Tell Us About Your Workspace
Because I’m now old and broken down, a veritable husky husk of a man, I’ve racked up quite a few experiences. And naturally, that extends to my work life.
Over the years I’ve encountered all manner of workspaces, ranging from no desk whatsoever (“Just get to work, ya bag of shit!”) to a cushy private office overlooking Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank. And everything in between.
That California office was certainly the most interesting. Since it was adjacent to the studio, we’d sometimes receive emails giving us advance warning of unusual activities that would be going down later in the day.
One, I remember, told us not to be alarmed if we heard several loud explosions during the afternoon. It wouldn’t be an emergency, they assured us, just the filming of an episode of Charmed, or whatever. Another time they tipped us off to a “helicopter rescue” that would be taking place the next morning.
Pretty cool stuff.
That office also came equipped with a great stereo, and a computer with absolutely no filters installed on it. The job itself was a real ball-masher, but my workspace was fantastic.
I’ve also shared offices with people, which has its good points and bad. In Atlanta one of my officemates LOVED speed metal, and death metal, and all that crapola. We’d take turns playing CDs on the communal stereo, and it seemed like his discs played for three days each. He was a black dude who loved Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura, and that kind of thing. Excruciating.
But the worst of all possible situations, in my opinion, is sharing a cubicle with a person (or persons) who works a different shift. Man, that sucks.
I’m fairly anal about my desk, you see, and want things to be in their proper places. But whenever I’ve shared a desk, the other person has always been a disgusting slob. ALWAYS.
Every day I would arrive to find papers strewn all around, the computer locked under someone else’s login, the stapler missing, the monitor ratcheted toward the roof like Manute Bol had been using it, toenail clippings in the keyboard, and (possibly) a placenta in the trash can.
And immediately, literally during the very first minute of the day, I’d find myself outraged and in a wanna-start-stabbin’ mood. Yes, that’s the worst situation of them all. Even worse than “no desk whatsoever.”
Right now I have a nice, new cubicle that I don’t have to share. Which is cool. Sure, I wish I had walls that went all the way to the ceiling, but it could be a whole hell of a lot worse. And I know this, because I’ve been there.
What about you? Tell us about your current workspace, and also your best and worst of all-time. As always, use the comments link below.
And I’ll give you guys a full-length update tomorrow, I hope, instead of another of these pocket posts, or whatever.
See ya then!
Filed under: Daily
FOIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boo-yah!
I have had my own office for years, but after changing jobs to the one I currently have, it’s an office with built-ins all around the back wall and sides and I sit with my back to the door. I’ve gotten used to it, but the staff still scares the shit out of me at times, making their appearance LOUDLY when I don’t know it’s coming.
Oh yeah, thoyd and fourf.
Woot!!
I don’t have a lot on this subject because I’ve always worked from home or out of my car. My current office is quite nice. It’s large with wood floors, a kitchen, stereo, interweb, etc. Me and two other guys share it. We’re selling houses in a subdivision and we have our office and then 4 furnished “model homes” just beside us. I think I’ll be here for at least a year because we plan to build about 300 houses here (we’ve already built about 75).
We have a large communal office up front that has file cabinets, copiers, faxers, computers, etc. Then we each have a seperate office in the back with a large table, computer, documents, my vagina calender, and so forth. It’s nice and cushy. And we’re not always here at the same time. When I’m alone I’m free to look at lesbian and gangbang porn. It’s hard to imagine things being much better – well, a TV would be nice.
Not first but not last!
Worst workspace I had was 40′ above the ground in August putting on flat roofs many moons ago. My current workspace is a real office with four walls all the way to the ceiling and a door which comes in handy when the lady down the hall cranks up the gospel music. Only downfall is I’m right across the hall from the mens restroom and nobody around here has JK’s intestinal fortitude. Jeesum Crow you assrabbits layoff the fucking fiber!!
Sittin’ here in my large, comfy office right at this minute. In the past, I’ve worked in cubicles; at retail counters; in the front seats of trucks; standing on ladders (house-painting for a couple of years long long ago); and standing upright, in the outdoors, with a rake in my hand (working for a tree-cutter during high school summers). I’d say I prefer the large, comfy office out of them all. (Though the truck-seat had some major advantages, like freedom and solitude.)
