Why the Workday Would Benefit from a Darth Vader Voice Generator

I noticed some Googler came to this blog searching for "Darth Vader Voice Generator." And while I'm afraid I had nothing to meet his current need, the thought did cross my mind:

How awesome would it be to spend the entire workday talking in a Darth Vader voice?!!

I mean, I do a lot of client service. And while much of this takes place through email, I do have a certain amount of meetings and phone interactions. I think it would really liven things up if I could do it all sounding like the main recruitment officer for the Dark Side of the Force.

"I UNDERSTAND THAT THE PLACEMENT OF MY CLIENT'S ADS IS CURRENTLY INCORRECT, VENUE SCUM. THAT WAS TO BE A CORNER PEEL ON YOUR HOME PAGE INSTEAD OF A LEADERBOARD AND BIG BOX ROADBLOCK. I SHOULD CRUSH YOUR TRACHEA WITH MY MIND.

HOWEVER I WILL SETTLE FOR 200,000 MAKE GOOD IMPRESSIONS AND A NICE CARD AT CHRISTMAS."

I imagine it would be the last time there was ever a mistake regarding ad placements.

Having a voice like Darth Vader would probably make a capabilities presentation new and exciting, too.

"WE ARE A FULL SERVICE MARKETING AGENCY AND MY PARTICULAR FOCUS IS CRAFTING LANGUAGE FOR YOUR ONLINE BRANDING ELEMENTS. I WILL HELP YOU DEFINE YOUR BRAND IN A SIMPLE, USER-FRIENDLY WAY. AND IF THAT PROVES UNSUCCESSFUL, I WILL LEVERAGE THE FORCE ON YOUR BEHALF, CHANNELING MY DEEP INNER RAGE AT YOUR COMPETITORS, WHO WILL FEEL THE SWIFT BURNING BLADE OF MY LIGHT SABRE, RIGHT BEFORE I CRUSH THEIR TRACHEAS WITH MY MIND."

Lastly, I foresee picking up lunch to be a refreshingly different type of endeavor. Particularly if it's at the bagel shop a few doors down, where the folks who work there leave you waiting while they finish their conversation about their last hot night on the town. And even when they do finally wait on you, you have to repeat your order three times and head off condiments you don't want.

"I WILL HAVE A HAM AND CHEDDAR ON A HONEY GRAIN BAGEL, NO MAYO, AND IF YOU CONTINUE TO IGNORE ME WHILE YOU IDLY CHATTER, FOOLISH BAGEL JOCKEYS, I SHALL HAVE NO RECOURSE OTHER THAN TO CALL IN MY TEAM OF STORM TROOPERS TO PILLAGE YOUR PAPER NAPKINS, MELT YOUR PLASTIC UTENSILS AND LASER YOUR GLASS SNEEZE GUARD TO OBLIVION.

"WAIT, I SAID NO MAYO, NO MAYO!... OKAY, THAT'S IT! I WILL JUST HAVE TO CRUSH YOUR TRACHEA WITH MY MIND."

See? It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

So tell me-- what would you do with your Darth Vader voice generator?

If People Acted Like Pets- Office Edition

I've learned a lot about living with a pet, since adopting my cat, Alice, almost two months ago. Things like: puncture wounds really can mean love. And: wool pile stroking your cheek in the night doesn't mean the area rugs are getting frisky.

But I've been thinking, the lives our pets lead might not apply well to the world of humans, particularly in the corporate world. Simply because this is how that might go:

• Business breakfast meetings would start with coffee, danish, and half the execs running circles around the conference room table excitedly sharing tales of what a great poop they just had.

• All group projects would require two employees to attempt the task, and two to hop up and lay on the project planning document.

• Dull meetings would be filled with long, loud sighs bearing the weight of the world.

• All project discussion would cease when someone accidentally drops a paperclip. Meetings would allow time for executives to compete and see who will bat it around the room.

• When you can't find one of your colleagues in his office, you know he's in the shipping room, leaping in and out of the mailing boxes.

• The corporate cafeteria would serve meat, bones, meat and meat.
  

• Powerpoint presentations would find half the staff in the audience, and the other half up front blocking the screen.

• Business restrooms would be the same, but TP would be tracked with gusto around the office space.

• Dropping the ball in your job would suddenly also involve digging your teeth into it and refusing to pass it to the person you've been working closely with.
  

• And when your boss asks you out for a bite... you bite him.

You pet-owning folks have any more to add to this list? I'd love to read 'em!

The Parking Space Number Four Dash

Tobagganing... Triathalons... Guinness World Chewing Gum Records... Competitive, yes. But like a one-player game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos compared to the heavy, brow-sweating, heart-pounding competition I face ritualistically every weekday:

Getting a parking space at work.

There are four spaces, count 'em, four spaces alloted to us, Ye Regular Joe Working Rabble in this crammed section of town. Yet we are legion. And, as a result, each morning, it's like some four-wheeled version of musical chairs only with a dash of road rage tossed in for grins. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to snag one of these coveted containers of automotive glee....

Preferabally, sometime the evening before. In fact-- just stay there overnight, buckled in the bucket seat with the engine running. Sure, you blow through gas like you're Smokey and the Bandit. But it's the only way to truly be assured.

As a result, I've noticed that while work begins officially at 8:30, we birds have begun arriving earlier and earlier in order to tuck into this coveted parking space worm. And it's gotten so that, like today, as I drove in at 7:30, patting myself on the back about my commuting cleverness, I realized I'd patted too soon.

Four cars filled the four slots. One clicked with radiating heat.

I'd missed it by that much. I am now parked somewhere out past the fifth moon of Betelgeuse.

So now I'm thinking we need to keep some kind of scoreboard for this, the Parking Space Number Four Dash. It could be an office morale thing. And there should be prizes. But not for the people who get the most spaces-- oh, no! For we slackers who aren't rolling in at 4 am to plant our flags and claim this space in the name of smart office drones everywhere.

No, I think we office jockey underachievers should win items to help us in our quest for True Parking Space Greatness. Like a blanket for sleeping in the car... A coffeemaker that plugs into the cigarette lighter... A sleep mask that has open eyes printed on it, so we can safely snooze at our desks because we headed to work at midnight.

Sure, our families and friends might miss seeing us. Little Timmy will no longer recognize his daddy, but hey, he'll develop a close bond with the mailman, which is almost as good. Little Suzie will grow from a mary-janed moppet into a teen Bratz doll in no time.

But they can always pop by the office to say 'hi' sometime.

If they can only find someplace to put the car.

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In Honor of Towel Day: Office at the End of the Space-Time Correction Fluid Blob

Monday was "Towel Day" in honor of humorist, Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. But I'm afraid I'm only getting around to celebrating it today...

Oh, it's not that I'm late, per se. It's just that the anomaly in the space-time continuum only dropped me off here now, two-days off schedule.

And it's funny, because the week had started out pretty much like any other.

I woke to the smell of coffee and struggled out of bed, per usual....

And I blessed my automatic-timed coffeemaker, set to deliver mind-clearing, bean-based Life, like any other day...

That's when I noticed the maker of java was there, levitating, four feet away in a bright green glow.

Strange, I thought. I'd had this coffeemaker for years and it had never levitated to my bedroom before. But that's what you get when you don't read the whole manual.

So I reached for the small appliance, hoping to guide it toward some mugs, as even a half-awake Me knows a handful of coffee is less tasty.

