In the Land of Peculiar Internet Searches

Oh GOSH.

OH GOSH, I SAY.

I did a 30-day pull of the exact searches that led people to this blog and here we go again. My own musings appear in bold beside the corresponding search term.  (Hang on, this is a long and HILARIOUS one!)

cubicle hell

disgusting sandwich cartoon

annoying donut  (I feel sorry for that donut.)

a person who types very loud

annoying co worker on the phone

ed batka  (Um, WHO?)

co worker sighing constantly

mean lunch lady

red doxie puppies

she pop

girl with stank breath

waitress and and the crazy child

cat cubicles boss lolz

coworkers fondeling stories  (OH BOY.)

why does everyone pretend that the tv show “all the kids on the block” has never existed (WHAT in the WORLD?)

team player crap

miniature daschund puppies for sale in nc

halitosis in cubicles

this device will let co-worker know she’s too loud (Uh-oh.)

drug strength

vending machine in egypt

best part of my jobs swivel chair

corn lady

hygiene lunch lady

is it illegal to fart in an elevator (LOL!)

coworker chews ice all day

cult like workplace drink the kool aid

Here’s the one that takes the cake:

“please, i need this job” legs.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

I may never get rid of this blog just for the sheer joy/comedy of the search terms alone. I must say, however, it makes me feel better knowing that I’m not the only one who is so (easily) annoyed by coworkers’ habits and nuances. Hee hee.

Tags: blog search terms, internet search terms

Odd College Degrees

I once read or heard that someone actually did a thesis paper to earn their doctoral degree on–are you ready for this?–GLITTER.

Its origins and its life on earth, how it never truly goes away once made. Gosh, ever get a piece of glitter stuck to your eyelid to the point of poking your eye out trying to rid yourself of it? Me no likey glitter personally.

Well, there are some peculiar college degrees out there, too.

There’s a degree in puppetry. I know, right?

(Though for Jim Henson, the creator of The Muppets–I’ve always adored Kermit; I even have a small stuffed Kermit from 6th grade that has traveled well with me through hells and high waters–this career proved insanely successful.)

There’s even a degree in packaging.  After all, someone had to decide that potato chips should come in a bag and not a box and that the very bags they come in should be loud in a crinkly way. Don’t even get me started on the Sun Chips issue with those super noisy bags. There’s even a series of YouTube videos on the very “noise pollution” of Sun Chips bags. Take a look via the link. What I want to know is why doesn’t someone with a degree in packaging figure out a way to give us more than scanty chip volume, to get rid of those half filled bags of AIR. Now that would be impressive.

Photo & below from ConsumerReports.org:

A Frito-Lay customer rep confirmed that chip bags are half-filled. But why? Delicate items pose several challenges. Chips can be broken by rollers on the packing line or pressure from machinery that seals the bags. Extra air limits pressure on chips when bags are stacked. Even altitude matters. If a bag lacks the “headspace” to accommodate pressure changes when a truck passes through high-altitude regions, for example, the seal could break.

 

Hmm. Sounds like trillion-dollar lingo to me to sell the least chips for the most price.  I’M TIRED OF RUNNING OUTTA CHIPS WHEN I HAVE TOO MUCH SANDWICH LEFT!!  I always find myself balancing how many chips I have left vs. how many bites of sandwich I have left.

Chips left. Sandwich. Chips left. Sandwich.

Oy.

Back to the program…

There’s also a degree in decision making. Sure, its offered at Indiana University’s School of Business.

There’s a degree in wine making. Now that one I get. Not so weird considering the wine industry is a big kahuna.

There’s a degree in turfmaking called turfgrass specialization where students learn to manage the greens on golf courses.

Wowza.

There’s even a degree in Aromatherapy.

But the oddest degree, based on the fact that only ONE person in the world has ever earned it, is in ENIGMATOLOGY, the creation and solution of puzzles. It was earned in 1974 by Will Shortz at Indiana University as a graduate degree.

We live in a colorful world. It never ceases to make my jaw drop a bit. Or a lot. I wonder if there’s a degree in jaw dropping.

Tags: enigmatology, glitter, potato chips, Sun Chips

Path 2 SOMEwhere

When I think back to the first time I gave my vocational future any real thought–in high school–I was all over the place. But not really all over the place. I mean, I never wanted to be an astronaut. Space just didn’t do it for me. Or anything having to do with being in the sky. Science didn’t do it for me. Sure, I liked stuff like Pop Rocks and Zotz candy but that’s as far as my scientific self stretched.

Forget about math.

Math was always, always akin to snake pits or firey furnaces. Total head bashing. I think I would get nauseaus on the way to math classes through junior/high school.  Once I think I ended up in the school nurses’ office. I may even have put my head on her lap. And I wasn’t faking. I.LOATHED.MATH. Trigonometry, calculus and geometry were pure evil to me. Just couldn’t handle protractors and square roots and formulas. I think I wept once in the back of a math class. This was a big deal for someone who was uber concerned with being cool. Tears had no place in school. EVER.

