch. His company manages trillions of dollars (before econageddon, anyway) in assets and employs over 11,000 people yet the he still works out in the same tiny gym during lunch that us grunts do. He's far and away the nicest CEO I've ever met.

Things Not to Do

Don't forget you have to attend a "Professional Presence" workshop and further emphasize that you forgot by showing up with a face that has gone unshaven for two weeks. Especially if you can't even grow a beard and you just look homeless. Inevitably the topic of grooming came up and the senior management in attendance had to try extra hard to not call me out in front of the group.

Lost & Found

I've had the pleasure of changing cubicle locations 4 times in my less than two year career. Luckily this has previously been a result of being hired and subsequently promoted twice, but this most recent move, it seems, was just a result of a corporate shakeup. Just mix things up, see how the people react. Because of course, shuffling seating can lead to more productivity...or something.

Anyway, the most recent move unfortunately took me away from my corner window and into the middle of an aisle on a higher floor. The only positive thing to come from the move was the above item, a "glare shield," if you will, which this cube's previous owner left behind. It's interesting how much clearer my monitor is with this strange device. Also, one of these retails for about $95. I'm just sayin....

Most Blogs Die

It's hard to tell when this blog jumped the shark. Some will say it was doomed before it ever began. Others will point out that I'm just lazy. Me? I blame the financial markets. It was September 29th to be exact, the day the markets died. Ironically, while the economy is in the shitter my job has become increasingly more important and busy. Thus I have nothing office related to blog about. But really, did I ever?

Re: The guy at lunch

Dipping your french fries in mayonnaise has to be just about the fattest thing you can do.

I know the market's in the can, but get ahold of your emotions man.

Demographics

It can be argued that an office is one of only a few institutions that brings together people of all ages, sexes, races, and religions and forces them to work side by side. This is especially true down here at the bottom rung, where I am, and becomes less and less true as you ascend the corporate ladder where, at the top, sit a few white, middle-aged men. So down here at the bottom--again, where I am--I feel a bit strange sometimes. At first I did some time in the new-hire pen alongside other fresh-outta-college people my own age and a smattering of older folks looking for a fresh start. We called these people collectively "mid-life crisis," and assumed that at least a few would be swallowed up by our youthful energy and expertise with modern technologies, googles, and e-mails. We were right.

Now that I've burst out of the pen of post-grad confusion and into the upper level of the bottom rung I am amongst a much more diverse collection of colleagues. On my team, for example, I am youngest by 6 years, which is not so bad, but everyone is married which is certainly not something I can relate to. At my cube I sit back to back with a 62 year old woman who likes to talk about her dogs and grandkids. Adjacent to us are several more associates who are much more tenured and who talk about their happy married lives, time off with the kids, or weekends with the nieces and nephews. I find irony every time my "cube buddy" asks what kind of music I'm listening to or how my weekend went while she knits a blanket for a new grandchild. I lie, of course, not wanting to risk any additional awkward questions. I opt for answers like "just some rock" or "nice quiet weekend...watched the game, saw my girlfriend." Old people eat up that kind of phony chit chat.

Worse is the cattyness I perceive from some of the women on the team. Even at their more advanced age they still gossip about office goings-on and admonish me when I "didn't say good morning." Sometimes they will--in this supposed "professional" setting--get upset with one another for not including one another in lunch invitations or signing up for certain extracurricular activities without consulting the others. This is normally the catalyst for a chain of events which usually concludes with unnecesary e-mails sent back and forth so as to signify "I'm not talking to you." It's all very much like high school.

Interviews

A few days after I wrote the post about breakfast, someone broke a few of my breakfast rules (all of them, actually, and yes, the Monday breakfast included a quiche). The event sent me into hiding yet again, for I felt I was being put on. I still have my suspicions about being found out, but alas we forge ahead.

I wrote some time earlier about interviewing for a new position. Well, I got that position and so now I write from a roomier cube along a corner of the building which makes me feel like I have an office with a view. I find interviewing far less nerve-racking than some of my peers. I attribute this to being young (I'm 23). At this very early point in my career I don't feel any pressure to move up any corporate ladders. They either want me or they don't, but I refuse to be hired based on the premise that I'm something that I'm not. So interviews always offer the opportunity for me to see the interviewer's expression when I assert my opinions with fierce, unwavering, brutal honesty. I interject some humor here and there, flash a smile when necessary, and try to look as good as possible, and so far the result has always been positive. It all works because I'm very cold. To me it's just an anonymous corporate job, the kind that a department can probably find ways to swallow up and accomplish with one less employee should costs need to be cut. So why sweat a promotion like that? And yet I know of several people who sweat these types of situations. So, I say this as advice: unless the job you're interviewing for is what you've always dreamed of or represents a pay increase of 5K or more, just be yourself.