And that's when I ended up in a bright entirely white office kitchenette, standing by a giant coffeemaker with a large, hairy man peering down on me.

"Ah, you're here!" boomed the man. "Let's get cracking!"

"Here? Where's here?" I said, blinking at the room that was not my bedroom.

He raised an eyebrow that looked like a wooly-bear caterpillar on steroids. "Er... your workplace?" he prompted, bewildered. "Place of employment? The office? The 9-5? Grind? Biz? Firm? HQ?... The ad agency?" he added for extra clarification.

I glanced around at the piles of nondescript garbage piled around the kitchenette. Some of it was small and granular, some of it large and chunky, some in broken boxes, some just balled up on the floor. All of it, like the rest of the room, was white. "Funny. I don't remember it quite like this."

"Well, it's probably because of the Blob that went through here this morning," he said simply.

"The Blob?"

"Heh..." He glanced red-faced at his shoes and shuffled his giant feet, like a mountainous child who had something for his more mountainous parents to sign. "Er... we kind of made a Blob in the space-time continuum."

"A Blob."

"You see, we got a project to do, but the moment it was assigned, it already needed to be done yesterday. So in order to meet the deadline and get it done before we received it, we had to jigger things around a bit, space-time-continuum-wise. You know, blot out the day we signed the agreement, so we could go back and get the job done before it happened. And now there's this Blob over it. "

"A Blob," I said again, and it didn't improve for saying it thrice. I grabbed the pot of white coffee and poured myself a white mug, and took a deep revitalizing swig.

I looked around.

No, I was still here.

"It's little like working with correction fluid," the man went on affably, warming to the topic. "You can try to write back over it, but it's never quite the same, is it? It gets... lumpy."

I wiped the coffee from my mouth with the back of my hand. "Who are you?"

"I'm your coworker, Kitty," he said, with an injured astonishment. "Don't you recognize me?"

I peered up, up, up at the man. "Last I saw Kitty, she was female, 5-foot-nine, married, and had a new baby."

Kitty shrugged. "I'm Kitty 2.0."

"Where's the baby?"

"Teacup poodle. Named Rocco."

"And her husband, 'The Dude'?"

Kitty beamed. "He abides. We had a lovely barbecue last night."

"Great," I said. "My best girlfriend at work is now a six-foot-four, male, gay dog-lover, and I'm supposed to repair a Blob in the space-time continuum."

"Oh no," said Kitty quickly. "We don't need you for the repairs. We need you for some data cleaning. See all of this stuff?" Kitty motioned to the broken boxes and piles of sand-like dust and crumpled up balls of whatevers.

"Er, yeah..." I said hesitantly.

"Well, when you blot out a day with the space-time correction fluid, and then you brush off a bit of the excess Happenings, well, this is what you get."

I frowned at it. "Don't we hire a service for this?"

"These are all the extra occurrences that would have gone on during the day we had to overwrite," he explained, folding his arms and surveying the landscape. "So what I need you to do is some serious data scrubbing."

"That's not really my area of expertise," I said. Then I noticed I was still wearing my pajamas. "I'm also not dressed for it."

But Kitty just went on unconcerned, "Stack the Epiphanies, Revelations and Major Life Events here..." He patted the kitchenette countertop, "we'll want to sort through those and figure out where to tuck them in going forward.... And sweep up the Minor Annoyances, Watercooler Discussions, Mindless Television Watching and Sandwich Breaks over there into bags, for disposal."

"We're disposing of parts of peoples' days?"

Kitty waved it away. "Aw, they won't miss 'em. Especially since, technically, they never really happened. Good luck." And at this, Kitty thrust a broom and dustpan into my hand and vanished in a blip of light.

I recalled Kitty used to be more helpful than this.

Well, anyway, I swept up some Messy Confrontations, and was just reaching for a towel to sop up some Brainstorms, when, as soon as I touched that towel--

Poof! I ended up back here.

So, I apologize if I'm running a little behind. And as for celebrating Douglas Adams' holiday, I'm not entirely certain what to do for it. Perhaps I'll have a sandwich and a bath.

I think Doug would have really liked that.

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When Campbell's Chunky Attacks

Alphabet that spelled trouble.... Minestrone with a mission to destroy... Or chicken noodle with some hate on...

The type of soup matters little. It's legacy lives today, in a scar for the world to see.

I know now that my doom was inevitable. See, I love soup. From bisque to beef barley, I slurp them all down with equal lunchtime gusto...

It was just a question of when the right elements would conspire to seal my fate.

Like the microwave at work-- one of those super-high-powered jobbies, where you put something in for 20 seconds and it comes out glowing green and you need to handle it with tongs.

Or the newfangled style of plastic wrap, called Press 'N' Seal. Which never states that once pressed... 'n' sealed... the wrap is rigidly unwilling to reconsider any later reassignment of its duties.

Or me, just having things other than 131 degree soup on my mind.

I'm not sure how precisely it happened. A time set too long, followed by a too-enthused tug of the Press 'n' Seal, I suppose. But in an instant, soup cascaded over my screaming hand...

Soup slid down the leg of my jeans like lava. Soup was on the floor, the cabinets, the countertops. And I shrieked like a citizen fleeing Pompei, and ran to the sink.

One of my coworkers-- we'll call him Ted-- eyed the scene with the placid observation of an old man rocking on a New England porch. "That's some hot soup," he said helpfully. "Maybe you put it in the microwave too long."

I resisted telling him what he could do with his Pepperidge Farm commentary.

Meanwhile, my friend "The Knave" came rushing in to see if I was dying, and to help clean up the soup. That moment, I even forgave him for making me listen to William Shatner sing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds during our commute. Of course, that's another story.

Together, we looked at my poor right hand, red and unnaturally shiny in the kitchenette light.

"That doesn't look good," murmured The Knave with a frown.

"Aw, the skin hasn't sloughed off," Ted replied with a wave of his own-non scalded digits.

"Hasn't sloughed off?!" I found myself saying shrilly.

The Knave may have had to hold me back, I don't remember anymore.

Now, because I'm me, the giantest nerd in all of Nerddom, I thought for some reason that I would not only finish out the work day, but I really should try to eat the rest of my soup.

To my surprise, I discovered I no longer had a taste for it. Once you've been attacked by your edibles, the magic is gone.

Within the hour, I was radiating heat like Joan of Arc on bonfire day-- and developing nice big blisters the size of grandma's button earrings. And that's when I realized, my red right hand was a ticket to anywhere I wanted to go.

A wave of the red right hand at my boss? "I'm going to leave for the day and go to the doctor's..."

"G-ah!! Go, go, go!"

A wave of the red right hand at the doctor's office receptionist? "I don't have an appointment, but can someone fit me in?"

"Ohmigawd! OH. MY. GAWD. This way! This way!"

Second degree burns.

I don't think this was quite what Nick Cave had in mind with his wickedly eerie song, somehow. But the power of the red right hand-- if not the pain-- is one I'll kind of miss.

Today, the hand is just de-pigmented to a bisque white and tans badly, giving me a spotty leprosy of sorts every summer. It's the only thing that makes me wish Michael Jackson could actually swing that comeback he's been talking about. I wouldn't mind having an excuse for a single glove.

I've finally gone back on soup, as well. Yet every now and then, when my Campbell's Chunky Chicken and Dumplings is bubbling just right, steam squeaking melodically through the Saran... if I listen very carefully I swear... I can just make out this vague haunting refrain...

