follow up on demotivation.

if you've made your way to this post, please ensure you've read this one first. 


look what arrived in my inbox today! awesome analyst is at it again with the wondrous poster below: 

we've been killing ourselves to assemble this complex workplan in Microsoft Project (at the express request of our client). if you've ever worked with Project, you know that it is way more cumbersome and confusing than it needs to be. example - i opened the latest file today and all the dates were changed because the file had decided to auto-schedule itself! now i've spent the morning rescheduling previously correctly scheduled tasks. that seems worth my time. 


in other news, i'm pretty sure that awesome analyst is in the wrong line of work... 

demotivation.

As you all know, I am a huge fan of sarcasm. My main mode is sarcasm and it should probably be my legal middle name. Now that I am an official office drone/cube dweller, I am a huge fan of those sarcastic office demotivating posters, modeled off of the way-too-happy office inspiration posters. ("Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." That is just vomit-city.) There are even hilarious demotivation posters from the office (cough - birthday present - cough)! A personal favorite in demotivation: 

Just come to our weekly Monday morning meetings. The above is more than true there. 


Recently, a particular analyst in our group had performed an analysis that I was reviewing. I told her that I had found a mistake and she felt really bad about it. She is amazing 99.9% of the time, so I don't care about one mistake. I told her that it was good that she had made a mistake because it gave me purpose and allowed me to affect change for our project. She immediately said "Oh that sounds like one of those posters!" This morning, I woke up to the following picture in my inbox: 

Personal motivational poster for me! It is now hanging in my cube, among all of my pictures, birthday cards, project workplans and consultant roadmaps. It's a great reminder of my purpose in office life! 

this must be the place.

one of the reasons i really like my new job is because i can pretty much listen to my iPod all day. i always work better with music and it's just impossible to listen to the glaring silence of my office all day.

of course, listening to music for 8+ hours of the day has quickly put me into a rut with most of my favorites. there is only so much ok go, wallflowers, counting crows and talking heads i can take (shocking, i know).

what music do you listen to while at work? is it better to listen to chill music or pump up music? since i was recently asked for music suggestions, im turning my own request on you - what's good in music these days, and what should i be listening to to get me through the day?

this will be me tomorrow.

Michael: I'm an early bird, and I'm a night owl. So I'm wise, and I have worms. Oh, breakfast.
Ryan: I got your sausage, egg and cheese biscuit.
Michael: Yummy, yummy. Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan: What was the thing, ah, you needed me to come in early for?
Michael: Um. The sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit. But thank you. And why don't you take a couple hours. The office is yours. "Home Alone," "Risky Business." Take your pants off, run around. Whatever you gotta do.
Ryan: I'm just going to take a nap in my car until work starts.

that's really not the trend in vampires right now.

dearest E: here is a post JUST FOR YOU. (Ok, everyone else can read it too.)

so, the big day is almost upon us! that's right, it's halloween. now, i am not too big on halloween. as a kid, i was pretty much scared of my own shadow, and running around at NIGHT in the DARK was not an interest of mine. the costumes were scary and it was always too cold (thanks, chicago). so after a couple years of trick-or-treating as a kid, halloween got the kibosh, and i've ignored it mostly ever since.

for those of you who know me, you'll understand why i was never interested in the adult version of halloween either. i'm not big on getting really really drunk and wandering around the city in slutty costumes. hence, the shunning continued.

but, this year i am going to take a chance and go out for halloween. i have a built in costume: the insane, black and gold lamé 80's prom dress that i wore for purim junior year of college. i'll crimp my hair and there you go - instant costume.

the issue now is, as M pointed out, i'm not really "going as" anything. is "80's prom girl" an acceptable costume to go as? at this point, i'm not going to rethink the whole thing. i don't have the stamina or the imagination to whip up some other awesome costume now. but (and here's where you come in) if i had to do it all over again, what should i have gone as? if this year goes well, i can use your suggestion next year. or even sooner for purim! so, send in your suggestions now, and also let me know what you're going to be this year!

happy trick-or-treating... stay away from any vampires that look like Creed...

