Have you ever worked with a printing Nazi? I have. I thought of her yesterday, when I received an email with one of those oh-so-correct reminders at the bottom: Please don’t print this message unless you’re a selfish bastard who should develop cancer of the head and die. Or whatever.
This woman worked at a previous job, and her desk was near the shared laser printer. Pretty convenient, huh? I think she lobbied to get that particular spot in the office. So she could keep an eye on things…
It bothered her a great deal whenever someone printed a screenshot, or document of some kind. She’d either lecture the person (if she could get away with it), or make a series of gestures and noises designed to communicate her disapproval (if she couldn’t).
She was constantly talking about (whomever), and how they’re an outrageous paper-waster. “Every sheet used, is one less breath of air for our children,” she’d say, in a quivery, righteous tone.
And she did this with everyone, individually, to make it clear she was watching… always watching…
I bet she’s there right now, her body going completely rigid every time the printer cranks up. Unless, of course, somebody couldn’t take it anymore and beat her to death with a Scotch tape dispenser. Which is a real possibility.
Do you have any office cops at your job, who take it upon themselves to keep everyone else in-line? It doesn’t have to be a printing Nazi, just any busy-body foo’. Tell us about it, won’t you?
And check it out. This is a series of gut-wrenching photographs sent by Knucklehead, featuring her macaw (also named Knucklehead?), going to town on the Smoking Fish.
I’m sorry, I’m feeling a little nauseous… Nauseous and light-headed.
And, in addition to the Question above, I’d like to know if you’d prefer tiny, microscopic updates like this one when I’m running short of minutes, or should I just save it up until next time? Let me know.
Here are the two latest posts at mockable, to take up the slack a little.
And I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.
See ya then.
.
Nobody remembers second place 🙁
3rd!
My wife is a sauce / shampoo nazi. She’s always going nuts over the amount of ketchup or ranch left on my plate when I’m finished. And when we shower together I always wait until after we’ve had sex to wash my hair because I know she’ll ruin the vibe with her “You’re not washing a horse” rant because of the amount of shampoo I put in my hand. She apparently thinks it’s possible to wash a whole head of hair with a pea sized drop of shampoo – but I aint buying it.
Numba 5, baby
I had a peer at an office where we had a fairly loose schedule, but not quite flex-time, who would take it upon himself to adjust my hours to reflect the actual hours I worked. Not quite Nazi, more OCD.
Hiya
Short n sweet is better than nothing at all……
that macaw picture reminded me of the smoking fish pic i sent in once of a goat eating the fish. now i know why it was never put in the gallery. it made jeff cry.
Yeah, that’s Knucklehead on a Saturday afternoon after I had a few too many Bass Ales.
I had a boss once who NEVER thought ANYONE ever got sick. Every sick day was merely a smokescreen for a day of debauchery and perversion. One day I had an allergic reaction to a medication I was taking and blew up like John Merrick. I actually made my husband (then boyfriend) drive me to work on the way to emergency so she could SEE that I wasn’t faking it. Made her feel like shit. Mission accomplished – she never questioned a sick day again.
Happy Wednesday, Surfers!
ok – i have to admit, i’m the office recycle nazi. i do only tut-tut people i’m good friends with though. i generally just pick the cans and bottles out of the garbage and put them in the bin myself.
A short update is better than no update, man!
Oh, and I’m with Alice.
Short is better than none.
As my ex girlfriend used to say, “Tiny’s better than nothing at all.”
Hey Knuck, are you going to be able to take the real Knuck to Italy with you when you move? Looks like a cool bird, so I hope you do.
Trees are a renewable resource and are grown as a crop as far as paper is concerned, but on the other hand people printing out the
FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:This is hilarious
e-mail
should be beaten with rubber hoses.
I guess I’m the print Nazi here, but when the boss comes to you and wants to know why 300 color copies @ $0.15/ea show up on the maintenance bill and you know it was the girl in the XYZ department making color handouts for her kid’s pre-school calss you tend to be a little touchy about printing.
Im a teacher, so we pretty much keep to ourselves here. The only thing that gets my goat is the lack of recycling. Even though the teachers themselves are pretty good about separating the paper and plastic from the regular garbage in their classrooms, the custodial crew simply can’t be bothered. All of the stuff is tossed together in the dumpster each night. I usually end up taking my own recycling home with me, just because.
As for the updates, I agree with Alice… something is better than nothing.
Short is better than nothing, but I do like a good, long rant, though.
19th!!! w00t!
Once had a supervisor who, if you called out sick, would come by your home on his lunch break to “make sure you’re doing okay.”
Jeff its your life’s stories that we all clamour to read snippets of each day, so if you want them short, then make them short. If you want them long, make them long. I think its amazing that you find the time to do them at all.
Yup, I’m the Nazi at my work–albeit, a semi-slacker Nazi. I only raise the eyebrow or make the outright caustic comment if it’s one of the enemy. But, of course, I’d still do that if they cut down the tree and made the paper and toner for the copier themselves.