You're one tiny victim
of that catastrophic can...
Burned and deflected with
a red right hand

Or, maybe it's the wind.

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OH, AND BEFORE YOU GO TODAY.... Just a quick order of business-- You may have noticed, Of Cabbages and Kings now has a brand new URL of its own! Huzzah!! The blog is now officially at http://www.cabbagesnkings.net . So for folks who are kind enough to link to Cabbages, if you could take a moment to update your links, I'd be mightily obliged.

Thanks folks, and have a super (not souper) weekend!

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Pie Charts, Presentation Hell and the Mind Meringue

Pie charts at two in the morning...

I'd stared at the Powerpoint screen with sleep-bleary eyes-- briefly slipping into more soothing hallucinations of coconut cream pies...

Hot apple pies...

And any other pie that wouldn't make me label the friggin' primary and secondary axis.

Yes, I was drifting away on clouds of mind-meringue at this point. I'd been up for almost 24-hours. It was our corporate user conference. And my supervisor would be giving this very presentation... at 8am this same day.

I'd known this was coming, of course. Why, the presentation had already been approved, photocopied and bound. So naturally my boss decided that 2 am the morning of, was the perfect time to look at it and make changes.

It was some kind of Pre-Presentation Insecurity Syndrome he suffered from. Where only at the very last minute could an intelligent, gregarious and authoritarian personality appropriately channel his inner fears and deep-rooted lack of confidence...

And slough it off on down the Corporate Feudal System to us Marketing Paynims.

A skillful Upper Management Two-fer, really.

The well-conditioned paynim I was, I always questioned my own sanity during these moments. Didn't I remember getting the final approval on this presentation weeks ago?...

And then the final-final approval a few days after that?

And oh-- what about that final-final-final approval just two days ago? Where we revised the revisions of the revisions? I recalled a final-final-final-final approval for that, didn't I?

Well, the mind meringue got in the way and I figured I had to be mistaken.

So at 2am, as my supervisor peered over my shoulder breathing anticipation and cold coffee on my neck-- I figured if I could just make these last-minute additions to the revisions of the revised-revised revisions, things would finally be buttoned down.

Meringue makes you naive.

So I added the pie chart. I put in the data my supervisor requested. And waving goodnight to his beaming thanks, I staggered off to my hotel room for four gritty hours of sandman time.

Six a.m. found me groggy, but all was well. The customers seemed happy... My supervisor seemed happy.... The conference center was at Disney so cartoon bluebirds chirped and some broad in poofy sleeves was in the hall singing something thematic...

Maybe "Whistle While You Work" or "Someday My Contract Signature Will Come."

Even my supervisor's opening session started off all right...

Until we bit into the poisoned pie chart.

Now to this day, I don't know if in my weariness of the few hours before, or my desire to just get the thing done, I'd simply overlooked it...

Or if my supervisor noodled around with it some more after I left.

(Whatever, I'm fully willing to take my slice of responsibility here.)

But when the pie chart came up on the giant projection screen, the title was right... the percentages were right... but the labels read like a RandMcNally Roadmap, big as day:

East
West
North
South

Even on four hours of sleep I was pretty sure geography had very little to do with our computer software.

Well, most anyone giving this presentation would probably just look at that and try to shift quickly past it. Or perhaps just mention the labels were incorrect, tell the audience what they should be, and move on.

But remember that whole Authoritian/Insecurity Combo Pack?

My supervisor took one look at that mislabeled pie chart, stopped dead and said with the kind of melodramatic horror Vincent Price was so good at:

"This is wrong!... This isn't supposed to be this way!"

Creepy organ chords might have even played, I'm not sure anymore, I was frozen in slow-mo.

Because he met my gaze as I stood there observing from the back of the room, and he extended a shaking, accusatory finger. He tried to add a note of humor to his voice when he spoke, but it fell just a little flat:

"She did it! It's her fault!"

I kid you not when I say that sixty people in the room... customers I'd been dealing with for years and sales reps I'd dealt with every day... all turned around to look at me, their faces pale and blank.

I watched one of my other supervisors-- Jeff-- wince, his beard bristling with what I think now might have been empathy.

Even Snow White in the hallway stopped sweeping and singing, and turned to peer in the conference room door.

I felt my face redden. I felt my head start to swim. So I did the only thing I could possibly do in this sort of situation...

I smiled and waved. "Yes, yes, hi... It was me."

And you know, it was at about that point in my Marketing Paynim career that I thought I might want to get out of the event planning field...

There just wasn't a big enough piece of the pie in it.

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If you're interested in more Office-related stories you might also enjoy these tales of puns, pain, pranks, and paperwork...

• The Office on Walden Pond

• Office Pranks, Pens and the Shrinkwrap Trap

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Office Pranks, Pens, and the Shrinkwrap Trap

We stared at the shrinkwrapping machine much the way cavemen might have looked at the first wheel. Fascinated... seeing the promise... but recognizing it as one more damn thing to make cave-life all that more complex.

Of course, it wasn't cavelife we were talking about. It was Cubicleland. My first real job out of college. Equally tribal, political and cut-throat-- only, caves have the benefit of full-walls.

Bummer for us, really.

The shrinkwrapping machine, we were told, was going to make shipping product all that much more professional.

What I personally felt would be more professional would be not having the same person shipping the product (namely me), as answering the main telephone... ordering the office supplies... user-testing the product... making all the product icon graphics... and writing the software manuals.

But I didn't mention that part.

So, one of my supervisors at the time-- we'll call him Jeff-- demonstrated how to use this machine with a sort of zest he'd apparently summoned up from somewhere deep-- possibly in the Big-Toe Region.

He showed how I should ensure each software manual was safely entombed in plastic, then add those manuals to a box that got the shrinkwrap treatment again.

It was a Brave New World in Product Packaging! And gosh, you could almost hear the music from 2010: A Space Odyssey playing...

Only we weren't allowed music in the office. Y'know, because it clashed with the overall atmosphere of deep depression and abiding wheel-spinning futility.

Well, interestingly, Jeff was also a bit of a practical joker. He was one of those quiet, placid pools of a person, where miles underneath, there lurked steamy magma just waiting to bubble up to the surface.

It didn't bubble up much-- again, probably due to the aforementioned depression/wheel-spinning futility-- but every now and then something would overcome him and-- gloop!-- volcanic fun.

Now as Technical Writer Office Manager Shipper Receptionist, one of my first tasks every morning was to check the company answering machine and distribute the messages that had come in overnight.

I was usually only roughly-caffeinated at this point, but that was okay because I'd worked out a system where I tried to spend as much of my morning on autopilot as possible.

The way I figured, the less I actually contemplated my daily routine, the less I would want to throw myself on the railroad tracks below the office building windows. I always assumed the office windows didn't open for a reason.

So, this one morning, I went to check the messages, pushed the button on the answering machine only to discover...

The answering machine wouldn't talk to me.

Pushed again?

Nada!

Once more?

Nope!

The light was on. Plug was in. Power was fine. Pushed the button and...?...

Zippo.

And that's when I discovered that at some point between the day before and this morning, someone had encased the answering machine in a thin, tight, virtually-invisible layer of shrinkwrap. I knew instantly who the culprit was. I also knew this shrinkwrap trap had been set for me.