OCHO!
top 10 and that picture is AMAZINGLY appropriate today.
My office overlooks a high-end shopping area. My view runs from the Apple store to Victoria’s Secret.
I work in a cubicle and you know what you find there….beige walls and broken dreams!
I have recently aquired my own office complete with door and window. i like it a whole lot except the door does not seem to deter people from coming on in at will and the woman down the hall refuses to close her door so i hear every word her annoying ass says all day. not onlt does she not close the door she SCREAMS all. day. long. Good Lord.
My favorite workplace though was my stint as a school bus driver. I loved the freedom and the kids were easier to deal with than these damned adults. At least they had an excuse for being loud and childish.
I contract and therefore am usually stuck in a closest on a crate. Best office I had was while an employee for an oil co. 34th floor mountainview – very next job was in the arctic. I asked what’s that smell? (It was awful, I knew for a change, it wasn’t the sewer truck-that smelled better) ‘Oh, their boiling skulls (not human) downstairs’ I was told. Apparently there was a gubbermint dept. below that did that for some purpose. GAG!!!
I’ve had a few offices. The smallest was just a little larger than a library study carole when I was doing inside sales. It was fine, I was young and glad to be working.
I had a big cube when I worked at a car dealership because I was the inventory guy. My cube was a hub of activity. The only issue with that one was it was drafty in the winter. Oh, and even Satan thought my boss was a dick.
Then I had a cube where the walls were only about 3′ high. It was more like a pen for a goat sized animal. I am not really sure why the even bothered with the “walls” at all.
Then it was an open office. Later they built me some floor to ceiling walls. I preferred it open since I was usually the only person in the office.
Then I had regualr cubes ina fortune 500 company. The cubes were fine, but the best part were the chairs. BEST CHAIRS EVER. My wife works there now and she agrees. SHe got the model number and looked in to getting one for the home office. Turns out they’re nearly a grand each. And there are litereally hundreds in my old office. Holy crap.
Now I have no office and no job. But if I do get a job (anyone out there hiring Graduate Nurses?) I might have a chainr at a nurses station or in an alcove, but that’s it. I suppose that will count as a shared space. But generally the places I’ve been have been kept pretty neat, as you might expect in a hospital.
If I start commenting on the worst a) nobody would believe me and b) I’d need a lot of room to rant. And I am currently in that situation so I’ll keep mum about it for now.
Best? I worked for an ad agency that was folding – the 3 partners wanted to retire. Towards the end, I was showing up in shorts and t shirts and going to lots of liuor infused lunchs. The partners were great, too. GOD TIMES!
I meant GOOD times, don’t want to be confused with WBs gospel thummping music workmate!
Wow, I’m way behind today….
I work nights in a biege office that has ben filled with cardboard boxes full of files. Its pretty fucking grim.
They’ve restricted internet access too- hence the lack of comments. The Bastarts!
The best and worst workplace was Kinfauns Castle where I was a general dogsbody for 3 months in my early twenties. The place was really cool and full of hidden doors and suits of armour all that, but it was haunted to shit. To the point where it was just too spooky.
‘Shiver me timbers!’
BTW – ‘IRN BRU’ beats ‘Mountain Dew’!
Hmmm…let’s see. Now is good as I work from home and can do lots of work in my jammies. (Crossloop is a life-saver.) Before when I was a bench-tech I had my own cube as well as the backroom where most of the work got done. That wasn’t too bad. Although when I went on vacation and the guy brought in to cover took all my CD’s with my software tools on them and never brought them back. Assrabbit. And he dropped about a trillion little screws on the floor. I know how many that is now…thank you, Congress!
Other than working in 110 degree heat at a Corning plant for 8 years I guess the worst was working customer support for Expedia.com. I shared a computer/semi-cube with another shift and would have to clean off the candy wrappers and empty coffee cups and water bottles before I could start. I didn’t have any walls, just dividers. The fat guy that sat beside me liked to wear sleeveless shirts and after a couple hours the pit-stench could reach epic proportions. THEN he would take his shoes off. And he was a chair swiveler…a good way to distribute the funk I guess. Thankfully he quit after a few weeks. WHEW!
