Phone holster on the belt

Really?  I get it, you like your blackberry and you want to have it easily accessible but are you willing to sacrifice every shred of dignity for that?  My boss came over the other day looking like some kind of douchey sales cowboy with his phone holster hanging off of his belt – I was aghast and had to openly mock him.  I respect him and to see him turn into a “phone-on-the-belt-guy” was a jarring realization.  There is a certain point in every business person’s life when putting a phone holster on their belt starts making sense, I hope I can resist that urge for at least another 20 years.

New vocabulary

Did I ever think I would say things like “OK, that sounds good, I will ping you later when I get more details.”  Kill me now.  If I ever said that outside of work my buddies would disown me.  Why do I say things like that?  It is part of corporate jargon and no matter how hard I try these sayings end up in my vocabulary.  Some other hated phrases include “out of pocket” when someone is unreachable and “not having enough bandwidth to complete a task” when someone doesn’t have time or resources to do something.  About 5 times everyday I either say something ridiculous or sound like Bill Lumberg from Office Space and a little piece of me dies every time.  I don’t know how many pieces I have left (who am I kidding, being in sales hollowed me out and left me a shell of a man years ago).

Then there is this:

This is an excerpt of an actual email highlighting a list of “don’ts” that was sent to the entire sales force before a company event (my comments in red).

• Drinking games (and videos of those games) [Damn, and I was hoping to really stick it to my CEO when we played "King Asshole".]
• Fighting [Does that include cockfighting?]
• Sexual innuendos
• Inappropriate touching [Does this mean I am going to have to take down my "Amateur pelvic exam - $5" sign from my hotel room?]
• Comments regarding body parts or shape [Wait, so my comment to the accounting manager that her FUPA was "looking extraordinarily bulbous" was inappropriate?  No way.  Get the fuck out of here.]
• Crossing the line from friendliness to familiarity [Is this like asking someone to help me move to a new apartment or take me to the airport when we were just acquaintances?]
• Foul language
• Inebriated to the point of no control –  can’t walk, stumbling, not being able to remember what happened [Inebriated with a little control?  Totally cool.]
• Inappropriate attire. Appropriate business attire should be worn to all business activities. [Looks like my fishnet tank top and assless chaps are going to have to stay home this year... damn.]

The saddest thing is that the previous year I personally saw every one of these rules broken.  I look at that list and it seems like something that should be sent out before the 8th grade class trip to Washington DC.  I guess some things never change.

How many ways has your job broken you?

Animal Hospital – Veterinarian’s Bitch (15-17 years old)

From a young age I always thought that I wanted to be in the life sciences, so it would be a great idea to help out at the local vet… right?  Well… helping out meant cleaning up shit and piss (no big deal,  I expected this), pilling animals (not so fun – you try jamming a pill down the throat of a cat who would like nothing better than to claw you to death) and carrying euthanized animals to the freezer (many pet cemetery nightmare visions passed through my young brain).  I also had to lock up after everyone left and set the alarm.  Yes – the ladies over at the vet’s office thought it would be a great idea to have a 15 year old solely responsible for their business after hours.  I accidentally set off that alarm about 20 times and knew the guy from the alarm company by his first name.   The minute they started to dock my pay for the alarm company visits I decided that I was due for a career change (that, and my parents thought I was going to get murdered by some degenerates looking to steal drugs and syringes from the clinic).  Overall it was a good experience to get one of my shittiest (literally) jobs out of the way early in my career.

Career Lesson – The life sciences may not be right for me.

Sports Authority – Footwear Associate (17-20)

This was the job that I wanted to get when I went to work for the vet but they would not hire me until I was 16 (age discrimination!).  They actually gave me a hair drug test which I never understood.  Luckily I was up with hope and down with dope at that point so I had no worries.  Why would the most intense drug test of my career be used for selling athletic shoes?  Its like having an FBI style background check to work at McDonald’s.  The guy who ran the place was a walking endorsement of why you would never want to use your college degree for a career in retail sales management.  He basically lived at the store, made no more then 70K a year and took shit from a bunch of high schoolers all day long.  No wonder why he was such an asshole.  My most vivid memory from my time working there was when I mistook a butch looking chick for a man and told her that “the men’s shoes are in the other aisle, sir”.  She turned around and I wanted to crawl in a shoe and die.

Career Lesson – Don’t choose a job that forces you to work past 5PM or deal with anyone younger than 21 on a regular basis.

College Pro – Painter (19)

It is great to be outside and feel like you are creating something tangible but being hungover and having to get up on a ladder at 7AM can be a dicey proposition.  The summer I worked for College Pro I almost killed myself about two dozen times.  Anytime I heard someone say “Yo – Ultraparadoxical, you’re tall, get over here” I knew that I was going to be risking my life very shortly.  It usually meant that they were too lazy to haul a “set-up” on a rooftop and I was going to have to get on the last rung of a ladder on my tip-toes to get one last spot.  This job had no drug test and it led to the whole crew (excluding me – I swear) getting baked at lunch.  Highlights of the stoned activity included dumping a can of paint on a homeowner’s dog, putting a ladder through a window and (my personal favorite) a guy passing out on a blacktop roof and almost going to the hospital for heat exposure.