Thus, began my plot for revenge.

It was as I made the day's first pot of coffee, I developed my scheme. It had to be subtle. Personal. Inoffensive yet unquestionably making the statement that in Cubeland, one Technical Writer Office Manager Shipper Receptionist Practical Joker reigned supreme.

I went into Jeff's office and took...

His favorite Cross pen.

For two years, this pen had been Jeff's trusty weapon. Where King Arthur had Excalibur, and Milton had his red Swingline stapler, Jeff had this slim, beautifully-weighted Cross pen.

He twiddled it in thought in meetings. He drafted memos and diagrammed ideas with it. He even used it to sign our paychecks. It was a constant companion to his workday. His own personal Yes-man in stylus form.

And ohhh, I shrinkwrapped that baby like nothing had ever been shrinkwrapped before! Shrinkwrapping perfection! The seams were almost undetectable to the unsuspecting naked eye.

Then I put it back on his desk.

Jeff came in not long after, and I waited to hear some exclamation emanating from his office...

Silence.

Jeff went to get coffee just as I made a second pot. He said good morning to me with a smug smile, his beard bristling merrily as he considered his own office prank genius.

So we stood, two smug cyphers poised around the Coffeemate and artificial sweetener. We chatted. It was stilted as he waited for me to mention how some joker had shrunkwrapped the answering machine. But that confession would not be his. I was biding my time.

Disappointed, he headed back to his office, and I to my cube.

There I waited.... And waited.

Hours passed. Jeff stepped out to the men's room and I slipped into his office to see if he'd found my little trap.

But (gasp)-- impossible!-- there was the pen, and the shrinkwrap was still intact!

Of all days, Jeff had had no occasion to write. No occasion to push that button at the end of his slim Cross beauty and discover the Nib Blocker to beat all Nib Blockers.

I went about my day, but found myself unnaturally alert to any potential groan or laugh from our ranks-- which didn't happen much anyway under the grim Dickensian sort of office tone. Yet, the clock ticked on. I had not been rewarded.

Then, about one in the afternoon, my intercom buzzed. "Jenn, could you come in here for a minute?"

Ah, there it was, I thought. But he didn't seem to be laughing. Had I gone too far with the pen retaliation? Was my original attacker not, in fact, Jeff at all?...

Had I shrunkwrapped too rashly?

I entered his office on numb legs and he asked me to sit down. I tried to gauge his mood. Would I get lectured? Would I be fired? No, I learned, there was a new writing project to do. But I couldn't quite hear what he was saying, because there, in his unsuspecting hand was that perfectly shrinkwrapped pen.

I choked back a giggle and straightened my face. Must pay attention, I thought, as I forced myself to jot down project notes and be the efficient, serious employee that had somehow set me up as the office's Chief Cook and Bottlewasher.

But as the discussion progressed there was a technical aspect I wasn't quite visualizing. Putting my tech writer hat on, I asked a few detailed questions...

And that's when Jeff decided to pop the pen to draw me one of his helpful diagrams.

Push... no click.

Push... no click.

Push...

At this point I was struggling with internal laughter combustion. If I'd exploded in an earth-shaking rattle of laughter, office coffee and bodily fluids, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised.

And without moving his head... without so much as a flinch... Jeff's eyes lifted to me. His beard bristled, hinting at a smile somewhere under the fur.

"Niiiiiiiice," he said.

I wiped away a few tears and managed to thank him, somewhere between the now-releasing hysteria.

"How long?" he asked.

"Oh, God-- hours and hours and hours."

And the funny thing is, the shrinkwrapping machine and I came to terms with each other after that. Jeff and I, too. Every time I'd look at one or the other of them, I'd think about Cross pens that wouldn't write, and answering machines that went silent.

I guess it just goes to show, even in the deepest, darkest grimmest of caves-- sometimes a little glimmer of light can shine through.


If you have a moment and want to read more office pranks tales, you might enjoy these past posts:

• The Great Glass Catnapping of Cubicle Two
• Hello Kitty and the Frame Job

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Showdown at Crazy Francois' Maison de Fier

Years ago, when I did corporate tradeshows, we had a show to do in steamy, spicy New Orleans. And as luck would have it, the technical expert we'd sent-- an outdoorsy ruddy-faced, blond we'll call Lars-- loved nothing more in the world than a flamingly hot hot-sauce. And when I say hot, I mean backdraft, four-alarm, do-it-yourself cremation kind of hot.

Tabasco? HA! None of that simpy-wimpy Tabasco for him-- no sir!

Lars sought the kind of hot sauce that would send your taste buds packing for Hell as a reprieve...

The kind that would blister the skin off the roof of your mouth by just looking at the bottle...

The kind that could make steely-eyed, lantern-jawed men who ate razor blades and rusty nails for breakfast get weepy and wail fer their mommies and pee flaming rivets...

Lars loved hot sauce-- and New Orleans, my friends, is hot sauce country. So on our one freebie day in the city, my buddy Lars and I went to find the sauce of his dreams.

And far past the the beignet booths and the po' boy sandwich shops...

The pseudo-voodoo tourist traps and the Mardi Gras beads sellers ...

Past the steel drum band playing "Girl From Ipanema," because that was the only song they knew...

Beyond all this... At the very, very end of the French Quarter market, there it was...

Crazy Francois' Maison de Fier.

The shop window alone was enough to make Lars' heart skip a beat. In it, in the golden glow of a spotlight shone 200 bottles of hot sauce.

Bottles with names like: Jabenero Pete Brand Flame Thrower or Dante's Eleventh Ring. Or Rectum Retaliation. Or Nawlins' Death Juice. Or Uncle Looney's Lip Bleeder.

We strode into the store, and were surrounded by walls and walls of the stuff. Hot sauces. Hot sauce salsa. Hot sauce pickles. Hot sauce chips. Hot sauce oils. Hot sauce ties and hats and shirts and umbrellas. Even hot sauce coffee and chocolates... Y'know, for multi-taskers.

Lars looked like a kid at Christmas, his eyes in wide-eyed wonder at the glowing red display of fiery fantasy before him.

A tan, curly-haired man-- possibly The Francois himself!-- sidled up to him solicitously. "May I help you?"

"I'm looking for a good hot sauce," said Lars. "The hotter the better."

Francois raised an eyebrow and sized Lars up, from his six-foot-four frame and pink face, to his bright blond hair.

"Hm," he said thoughtfully, "I might have something for you." And he went over to the register counter and from an open bottle there, put a little hot sauce on a small red spoon. "Try this."

Lars took the spoon, tasted... and laughed, deep and mirthful like Bacchus at a particularly rip-roaring bacchanalia. "Nice. Probably fine for the kiddies to put on fries. But I was looking for something in a... hot sauce."

"Ahhh!" Francois' eyes glowed at the response. He had not suspected. Surely, in this world of wimpy tourists, it could not possibly be that he had a true officianado in his midst? He took another small red spoon and poured a dash from another bottle on the counter. This liquid was a deep red-brown. "Well, then maybe you might find this one more to your taste."

He handed the spoon to Lars. Lars tasted. There was a momentary pause...

And Lars, expression unchanged said, "Flavorful. Pleasant. But I don't really consider it very hot, do you?"

Ah, authority was being questioned! Francois was now wondering if this was the Real Deal. But, no... this could not truly be a connoisseur of the hot pepper? They were so rare these days. "No," said Francois simply. "In fact, I don't consider it very hot. So this makes me think that... this sauce.... might appeal to you."