Then there were so many subjects and fields I simply knew little or nothing about. Like commerce or technology, which when I was growing up the latter wasn’t even a word used anywhere near as frequently as today. To a teenager in the 80′s it was like saying “yidshinbach.” Meant nothing, really.

Medicine? You mean blood?

Law? Borrrrrrrrrrrrrring.

Education? I thought of female teachers as pale women who wore big blow-out skirts, ugly brooches and flat Maryjane shoes who sat alone in the evenings with their cats grading papers. Nope.

Military? Again, nope. Combat and me already had a too-close relationship having grown up in a dysfunctional childhood.

So what was left?

Yep. THE ARTS.

Well, it wasn’t so much left as it was just who I was and still am. But when I was growing up there wasn’t much emphasis placed on making careers out of anything art or right-brain related. Artists (which includes writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, etc.) were considered near losers except for when they reached success. Artists were mostly considered sociological misfits who generally were lazy and didn’t want to work “real jobs”, perhaps couldn’t adapt to real life. (Not that artists weren’t always looked upon this way.)

I mean, Daniel Pink hadn’t written this yet.

And also, a lot of people still view artists as whatevers.

I mean, my own 80+ year old godmother said to me once “Well, Jennifer, the only way artists make it big is they have to die first.”

Wowza.

So there I was (and still am) trying to navigate being a semi-tragic right-brainer. A person who doesn’t fit a whole lotta places yet fits everywhere because of my right-brain adaptability and both-sides-of-the-fence grasping powers. I’ve never been pointed in the right direction; I’ve always had to discover the right direction.

Discover the right direction.

Do you know how many detours its taken?

Most detours look like this:

Nope, mine was/is more like this:

And to make matters “worse” I wasn’t merely a painter/illustrator. I was a writer, a cartoonist/artist, a bedroom stand-up comedienne, a singer, a hopeless crafter, a…

A flitterer. One who flits. A person with no solid ground. One dictionary’s recent definition of a flitterer is: “An empty-headed, silly, often erratic person.”

The last thing my head is is empty.

The tragedy of a delayed artist is a tragedy of delayed beauty, of delayed peace. After graduating college and working for just a handful of years I realized that there was no way I could ignore the gifts I’ve been given, a mandate of sorts. So now as I do something as hideous as job hunt (including interviews where I hold my breath during inquiries of gaps on my resume when I was flittering) I have a plan, a Master Plan.

The plan is to not give up on my gifts, to work them until they bleed, if they need to bleed, to die doing what I have the gifts to do. If I leave a legacy, great. If I don’t, still great. At least I lived inside of my gifts. There’s a quote from one of my favorite movies A Bronx Tale:  “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”

I won’t be wasting mine anymore. Every thing I’ve got to give, there is an audience for it.

This is new thinking. Yet old information.

Another rambling from the Cubicle Rebel.

Tags: artists, daniel pink, right-brain

Monday Blues?

Hey, did you know there’s a term called Sunday Syndrome? Yep. It pertains to workers who dread returning to work come Sunday evenings. They get anxiety, get depressed, start thinking miserable thoughts regarding their workplace/coworkers/all that.

Do you sometimes get Sunday Syndrome or the Monday Blues? Do you look forward to Monday mornings like you look forward to getting a root canal? Well, you’re in good company, not that you’d want that kind of company.

As an umemployed, right-brain approaching middle ager, I want to say to you: It really could be worse. Assuming you don’t work in hell or its outskirts. Even that coworker who makes you cringe at the very sight of him/her. Even if its your boss. It could be worse. I mean, you could work here:

Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs working as a paint recycler, of all things.

Or here:

Here he’s at the Ebonex Corporation in Melvindale, Michigan where he crushes cow bones into powder to be used in paints, plastics, wood-grain stains, artificial leather and vinyl, among other things.

I usually hate for people to say to me “It could be worse.”  That very statement makes me cringe itself but sometimes it proves effective.

While in job search mode I’ve had mixed feelings about where I’d like to work or even if I’d like to work anywhere (should I just keep writing, painting, hounding complete strangers to purchase my wares). But there are days when I really, really, really grow tired of trying to get steady. On those days I slightly salivate over being back in an office job with a salary and health benefits and some structure and frivolous money to buy hummus and pita chips for lunch. Or a Greek salad. Followed by a candy bar in the late afternoon from the vending machine. 

So from this position I now stand in–unemployed and thrashing to get back inside–I say to all of you who have jobs that you don’t particularly loathe:

It could be  worse.

Hope your Monday is wonderful. Literally, filled with wonder. Wonder is not reserved for weekends, you know.

Tags: Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe

Want a Finger In That Sandwich?

A restaurant employee cut off her finger with a meat slicer while preparing a roast beef sandwich at Arby’s. She left her station to deal with the emergency, and other employees, who were unaware of the injury, continued to complete the order.

