A Difference of Opinion

This will be pretty short as not much has happened. This is really just an observation on how two different people going through the same event have a varying reaction and attitude. I’m not saying that my reaction is right, or that The Sith Lord’s is wrong. I’m just saying that they’re different. Actually…I take that back…I think I’m right, just not normal.

Knowing that we’re leaving hasn’t affected the way I do my job. I’ve still got to get through the days before I start my next job, and I plan on using this job as a reference for future jobs. I’ve put a lot of time and effort in this job for the last few years, why ruin it at the end by getting sloppy? Sith Lord on the other hand has started getting testy, or testier, with users. There’s still a week left to go and he’s spending less and less time doing his job, and getting more and more lax when he actually does do it. He’s already started showing up late and taking longer lunches.

Here’s where I’m wrong, but probably much more normal. The people that I’ve spent all my time disliking, but holding back my feelings out of a effort to avoid conflicts with the people I work I am now finding myself being more curt and discourteous towards. The Sith Lord on the other hand, who has long had a “don’t fucking talk to me” attitude which has been very successful in keeping most people from trying to socialize, is actually being more accepting and less of a jackass to those we work with, even the ones we both hate with a furious passion.

The only thing we have in common our attitudes towards each other. We both have a feeling of survivors of a hostage crisis that was peacefully resolved. We’ve got our book deals and our spot on Oprah talking about the horrors and the things we plan on doing in the future now that we’ve gotten a second chance at life. It’s like a club in which we are its only members. I imagine it’s got to be annoying for others to have to listen to us both talk about that great green pasture on the other side that we’re convinced we’re heading to. I’d probably hate us right now if I were them.

A Bit of a Let-Down

I had grand visions of the moment I would tell my boss and co-workers that I was quitting. I saw a scene in which I burst in on some kind of Dr. Strangelove scene where a great cabal was deciding the fate of mankind and I walked briskly, importantly up to the desk and slammed a carefully worded stack of papers that explained the incontrovertible reasons that justified my leaving and made it the only possible option. This slamming of papers would interrupt the thoughts and tirades of important, shadowy men who would look around, whispering to each other at the audacity of that bold man. There would be a long pause and then my boss, who would be played by Anthony Hopkins, would speak in his righteously important and sophisticated voice and say “How could you do this?” I would simply state “It’s the only option that makes sense” and I would march off, leaving these powerful to contemplate to world altering ramifications of my departure from the world scene.

The reality was that I walked in and told The JC that I needed to talk to him and he said he already knew I was quitting and to just email him a letter of resignation and that would be all he needed. The few things that have happened since then have also been so anti-climatic and even annoying that it’s almost comedic.

Stonehenge Mouth has been unrelenting in questions. He was excited about my vacation as it was, because he gets excited about such things, but then the news of my impending departure was giving him a warm fuzziness like that of your first kiss. He was quivering with excitement…which annoyed me because he was getting more good emotions out of my triumph than I was. The last couple days have been an unrelenting storm of questions about all the amazing possibilities of my new job that I’m almost annoyed that I’m leaving.

Serialkiller and Tweedle Dee have been the extreme opposite. They want speak to me at all. Now I can’t say that I’m terribly upset that I don’t have to hear their horrible mouth words tossed in my direction, I just don’t understand it. I’ve got no idea if they had put in for the same job that me and Sith Lord got and feel slighted that we got it and they didn’t. In the case of Tweedle Dee I get this feeling from him that in his case he feels betrayed or abandoned. It’s like I had made a promise back in our childhood where I promised I’d never leave him behind and then years later I’m doing exactly that. Only that never happened.

Most of the responses to my departure have been positive, with people wishing me the best of luck and a few genuine requests to keep in touch. Some of which I even intend to actually keep in touch with like Beardface and KliffyB. The only response that seemed to make absolutely no sense was that of The Shill’s. He caught me as he was leaving yesterday and told me that he was “seriously bummed” that I was leaving and to tell me that I was always welcome back if things didn’t work out. Today The Shill leaned over into my Cube to ask “So, have we managed to convince you to reconsider.” This was very confusing because it insinuated that they had made any counter offers or even discussed the possibility of getting me to stay. Which never happened.

When Alan Alda left the company he was given the “you’re always welcome back” speech but then had it rescinded when The Shill discovered that part of Alan Alda’s 2-week notice included a week in which he was on vacation. Which in his mind made it unacceptable and he actually had a meeting with Alan Alda to tell him he was not rehirable if he ever tried to come back. It didn’t really make any sense to me, but after my non-existent negotiations with The Shill, it just seems in character for him.