From a third bottle there on the countertop he poured. This time, the liquid was a bright green color. Francois watched Lars closely.

Lars took the spoon, sipped, and I noticed a bead of sweat pop out on his forehead. He smiled, but his smile was just ever so slightly forced. There was a longer pause than the last time before Lars responded, "Energetic... a very fresh taste... a little low on the spice, though. A waste of my time, really."

Francois grew flushed under his tan, and an exhilarated sigh escaped his lips. "Interesting, very interesting..." he said meditatively. His hand trembled a bit. His heart had begun to race. It was clear it had been a long time since Francois had had a customer such as this!

He pondered a moment, and then went under the counter.

Sauce after sauce, he poured from some secret stash under the counter. And one by one, Lars took them, tasted, and gave each a summary as if it were some simple bottle of wine.

Some he deemed smoky. Some he called tomatoey. Some he said had an aftertaste of wood or leaves or brine.

But by now Lars' pink face had gone a deep magenta, and bubbles of perspiration had cropped up suddenly at his temples like mushrooms from the earth. With every spoonful, he remained deadpan. With every spoonful Francois watched attentively, looking for the slightest movement to betray pain.

By this round of death in a bottle, I swear I saw a tumbleweed roll by and music from Ennino Morricone wa-wa in the background.

There seemed to be no end.

And then Francois put up a finger, and ducked behind a curtain into the back room. He came out with a simple, streamlined bottle black as night. One so elegant, it could have been art. And so black, it could have been poured from the heart of a voodoo priestess.

He handled it gingerly, opening the cap with light fingers. I thought I saw a whiff of gray steam escape!

And from the bottle slid a liquid of a thick, gray-green. It was the color of festering flesh, army drab and tombstones all rolled into one.

It looked unnaturally chunky, I thought, as it glopped into the spoon. Probably loaded with the singed hair and cremated bones of those who last tasted it.

It might just have sizzled.

And did I see fear flash behind Lars' bright blue eyes?

I didn't dare think about it. It was going to be awfully hard to explain to my supervisors back at the office that they needed to send another one of our tech guys to help at the booth immediately. As the last one had died in a rare incident of spontaneous combustion.

Lars took the spoon with a slow, slightly unsteady hand. He knew that he was officially in Hot Sauce No Man's Land now. But he had stepped across the border, and there was simply no going back.

He took a sip. I looked at him. I looked at Francois.

Francois looked at him. Lars looked at Francois. Francois looked at me. We both looked at Lars.

Lars' face went crimson, then ashen. His blue eyes suddenly were wet and rimmed red. His eyebrow quivered as slightly as a ladybug being blown away by a child.

"Well?" said Francois.

"Well?" said I, fully getting ready to dial 911.

A pause. A mighty exhale.

And then...

"This one," Lars said, smiling and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. "This is the one I want. Fantastic, just fantastic. So flavorful and just the right amount of heat. This bottler is a genius. A genius, I tell you."

Francois rang up the purchase with admiration and perhaps tears shining in his deep brown eyes. He had finally found someone worthy of his store.

And to this day, if you step into the French Market and get the locals talking, they still recount tales of the showdown between Crazy Francois and the mysterious Viking...

The one who came from the north, with the hair fair as snow, and who strode from the blistering Inferno unharmed.

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The Office on Walden Pond

This time of year, as the leaves shift into individual self-expression and the cool air reminds us of woolen socks, I think about my former supervisor and one very strange experience on the banks of Walden Pond.

Now, before you start thinking anything untoward-- let me head ya off and explain: this absolutely isn't going to be any office romance story. (Aw, quit yer whining, I promise, you'll still get a laugh.)

In fact, this would be whatever the opposite is of an office romance story-- if the opposite stood somewhere on the border of Resigned Tolerance and Bewilderment.

A Polite, Detatched Coexistence with the Occasional Wincing, Longing-to-Run-for-the-Hills story? Wordy. But probably something along those lines.

You see, my job at the time was Marketing Manager-- a vague title made vaguer still, so that within it, no matter how the company grew (and it did) the Powers That Be could also include odd tasks like shrink-wrapping and shipping product boxes...

Occasionally answering the main telephone...

And a mysterious need to measure and note the dimensions of all the printers, servers, and fax machines in the office. (To this day, I have no idea what that was all about.)

You'd be surprised at the wide array of tasks that can be tossed under the umbrella of "Marketing" when no one else wants to do them.

Picking up sandwiches for the office, for instance, can be "Internal Marketing" because it offers morale boosting properties. Organizing the heavy boxes in the storage room can be "Corporate Marketing" because the sales literature lives there.

You get the gist.

My boss at the time was a very work-driven man, who was extremely bright and had a great passion for what he did. So passionate was he about the company, that he would get brainstorms at 2 o'clock in the morning... And then come in bright-and-early with a familiar grim expression, and say all our sales literature we'd just printed needed to be rewritten to include this brand new positioning.

This happened about every three to six months, like crops of locusts springing from the ground.

During one of these locust-springing times, it was decided that what we really needed to do to get our shiny new positioning out into the world was to have a Press Tour. Meaning, instead of the press releases we'd usually issue, we would go in person to speak with the reporters in our niche.

This meant traveling to the Boston area.

Because I was Marketing Manager and wrote the press releases-- in addition to walking to the post office to get postage, and assembling the press kits, and mailing them-- (that Marketing Umbrella again)-- I would be going with my supervisor to meet the press.

The thing about business trips with my supervisor was that he absolutely adored them... and I was usually one step from leaping from the moving plane without a parachute. See, for him, having me there meant he pretty much had a captive audience for several days of intense 24-hour brainstorming, rebrainstorming and re-re-brainstorming sessions. He was in his glory!

The car ride to the airport, we could noodle around with the positioning we'd just developed...

Waiting for the plane, we could have six urgent conference calls back to the office we'd just left a ten minute drive away...

A minor travel delay would rouse a need for 12 uber-critical documents the office should overnight us in Boston...

And two hours on the plane meant rediscussing the discussion of the re-positioning and changing a few more things back to what they were four hours before.

This didn't even include the calling my room at the hotel two hours before we were scheduled to meet up, to talk about meeting up.

It was the sheer wheel-spinning relentlessness that made me question the meaning of my life.

Well, my supervisor, as you can imagine, didn't really enjoy things like downtime. He wasn't what you'd call a sit-down-and-read-a-magazine sort of person. So while we had a few hours between press meetings, he decided we would take a small side trip while we were in the Boston area.

And because I'm a writer, he felt it would be nice if I got to see Walden Pond.

Walden Pond. The idea was thoughtful and it did appeal to me. Getting to see the inspiration of Henry David Thoreau?-- The place which exemplifies solitude, living off the grid, meditation, and tranquil natural beauty?

Excellent!

Only once we got there, the peaceful non-conformist life contrasted starkly with...

The dude in the business suit, his trouser legs rolled up, ankle deep in cold water and socks balled up on the bank-- while talking loudly on his cell phone about express packages than never made it to our hotel.

I recall noticing how the yellow autumn light caused the waters to look like liquid gold. Squirrels chased each other around tree trunks. The occasional maple leaf would call it quits and glide to my dress-shoes and briefcase as I waited.