That’s when a 14 year old boy bit in and his teeth hit a finger.

Well, read all about it here.

Gosh, first battered chicken heads and now this.

Yet another reason to hate fast food. Not that one can’t slice off a finger at The Salad Hut, but still.

Tags: Arby's, fast food, lunch

The Psychology of Road Rage

According to a national survey by an insurance company…when a driver gets flipped the middle finger, gets cut off or tailgated, 50 percent of the “victims” respond with horn honking, yelling, cutting-off and obscene gestures of their own.  Not surprisingly men are more likely to respond with anger than women are.

What is it with driving anger?

I mean, when someone cuts me off I usually get peeved. too. I rarely think, “Oh, well, that’s ok; they’re in a rush.” or “Hmm. They’re just an asshole. La la la la.”

Why?

I mean, is it so hard to just ignore poor drivers? I mean, who wants to add more stress to their life?

It’s like whenever you get into or witness a fender bender–more than likely the person who got hit gets angry? “WTF?!!! YOU HIT MY CAR!!” As if the person who bumped/hit their car did it on purpose when 98% of the time its an accident. 

It’s not called an auto deliberation, it’s called an auto accident.

What’s with us?

And the thing that really gets me is when we get angry because some random stranger gives us the finger or mouths the word “dumb ass” to us. Who cares? Most people don’t matter in your life, never will by any stretch of the imagination, so why do we react so emotionally?

Are we wired to “defend” ourselves, even when there’s nothing, really to defend?

These are questions I have. Not only for you but for myself.

Why do some people, after a road rage incident, follow the person who enraged them? I mean, ok, so you may/may not have scared them a bit by following them from block to block, turn by turn but in the end you’ll probably just end up pulling up beside them, rolling down your window and informing them that you think they’re a poor driving mother-rucker and to have a really bad day.

Really? Was that worth the gas? The time? Did it really truly make you feel better about yourself? Will the person you tongue lashed even remember you next year? Will you remember them?

There’s something weird that happens to people in traffic that doesn’t happen anywhere else. There’s something to the whole “Hey, I was here first, buddy.” We also act similarly while standing in lines. If/when someone cuts in front of us we go ballistic. Our nostrils flare. Our feet get tense.

Reading this just brought the whole wondering home.  Here’s a quote from this interesting piece brought to you by HowStuffWorks.com regarding road rage and what’s really behind it:

“It [the car] is also a cultural and psychological object, associated with the driver’s internal mental and emotional dynamics, our ego. Cars are an extension of the self, they are ego-laden objects that can be used both positively and negatively to get our own way on the road. The automobile offers us a means to exercise direct control over our environment. When we enter the car we use it as an outlet for regaining a sense of control. Automobiles are powerful, and obedient. They respond instantly and gratifyingly to our command, giving us a sense of well being that comes with achieving control over one’s environment..”

Something’s really wrong when a car controls that much within a person.

There are a lot of people who need to be on foot. Period.

I used to spray lavender mist in my car once when I had an awful commute. I did. I think it worked, too. Major assholes were reduced to medium-sized assholes.

Want to know which U.S. cities have the worst road rage? It’s here.  Glad I don’t live in Miami though my area, Washington, D.C., is number five on the list.

Gone shopping for lavendar mist. 

Tags: commuting, lavender, road rage

Rules 4 the Weekend

1.  Don’t think about work.

It’s your time off and you’ve already spent no less than 40 hours there this past week anyway. When you allow yourself to dwell on your workplace during the weekend you’re cheating yourself. Now are you really ok with that?

2.  Pretend you’re someone else.

Insert your job title here [Administrative Assistant, Paper Filer, Receptionist, Random Office Professional].

Then insert a new (true) name for yourself during the weekend.  [Baker, Artist, Superhero, Person Who Doesn't Think About Work on Weekends]. BE that true person at least for 48 hours. If you bake, bake something and put it on a pretty plate as a centerpiece in your kitchen, even if no one sees or samples it. And when you run errands this weekend strike up conversations with total strangers and mention that you’re a baker. If/when someone asks you “What do you do?” say “Oh, I’m a baker.” And mean it. Sprinkle some flour on your shirt for good measure. Rock on with your bad self.

3.  Spend time staring at something in nature this weekend. Just for 15 minutes minimum. A tree. Grass. A patch of flowers. A creek. The wonder of a strawberry or the pure artwork inside of a kiwi.  Pretend cubicles don’t exist and there is no such thing as an Excel chart.

4.  Plot your next move. Unless you’re content in CubicleVille and actually see yourself there 20 years from now (not that there’s anything wrong with that if that floats your boat) make a vision board of where you’d like to be, what you’d like to do and how you plan to get there. DO it NOW. Make it fun.

5.  Don’t think about work. After all, you’ll be right back there in a matter of hours.

 

Tags: Dreaming, vision board