Rules for Breakfast Day

Today is Friday. Friday is breakfast day. Friday = Breakfast Day. There is no exception to this rule. Here at my company you are placed onto a team which in turn places you on list of team members and the corresponding date on which they are required to bring breakfast for the entire team. Again, there are no exceptions. Every team has the list. Every team has breaksfast on Friday. Friday mornings smell like a glorious mix of coffee, pastry, and other baked goods. This is the goal of the week, making it to breakfast day. We are like rats on a wheel racing towards a zero goal, only on Friday someone places a carrot within our midst and we are happy. I'm assuming rats enjoy carrots.

Anyway, since most of us aren't far removed from college, we're normally too tired to eat breakfast in the morning or too broke to provide ourselves anything other than coffee (which is free). This explains why a day of free food (or free anything) is so important. In other words, don't eff it up!

You'd think breakfast would be an easy concept, but people can easily screw it up. One way to achieve this is to simply forget it was your turn, which to me is an unforgiveable sin. My trust in your breakfast bringing abilities once lost is lost forever. Deal with that. Sure you might bring it on Monday instead, but I planned for Friday. And don't you dare insult my intelligence by saying "well now you have free breakfast twice next week." That's ridiciulous logic.

The other way to screw up breakfast is somehow much more annoying. Here's the rule: Do not, under any circumstance, try to impress upon coworkers your pretentious knowledge of rare breakfast foods. It's not cool to make a breakfast quiche, okay? Keep it simple. Bagels are universal, as are donuts, waffles, granola, or even munchkins. Hell, I'll take a bowl of cereal if that's what you want to bring. Also, the breakfast is for everyone, that's understood, right? So let's say you grew up in Columbia and it was perfectly normal for your breakfast to be plantains and a packet of sugar. You may be tempted to share your culture with the team, but now is not the time. Save it for diversity week.

Thank you.

Prairie Dogging

From urban dictionary:

Prarie Dogging - In a large, open plan, cubical filled office, this is where one inmate (or employee) stands up in his/her cubicle and looks arround. This is often followed by other office workers standing up and looking around to see what all the fuss is about, in a style reminiscent of those loveable creatures, prarie dogs.

Company

I thought I might take this moment to recommend a book. Perhaps you might read it while you're supposed to be doing something much more important.

Company, by aussie Max Barry takes shots at modern corporate culture by telling the story of "Jones," a twentysomething who decides to ask of his company "what the f*** do we actually produce?" It's a bit quirky and over the top in the way only an aussie could make it, but it's funny and interesting in a way only a true cube jockey could fully appreciate.

Spooked

I hear it is common for some companies to encourage their employees to spend more time doing work and less time scouring the web for innapropriate content. It turns out that my employer is one such company. A company-wide e-mail about appropriate electronic communication (internetz, woot!) (I'm sorry) recently scared me out of updating this blog on any type of regular basis. Apparently our web usage is monitored including "wikis and blogs" and we are not to use the web to post anything innapropriate.

The problem is, even though I keep this site to amuse myself during breaks and most of the posts will be fictional accounts of cube life, I can understand why someone might perceive my sense of humor as innapropriate and why the site's content could be viewed as "about Company X." So, as a precautionary measure, you'll notice a very subliminal-like message which exists in this site's title now which I assume will protect me from any type of corporate harm. I have never and will never use the name of my employer on this site (I don't even post using my real name for Cripe's sake), and I do so because just like most people I live in constant fear of losing my job. I'll also have to clean up any foul language from past posts just in case. This site just got a whole lot lamer (than it already was), but let the posting start again.

Happy Birthday

Everyone enjoys a good excuse to stop doing work for long periods of time. For some that excuse is often to sleep off a hangover in the back seat of a car. But for the less cynical, those excuses are often limited to awkward socialization with co-workers, usually to celebrate someone's retirement or birthday, the latter of which I find unbearable. Where I work these gatherings are with people who are on the same "team" but who don't necessarily ever see each other or have the need to speak.