I recall him rehashing our positioning once more, and wanting to take another look at the freshly-printed sales literature, thinking it might need another tweak here or there.

I remember juggling it in my arms on the bank of Walden Pond. But I don't really know what he said about it.

In fact, I never heard a single word. I couldn't. Henry David Thoreau was really yukking it up in my head-- the joker.

Glitching Tiger, Hidden Login

It was growing hard not to take it personally. Of course, being unable to get inside the office on a Monday morning does that to a gal.

Oh, I stood in the parking lot, jiggling my key in the lock. The light drizzle which inevitably mists down when locks stick...

Or packages are heavy...

Or you've had six cups of coffee...

...was there and drizzling. Lightly. Right on cue.

Closer investigation proved-- it wasn't that the key wouldn't fit in the lock. It was that it fit too well. It spun. Why, that key went round and round in that lock like Linda Blair's head in The Exorcist. Only the key didn't vomit.

Thank goodness for small favors, I suppose. There'd have been metal filings everywhere.

Now my coworkers' cars were in the parking lot.

And since my colleagues weren't all standing outside with me, their hair plastered to their heads in the rain and cursing... well, it was fairly safe to deduce the lock had been working at some point.

Or they brought their jetpacks, ziplines and grappling hooks. Whereas, I had left mine at home.

Finally, a whack on the door handle-- well-known to be the proper way of fixing any and all delicate instrumentation-- and the lock clicked into place and gave way.

I stalked inside to my office twenty minutes late, dropped into my chair, turned on my computer, entered my username and password, hit Return and...

The computer cursor blinked at me blankly. You? Who are you?

"You know me," I pleaded. "My hair is just wet."

Blink... Blink... Never seen you before. And please, don't drip on my keyboard.

That's when I thought, maybe I typed in the wrong username...? Er, no.

The wrong spelling?... Nada.

Well, um, CAPS lock...? Nien!

So, did I forget the right password...?

And here, puppies grew into dogs and got old and died as I hearkened back to every password I'd had since my seventh grade locker combination.

Move along, kid, ya bother me, the computer said.

"You've been talking to the gate downstairs, haven't you?"

It didn't dignify that with a response.

Now I don't consider myself to be a particularly paranoid person. But after not being able to get into the building, and then not being able to connect to the network, I was starting to wonder if this was an extremely passive-aggressive way of saying I wouldn't be collecting a paycheck anymore.

After all, I've seen Office Space 37 times.

On my way downstairs for tech help, I passed one of my supervisors in the hallway. "Heyhowyadoin?" I greeted, feeling the situation out.

I figured it was the perfect opportunity for him to pause and say, "Wait a minute! How'd you get in here? We'd changed the locks and altered your network access and everything. Writer, go home!"

Paranoia is a stinky perfume.

Fortunately, the standard "finehowareyou?" wafted it away pretty quickly.

And soon, our elite squad of Tech Ninjas was on the job. Profiles were examined, servers were rebooted, connections were remade...

"Try it now."

This time, as I entered my username and password, golden beams of light shot down from the sky. A chorus of angels sang the Mac start-up chord! And my computer-- which had pressed a heavy boot to my forehead and shoved, just hours before-- reached out and embraced me like a loving grandmother.

Until the next time I powered down and restarted my machine.

The Tech Ninjas were perplexed. It became a three Tech Ninja job.

So the Tech Ninja Triumverate recreated my user profile. They used electronic nunchaku on willful access scripts. They fought valiantly against Mac-PC incompatibilities in the technical treetops on wires. And when I came in to work the next day, a Post-it made of bamboo pulp was tacked to my machine which read...

"All should be well."
-Tech Ninja Master

I pressed the "On" button with a hesitant finger. The computer started up. The login box appeared. And again--- beams of light, angels, yadda, yadda, whathaveyou...

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I still have the "All should be well" Post-it, on my computer. It has become my security blanket for challenging client days. Sort of the equivalent of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's "Don't Panic."

But this day, the Post-it lies. Again I am unable to log-in. And as the Tech Ninja Master meditates on this, his most complex of techno-existential problems, an idea strikes. "No. It cannot be."

Do you want to know what was wrong this time? Do you want to know why I came in at 7:30am but couldn't actually get anything done until 8:30 because the computer wouldn't let me in? Do you want to know why I was persona non grata with the network once more?

The time on the clock was four minutes off on my computer. And because of this, the server wouldn't recognize my machine. The clock. Fer pity's sake.

Those Tech Ninjas... they sure do earn their keep.

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Back-up Girl Takes On Captain Anonymous

"Back-up Girl."

Filling in, at the speed of light, for those originally hired to do certain tasks but who decide they don't actually, really, ever want to do them... but still kinda sorta would like to continue being paid for said tasks, and also get the credit for their success.

That's when she gets called in on the Red Phone.

Back-up Girl is silent, ever-vigilant, invisible-- and has a certain amount of inner-rage.

Yes-- I am Back-up Girl . (Shhh, don't tell anybody.)

As a result, Back-up Girl has had a very interesting array of projects under her utility belt during her lengthy trouble-shooting career-- many of which go well-beyond simple marketing writing.

Today, I will tell you about one such project, which happened a number of years ago. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Namely me.) Because Back-up Girl believes in the powers of loyalty, confidentiality... and, you know, a regular paycheck.

We begin our story in the city of BurghTown. A local company, RandomCorp, is about to create a whole new marketing brand. And Back-up Girl has been called in to survey the firm's internal staff.

Her mission? To solicit honest employee opinions about the company’s current marketing efforts.

This is to be done through an easy-to-use online survey, where employees share their feelings and ideas anonymously, in a secure environment.

That way if anyone wants to say, "I think our marketing blows chunks," Back-up Girl is armed with invaluable data ("chunk-blowing marketing"). And the good people of RandomCorp get to retain their jobs.

Harmony reigns in BurghTown.

The survey takes place, the people of BurghTown offer their insights and then, one day, the Red Phone rings. Back-up Girl picks it up.

"Hello-- Back-up Girl here! What seems to be the trouble?"

"Hi, this is Mr. Blank, of RandomCorp." Back-up Girl recognizes the name instantly as the key contact for her client firm.

And that's when Mr. Blank says this real and 100% for-true sentence:

"I need you to give me the names of all the people who filled out the anonymous survey."

OOOF!!

Back-up Girl is hit with an enormous unexpected blow! Recovering her breath, she grounds herself. "Mr. Blank, I'm afraid we hadn’t set the system up to collect that information. Since, you know, the survey was anonymous."

"Oh, okay," Mr. Blank continues, wholly unfazed. "Then just give me their e-mail addresses. We can figure out their names from those."

POW! ZAM! BIF!

Back-up Girl is tossed across the room, her head spinning.

She leaps to her feet. She takes several more deep breaths. And she picks up the Red Phone once more.

"Mr. Blank, I don't know how to tell you this, but the system you approved wasn't programmed to capture that data, either. As it was… you know… an anonymous survey."

Mr. Blank goes silent with confusion.

Back-up Girl perseveres. "The anonymous survey was anonymous so your colleagues would feel comfortable sharing their opinions and so you would get honest answers. If you knew who they were, then the survey wouldn't be anonymous anymore. It would be... er... Nonymous."

"Oh." Mr. Blank considers this a moment. "Well, I just think there are a number of people who didn't respond to the survey. And we want to get as many people as possible. So I need to know who's missing and remind them."