‘Oh, their boiling skulls (not human) downstairs.’
Now, combine that with 28 hours on a Croation bus and we are on our way to a list of things one hears only once in life. I love it.
Current office- a large room, with a large counter that looks like a good place to order fries. Lots of scanners and computers and stuff. Way too bright.
Best office- Boone, NC law office. I had a balcony that I could go outside and sing “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” if I wanted to. Mostly, I just went out there to smoke and overlook the decaying downtown.
Worst office- A desk thrown in with over two hundred file boxes stacked around it. I was expecting someone to come in and tell me that I needed to move into the storage area in the basement and told “Taht would be great!”
On IPOD right now- “White Light”- Gorillaz
As you can guess…I sit at a receptionist desk in a large lobby. Now here’s a surprise, I am actually going to be promoted next week, despite my lazy ass, and I will have a real office with a door and a window! Now I will be able to read the Surf Report without having to switch the screen to Outlook every time someone walks by! Maybe I will change my screen name to Fat Not Quite a Middle Manager.
Only counting full-time jobs, I’ve worked at desks, cubicles, my own office, shared office with a cube wall in between (which is what I’m in now), but I’ve never had an office with a window.
But I will starting Feb 8th when I switch jobs! My office will be on the 2nd floor of a building, overlooking a grassy knoll (hopefully without a gunman). The office is narrow and small-ish, with the door on one end, and the opposite wall is all window, floor to ceiling. Can’t wait! My boss told me that the offices next to mine are the student disciplinary people, so I’ll hear lots of juicy stories.
Worst work area….man, I can’t even describe it. I’m afraid I’ll get flashbacks and the PTSD will come back. I had a nervous breakdown while I worked there
At one hospital I worked at for many years, a co-worker and I ended up being stationed in the far back corner of the oldest part of the building in what had previously been the morgue. There were drains in the floors and everything. Ick. There was no heating or air down there. We could not hear the fire alarm system. One door off of our hall opened onto dirt – no building there at all. Our desks were ones reclaimed from the trash. Mine had a corner missing. But this was temporary space.
We were only down there for 3 years.
Prior to our occupation it had been a nuclear medicine room and there were still big machines locked away in the closets. We used to joke about the possible levels of radiation. For a year we could smell a really bad smell especially when it rained. We kept reporting it, but by the time plant operations got there the rain was over and they swore they couldn’t smell anything. Finally, we lucked up and one of the old timers got assigned to our call. Because he had worked there for almost 30 years, through several renovations and what not, he knew that behind a small locked door in the back wall was a shaft that went all 12 stories up to the roof. He unlocks the trap door and found tons of dead pigeons. He figured they probably flew in from the roof access and couldn’t find their way out again. Solution? Easy. Remove pigeons and then put a screen over the hole. But how many radioactive dead pigeon particles did I inhale?
We would also periodically have a problem with a terrible gas smell – gas like in gas for your car. The next time it happened we got the old timer to handle our case. He comes down there, does a few sniffs and says “Oh, that’s probably just the pit.”
The pit? What the hell?
Come to find out that there was a deep trench just outside our wall in between 2 of the buildings in a space created by one of the many building additions/renovations. That is where maintenance disposed of old oil. Plant Ops told us there were lots of cracks in our old wall so they would just patched ‘em up so we couldn’t smell the oil and we would be good to go. WTF!
Now I work for a different hospital and have a nice cubie. Been promised an office….
I’ve had my own office for many years. The worst workspace I remember was at a bank. They put my “desk” in what appeared to be a large closet. It was brutal.
According to Further Evidence, guys…we have been using “OMG” entirely in the wrong (!) context! GADDAMN!
The best “office” I had was when I owned my own antique shop. I had french desk with my computer and phone right by a huge wall of windows to watch the daily outdoor street activities of some of the wacko’s that lived in that neighborhood.
The worst had to be when I worked for an OB/GYNE doc. I shared an office with THE most miserable women on earth. She was mean, vile and a downright c*nt.