My former assistant was a rules nazi. Any deviation from set office polices or procedures and her ass was in a major funk, but she could never get it through her skull that it was not her job to police the office. She would be constantly bitching if someone was late and not reprimanded, or if someone made personal photocopies. When she tried pulling that shit on me I’d had enough and got her transferred to another department.
We also have a recycling Nazi, but she’s not too bad and generally leaves me alone.
The toilet seat Nazi leaves passive aggressive notes to people who don’t put the toilet seat down. I might see her point if it was happening in the woman’s washroom, but I fucking resent being ordered to lower the seat in the MEN’s washroom to accommodate someone who won’t walk another 10 feet to her designated piss-hole.
I’m cool with short updates. Something is better than nothing.
Bill in WV, yes, she’s going – I’ve had her for 15 years, I can’t leave her – she’s like my child.
I have the two most expensive animals on the planet to ship overseas: an exotic bird and a 135 lb dog.
I use a lot of paper at work. As much as I see fit to. There is no tree shortage. Take a look at aerial views of google maps. 80 percent of most goddamn states are trees. Not buying it. I used to recycle, until I saw the yellow eyed Mudfoot Brown clone garbagemen dump all of my recycling bins into the regular garbage. They still do it to my neighbors recycling. Why waste my time?
The water Nazi’s tell you how much water you are permitted to use. I am supposed to only water my lawn on Tuesday night, between midnight and 4.Am. I am not allowed to wash my car in my driveway. They say it’s because there is a water shortage. I live in a state that is surrounded by fucking water!! I don’t buy that either. Orlando, Tallahassee and Lakeland seems to get flooded every time it rains. Digging a trench down the middle of the state so we in the southern part can get water would be a great idea, but Governor Tan in a Can has other things on his agenda. Like raising money through tax increases to pay for education. The lottery is supposed to pay for education, but it just lines the pockets of the people involved in lottery.
My wife is a paper plate Nazi. Apparently, I should not be using them as cutting boards.
Anyone know who the warm-up act for Green Day in the upcoming tour is going to be?
There are only 4 of us here at work, so no nazis.
I am cool with what ever you can give us, Jeff.
If my boss came by at lunch to check on me to ‘see if I was ok’ on a sick day, I’d make sure to work up a vomit just for him. NOT ok.
For a while, I was forced to be the office cop when our office manager went out on medical leave. Some of the offenses:
1. A male colleague used the single-stall ladies’ room and constantly left the seat up or peed down the outside of the bowl. The sign I posted said: If you can read this while urinating, you are in the wrong room. Get out before I call HR.
2. Printing a 100-page document when they really only wanted a page or two. When the toner cartridge was empty, no one wanted to change it. Walked away and used another printer instead. (Same thing if the paper jammed.)
3. Drinking the individual bottles of water intended for guests/clients and then complaining bitterly when there were none left for their business meetings. (Cheap bastards making more than $1 million/year couldn’t afford to buy their own?)
4. Tossing wet garbage into the recycling bins.
5. Whenever the copier broke down, no one would let me know to call the technician. Wouldn’t find out until some financial analyst had a meltdown because he needed 1000 copies of some “important” doc STAT.
I’m really worked up now and I don’t even work there anymore. No wonder I eff’ing hate people.
AWG,
Looks like the bravery, kaiser chiefs, franz ferdinand, and others. not all at the same time though.
I’d love to know the story behind that bunker photo – looks like there’s an empty bottle of something in the background.
I haven’t worked in an office since 1998, which was slightly before the recycling nazi nonsense took off, so there wasn’t any one certain person policing the others. We were just a laid back bunch.
Oh wait, forgot that my former boss was a Nazi as well. I was on the West Coast, she on the East. To check when I got into the office each morning, she would send me some innocuous email and attach one of those secret “notify me when this message is opened” sort of auto-responses. I noticed that each time I opened a message, the boss would call me at the office — she had to be sure I wasn’t reading it on my Blackberry. After I got wise, I started using the preview pane instead of opening the message to read. Eventually, she’d call and ask if I’d read her message. I’d say yes and tell her I was working on it and would get back to her shortly. WORST. BOSS. EV-ER.
Thanks t-storm. They are here first week of August.
short, long, today, tomorrow, whatever.
I am not a recycler. My wife is. I am not against it. I just don’t want to be forced into doing it. So I don’t. If someone wants to believe that they are somehow truly saving humanity from itself by playing with their garbage far be it from me to ruin a good time. But you will have to drag me kicking and screaming all the way to the reeducation camps before I waste my time doing it. It’s still a free country. At least it was. Haven’t checked NBC news yet today.