So Back-up Girl assures him she would send a second blanket e-mail to everyone at RandomCorp telling them the deadline for the survey would be extended. That would get the maximum number of respondents.

Mr. Blank was saved!

But wait! Something is now in Back-up Girl's email Inbox!

Why, it's many of the fine people of RandomCorp. And one after one, they wonder why they’re being asked to fill out this anonymous survey now-- again-- when they already had submitted it.

Did Back-up Girl not receive their anonymous survey?

Shouldn't Back-up Girl make sure she checked their name off The List…? Off the List of the Non-names of the People Who Filled Out the Survey Anonymously?

Back-up Girl grabs the bottle of Excedrin from her desk and chews two tablets thoughtfully. Captain Anonymous has been an admirable foe...

And she surely hasn't seen the last of him.

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How William Shatner Ruined Road Safety

In this day and age of $4.00 gas and emissions concerns, carpooling is good for the environment, AND the wallet. But, Friends of Cabbages, I urge you to think long and hard about choosing the right carpool companions. And this is why.

At my previous job, the office was roughly a 45 minute commute during weekday traffic, and one of the guys in my department-- we'll call him "The Knave"-- he lived not-so-far from me, and he didn't have a car. So rather than him taking two buses and spending three hours each day just getting to work, we carpooled. He paid for some of the gas.

Now the Knave, who I actually work with at my current job as well, is a good guy-- funny and self-aware. My friendship with him runs toward the similar-sense-of-humor-only-he-likes-to-test-me-occasionally dynamic. There's some Little Brother Instinct that bubbles up occasionally in him, and when his actual siblings are not available, it extends to ME. Most of the time, I'm prepared for this...

But sometimes I am poorly-caffeinated and driving.

Like the day he decided to introduce me to William Shatner singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

Were you aware William Shatner had a brief singing career?... If you can call the enthusiastic spoken word crescendos and dénouements of the former Captain James T. Kirk "singing"... yes, in fact, he did! You can enjoy one hysterical video example of his stylings by clicking here.

At the time, I was not aware of this. And while manning my Saturn one morning, I really didn't have a proper handle on what was about to ensue...

Meaning, I didn't slap the Knave's hands and fling the disk from his grasp when he started messing with my CD player.

Imagine: it's early morning. The sun is just creeping over the Western Pennsylvania Appalachians, a mist hanging heavy along the roadway and the coffee still steaming in the travel mug in the cup holder...

I am thinking about the work day ahead of me... copy to write, projects to wind up...

And then comes Mr. Shatner bursting from the audio system shouting at a million decibels, in iambic pentameter:

...The GIRL with ka-LEI-do-scope EYESSSSS!!!

And that's when I ran off the road.

So, if you plan to carpool, think about who you choose to ride with. Do not permit them access to your sound system, no matter how they beg, or how groggy you may be.

Most of all, just say "no" to all things Shatner while operating heavy machinery. It is for your safety, as well as the safety of your fellow drivers. Drive carefully-- and Shatner-free.

Thank you.

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Hello Kitty and the Frame Job

7:53 AM- At the office before work...

Okay, so the practical joke is ON!

For those just tuning in, about ten days ago, I went to my friend Kitty's wedding and was assigned by the bride to do just one simple task: to take a picture of her table display with the seating cards on it. Easy, right? No problem?

You'd think.

But not for the likes of me, oh no! I first managed to take a photo of the table for an entirely different wedding, happening at coincidentally the exact same time, and in the exact same wedding colors. (You can read that tale of shame and chaos here.)

So, one of our fine Cabbages readers-- host of the Crochety Old Man Yells at Cars blog, "Da Old Man" himself-- proved that he is not only a very funny guy, but that he is also an EVIL GENIUS. He suggested I print out and FRAME the photo of the wrong table, and give it to my friend as a joke "gift."

This naturally appealed to my inner orneriness. I mean, it's been a while since I've played a really good practical joke on someone. Nothing to rival the Great Glass Catnapping of Cubicle 2, certainly. Or the time I shrink-wrapped someone else's favorite pen and he spend the better part of an hour trying to figure out why the thing wouldn't write.

So, the bride returneth to work today! And in about a half hour, my buddy Kitty will come in to THIS...


I thought the festive ribbons in her wedding red were a particularly nice touch.

Let us see what happens...


8:25AM-- Here comes the Bride...

Kitty enters the office and I hear her cheerful greeting. I can hear items being laid down on her desk and keys jingling. Then-- an excited exclamation.

"Oh, WOW! Thank you, Jenn-- this is just so pretty!" She actually sounds enthused... But I believe the wheels are beginning to turn. There is now a muffled sort of sound, as confusion sets in.

"What a nicely-done table..." she continues. "Thank you!..."

She's still carrying on stalwartly, it seems. Gotta love that positive post-vacation attitude! I pop into her office and, seeing her smiling so kindly, and her telling me how terrific it was of me to frame that up for her--

Well, her being so gosh-darned appreciative for a framed photo of a table from someone else's wedding entirely, oh... I admit it-- I caved in a bit soon and explained the situation.

I dunno, folks. Maybe I'm losing my touch in the practical joke business.

That'll teach me to have friends who are all sweet, and easy-going and good-hearted! :)

It just ain't right.

Locus Stinkalium at Caesar's Palace

Stench and professionalism are never a happy couple. And let me tell you why.

Years ago, at a former job, our company was holding a user conference at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas.

As manager of the marketing department, I went to oversee the event. But mainly I wanted to give an extra hand to our event coordinator who was, and still is, a good friend of mine. We’ll call her Debbie. (Regular readers of this blog might remember Debbie as the one injured by a family of crazed Butt Scoochers in line at Epcot.)

Well, Debbie’s an amazing planner. So she'd lined up all sorts of excitement for the folks coming to the conference. There were two days of heavy-duty technical sessions filled with blah… and yawn… and blah some more…

The techies crowd would be in their GLORY.

But the big fun involved some client events in the evening. One of which, on the second night, was a special PG-rated Bacchanalia, featuring a multi-course dinner, wine bar, magic acts, and two enthusiastic belly-dancers.

Wine would flow like... well... wine.

As a teaser, and a way for the restaurant folks to distinguish members of our group from the rest of their guests, the hotel had given Debbie a bunch of these Roman coin pendants, and cords to tie them to. This ended up being just ONE of the last-minute things that needed to be assembled there at the hotel prior to the event.

So Debbie and I gathered in one of the conference rooms and, divvying the stack in two, we began assembling these pendants. We were pressed for time, and just plowed through it. Then went to our separate rooms to change before the first guests stepped through the threshold to two days of technology nerd-vana.

I should note that Debbie gave me MY pendant, just to have on hand.

So, I went back to my room, freshened up, put the pendant aside for the next evening's big bash, and headed back down for the client meet-and-greet.

But the one thing I began to notice as I was handing out agendas was that-- and there is just no polite way of saying it--

My hands reeked like Satan’s bottom.

I mean, I had showered. I had scrubbed, and I was absolutely mystified at what I could have gotten into.

I looked at the soles of my shoes—nothing.

I tried to covertly check my suit—nothing.

But a sniff of the hand and it was like I’d tried molding clay pottery from dog poo. And not any dog poo, mind you. Poo from a large mutant, four-stomached dog, with poor dietary habits. One who enjoyed beans, rancid cheeses, and the poo of other large, mutant, four-stomached dogs.

