Just Don't Ask

There were some strange noises coming from across the room at work the other day.

???: (noises)

NP: What's going on over there?

VFD: Do you really want to know?

NP: That's a good point.

VFD: Generally speaking, consider what could be the worst-case answer.  If you don't want to know it was that, then don't ask.

********

This is why, when we greet each other, you ask me how I'm doing and I don't subsequently ask you.  I care.  I love you too, really I do.  But I don't want to hear about how your dog is dying of cancer and you have an infected hangnail, really I don't. 

P.S., my standard answer of "okay, tired and allergic" is 99% of the time the whole truth.  Say "Nice to see you" instead of a non-question, ok?  ok!

BAD Pallet! Down! No Treat for You!

Little bastard tried to kill me. I was walking by and it grabbed and twisted my foot, threw me on the ground!

A freight shipping pallet, that is.  A particularly old and shabby one, with the last top slat held on by one nail at one end and a hooked nail poking out the other end.  I was walking by, minding my own (company) business and next thing I know I slapped the floor with my left arm to soften the blow as the concrete floor broke my fall!  WM was walking out of CO1's office and saw me (on the security video monitor) right after I hit the floor as he was leaving.  WM asked why I was lying down and CO1 looked up and saw me hurl the offending plank across the room.  The audio recording, it would be solid beeps when they played it on TV.  I got back to work.  WM hit the DVR controls and proceeded to have a good laugh (with everybody else I work with) at my expense, replaying my pirouette to the floor.

Oh well, no blood no foul, and this didn't even get me a bruise thanks Jesus!  Eventually CO1 did come around and ask if I were okay. He was still laughing a little.

P.S. when my Darling Wife called me later that day and I told her what happened, she LOL'd too.  Nice.

I'm a Frikken Reporter Already!

The people where I work were concerned about a huge plume of smoke that looked to be just up the hill from where we were.  That would be, the heavily wooded hill, and our place surrounded by a wood.  I asked if we should send somebody to go scope it out and PB said it would be a good idea.  I had a camera in hand, so I jumped in the Hot Rod and went to snap some photos. 

From our parking lot, it looked close-ish.
From the highway, it was obviously across a four lane divided highway, across a ravine, and over a hill.  Much less worrisome to us directly.
Two alarm fire, at least.  Note the irony of the Emergency Room wait time billboard.
Somebody is going to come home to a pretty nasty surprise tonight.

Kids Co-Workers Say The Darnedest Things!

NP was amazed at www.exoticmeatsandmore.com and he was glancing through their list of offerings. He said "oh sure, lion is out of stock, but we can get you some shark fin soup."

VFD: Oh, that's easy, you just go to the Sea of Japan...
NP: (disapproving tone) yeah . . .
VFD: (enthusiastic tone) well that's good though, because shark fin soup is sustainable! You cut off the fins and you can just throw 'em back in the water!
NP: (LOL) I don't think it works like that.
VFD: (LOL) I'm pretty sure it does.

Note: cutting off the fins and tossing a shark back in the ocean is a dick move. At least have the decency to shoot it in the head first! ********

A customer asked about a spectrum analyzer, which is an instrument that shows a display of amplitude vs. frequency (or wavelength, if you do the maths) of an electromagnetic signal. Wires have a physical property called "length." Wires have neither frequency nor wavelength on their own.

FOG: Customer Question: Will this measure the wave length of a piece of coax?
VFD: A piece of coax has no wavelength. This customer is worth blocking

********

Note: the links are what I was thinking at the time. FOG is slightly too proffessional to have caught my meaning over the instant messenger program.

VFD: Who likes candle smells up there in the office wing?
FOG: All the ladies ?
VFD: LOL
FOG: Not sure if understand purpose of your question
VFD: NP has a candle warmer which releases the scent without all the pesky burn-the-building-down action
VFD: this room = too big for one candle warmer, does nothing
VFD: is willing to donate to the front office wing
FOG: Do you have to have wax or anything?
VFD: have to have candle. in glass container
FOG: It is plug in?
VFD: is
FOG: How hot gets?
VFD: hot enough to melt candle?
VFD: !!!
FOG: Depends on candle
FOG: Hot enough to HURT?
VFD: wow

¡Locura en el Trabajo!

