It’s Half Biology and Half Corrective Surgery

Posted on September 3, 2006 by Girl Friday

As your favorite Administrative Superheroine, it is my job to come with ways to pass those monotonous hours while you are stuck at your desk. Lucky 10-Key reaps the benefit of many of my random quizzes I send her way, and is my original partner in crime for games of MASH, Mad Libs, and Hangman. (P.S. Feel free to send more Mad Libs my way. They help the day go by so much faster!)

Now, I present two very worthy uses of your time. Both are time-sucks or rabbit holes, whichever term you prefer. Either way, they are both sure to provide you with hours of mindless fun.

My Heritage is a site that will give you one big ego boost! After uploading one of your fabulous pictures, the system will generate a list of famous people you most resemble. According to the site I look like Kristin Kreuk, Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, and Zhang Ziyi. I’m not complaining. What do you, my lovely Gal Pals think? And truly, if I did like any of these ladies, do you really think I’d be sitting here typing away on my ‘puter? I think not!

After you have discovered that you’re a long-lost Olsen twin or the love child of Irene Cara and Mike Meyers, head on over to eLouai’s Candybar Dollmaker 3. You can make just about the grooviest version of yourself. You can even give yourself wings! Here I am! Tell me what you think.

elouai's doll maker 3

Have tons o’ fun playing.

Posted in Random | 3 Comments

Looking Back it was All Maltreating

Posted on September 2, 2006 by Girl Friday

Two office vignettes for your reading pleasure; both with titles so good I’m glad I haven’t give up on The Dresden Dolls.

In the Half Way House of Ill Repute

I worked for a plastics and welding supply catalog company that runs out of a former brothel. The front door is still painted red. I wish it looked half as decent as Al Swearengen’s Gem Saloon in Deadwood, but alas even that was probably nicer. The office looked like it hadn’t been cleaned at least since the olden days. I think some of these ladies may have actually worked in the original establishment in the days of yore. (Ooh, did I cross a line?) Anyway, I’m not quite sure why I stayed at that job as long as I did. The coffee was Folgers and it was so strong! I actually brought my own mug with half and half and then added hot water to the coffee in addition. Everything they did used some sort of archaic system. They had an online store, but only one woman had a computer that had The Internet. She printed out all the orders for us. She also printed out all customer e-mails. We had to hand write the response, then she would type them up and send them for us. They used AOL. Even their envelope moistener was old. They used one of those horsehair brushes and dipped it into a porcelain water box. It rained every day and I ate in my car or walked around the yuppifying neighborhood. The building adjacent to the brothel/catalog company is a coffee roasting company, next to that are some gorgeous townhomes. There was always a Porsche parked out front. I was stuck working and Porsche driving biotch was upstairs sipping espresso and watching TLC’s A Makeover Story. Life is so not fair!

I Can’t Trap a Mouse but I Can Pet a Cat

“I used to work with this cat”…true story. I worked in an office with a cat named Opti. He was a spoiled sucker, and kind of old and lazy. He meowed incessantly as soon as he saw me walking up the stairs to the building. He’d follow me around the office as I opened the blinds and turned on Crap FM radio. I’d go feed him—he almost never ate all his food. He was spoiled rotten with canned food, dry food, and the occasional roast beef treat. Then I’d settle into another boring day of answering phones and writing on pilfered yellow notepads. I’d grab my homemade breakfast sandwich and suddenly I was Opti’s best friend. I’d appease him with the foil. He’d lick the American cheese even though he had plenty of food in his bowl. He determined which piles of work I could work on shuffling. It was a perfectly viable excuse to not do something just because the cat was taking a nap on the project. I was pretty lonely in that office. My boss gave me the key on the first day and was often out meeting with clients, leaving Opti and me to rule the roost. I worked there on and off for five months. Even though I’ve never had a pet and didn’t quite know how to handle Opti, having a cat as my coworker was pretty much just like every other temp job. He liked to invade my personal space, but at least it wasn’t sexual harassment! He could be nasty when he didn’t get his way or give me the silent treatment, just like my current officemates. He liked to sleep in drawers, and while I’ve never caught any of my other coworkers doing this, I have no doubt some would try if the drawers were bigger.

Posted in Office Stories | 1 Comment

I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to it

Posted on September 1, 2006 by Girl Friday

I ruled the Timkeeping World today with my iron fist—or so my boss said. I’m not sure how to take that. This was our first payroll using the new system and the month was rife with problems. I spent a lot of time preparing instructional emails for my coworkers and the managers. I wanted payroll to be smooth and painless. It turned out okay, but I’m glad the first of the month only happens once a month…

Apparently I like to write long ass e-mails for my own benefit. I really enjoy clogging up people’s inboxes with meaningless information. I love holding people’s hands, in fact, it’s my favorite thing to do and that’s why I chose my career in the Administrative Arts. My coworkers obviously have a deep and abiding respect for me, and show it by telling me how busy they are and why they are unable to read or follow basic instructions. I simply have nothing better to do than getting the minimum requirements of my job done on time. I swear, next time I’ll check my work ethic at the door. Perhaps I will call in sick when I’m most needed—oh wait, that’s part of Dave’s job description.

Enough with the melodramatics already!

For your amusement folks: More Mad Libs.

For d:

2 People: Lance Armstrong & Lyle Lovett – no Brokeback! They’re just friends 🙂
2 Verbs: pedaling and running
2 Adjectives: dangerous and exciting
2 Places: my kitchen and Texas
2 Favorite Things salsa and karaoke
2 Colors: aquamarine and adventurine – I know I’m such an ass! that would be light blue and light green 🙂
1 Food or Drink: lambic – raspberry beer (yumm)
1 Time of Day: 2pm
1 Hobby: knitting
1 Job: lion tamer

d was making salsa in her kitchen, sipping some Lambic raspberry beer. She discovered that Lyle Lovett was doing a celebrity ride with Lance Armstrong. d couldn’t bear to miss her two favorite men in the same place at the same time! She hopped the next flight to Texas and landed at 2 PM. She watched the ride from the sidelines, amazed by Lance’s pedaling. After the race she met Lyle and he invited her to sing karaoke with him. They had a great time, but d decided not to give up her day job as a lion tamer. Lyle found d dangerous and exciting–he knew that she would be perfect for Lance. Sure enough, they met and Lance was smitten! He was finally done running from commitment. The lion tamer and the cyclist settled down. Last I heard of d she was knitting booties for her twins, Aquamarine and Adventurine.

For Latte Lady: (You are Latte Lady, not Lady Latte or Laddy Latte 🙂 Talk about a Superheroine identity crisis.)

People: Marky Mark (or the infamous Mark Wahlberg) and Latte Lady (how vain) 🙂
Verbs: dancing and fighting
Adjectives: fabulous and feisty
Places: Athens and Ellwood Beach Dr.
Favourite Things: a BMW Convertible and sunglasses
Colors: Purple and Leather Black
Food or Drink: Sex on the Beach and a whiskey sour
Time of Day: 9 pm
Hobby: Collecting rare animals
Job: Secret Service

Latte Lady was out dancing the night away at a fabulous Athens club called Leather Black. She could hardly remember Ellwood Beach Dr. or her purple coffee table. She’d left everything behind and driven off in her BMW Convertible with sunglasses shading her feisty demeanor. Two Whiskey Sours later and she was practically beating Mark Wahlberg off with a stick—Latte Lady always did like collecting rare animals… (He’d had one too many Sex on the Beaches since 9 PM.) She managed to wrangle in Marky Mark like the Secret Service lures bad guys—with expert precision and stealthy maneuvers.

Posted in Libs, Office Stories | Leave a comment