One day another co-worker came in to chat during her break. There was a photo of some teenaged horse-faced girl on the bitch’s desk. My friend said to her..”Oh, is that your daughter?” She said, “Yes, but it’s not a very good photo of her. Doesn’t do her justice” My girlfirend replyed, sincere as hell…”Oh, don’t worry…she’ll grow into her face.” I nearly pee’d right there.
replyed = replied. …sigh…
Worst: I shared an office with a falconer for the local renaissance fair and he would bring his bird(s) into the office, if that wasn’t bad enough he would have his frozen rats defrosting on his desk so he could take them home to feed them.
Best: My current large cubicle with a window and table for meetings.
Bikerchick! You’re getting darn close to what I am going through daily, exceot for the OB/GYN part:
The worst had to be when I worked for an OB/GYNE doc. I shared an office with THE most miserable women on earth. She was mean, vile and a downright c*nt.
Best office space is what I have now. I work in a fairly new (5 year old) office building in Kanawha City. I have a very large corner office with windows for walls on two sides. I have cherry furniture and my office is large enough that I have my own conference table and chairs as well. In a previous job, I worked with Bill in WV and I got screwed on office space. I had basically what had been listed as a utility room in the computer center on the plans, when we built the building. One of the partners decided I didn’t rate a nice office, so they gave my office away and stuck me in the utility room in the computer center. Needless to say, I wasn’t real upset when I left that place.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…
Current office is in the corner, back of the building. Beside, behind and above me is all ware house space. My work area gets ungodly hot in summer and vice versa in winter. The only window I have looks into the tire racks for the parts department.
Very scenic.
Worst office space ever was my first real job out of college. I sold advertising for a local weekly paper. The business was run out of a small, and I mean small, house.
We (salespeople) had no personal work space for ourselves. If we had to design an ad or write copy, we had to borrow a writer’s desk, go to the the attic where the editions archive was, or in the basement where the layout people & artists worked.
The ad supply closet was the bathroom, which was nice. You could get what material you needed and take a shit at the same time.
My worst office was on the Flight Deck of an Aircraft Carrier. The best office was in a nice glass walled office that looked out over the beach.
I have always worked in cubes. Now I have an office with a door. Which is good, because I like to slam it on my boss a lot.
I do now know why when people come to visit me, they can’t leave the door in the same position they found it (open/closed/ajar). Very annoying.
My building based workspace is what I like to refer to as organized chaos. I have a large corner to myself with equipment in various states of repair scrattered about along with a shit ton of spare parts and cables hanging around. My other office has 4 wheels and features an ever changing view. Todays view was mostly frozen gravel roads and lots of crows.
It is a comfortable experience until summer time when building maintanence wants to wax the floors… Uh yeah, I’ll just move that… Yeah.right.sure.
This is my very first office. I guess it isn’t bad as far as offices go. If only there was a full wall between me and the evil person I call a boss. Or she was dead. It would be so much better.
My current office is a freaking mess, but it has a door, and two windows: one looking outside and the other overlooking the cube farm. My boss is a big fan of motivational posters, so when I got the place there were a few on the wall. I slowly replaced them with demotivational posters, but last fall he finally noticed and they disappeared.
The worst office was back in my grad school days. Someone endowed with an IQ of 40 thought it would be a fine idea to build office space into the lab. So my “desk” was at the end of my lab bench. The problem is that can’t bring food, drink, medicine, etc. into the lab. Do you enjoy having a drink at your desk? I do too, but wasn’t supposed to, or keep a bottle of Tylenol in my desk, or store my lunch in my desk. I got around those rules by keeping my drawers locked and disappearing whenever there was a safety inspection. It was also a problem when I had students come by for help. I worked with a lot of hazardous chemicals and radio isotopes, so some poor kid stopping by for help ran the risk of touching the wrong thing and dying, or worse fucking up one of my experiments.
I used to really dig havin an office. Doors are nice for those unplanned (or planned) afternoon naps.
Now I have a f*cking cube, and hate it. The guy across from me farts and burps all day, the chick next to him I think has an amp in her skull because eating chips can drown out conversation, the 2 gals up the way don’t EVER stop talking, and people can sneak the hell right on up on me.