I just couldn’t fathom what had happened.

Worse was, washing my hands seemed to do very little to help the matter. I know, because I tried it several times. I was one step away from using sandpaper and an electric floor buffer, only I thought I might miss the skin.

In fact, I was beginning to think the stink was radiating from the inside out—through the pores, you know. Which was disturbing because part of my job was to orient the clients, and here I couldn’t even pinpoint the Origin of Stink.

Locus Stinkalium, I think the Romans would have called the process.

But that evening, it wasn't to be.

Now I don't perceive the clients noticed, or if they did, they were polite enough not to tell one of their hostesses her stench was comparable to that of a deceased, decomposing camel at high noon. So, the cocktail party went on as planned, and everyone retired to their rooms to prepare for the next day's sessions.

In the morning I rose, took another shower and greeted the day with renewed optimism and soap. Sequential hand-washings and a good, long hot shower seemed to have helped the stink say sayonara.

Now fast-forward to right before the big Bacchanalia event. The sessions concluded, and I had an hour to change, reconnoiter, and Pied Piper the clients to the proper room. I tossed on a saucy little number I'd saved for the occasion, accessorized with my pendant, and headed downstairs. There I met Debbie, and I just went to brush a lock of hair from my brow when---

Good gad! Satan's bottom again!

But nooo, I thought, it couldn't be!...

And such was my disbelief, I thought that if I could just subtley check and make sure...

Debbie saw me sniff my hand.

"You too!" she shouted, bouncing up and down on her heels like a spring lamb delighted at life. "You smell it, too! It's the medallions! The medallions! Thank God! I spent two days thinking it was me!" And she finished with a few steps of a jig.

Here, I admitted how I'd been sufficiently embarrassed by the smell that I'd been loathe to even mention it. I was, to be honest, beginning to think it was some fluctuating gland condition brought on by lengthy air travel.

Of course 60 pendants which reeked of mutant dog-poo had already been thoroughly distributed to our clan and were-- for the length of the evening-- going to be around the necks of our very best, most appreciated clients.

There was nothing, at this point, to be done. We'd only have caused a big stink about distributing necklaces that... cause a big stink.

But in retrospect, it is a testament to Debbie's fine hostessing, the hotel's fine food, and the power of gallons of fine wine, that the customers delighted in the wonders of Bacchus without so much as a whiff of the ill winds that surrounded us.

Hail Caesar!


A big thanks to Alice of Honey Pie and her smelly sneakers story for reminding me my own tale o' stench.

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Humor-blogs are pine-scented.

The Great Glass Catnapping of Cubicle 2

An online friend had shared a survey recently. You know, one of those ones where you fill out the questions and it's supposed to tell you something deeply insightful about your personality. In this case it was which Transformer you'd be, if you were one.

Naturally with such a serious, life-enhancing topic ahead of me, I gave it my full attention.

One of the questions it asked was about whether you like to play practical jokes on others. And I had to admit, I had a fairly big one in my history.

You see, I'd organized the Great Glass Catnapping of Cubicle 2.

In my former life in Cubeland, the second cubicle from the front door was that of our receptionist, who kept a rather significant collection of small glass cats. We'll call her Penny. (The receptionist, not the cats. I'm unaware if any of them had names, though I imagine they probably did.)

Well, anyway, Penny kept these cats right by the phone of her cubicle. And because she was the receptionist, her phone was one of the only phones in the office that rang when calls came in.

My job at the time was as Marketing Manager. But you'd be surprised how elastic that title can be. Especially when you're a responsible person who's grown with the company (read: stupid goody-two-shoes), you tend to pick up tasks no one else wants to do, and the tasks never QUITE get taken off your plate again.

So as Marketing Manager, I was as likely to have to write ads, schedule PR tours, and oversee tradeshows, as I was move boxes and ship them, or answer the main line-- depending on who else happened to be around at the time.

Sometimes I would take calls for myself and see if I was in.

Now, Penny, while a nice enough girl, was not terribly excited about answering phones, and was prone to disappearing. So when that main line would ring and she was AWOL, someone would have to grab it, and that someone might just be me.

More times than not, those little glass cats would get in the way as I was making a mad dash for the phone, and they'd go flying and waste another one of their nine lives.

Well, it was about the twentieth time they toppled over and scattered-- expending more lives than they had-- that I decided I couldn't take it anymore. And since Penny was once again nowhere to be seen, something in my brain just sort of snapped.

I popped the little glass cats in my pocket one-by-one, and took them back to my office.

The first kidnapping note used a number of different fonts in Microsoft Word, misspelled some things, and explained to Penny that she had been the victim of cat burglary.

It also said, she should wait for further communication from the catnappers. This was great, because it kept her at her desk for a while and she actually had to answer the phone a little. Plus, Penny made a fuss about the missing cats that I could hear a whole room away.

I waited a day. I had things to do after all, and this was an enjoyable reprieve. Also, I needed to work out my gameplan. Then, and only then, did I leave her the second note.

I'd decided that, since never returning the cats would just be cruel, I'd be happy enough making Penny work a bit for getting them back. So this note gave clues as to where the first cat could be found. I would release a few each day.

Ah, that week was a glorious one, with the usual stresses of the day soothed by Penny's shocked and amused exclamations about each new set of instructions.

Penny found cats in potted plants.

Penny found cats at the printer.

Penny found cats in the refrigerator.

Penny found cats shrink-wrapped in the mail room.

All the while, Penny was on a mission to find out which of us was the catnapper. Why, she marched around like a blond Perry Mason, grilling everyone, accusing us each in turn with a mix of good humor and hatred.

Eventually, she made it around to me. But I had planned for this, too. I just laughed and told her, "Oh, yes, it's me." Which she promptly didn't believe, turned on her heel and stalked off.

About three days into the catnapping plot, Penny's and my mutual supervisor came to my office and said, "It's you, isn't it?"

I told him it was, largely because he was already grinning, and said if it was a problem, I'd quit and come clean.

Truth was, this was the most levity our tense little office had seen in a long time. And it turned out that other folks were sick to death of those darned glass cats, too, every time they needed to get something from Penny's cube. SO "on-board" with the scheme were they, in fact, that someone in customer service gave a full confession for the crime. And suspects in IT were not bothering to deny their involvement.

Penny wasn't sure WHO to believe anymore.

So, with the plot now cleared at the upper management level, I decided to give it a big finish. I confided in just one more person, and asked him for a favor. I was a little surprised at his enthusiasm.

Ah, the next morning, I heard Penny exclaim, "The MEN'S ROOM! I am NOT going in the men's room! If they think I'm going in the Men's Room, they're crazy!"

She went in the Men's Room.

Penny never did find out for sure it was me, by the way. In spite of the fact that by the end, everyone else had been let in on the joke. Maybe she'll read about it on a humor blog someday, and maybe not. But the Great Glass Catnapping went down in corporate history as the most elaborate office prank our business had ever seen.

I'd like to say in the end the cats found a more suitable home than in the way of the phone, but really, how rare is it in life that lessons are actually learned? What did change , however, was the fact I smiled now as I'd knock them over grabbing the phone. And sometimes that's enough.

PS-- that survey my online friend shared? The Transformers one?

I'm 68% Optimus Prime.


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Did you know two of those glass cats might still be hiding over at Humor-blogs?