We have cleaning buddies that are supposed to sweep & mop the floor 2x/week to keep the dust down inside where I work. Today, they came around with a big dustmop for a broom and swept up most of the big chunks prior to the mopping. A 2" screw was left calmly sitting where moments before it had been surrounded by other debris on the floor.

I asked NJ if he wanted to see something amusing. He did and he came over to my AO. I told him the story. He chuckled & said it would be funnier if I cordoned off the area and put a little caution cone or something.




















(Click to embiggen)

You may guess from the language on the cone what is the principal language of los amigos limpianos. I took a photo and then, because even I am not that obnoxious, I picked up the screw, threw away the cone and barrer tape (both made from post-it notes) and went on about my day.

Madness At Work!

Overheard where I work:

"HIGHLY unproffessional, men!"
(new employees walk in)
"Most work places, you don't have people poking holes in the ceiling by kicking the thigh bones of dead animals around."

Art Imitating Preventing Life

So today at work, as usual, there was a crash, followed by snarky commentary:

Stuff: (crash)
RR: Safety first!
NP: Safety third!
VFD: Safety somewhere in the consideration, but let's not get carried away.

This sort of amusement happens more-or-less constantly at our company, so this one slipped into my personal /dev/null. Then to my surprise, I read a story from Skegness (in England, as you know) that illustrates the principle that we can, indeed, get carried away with safety considerations.

Skegness has a jolly fisherman for a mascot. There's an antique statue and everything. The statue has its arms out to the sides, all gay & skippin' around & whatnot. Well there are plans being laid for another statue. This replacement was to have its arms tight in by the body. This, of course, prevents children swinging on the outstretched arms, slipping off, getting hurt, and bringing lawsuits. The decision to be safer than reasonable so outraged the citizens that the plan to sissify the statue is being reconsidered.

Because [deleted] the kids. And safety. They'll figure it out after a couple of falls anyway.

********
England used to be the power of the western world, and truly manly beards were in evidence everywhere. They barely decided not to have Awesome be part of their name but settled on Great instead. Now look. Look and point and laugh, and be sure to never, ever vote Democrat.

Madness at Work, Computer LOLs

My computer has a BUNCH of programs that load at startup every day. The last thing in the queue is the sound you will hear when you go to instantrimshot.com and press the big red button. It takes several minutes for the computer to boot up.

Today as my computer was waking up I was across the room talking to one of the guys about cars. I said how fortunate I am, in that my Darling Wife's parents had an El Camino when she was young, so she loves 'em.

VFD: . . . because the El Camino is stereotypically a car that women hate. Unlike the Mustang I was behind yesterday with a chick's personalized plate and the same name on the surround around the plate.
JM: Well, maybe that's because the El Camino says 'I would like to rape you'
VFD: (1/2 tick pause)
VFD: I'm not arguing with you . . .
Computer: :rimshot:
JM & VFD: LOL
VFD: Hi-Five, computer!

Sweet:

Overheard@work.com

NP: Oh man! I can't even feel my hair!
Guido: Why?
NP: Because of these gloves!
Guido & VFD: LOL

Then there was a conversation about how gloves make hair feel awesome. Sometimes it is a surreal place to work.

God Forbid

I had some funky vision, couldn't really see right in my right eye. I cleaned my glasses but it wasn't that. I tried to keep working but it was getting worse, distracting me that I couldn't see right in the center of my vision. It was like I had looked at a bright light, but I hadn't. I was wondering WTH was going on, and I started seeing a quarter circle of light, which spread to the right, got bigger, and eventually was made of chevrons sparkling like rainbow tinsel. VERRRrrrr strange. I hit up my boy Mr. Google and he told me this is not me going insane (not necessarily anyway). By the time it was over, I was pretty sure it was a scintillating scotoma and hoping a headache would not follow. Thanks God no headache followed, but it did freak me out a bit and I didn't feel like working after that. Oh, and that was first thing in the morning.