And now? The company that bought us is moving us all to ‘open plan.’
Kill.Me.Now.
I’ve never had my own office. For years and years, I worked in the retail sector. Now that I’m an elementary school teacher my workspace is a classroom. However, due to lack of space in our building, I have to share the room with two co-workers. (The room is currently divided down the middle with moveable sections of six-foot high walls, the type you’d use to build cubicles).
Two of us are reading specialists, so we work in our room with students in small groups of 3-6. The third person, thank goodness, does “in-class support”, which means she goes into the regular to classrooms to help teachers with their math lessons. Space isn’t really an issue (we each have our own desks), but sometimes the noise level is.
We have internet access, but it is heavily filtered. No youtube or message boards allowed. So that kinda sucks., because I’m unable check out many of the links that Jeff posts here.
@Ian– I have a Scottish friend who has been raving about Irn Bru for years. When she visited last year, she was upset that she couldn’t find it in any of the shops here. I finally found a place last month that stocks it, and bought a bottle for myself. I still don’t know what to think about it. Irn Bru tastes like nothing else I’ve ever had.
I love my “office” space now. It’s in an ER and it is what it is. Either a rolling computer or a computer out in the great wide open. Nurses don’t need offices…and we don’t need to drink or eat or pee. All we need to do is run around the department until our feet are bloody stumps.
My other “office” is in a maximum security prison behind cement walls and razor wire. Still a nurse and I still don’t need to eat, drink, or pee. The security is so tight that it almost isn’t worth the effort to take anything more than an unopened bottle of water inside. I’m starting to hear the hydraulic swoooosh of the security doors in my sleep. But at the end of the day I love my jobs and I love not being chained to a desk.
My best office was back in my paralegal days when i was way in the back of the building in the law library. It doubled as my closing room/office. I had a huge desk and I could see anyone coming so pretty much all I did was surf the net all day. I don’t miss having a real office but I do miss the water bottle on my desk.
I currently have an office complete with a door, but no windows.
Next week, we move to a new building, and I will gain have my own office. I will also have a second office in the “closed” area for my sensitive-type work.
Oh how I’ve missed my surf report…glad to be back.
And glad to have you back, Lew.
Worst (Past): A poorly insulated trailer on blocks that doubled as a group sales office for an Amusement Park in Maryland. It was filled with 5 fairly loud salespeople (aka losers), one senile receptionist that I am pretty sure suffered from head trauma, and me. It was made only louder by the old fashioned phones, cheesy linoleum floor and faux paneling. The crapper was disconnected and served as a supply closet, so we had to run to the “main office” (or the Mothership of insanity) to use the John. Usually you would just hold it because going in there was a “duck & cover” mission since the GM liked to throw phones and staplers when park attendance was low.
Best (Current): The 328 sq. ft. of my home basement. I am self employed now and I have the luxury of a sofa for napping, flat screen tv complete with dvd/wii for goofing off when I should be working, my computers/printers and my wireless hub. Most important of all, I have my own private crapper. If it had a fridge and a shower I would never leave.
I currently have a real office with walls, a door and a window. The view is a power transformer in the back of the building, but I don’t care. It’s a nice place when I’m there. But I’m usually out at job sites, which is why I can’t read the WVSR until the evenings. On site, it could be anything from a cushy chair in a corporate boardroom, to sitting on a spool of cable with my laptop on a 5-gallon bucket. Tomorrow I’ll be in a grotty meeting room in downtown DC. It has folding tables. Party on!
Almost forgot. At my office – the place I’m not at very much – the space upstairs from us is some kind of temple for some obscure religion. Sometimes they play monotonous “music” with lots of drums and bells and, from the sound of it, also run indoor foot races.
Bull pen arrangement that I share with my my two contract workers.
Office furniture is ww2 surplus battleship gray
Best work digs: Part of a team of 8 in a confined area with separate cubes accessed through a separate door, a large conference table in the middle, own print station, an office for phone conferences, and extra computer (that was set up to download music from Napster). Manager was in another building and would rarely pop-in. We also had our own entrance out the back.