(a big thanks to A for pulling some pics for me! xoxo)

dino plant.

pretty sure i need this for my office. best part? you can forget to water it! that's how i take care of all my plants! but this one will just hibernate for 50 years until i remember to take care of it again. sweet.

too bad birthday/hanukkah is over...

catch up?

how are you planning on catching up on all five seasons of lost in preparation for season 6? i've been rewatching most of the episodes (they're all on hulu right now), but then again i'm crazy. z is reading all of the episode recaps on lostpedia. while that doesn't sound as fun, it's definitely a plus that you can do it at work.

or, you can read some articles and recaps. as you know, i usually stick with doc jensen on ew (new every tuesday now) but zap2it has new lost theories, musings, articles and recaps every day. you'd think that would get boring, but you'd be wrong. they recently had 2 weeks worth of articles on free will vs. fate in lost. a recent article there that i really enjoyed discussed what season six might look like if time did reboot.

whatever your method, get prepared for feb 2! because you know i won't like it if people spend the first 10 minutes of season 6 asking me who miles is.

and, now im hungry.

z found an ice cream bench! im not sure if i want to sit on it or eat it. though i bet velvet is not tasty.

also -

Michael: Hey, hey, everybody, Ice-cream sandwiches! Aaaahh! Here you go. Take one, take one. It's all good. Phyllis, think fast. Oh, oh, I see Angela. Angela? Right? Waaaaah! Oh, hey temp. Why don't you take two? Because you don't get health care. And uh, faster metabolism.

conserve.

in case you don't want to see any bits of this week's office ep, steer clear big tuna. head for open waters. (but - this made me very happy after a day of shit sandwich.)

i don't walk into your house and steal your hello kitty backpack.

new company, new holiday party. at least this year's invite is not on a powerpoint slide.

party genius.

during our lastest funco! meeting (i.e., the party planning committee, i.e., the committee to plan parties) we came upon the topic of finger food, and how it's always a problem of not having enough hands to eat and drink. apparently, a few products have attempted to tackle this age-old issue.

first, the fingerfood plate:

wear it like a ring, hold your drink in the same hand and voila! you've got a fingerplate. and its perfectly sized - small enough for your bagel-bites or tater-tots.


second we have the cookie dunk mug.

this way, your cookies are never too far from your milk. or coffee. or scotch. not sure how holiday-party specific this is, but i guess you can always use the shelf for cheese.... and your mug for wine! yay!

never ever leaving this job...

because this is what happens when you ask your friends in the warehouse to send you just 3 books.

because...i'm awesome.

my work is ridiculous.

first off, there is a life-size cutout of this in our lobby.

maybe you need an excerpt, if this picture is not enough?

There are many reasons why you might be reading this sentence. You're obviously curious about me, or you wouldn't even be holding this book. That's cool with me, I'm happy about that, Mr. or Mrs. Whoever You Are. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that curiosity might kill cats, but it doesn't kill people. Unless you're curious about doing things like bungee jumping high on crack to see if you really need that harness, curiosity will not kill you! I tell you what will kill you—people will. We've got a long way to go to change that around, but I hope we do. For now, I can say this and I know it's true: Curiosity makes you smarter. Don't fight it! Learn to learn, learn to ask questions. Clearly, you've got questions about me. In this book you'll find some answers.

there's a new mug in town.

or, on my desk. go blue!
and thanks to the sister for a terrific weekend.

it's october...

and that means candy bowl at my desk!!!

obsessed.

"this is a book that i'd love to read" - dan brown

yesss!

handed out in the lobby today:

we've got dan brown fever!

what up, random house!

ever wonder how a book is made? ever wonder how a super awesome book is made (and 5 million copies of it)?? wonder no more! watch the superb video below that features the random house warehouse in maryland as they show you how they assemble and print (and protect) dan brown's new book, the lost symbol, in stores september 15th!

SPOILER alert!

when we last saw our heroes, jim and pam were at the hospital waiting to get some test results back, while dwight was doing his best to stall the volleyball game against corporate. want to know the rest? nymag is glad to spoil it for you. i'll remind you again that this is highly spoilery, but i doubt you'll be surprised if you do take a peek.