I have no doubt that the fun will continue up until the last minute.

Vacation Inebriation

So this is a rare edition. I’ll go ahead an apologize if things lack a sensable structure. I’m on vacation and I’ve been drinking.

As I alluded in my last edition, things are changing for The Trixter. Initially it was assumed that I would be changing shifts, departments, and job titles to a bizarre three-day weekend shift. That may actually still be the assumption on management’s side since I have to tell them that I will be leaving. Instead of moving from one end of the Cube Jungle to another, I’m changing Jungle’s completely. It became official yesterday that I will be leaving my current employer and moving to a new arboreal geek preserve starting June 9^th.

Here’s what will be changing. Instead of working in the automotive manufacturing industry (which, by the way, is where I was working) I will now be working in a hospital. Instead of answering the phones for 8 solid hours and answering inane, irreverent, and irrelevant questions I will be working on pre-screened trouble issues on site. Instead of getting paid far too much for the job I was performing, I will be getting paid marginally above average for a much higher-end job function. Instead of helping self-important Germans I will be helping self-important doctors. Instead of working with a cast of absolutely cartoonish and almost unbelievable characters I will be working with a bunch of people that may be exactly the same as previously mentioned group, but I’m hoping it also includes hot, single nurses.

Here’s what will be staying the same. In a bizarre cliff-hanger twist, The Sith Lord will actually be coming over with me. At my recommendation he put in for one of several positions that my new employer had posted and was hired on at the same time I was. He will be working at a separate location on a different shift, so I have no idea how he will play into future episodes. Which brings me to the most important, to me at least, item…yes; there will be further chronicles of my so called geek life. I don’t know what kind of stories the future holds, but I find it hard to believe that in a place as busy and populated as a hospital doesn’t have any stories to tell.

If this were a television show, this would probably be the season finale in which most of the characters opted not to sign on for next season. Maybe the producers couldn’t meet their salary demands or they just lost faith in the quality of the show. I will continue to update you as things from season one wrap up, a post-season wrap up if you will, but expect season two of The Cubers to premiere on June 9^th with all new characters, all new nicknames, and all new stories.

And now it’s time for another Newcastle…

I Live

Just a quick note that I have not passed away, been abducted by aliens, or run away with the circus. Though I did know a girl who ran away with the circus to work in the sideshow for a summer. The last several days have been very busy with a sudden influx of job offers which meant interviews, hand shakes, and kissing babies. I will be leaving tomorrow for a working vacation that will include sun, sand, and heavy lifting. I will try to update if possible, but more than likely I will be away until the 26th.

What Does The Future Hold?

The rumors that I am being relocated to another shift are increasing. It’s funny that people keep asking me about the change, despite the fact that no one has actually approached me about the shift. Well, at least not until tonight. It seems that several people put their hat in the ring to be considered for a position while I, who did no such thing, was the only one they even considered and wanted despite not having applied for it.

Being considered the best of my group is rather flattering when taken out of context, but in all honesty when compared with the people I work with it’s like being told you’re the best victim a serial killer has ever head. Great or not you’re still gonna die.

There are of course some repercussions to moving, if indeed it does end up happening. First of is that my weekly schedule will change drastically. Instead of working the late shift during the week, I will work the red-eye shift on the weekend, consisting of three 12-hour shifts. It will also be in a different building, which when combined with the change in time means I’m going to lose that cherished personal time I get with the demented denizens of the Cube Jungle.

This may change the format, regularity, and even the very existence of this little blog. Since I won’t really be one of the Cubers any more, it may not be feasible to continue writing about my little monkey cohorts. Then again, I could end up moving into a whole new Jungle of rare and mysterious animals. After all, the new office would have such wonderful people as Norman Bates, who spent an entire night telling me about the meaning, origin, and importance off the sizing information on the side of a cars tire. Really…all night. Then there’s Mr. Anderson (as in The Matrix…Miiiisterrr Annnnderson) who was moved to working in the middle of the night during the week because no one could stand working with him.

In other news, today the topic of conversation was what everyone did for Mother’s Day. Beardface cooked out for his mom, I went kayaking and cooked out with my mom, The JC built a deck for his mom. And then there’s Sith Lord. He spent Mother’s Day waiting for his mom to get back from Disney Land with his brother and then when the power went out at his mother’s house he decided to leave her in the dark and go home to watch Survivor. Nice to know he’s got his priorities.