Worst Set-up: once was put in the hallway until a cube opened up. People would stand by my cube and act like I did not exist unless they needed a staple or paperclip…
Someone needs to remind me never to neglect The Report …and its insane mixture of reporters again. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. I’m sorry and I’ll never do it again.
Re: State of the Union address: Can’t tell if I’m watching Barak Obama or Jay Leno. Lots of laughs from Obama.
I have an office inside of the storeroom where I work. Nice windows but the glazing is all but gone. I won’t complain because they would probably cover them with drywall. I have been there 23 years and only been in the office for about 16 years. I have air conditioning and heat. what more could I ask for? they took away all of my internet access now so I will have to get my news from the good old newspaper. I don’t care, whatever… i get too hooked on the internet for my own good anyways.
Obama is doing allright as far as I can tell…..
Any front desk job sux. It’s a cluster f*ck of salespeople, deliveries, office gossips who give you too many details about people you don’t know or give a crap about, and my favourite, the desperate mid-lifers hitting on me all…freakin’…day.
My best desk was a huge cubicle with a window and a sliding glass door to a balcony, where I had a heartbreaking view of San Francisco. A tall coffee and half a pack of smokes later, I still couldn’t break away and get back to work.
Best: My present office is a 3500 sq ft. woodshop where I design and build furniture and cabinetry that I couldn’t afford myself. But thankfully my clients can.
Worst: Art director for a restaurant chain. They turned off the power to a 5′ x 8′ cooler and told me that was my office. Complete with monster insulated door with massive latch. Condensation leaked in from the adjoining cooler, so the floor was always wet. Nice with the computer and associated electronics. They moved me to another restaurant with the main power room as my office. That was the end of the line for me.
I had a job where my “desk” changed regularly. Two days at facility 1, the next a facility 2, the next 2 with no actual desk but my vehicle plus the odd weekend in BFE. This necessitated taking my entire office with me as I traveled. That might have been ok but this was the pre-laptop computer era. I had to carry all my files and forms, pens, paper, general office supplies, specific work related gear and even a desk lamp, clock and hardline telephone. I had to stuff everything into a duffel bag and drag it to my various “offices”.
Got it down to a science though. I could set up my entire “office” in about 5 minutes after I got in the door.
I’ve worked many jobs…weatherman, auctioneer, nightclub owner, short order cook.
My office now is new and modern…but it’s an 8 hour then go home type of deal. No mementos of the family I have have living roughly 1300 feet from where I work.
Best “office” was at a weather station at Cape Romanzof, Alaska back in the 1980s. Sitting up on a bluff 400 feet over the Bering Sea, the only sign of life was a the small Native village of Hooper Bay 6 miles to the south, across the bay. Windows on three sides, the desk was olive drab green army issue, a manual pencil sharpener on the wall, and on the desk, an Olivetti Linea 98 manual typewriter, on which I composed several hundred love letters to my ex-wife…all of which she has saved, and still reads.
Worked many a midnight shift in that office, and being pre-internet days, had whiled away the time reading good, bad, and horrible books…while listening the radio…KNOM in Nome, Armed Forces Radio out of Anchorage, or Radio Australia on the shortwave receiver we bought. On the cold clear nights, we might be treated to a static filled hit from KOMO in Seattle, or most often, WLS in Chicago, or WWL in New Orleans.
Good times, long ago times, shitty office…but oh, what I would give to go back to it!
Amigos,
As it happens — as it was meant to happen, says Bokonon — I comment in the middle of the night: now, 0200 PT. It’s just my schedule, since I am continuing to recover from bigass back surgery and limpetigo, a condition that causes me to walk in circles without a cane. So if I comment on comments as much as on Jeff’s diary of discontent, it’s because of when I get to the site…I don’t exactly fancy myself the local Bennet Cerf or Dorothy Parker (or Bonnie Parker).
Damn, that was one large fucking disclaimer.
Reporters here are clever and frequently articulate, and the comments vanish in the morning like a fist when you open your hand. Some should be acknowledged before we move on.
