3/28/05

Time Warp in Beanie Land

I'm not sure what sort of time-warping energy field generator they have surrounding the buildings here, but somehow they manage to make the 9 hours I spend at work go by about 6 times slower than the same 9 hours at home. I am pretty sure it is powered by the life-forces of the employees. I must find this device and destroy it.

As I was trudging to my desk this morning, scoping out the locked doors behind which this device might be stashed away, I also found myself wondering, "What the hell is up with these people who have their entire cube covered in 3 layers of personal, non-work-related crap?"

A while back there was a woman here whose cube must have had 300 beanie babies in it. This person had actually added a homemade wooden shelving unit. These space-saving shelves were obviously needed, judging by the sheer amount of useless shit stacked on them.

There wasn't one inch of wall space that wasn't covered with something. Family pictures, pictures of baby zoo animals, you name it. They must have been building the photo collection of one particular kid for quite some time, because if you stacked the pictures, you could make a flip-book and watch the kid go from age 2 to age 20 right before your eyes.

To top it all off, they actually covered the cube walls with bright green, pink and gold-striped wrapping paper. Seriously, this cube looked like the inside of an effing piƱata. I could barely stand to walk past it on a Monday morning let alone spend my entire working life trapped inside this cheerful abomination. It was so over the top it made me want to vomit miniature teddy bears.

If this person ever got laid off, it would take her a solid 8-hour shift to box this shit up and haul it to her car (which I am sure has its own collection of bobbleheads and beanie babies gracing the rear deck.) I can only imagine what her house looks like.

On the flip side, there are other cubes here that are totally monastic in appearance. Other than a computer, and a calendar, and maybe a pen or two, there is nothing else. Completely blank walls. Completely clean desktop. If you walked by you would think that nobody worked there.

I have a theory on this. Either this person has achieved complete enlightenment and is living the Zen Buddhist worklife, or they think that they have one foot out the door and it'll be easier if there's no shit to box up. Maybe both. Either way, I aspire to this goal. Right now, my cube is a mess. Not so much with props and pictures, although there are a few, but mostly because of the useless piles of paper that I print out and promptly forget about.

Eventually, these stacks of paper reach immense proportions, and every three months or so I simply throw the bottom half out. At the same time, I usually weed the row of post-it notes tacked to my overhead cabinet, because 9 times out of ten, whatever is written on them is totally incomprehensible. So far that approach has worked well for me. I may try to boost my productivity and chuck the bottom two-thirds next time. We'll see how that goes.

Here's an example of one post-it note I just tossed. It says:

2260923
Lumpkin - BULIC
HR TTFEME
0662JXBV

I'm thinking it might be something Shamus wrote before he left.

===============================================

PS: OK, who has my 2002 Peter Gabriel concert DVD? I am also missing Birdy, Diggstown, and the second season of Family Guy. I have a really bad habit of loaning stuff out, and then forgetting who the hell it was that I loaned it to. I do the same thing with books and CDs. I seriously gotta start writing this crap down. Either that, or simply stop forcing my favorite movies, books and music on people. I think I am probably on my 4th or 5th copy of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and at least my third copy of Kevin Gilbert's "Thud" CD. So if any of y'all have any of my shit, give it back, will ya?

14 comments:

  1. Speaking of time warps, us people over here in England set our clocks yesterday morning one hour ahead for daylight saving time.

    I was out on Saturday night, so when I woke up at lunchtime I nearly had a fit.

    I still feel like I've lost an hour of my life.

    Shit.

    ---X

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  2. "vomitting miniature teddy bears"...awesome.

    I remember you checking the disc for imperfections when i returned it, yet months later was still accused of hoarding "Birdy"...it's not me dude. although i did loan out some porn about 7 years ago BG (before gf) and never got it back, so I know the feeling.

    Birdy was great, by the way. i hope you find it.

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  3. Nah, I know how careful you are with stuff. I've even loaned you stuff I was loaned myself. That's how much I trust you. (And how much the person who loaned it to me *shouldn't* trust me.)

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  4. Anonymous1:41 PM

    WT's are not ANYTHING like me, get that straight!! (Deja vu)

    ~C

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  5. intense!

    love,
    jason mulgrew
    internet quasi-celebrity

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  6. I instituted a "repo" list in college to keep track of my stuff. It was a white board on my fridge...and believe me my friends knew they were being put on the list when they borrowed my stuff. And you know what? It actually worked. Ask Toren...she went to school with me. You should try it :)

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  7. Anonymous4:26 PM

    I don't have any of your shit, but if I was local I'm sure that I would! Only I would be borrowing your retro radios, etc.

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  8. Anonymous4:27 PM

    More importantly where the #%&@ is my Wallace and Gromit tape??

    :-)

    ic72daj

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  9. Perhaps Lumpkin has it. I'm thinking the numbers are some sort of locator code.

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  10. I tried to implement a deposit system when loaning out my stuff. If it came back in the same condition in which it was lent, they'd get their money back. It didn't really work, so I just stopped lending shit out to people for more than a few hours at work.

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  11. Anonymous10:05 AM

    I have your ' family guy'
    do not call the police.
    you will be contacted and given further instructions

    jaxom

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  12. Anonymous10:14 AM

    oh... and I know you loaned out my stuff to another... I found an unknown set of prints and a pheromone trace on my ' bravo 2 zero' DVD

    you think I wouldnt check???

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  13. Still separated at birth, JV. I rust recently noticed I'm missing my copy of "Shadowlands" (It cost me $2 at Goodwill, but it's the principle d#$$it!) For the stuff I actually remember, I've been hounding people to bring back and send me stuff in the mail from various states - PA, NC. Sh#$ keeps showing up in the mail, slowly but surely, but you're right, remembering who has them, that's the real problem. We should start a library list and fine people for keeping our stuff.

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  14. I love that you are dropping comments on posts that I can't even remember. I see a comment and think "what the hell could that be in response to?"

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