Next week I’ll be on vacation and I’m quite certain there won’t be any updates while I’m going. I am spending a week relaxing at the beach…and helping friends move into a new house. Ok, actually I’m going solely to help them move and may never make it to the beach…even though they live on the coast. Who knows…I’m told the college down there has the most STD’s of any college in the US so I might have a rash and a story when I come back.

A Cuber Fairy Tale

It’s been a very quiet and mostly uneventful couple of days. The few things that did happen were just run of the mill work frustrations that anyone who is a member of the daily rat race has to deal with. So instead of recounting the boredom or making something up allow me instead to play raconteur and regale you with a tale of old. Come, sit by the campfire and I’ll tell you a story.

Let me first introduce you to Rhino. Rhino is a hard working, go get ‘em, charge full steam ahead kind of guy. He’s incredibly knowledgeable in his field and has never shirked responsibility. However, for all his great qualities, he’s still bat shit crazy and you either love him or hate him for it. He happens to be one of my favorite people that I rarely get to talk to anymore.

When I say that Rhino is crazy, I say so in full confidence that I speak the truth. This is a man who won’t in a restaurant if it’s in a strip mall because he doesn’t consider it a real restaurant. He worked the phones for a short period of time on Friday nights to help out during a change if the way our employer handled shifts on the production line. The only problem with that was that his personal skills were nearly non-existent. Because his normal job is late at night and rarely required interaction with real, actual humans the lack of people skills never really became apparent. However, after one particularly call he ended with a tirade that went sort of like this. “You stupid fucking cunt, I hope you fucking die. If I ever see you in person I’m going to slit your goddamned throat and fuck your fucking neck.” He then slammed the phone and disappeared for half an hour. Bat shit crazy.

Now that we have some basics, let’s get to the story. This was back in the days when Alan Alda still worked in The Cube. In those ancient times we had a tradition of brining in dinner on Thursday’s (which were our Friday’s at that time). We would rotate who picked up the food and who decided. Most weeks Rhino opted out and left us to our routine, but one week he was feeling particularly cheery and sociable and wanted to take part. He volunteered to pick up the food if we’d pick out where and place the order. We decided on food from a local burger joint that we all had at least an acceptable opinion of. Food was good, the price was right, and it had four walls of its own to fit Rhino’s definition of a restaurant.

We had decided early in the week where the food would come from and spent the next couple days deciding what we wanted, getting the money from everyone, and getting everything to Rhino so he could pick it up. Come Wednesday we had it all sorted out and things were ready for Rhino to pick up the food on his way in to work on Thursday. The only problem was that each day closer to Food Day, Rhino got a little higher strung and combative. He was getting anxious, asking what he should do if they didn’t have what we wanted. He was frantic and emphatic that we had better call in the order so he could just run in and pick it up. Finally on Wednesday when we handed him the money he was at breaking point.

I hadn’t been a Cuber for long at this point, so I hadn’t yet witnessed one of Rhino’s breakdowns first hand, so I thought he was just being funny. Joking around, making a big deal out of something to be funny. I could not be more wrong. After handing him the money form me and Alan Alda you could actual see the sweat on his forehead and he was pacing, frantic. Suddenly, with no warning that I ever figured out, he burst out screaming “I can’t handle this shit! Fuck this, get your own damn food!” and money was flying through the air as the bills and change we had given him were thrown at us as he stormed out the door. Needless to say we got our own food that week, and Rhino never asked to be included in our weekly ritual. Naturally, we never offered either.

On a side note, since the last few days have been so boring I have fallen in love with a simple, but richly detailed, lo-fi Flash game called Dino Run by the very talented, pixely fellows at Pixel Jam Games, the creators of lo-fi fave Gamma Bros. Give the game a shot at

Ch..ch..ch..changes…

The last couple days have been packed with nutty goodness, like a big Snickers bar. Stonehenge Mouth was pulled aside at some point yesterday for a Come to Jesus Meeting with The JC. We all knew it was coming because we were told it was coming. Of course when he was asked to take a walk the whispers quickly began; was he being fired like Shitpants and someone was going to run to empty out his desk while they were meeting, maybe he was going to be moved to another shift, or were they giving him an ultimatum and one more fuckup and they’d lop off his balls? It was none of the above, just a simple stating of facts where they showed the mounting evidence that they knew he was a complete fuck knuckle. The surprising effect of the meeting was that when he came back he was absolutely quiet. I figured it would be non-stop bitching once The JC left, but he hasn’t said anything to anyone for the last two days unless absolutely necessary. He hasn’t said a single word to me, so I can only guess I was outed as the snitch, which I’m ok way.