So, my personal thanks to:
Jorge for
“even Satan thought my boss was a dick” AND “Then I had a cube where the walls were only about 3? high. It was more like a pen for a goat sized animal.”
Ian for
“I was a general dogsbody for 3 months in my early twenties”
AngryWhiteGuy for
” I had a balcony that I could go outside and sing “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” if I wanted to. Mostly, I just went out there to smoke and overlook the decaying downtown.”
JCIII for
“The ad supply closet was the bathroom, which was nice. You could get what material you needed and take a shit at the same time.”
Mrs. Wally for
“If only there was a full wall between me and the evil person I call a boss. Or she was dead. It would be so much better.”
Tyrosine for
“I worked with a lot of hazardous chemicals and radio isotopes, so some poor kid stopping by for help ran the risk of touching the wrong thing and dying, or worse fucking up one of my experiments.”
Rusty for
“My best desk was a huge cubicle with a window and a sliding glass door to a balcony, where I had a heartbreaking view of San Francisco.”
.
Comments are disposable like used tampons in the ladies’ room, but these quick flights of genius lighten my night and brighten the language we share. Thanks again….jtb
I suppose I could be walking in circles because of OMG, but, sadly, the symptoms don”t match the disorder. I swear it used to come closer 40 years ago. I guess I could fit in a smaller cubicle now. The aging process is a cruel master.
AWG why would you like to store fries?????
I’m considering selling fries at my giant office counter . There are about 100 people working here. All I need is a Fry Daddy to put behind the counter. Then…..the hot dog cart.
On IPOD right now- “Sexy, Mexican Maid”- RHCP
I share an office with an attractive, fairly well mannered, young female. One end of my office is all glass with a nice view of Main street. We can see the weather as it happens and the only time the traffic bothers us is when the occasional fire truck goes zipping by. We have acces to our own restroom. We have our own coffee service and fridge, and big brother leaves our Internet alone, because I am big brother. The office is far away from customers and other employees. It is an awesome office. The office I had before this, I had a view of the filthy stock room. My fellow employees would come and sit around my desk when I wasn’t there and smoke and drop their ash on my chair mat and sometimes crush out their butts on it too. If the service department ran out of space to put their broken stuff they’d fill up mine with it. So yeah I know how awesome my office is because I’ve been there too.
When I worked as a dispatcher I shared an office with my boss. It was small and overlooked the parking garage. I had a chair with wheels on it so it was all good.
For all my volunteer work I used the dining room table. Talk about a pain in the ass. Every night I’d have to clean everything off it so we could sit and have dinner.
Now that I’m making purses and doing some alterations for people, I have my own workspace in the basement. I chucked out a ton of stuff that had made it’s way down there and now I have two work tables set up, along with my sewing machines and stuff. It’s great! I just need a computer and TV down there and I’d be in heaven.
@Jed…you do some beautiful work my friend. makes what I do look like a booger. I’m envious of your talent.
I work in an office with no windows, in a cubicle littered with band flyers, old photocopies and general insanity. It’s not too bad (except for the lack of natural sunlight) and I don’t spend all day in here.
Worst: a desk thrown in among rows of file cabinets, almost as an afterthought, no sunlight there either and I still had to wear a shirt and tie for some goddamned reason.
Now playing on iTunes: “Swing Shift” live version — The Lyres (how appropriate)
Tammie – do you sell your purses online?
my current cubicle is nearly barren except for a single framed photo of my son and a calender of tropical beaches. one nearby cube-mate, although we are polar-opposites politically speaking, we are surprisingly similar about a lot of other things. another cube-mate just last week thought I overheard her on the phone reveal something about her personal life (which I didn’t because I had my headphones on -HA!) so she confessed to me that she’d be lying to me and everyone else. It’s a whole big stupid soap opera of which I want no part, the lying bitch.
best office: corner office, a real room with a door and everything, the two outer walls were windows floor-to-ceiling, and I shared it with a very good friend. The job itself was peppered with crappy politics and stress, etc. and I was let go when the contract ended.