Oh well. I guess it's better than knowing what it is from prior experience, and anticipating a headache afterward.

Madness at Work

NJ was chewing on a pen (he stopped smoking a while back) and it asploded real good-like. Blue ink all over the mouth like he had blue rabies. He wiped most of the ink off and then Guido started giving him a hard time about the blue that still remained. My ears perked up at the sound of something fun happening and I went to go see what was going on. JM had the same idea as I walked past his work station.

NJ saw me coming and went to hide around the other side of a partition wall. JM was a Marine and he followed orders splendidlywhen I told him to go round the other way and cut NJ off. At this point Guido started laughing even harder and mentioned that NJ now had a golf club in his hand.

Surrounded, NJ came out toward me and I started laughing. I was laughing at the presence of the golf club and he thought I was laughing at the bluerabiesmouth he still had. He probably had cleaned it all off by the time I got off my chair but he didn't know that. He said . . .

NJ: Is it still there?
VFD: What, the herpes or the blue stuff?
NJ: LOL

Small company, big fun. NJ went to the bathroom to check himself and came back momentarily, commenting that he was still spitting blue.

Customer Management 101

small business edition

~or~ why VFD is not the Customer Relations Manager

We got a customer question through the e-mail and my response suggestion followed the general rule I use in such situations. NP and Guido both agreed in principle:

If somebody asks a question about a low-dollar item and they obviously don't know what they are talking about, tell them the opposite of what they want to hear and add them to the Blocked Bidders List. This automatically prevents future stress and negative feedback scores.

Madness at Work

VFD: Hey, when is the drawing for this thing?
Guido: Tonight.
VFD: Thanks, WHEN is the drawing.
NJ: Why, are you having second thoughts?
VFD: No, I just want to know what time I need to call everybody to make fun.

********

There were only a handful of intelligent souls where I work today (who didn't buy lottery tickets). Last night I said I'd bet my life at a billion to one odds and today I'm proving I won't bet a dollar at 170whatever million to one odds. Sure it's a half billion dollars, but you're as likely to win if you play as if you don't, all the way out to a half dozen decimal places.

That said, if I can't get in to work tomorrow because everybody with a key called in rich, I probably won't be too happy about the $4 in gas I burned to get there and back home!

And no, to counter an often-repeated argument, nobody HAS TO win. This is what, 18 or 19 times they've drawn for this jackpot. The payout keeps going up with NOBODY winning.

*******

At least 10% of the people employed at my company bought into the office pool for one reason: they would suffer severe psychological trauma if the pool hit the jackpot and they weren't in on it. I wholeheartedly endorse this as a low dollar insurance plan for future mental stability. If you think you might be kicking yourself tomorrow, by all means go buy a ticket or ten. Just remember you wouldn't have won anyway, so don't feel too bad when you don't win.

Madness at Work

RA is about 5'2" and not all that muscular a woman.

RA came around and said she had some milk about to go bad; if we wanted to use it in our milk, we were welcome to it.

Taking it as a left-handed compliment I said "If you was a male, I'd give you a takedown for that!"

She held up a fist in the direction of my face and said "I got it for you right here!"

Madness at Work!

Fat Boi Cain't Be Faded! Edition

During a break, IT Buddy was snatching LB's remote controlled helicopter out of the air and walking around with it instead of letting it go. He got tired of LB's verbal abuse, so IT Buddy came and snatched my helicopter out of the air instead. I was having none of it. I went and grabbed him around his neck with my right arm, but he wouldn't let go. I put my right leg behind his and tried to throw him but it didn't work. We went down but he was so heavy I couldn't get any liftoff to toss him over my hip! He slipped out of my grasp while I was busy being surprised that I couldn't throw him.