There have also been a sudden string of job openings in The Cube in the last couple days. The funny thing is that no one really seemed to know where the openings were coming from because no one was leaving, that we knew of, and we knew the company was too cheap to add another member to the team. We were wrong on both counts. The Bronx Bitch, a woman who should have been fired years ago but the fear litigation has kept it from happening, will be leaving at the end of the month, to where no one knows or cares. They are also adding two new positions on the weekend which it seems me and Beardface are the front runners for either of them. To greet this great news was our punishment - a stack of resumes.

It seems that in order for us to be allowed to leave the Call Center and take up the weekend shift in another group we have to find our own replacements. Now being people with consciences we both agreed that we couldn’t really get away with just picking the first geek that passed a background check. Instead, we read through stacks of depressing resumes that made it seem like we might never make it out. There were some we knew whose personalities just would not mesh with the existing group (a consideration it seems was not considered during the last hiring round which brought us Tweedle Dee, Shitpants McPooperton, and Stonehenge Mouth), other s had blatantly lied on their resumes, and one had even invented a company complete with website to hide a 3 year gap in employment. I thought he was actually perfect for inclusion into the Royal Order of Cubers, but fraud seems to be frowned upon by Napoleon and The Shill.

Phone interviews start tomorrow, maybe you’ll be getting a call from me…I suggest lying extensively…

Pain and Suffering

The weekend sucked. It’s pretty simple, it just sucked. After getting off of work Friday night I knew it was mostly pointless to go to sleep because I was going to have to turn right back around and go in again at 5am. That meant that I would only get about 3 hours of sleep, if I got any, before having to get up and ready for work again. Instead I stayed up playing Grand Theft Auto - or trying to. I fell victim to some crazy glitch that has been plaguing both the systems that make playing nearly impossible (I’ve been told deleting your saved game is a solution…an unacceptable solution, but there you have it.). So my gaming session was cut short and to make up for it I decided to do some catching up with friends I hadn’t kept up with like I should. Only my harddrive crashed. So it’s 3am and I’m trying to stay awake while watching terrible 3am crap on TV, wondering how people stayed awake before the time of massive distractions. Did they go out in the woods and chase a boar? Did they build a sweat lodge and have a quick spirit quest before going back in to Ye Olde Helpe Deske?

Sadly all that effort to stay up was hardly worth it because it was the most uneventful twelve hours I can remember. I think I had more excitement during the 22 hours my sister was in labor and I slept underneath the table in the hospital waiting room. I spent the entire time playing all the crazy games on the Eyemaze website (which by the way are pretty awesome - eyemaze.com). One thing I did get out of it was a few moments with Nate Dogg, which works a shift that has absolutely no overlap with mine so I rarely see him…which is probably a good thing. One of Nate Dogg’s many oddities is he spends lots of money of gadgets that he has no idea how to use or take advantage of. $300 sun glasses that he lost after a month. $400 Helio cell phone that he’s had a month and has no idea what he’s doing (he tried to show me how easy it was to Youtube and couldn’t get it to work). He bought an 80GB Ipod video and only has 12 songs on it. The Helio was sitting on top of the Ipod and he was bragging about how the Helio doubles as an MP3 player. He even has plans to buy a pair of $4k each firewalls just to play with it. In case you’re wondering, yes…he lives at home.

After the intense boredom of working on Saturday I went home and spent the entire day trying not to fall asleep so that I didn’t mess up my sleep schedule, which made Saturday hell. I would sit there doing something and next thing I knew I was waking up from a brief, restless 30 minute nap. Finally it got late enough that I wasn’t worried about screwing up my schedule and of course I could no longer get to sleep. The only shining moment of the weekend was Sunday with the family and kayaking with my step-dad. It made me really sad to walk into work Monday and actually be glad that I was back in charted territory. And then absolutely nothing happened today…which is why you just read about my incredibly boring weekend.

Take it with a grain of salt...

Fridays are always such a mixed bag. I never know when I walk in whether or not it’s going to be a chaotic mess, or an empty wasteland. There’s a general rule that if they’re working Saturday, then for some reason Friday sucks. Today is one of those exceptions. They’re running full steam tomorrow, but barely getting half mast today. That leaves another one of those days where we all spend more time trying to waste time than actually get any work done.