I once worked in a large, bunker-like building. No cubicles, just a large open plan for the employees while the boss sat in a cushy office. Everyone had their own desks, but mine happened to be situated next to the boss’ office. The wall separating him from the rabble had a window that was inches from my head and which he would periodically open to stick his head out and bark orders or whatever in my ear. It was like “Laugh-In”, but without the laughs.
Side story, we once had a dirty clown suddenly appear at our back door and ask to use our facilities. We declined, but someone did provide him with a light for his Marlboro.
jtb: Being chronically ill myself, I know it probably won’t help to tell you to “get well”. For perpetual conditions there’s only good days and bad days. So, I wish you many many many good days in a row.
Hey Jeff
Steve Forbert is touring in your neck of the woods over the next month. Might want to check it out.
The best reward for going to school non-stop until the age of 25 is having had a private office at every workplace I’ve inhabited. The first 25 years of gainful (and sometimes ungainly?) employ were spent self-employed at 4 different locations, always in a nice place with plenty of room and a view. Since I went in-house with a smallish software developer and became a “recovering attorney”, I’ve had to play the political game and not demand the same digs to which I’d become accustomed, but recently I moved into “my kinda place” with larger windows, enough room for a conference table, etc. All that really means is that I have more room for personal crap that I rescue from home, where it’s not always appreciated by TW.
The self-employed thing could really suck sometimes, while at other times it was very rewarding. It got 2 sons into and out of the house (successfully)…but I guess that’s a topic for a different day.
With the notion that “Comments are disposable like used tampons in the ladies’ room” running through my brain, I’ll now hit “Submit Comment”.
Tammie: What type of purses do you make? Anything in the style of antique/vintage?
Alice in WV and Bikerchick….I’m getting ready to start selling them online. And they range from vintage to homespun country to modern. I just want to build up an adequate stock before I start selling them. I posted pictures of one kind of the purses I’ve been making on my facebook.
Honestly I started out making them for gifts but the response to my pictures was so great, I decided to sell them.
If you’re on facebook check them out. If not, then email me and I’ll let you know when I start selling them. TheSwedishStitcher@gmail.com
(sorry Jeff for saying anything about this on here but they both asked about it and I didn’t know how else I could have replied to them)
Another off topic thing, and it sounds like a Twitter post (if I had a Twitter account), but I just heard Stairway to Heaven for the 4000th time in my life and I am ready to shoot myself on the head.
On IPOD right now-
“Falling to Pieces”- Faith No More
AWG – I saw Zeppelin in Charleston, WV about ‘69 or so and since then that song on the radio just doesn’t get it.
and where’s my dam update?
Thanks for the kind words Chuck. I read your essay on “new” clothes last night and it is still bothering me. If there is “fecal material” on my clothes, i’d like it to be my own.
I have a question for Mr. Kay… what percentage, roughly, of these comments do you read? I read recently that Obama reads 10 letters a day, of the thousands that he receives. I immediately thought of the WVSR.
For all of you superstitious Surf Reporters…………I don’t believe in omens, but if I did, this might not be a good one……………………I leave my house to go to work this morning and looked up into a tree and there is a huge Turkey Buzzard staring at me. Kinda freaked me out. Anyone want to take a shot at what it means? I am thinking the buzzard was wanting some breakfast!
I thought those things flew south for the winter?
Jerry, be very careful for the next few days! And on another side note…when you see one of those buzzards run on the ground it will give you chills up and down your spine. One of the creepiest things I have ever seen.
Well, this is a fine kick in the Bitch Wrinkle !!
Ya think he choked on his Moe’s burger?
He wouldn’t try to steal the spotlight from JD Salinger would he?
Open cubical with semi privacy. The manager can see me but not my monitors. Also when the tards from the floor come in with their stupid questions they can’t see me right away.
Worst was probably St. Lou where they actually expected me to work 8 hrs a day.
I’m the slob Jeff would hate. Don’t share a cubicle or a pair of underwear with me.
A very appropriate site related to this topic:
http://mthruf.com/?ref=chz
WTH? where is my update?????
PS: as a pharmacist i’m supposed to be a people person—i’m not!
best job: working in a manufacturing lab, where i saw no one for days on end. just me, my machines and my orders. YEA!!!