Career Lesson – Your job is not worth risking your life for and manual labor sucks…

Michigan State Vehicle Depot – Car Washer (18-19)

If it didn’t pay $6.25 an hour this would have been my dream job.  We were in charge of sending the various university owned cars through the automated car wash system then cleaning the interior.  Our manager (this big fat black lady we called “Boomquita”) thought it took us 40 minutes to wash a car.  It took 5.  I would wash 3 right in a row and go joyriding around campus.  I beat the shit out of the cars and would punch in and drive my buddies around in a V-10 van all day.  It all came to a crashing end when one day Boomquita inexplicably decided to come in on a Sunday (she was NEVER there on Sunday) and everyone was punched in but no one was there.  She busted our asses after that and it just wasn’t the same.  $6.25 is not worth ACTUALLY washing cars… are they crazy?

Career Lesson – It is great to work for someone who is lazier then you are.

Michigan State Telemarketing – Telemarketing Manager (19-21)

I never knew how  many chicks I was going to meet when I signed up for this job.  They should have put that as a job benefit.  I hired a new crop of 18-21 year old college students every week and I ran around there like I owned the place.  It really could not have worked out any better.  It was a pretty loose work environment… so loose that one of my coworkers de-pants me and I expose my bare cock to about 15 telemarketers.  I quickly pulled up my pants and said “I hope I didn’t poke anyone’s eye out”… pretty weak but it was the best I could come up with on the fly.  Probably one of the top 10 most embarrassing moments of my life.

Career Lesson – Wear a belt to work…

What were your career lessons from your pre-graduation jobs?  Stay tuned for part two on Wednesday…

The term salt mine was coined by my brother about 6 years ago when I was working at a shitty call center grinding through my 7-4 shift Tuesday through Saturday slinging Direct TV equipment.  He was visiting me for a couple of days and I let him borrow my car while I was working.  True to form he was about a half hour late picking me up from that God-forsaken hell hole.  Waiting for him on the uncomfortable plastic break room chairs while watching the other call center losers heat up their microwave burritos put me in an especially foul mood.  After reading pretty much everything on the bulletin board (within that half hour I became an expert in the occupational hazard law in California) I finally spotted my jackass brother pull up outside fresh from a surf.  The day had apparently beat me down because as I shambled out to the car (shirt half tucked, head hanging low) he said “Salt mine getting you down?”  I hopped into the car and looked at myself in the mirror.  Although I have never seen a salt miner I swear that I looked like I just clocked out of a 12 hour shift in the salt pit.  That’s how much a bad job can bring you down.  I have long since left that job for greener pastures to a less aggravating job but thinking back on it now it was certainly a true salt mine, but there is a little salt mine in every job.  Even if you love your job there are some days that you don’t want to be there or your co-workers suck.  Every salt mine has a crew of people that you would not normally spend 8 hours a day of your own volition and this Top Nine Friday is dedicated to the douchie-est of these familiar salt mine inhabitants.

9 – The Skank/The Sleezebag – Have you hooked up with more than 5 people at your office?  If the answer is yes then you are number 9.  (Yes, oral counts -and you are an even bigger skank/sleezebag for asking)

8 - The Gossip - The title pretty much speaks for itself.  They are the rumor mill.  Free tip – use these people to your advantage by planting bullshit rumors about people that piss you off at work.  Now everyone thinks that the guy in marketing shit himself and had to change his pants halfway through the last team building event!  Untraceable!

7 – The ”He-belongs-in-a-padded-cell-not-a-cubicle” guy - I had one of these at my office a few years ago (for the sake of anonymity lets call him “Norman”.  He:

• Sexually harassed a half dozen employees
• Would sent cryptic emails to customers and other employees he didn’t like that ranged from passive-aggressive to homicidal
• Choked a pregnant co-worker (not kidding)
• At one company event ”Norman” molested a waitress, started a fight with another co-worker and got kicked out of the bar by the bouncers

Only after the last bullet did he finally get shit-canned.  A week after he was let go the fire alarm went off randomly at our office.  Everyone -  and I mean EVERYONE thought that ”Norman” set the alarm off as some sort of elaborate plan to come back and pick us off one by one Columbine style.

6 – The Foreigner - You have no idea what the fuck they are saying and that is probably the reason that they still have their job.  How can you fire someone if you can’t understand them?

5 – The Drunk – She has pictures of her kids on her desk and wears conservative pant-suits to work but after she had a martini or two at the 2008 company kick-off event she grinded the HR Director on the dance floor and then knocked over the chocolate fountain.  Stay off the sauce drunkie!

4 – The Lonely Spinster – She is easy to spot.  Get up from your desk and “prairie-dog” it for a second… look for the lady wearing a dress that MAY have been fashionable in 1988… does she have a FUPA?  Yes?  Ok, we are getting really hot now… what is on her cube wall?  Cat posters?  Bingo!  There she is!  The last time she got laid was the Nixon administration!

3 – The Creeper – Ahhh, yes, one of my favorites.  The arsenal of the office creeper includes unsolicited back rubs, uncomfortable sexual innuendo (that’s what she said), and maybe even a late night text or 20 if they have your cell.  There is NO reason anyone in your office should know how fast you ran the 5K fun run in 2004 – not unless they googled your name and Facebook stalked you!

2 – “Reply to All”-  When someone replies to all on a group email with things like “Great!!!!”, “Congratulations!!!” or just reiterates exactly what the last person just said I inherently hate them.  These serial “reply to all-ers” are the lowest form of office life – it is the worst kind of ass-kissing.

1 – The Break Room Chef – Why the fuck does the entire office smell like burnt cat shit?  Maybe you should ask Chef-Boy-R-Dumbass because he thought it was a good idea to make a tuna souffle in the microwave.

Those are my 9 – did I miss any?  Leave any suggestions in the comments… I better get my hard hat back on… this salt isn’t going to mine itself!