Birthdays at the office are forced and awkward. They exist under the principle that if one person's birthday is celebrated so too should we celebrate everyone's. In my experience each team of people chooses a designated Happy Person who spruces up a word document with clipart balloons with everyone's birthday listed on it. Happy Person's job is to buy a birthday card and cheap cake whenever another birthday rolls around. Secretly we all sign our names on the card and think of a witty way to say Happy Birthday. I usually just write Happy B-Day, then sign my name. woo hoo. The birthday boy or girl knows the cake is coming, because after all, it's their fucking birthday and hey, Janice in accounting got a cake so why shouldn't you. I'd much rather be celebrated by being allowed to go home or with a celebratory round of Jameson shots for all, especially the people who don't want one. Yea, especially them. The department has "allowed" for 15 minutes of non-job related activity to eat cake and then return to work, never to talk to your co-workers until the next birthday.

During my first year my birthday was missed. They later surprised me with an ice cream cake 3 months later, but the damage was done. I didn't care when they forgot about me. I didn't. Really. You don't believe me? Jerks.

A Brand New Cube

Today I had the privilege of answering several arbitrary "behavioral related questions" before a panel of 3 somewhat-more-powerful-than-me-but-not-too-much-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things suits. My answers were required to be in the form of STAR, meaning I had to carefully separate the Situation/Task, Action, and Result of exactly 6 of my life's events which may or may not have actually happened. I did so with a smile on my face, very happy to indulge the suits in the wonderful round of BS I had rehearsed for just 10 minutes prior to the meeting. Yes, I was on an interview. If all goes well I will pack up my modest belongings in the south end of the building and have a crew of people (whose only job is apparently to carry boxes) carry my junk over to a substantially larger cubicle in the northeast corner of the building where I will do a similar job for a modest increase in yearly salary.

I hope to one day work in a cube with a door and perhaps a window or two.

Terry Tate

Terry Tate demands that if "you kill the joe, you make some mo'." He's very adamant about this. I believe that if you kill the joe and nobody is around to witness, nobody is the wiser.

Below, one of the all-time great commercial campaigns of our time:

Mint.com

You never imagined a life spent behind 3 squared walls, but at least you get paid for it, right? Unfortunately, the bills are piling up anyway and you drive a gas devouring monster to make your 90 minute roundtrip commute. You contemplate paying a professional to tell you just how in debt you are, but he'll just ridicule your negative net worth and besides, that'll cost money too.

Along comes mint.com, a very user-friendly (and free!) website that can consolidate all of your debts and bank accounts into colorful charts to show you just how awful a spender you are, provided you trust it enough to give up all kinds of information about your accounts.

Below you can see just how much money I've spent on gas in July. Month to date I've spent $235 on gast, mostly from Wawa.

funkyfreshballa@snax.com

When you work as a customer service representative you look for ways to make each call just a little less boring. Unfortunately, at a conservative company like mine a call can only be as interesting as the person calling in. So, I've found one surefire way for a client to make me laugh on the phone every time: a hilarious e-mail address.

In some cases these can be purposefully funny, and the client will laugh along with me when they spout it off. I remember one example: talldarkngreesy@xxxx.com. That guy at least acknowledged how uncomfortable it was that I had to have him confirm how it was spelled. But my favorite example of this always comes from people who are caught off guard by my asking them for it. Embarassed, they will eventually work up the courage to give it to me, but they won't talk about it and 9 times out of 10 they rush through it and avoid my reading it back to them. Usually these are aol or yahoo addresses like spoonylove@aol or xxhottchickxx123@yahoo, but I've noticed most google users have the good sense to make their e-mail address a bit more professional.

The New Lexicon

Does your cubicle contain a computer? How about the internet? In 2008 it's safe to assume your answers are yes. If not, you're probably just sitting in a corner somewhere. Get a job.

Anyway, just because you're trapped at your desk doesn't mean you can't still have the world at your fingertips with this wonderful application they call "the internetz." In between your monotonous work and incesant e-mail checking, you find solice in the work of other people whose jobs are infinitely more interesting than yours: people who write for and maintain interesting websites. If you're anything like me you have a whole lexicon of websites that you visit over and over until the work day ends, checking and refreshing so often that you actually get upset when AbsolutePunk.net hasn't added a new post in 15 minutes.

At the bottom of this page you'll always find a rotating list of some of my favorite websites to obsess over, each with attached text which indicates how recently they were updated. This way you'll only have to refresh one page...THIS ONE.

What are some of your favorite pastime websites?

Hi.

No mission statement, no expectations. Let's just get through the day with office-related posts until this site inevitably jumps the shark. There's certainly a lot that goes on working in the cube environment that simply cannot go overlooked, but really how much fodder can I possibly have? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Oh, and this blog's title? I have no idea what it means but my reason is that Rubik's Cubicle was taken by another blogger who updated twice and failed. So here's to hoping we here at Cubsicle can outlast, outwit, outplay. Survive the Cube and write about it daily.

This is a Test

Test post.