He popped up and I did too, then I told him (for the 20th time already) to let go of my baby helicpter. Finally he let go. Then I complained to LB that I couldn't flip IT Buddy because he was too heavy. He said "I know, I hurt my back picking him up." LB gives piggyback rides when IT Buddy jumps him from behind and LB just keeps walking. In 8 years of piggyback rides, LB says, IT Buddy has never been this heavy.

All in good fun. This is what we call "rasslin'". Ladies, this is what happens when you are not around to scold us. Teehee!



But, says LB, you should have seen what went on here before IT Buddy went on antidepressants and we were an even smaller, even funner company. On the other hand, I guess it's better to be a little bigger and slightly less free at work . . . the OLD IT Buddy (not this IT Buddy!) used to show up and watch porn all day on the company computer network. Sometimes he was even sober! *rimshot*

Now that I think of it, I guess that explains why we always lost internet access for about an hour pretty much every afternoon. Wow.

Small company, big fun . . . but . . . with in reason!

Madness at Work

Seen on the bulletin board where I work

Madness at Work: Halfway Cute, Not All There . . .

We have a new cleaning crew at work to replace Cleaning Buddy. They are all just as fat as CB, except one girl on the crew who is about normal-sized (NS). I was on the way to the restroom to drain the lizard when . . .

NS (standing 2 feet from restroom door)
IT Buddy (goes from his office, around NS, into restroom
NS (waits a few seconds, pushes open bathroom door, sees ITB's back, exits bathroom)
NS (sees VFD, smiles sheepishly)
VFD (goes into restroom, into 2nd stall, commences to piss like a racehorse into the toilet)
ITB (finishes business, washes up, exits)
NS (enters bathroom)
VFD (still sounding like a fire hose down there)
NS (replaces urinal cake in 1st stall, flushes urinal, turns off lights)
VFD: Hey! Hello!
NS (exits)
VFD: Hello?
VFD (finishes business, exits restroom in the frikken dark already)


WTH?

Madness at Work

During a recent conversation about our inventory software:

Guido: Hey VFD, do you find it hard to believe that we don't have LeCroy in our database?
VFD: Well it's been a while since I listed anything LeCroy, so . . .
NP: I find it hard to believe Linksys isn't in our database.
VFD: when's the last time you listed anything Linksys . . . ?
JM: I find it hard to believe it's not butter!


(I can't believe people think this stuff is food)

Madness at Work

NP was flying his S107G around on break time and Guido was trying to shoot it out of the air with an AirZooka. Guido is not exactly the world's greatest sportsman and his hit ratio was pretty low. I got a little frustrated at all the misses I was hearing, and set out to see if I could down the airplane with the air cannon myself. First shot was a miss but a close one. Second shot was a hit, but not too impressive because it was about 1 meter away. Then (after recovering from yet another disastrous crash) NP started flying again and he was going about as fast as his modded S107 could go. I had a wide-missed shot, then realized I needed to lead the bird to hit it in flight. I led it and hit it and the helicoper smashed into a doorjamb and went down, hard. Satisfied, I put the AirZooka on a shelf and went back to work. On my way back to my desk, I said quietly, in a squeaky voice, said "How can you shoot women and children!?" to nobody in particular.

JM asked if I had said what he thought I had said. After I responded in the affirmative, he LOL'd pretty good.

Madness @ Work

Cosmetic condition varies. At work we have for sale a heaping pile or two of Akro storage bins. These things sell fairly well, even used with minor cosmetic blemishes. Most of the time, used is just fine and very few are really used-up and useless. This little guy, however, was a little bit past its prime. Cosmetic condition varies in lots like this. Some may be like-new and some are marked-up with old stickers and paint & whatnot . . .



but . . .

you have to draw the line somewhere, and that line is pretty well and thoroughly crossed when you unload a 500lbs pallet of goods and realize that it was sitting funny because the weight was all smashing down on an Akro bin.

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like so:



Height: 1/4" to 3", varies. Available at a significant discount!

Oopsy!