With a day like this, it’s hard to understand why anyone would start to panic when someone disappears for longer than usual, but then again, that someone is Serialkiller and there’s really no understanding the way the gears grind the mind of a mass murder. Sith Lord left the office for an hour to go take a certification test, which management approves of and pays for so long as it is work related. Unlike a normal day, where The JC is in charge and things run smoothly, Serialkiller was left at the helm while The JC was out. It’s sad, but Serialkiller is the most qualified and skilled, even if he does like the taste of blood and murder. That said; he still sucks as a manager.

While Sith Lord was out, Serialkiller couldn’t seem to figure out where he’d gone, when he’d be back, and what to do. He was asking everyone if they knew where he was and was visibly worried, as if The JC had told him before leaving “Alright now, Serialkiller. I’m leaving you in charge, if you lose any of them, I’ll rib your balls off and make you choke on them.” and he was taking it very literally. But then again, this is the biggest problem with Serialkiller. He takes his job WAY too serious.

In other news, I had lunch with an old co-worker, Alan Alda, and a friend in another department, and as any lunch with coworkers goes it pretty much revolved entirely around work. The funny thing is that everyone seems to have multiple versions of the same story. Let’s take Beardface’s rehiring as an example. His take on it was that he was called while still in Virginia, management practically begging for him to come back because he was in so tight with management and such a great employee. The story from other ends of the spectrum tells it that his biggest friend in management was the biggest obstacle to him coming back. She, Momma, did not want him because, supposedly because of attitude and personal problems. Then again, I’m sure my stories would sound completely different coming out of someone else’s lie-hole, not having been filtered through my ample imagination.

I have to work tomorrow, if I can’t get my Xbox working here, you may be hearing from me again…

The Shitcan Army Wants You!

The Crusade, as it has been dubbed, to get Stonehenge Mouth bounced has become a shifting, living entity of its own, as wars tend to do. The Crusade has taken precedence over other things now, as evidence continues to mount damning him further. If you recall, the scuttlebutt around the Cubes was that Stonehenge had been given a reprieve and Stalker Bait was going to be “released”. It seems that firing and hiring terminology is interchangeable these days. Instead of letting Stalker Bait go, they hired her on full time. I envision a day sometime soon when getting shitcanned is something to get excited about. People will be running through the streets shouting with glee “I finally got shitcanned!”

Obviously that changes things to where Stonehenge is back at the forefront of the enemies of Christendom and fuel for the fire is almost being created perpetually now as he is fucking things up in ways that are so regular, predictable, and maddening that people are all but doing my job for me now. Today alone I had one user who had spoken with Stonehenge Mouth three different times for three different issues in which he told them to call the Mail Room, restart the PC, and try again tomorrow. What the Mail Room has to do with supporting software, I don’t know. Restarting the PC is what he tells people when he doesn’t have a clue or can’t be bothered the make up a lie. And if waiting until tomorrow was an option, I doubt they would have bothered calling today. The fact this is all done to a single person obviously made them angry, and now I have a new ally. I couldn’t help but laugh when she asked me in all sincerity “Doesn’t he know everyone here hates him?”

This lovely lady isn’t the only new recruit in my Shitcan Army, as every day seems to bring a new convert into the fold, having seen the light of the one true god or something equally moving I’m sure, and willing to lend their services to me. Mostly it’s the services of bitching, complaining, whining, and sending nasty emails, but every bullet counts.

The problem that you may have noticed is that things with Stonehenge Mouth have gone from fired, to nobody bothered to tell him he was fired, to not fired, to being fired at some point in the future. This is actually a vast improvement over how things have worked in the past, considering I work for an employer that has had someone they’ve wanted to fire for five years, but are afraid to because she’s a black woman. Doesn’t matter she’s incompetent at any job they create for her. There was KrazyK who had brain lesions, no belly button, a rare throat-based Staph infection, schizophrenia, and she had to use a cane to get around on occasion, but not under any consistent situation. She called in to work one day because she couldn’t get down her steps. She hadn’t fallen or injured herself; she just couldn’t do it that day. She didn’t show up for 2 weeks and told her if she didn’t show up on Monday of the 3^rd week she could find another job. She came in Tuesday and still had a job. It took an act of Congress to finally get Shitpants McPoopertan fired, even though he was obviously weak and useless from the day he started and wasn’t fired till slightly over a year later.

Oh, and yes…I missed last nights post because of Grand Theft Auto…I just wanted to kill too much.