Jeff try this sometime a one word report! If you just put booger & nothing else you would probably get 50 good responses! Tyrosene what the heck was that lady doing in the mens room in the first place! the only time I get my Nazi on is in airport washrooms when guys pull 200 yards of paper towel off the roll wipe their hands once & throw it away ! whats the deal waste it because someone else paid for it? Thats why I always leave a peanut on the plane to cull the herd:)
I was, unfortunately, made in to the printer nazi a few jobs ago. Our severely OCD GM lost his mind when he found a metric shitload of gig flyers for some shitty local band (not my shitty local band – another one) sitting on the printer. He had me set up every single printer in the building with accounting. In and of itself, not a hard chore. The daily, weekly, and monthly summaries of all 27 network printers that he had me send him got to be a huge pain in my ass. The best thing about that job was the day I got fired. Our second baby was on the way, my wife had just quit her job to start a business, and we had just bought a van we couldn’t afford. But, my first thought when they let me go was, thank god I never have to go back there again…..
@AngryWhiteGuy – the PD at one of my current stations says Franz Ferdinand will be opening the Green Day tour. I’m not sure if he’s serious, or if he’s yanking my chain.
I certainly don’t mind putting empty coffee cans, newspapers, cardboard, Coke cans, and empty glass jars in our recycling receptacle.
However, I have had some very nasty discussions with my wife and daughter regarding their running 25 gallons of hot water to rinse out a damn Jiffy Peanut butter jar so it is squeeky clean to put in the recycling bin. They say it must be clean, otherwise it will get smelly before the second Tuesday recycling pick-up.
My view is that they are using enough water to take a shower plus run a washload of clothes instead of saving the fucking planet by throwing a one ounce plastic jar in the regular trash, unwashed.
Have a good friend who worked for the local garbage company. Everything gets dumped into the same pile. Crazy.
My boss is a paper Nazi. Not because he is trying to save the planet, because his is cheap as fuck….or at least the wife is…she runs the office. Tons o’fun having the happy couple around.
Jeff, it is amazing you have time to take a crap in your newby turlet (if you got it installed)! Give us what u can, dude!
I live on a street FILLED with the Jesus Police. I can’t even drink a beer on my front porch unless I disguise it. Consequently I have learned to drink alcoholic beverages from a squirt gun, windex bottle and a straw, fished up beneath my shirt and taped to my neck so I can appear to be reading a book and still drink at will.
I live in hell.
Seriously.
Tammie,
Why can’t you drink in your neighborhood?
AWG,
Thanks for “Tan in a Can”. That’s going to give me chuckle through next yer’s freak show.
T-Storm, the people in my neighborhood all think that drinkin’ is a seeeiiinn and you’ll got to heeelllll if you allow one drop of satan’s nectaaarrr to touch yer lips.
I know I’m on my own porch on my own property but they feel as though it’s their right to come right up on my porch and tell me I need to get saved and make myself right with Jeeeessusss or I’m gointa heeellll for all eternity to burn in hell’s fiare.
It’s just easier to do what I want while disguising it because THEY KNOW I’M STILL ACTUALLY SINNING BUT THEY CAN’T PROVE IT and that is enough to make them stay away from me.
tammie – f’em. it’s your damn yard. get yourself a 40 and flaunt it! use the squirt gun on anyone who gives you grief.
as for the updates….i just want to read part 2 of the last bill oates!!!!!
All updates are welcome and appreciated.
They don’t have to be “War and Peace” or “The Stand”.
I worked for a Nazi once.
Got out of there before I went “Dresden”
on that little fucker.
@ Tammie Problem solved! Cheers!
http://www.thebeerbelly.com/PhotoGallery.asp?ProductCode=200-007
Please correct me if I’m wrong,
but I seem to recall that Jesus
turned water into wine.
Remind them of THAT Bible story.
Tammie……I told a coupla Jehova’s Nitwitts to fuck off one Sunday morn. I was in the middle of curing a hanhover with a bottle of wine. Both cures seemed to work.
I recycle beer. Loved and remember the smell of mimeograph paper. Actually looked forward to test day. Started around the third grade. The beginnings of an addictive personality. Well..that and Marsha Vaske.
No office for me. Printer, copy, fax right here. Jane The Cat lays on the thing so I call her a copy cat.
It’s NAUSEATED, Jeff. Naus – e – ated.
Goddamnit.
I recycle what I can. The comment about using a lot of hot water to rinse stuff made a lot of sense. We had a guy at work that I called the yard police. He was always sweating over who parked where, and who was driving that strange car? He woriied about everything and was afraid of his own shadow. Thank God he retired he was as anal as they come!
I have to say at 45 I’m living in the worst apartment of my life. The 20 something douche bag next door is the hallway nazi. She has people in and out all hours of the day and night but heaven forbid I have company. We are always waking her baby or scaring her cat….WTF. I’m a third shift worker and never home. My son lives with me but he’s never home either. The slam pig has different guys in and out all day long and is selling a little dope as well. I hope she keeps her pie hole shut soon or that bitch may end up serving time. Son of a bitch, now I got myself going into a full blown rant….I need a hug!!!
All this talk about slam pigs is giving me the nawshua.