Electronic Etiquette - Part 3

Posted by John

So when I got into work last Wednesday, just as excited as a dog who’d just dragged home a raccoon carcass to show his owner, I was immediately met by the other engineer, Gary, who was the second recipient of the original e-mail from that taint of an architect in Dallas, and who was just as mad as a mongoose with a case of infected hemorrhoids. While he was appreciative of my passive aggressive response, he is of he more old school active aggressive variety, having honed his skills back in the Navy in the 60’s or some shit, and immediately forwarded the original e-mail and my response to his boss, who happens to be the head of the department. As it turns out, the head of the department is also of the more old school active aggressive type, having honed his skills in a Harley biker gang back in the 70’s, and immediately forwarded the e-mails to the head of the division. As it turns out, the head of the division happens to be of the more old school active aggressive type as well, having honed his skills while being an asshole himself on his way up the corporate ladder for the past decade, so he immediately forwarded the e-mails to the senior vice president for the entire group. I’m not making this up. So before I even had a chance pick my nose that morning, the e-mails had made their way all the way up the corporate ladder, stopping just short of the CEO.

It didn’t take much longer then for the e-mails to make their way back down the corporate ladder, through the Division VP in Dallas, and land squarely back on the desk of Ol’ Dickface Architect before he even had a chance to wipe his own ass for the first time that morning.

And while I didn’t have the privilege of being a fly on the wall during that conversation, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past week imaging how it went. If there’s one rule in any business at any level it is don’t sleep with the boss’ daughter. If there’s a second rule it’s don’t make an ass of your boss. And the best way to make an ass of your boss is to send an assish e-mail out to another branch of your company that then makes it back to your boss in less than 12 hours. If you don’t believe that then just test it out and see how long it takes for your boss to slap a muzzle on your grill and agree to only let you speak when he decides to shove his hand up your ass and move your mouth like a goddamn ventriloquist.

Meanwhile back in Nashville I was still just tickled to death with myself when out of nowhere the head of the department stopped by my desk and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for the well worded, level-headed response to that e-mail yesterday.” In all honestly that was pretty much the absolute last thing I was expecting – someone thanking me for sending out a cynical, sarcastic e-mail - but I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to passive aggressively stab that fuck-stick architect in the heart of his career yet again, so I responded, “Oh, no problem. I was just a little taken aback by the whole thing and didn’t really know how to deal with it.” Money!

“I know. It was unbelievably unprofessional of him and I can assure you the situation has been taken care of. We do not tolerate that type of stuff around here,” he said.

“Oh, well I really appreciate that. I just hope we can get past it all and finish up the project.” Oh, no you didn’t! Oh, of course I did!

Then before I even had a chance to pat myself on the back, the head of the entire division, a dude who I’ve only ever spoken to like 3 times, stopped by my desk and was like, “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about that e-mail yesterday but you handled it very, very well. I appreciate your response.” Are you kidding me???

“Oh, thank you so much. It was really not a big deal,” I replied. Not a big deal? Not a big deal??? If only he could see how big of a fucking deal I’m making of it right now!

Then before I could even stop giggling to myself, my own boss stopped by and was like, “I just wanted to let you know that I saw your e-mail response and thought it was really great.” Really? Did you really read my response?

“Oh, thanks. It was really nothing,” I said, just laying it on as thick as shit.

“Well you should know that your e-mail has made it’s way up to the executive level and will be used as an example of how to properly handle inter-office communications…”

I AM NOT MAKING A WORD OF THIS SHIT UP!  An example of proper inter-office communication!?! So just hold on a second while I get this straight – I wrote the absolute most passive aggressive, subversive, sarcastic, cynical, dickish e-mail of my entire life and suddenly the corporate ladder is lining up outside my cubicle to kiss my ass? Have I died and gone to bizarro heaven or some shit? How is this happening? All I could do was look up to the gods and say, “Oh, this is just grand, boys! Thanks for doing me a solid!”

The rest of the day then was a non-stop flood of e-mails, IM’s and people stopping by to acknowledge the whole situation as the e-mail made its way around the office. I can assure you the gratification was sublime and while I don’t know what was said to the dingleberry of an architect, nor have I communicated with him since then, to me it didn’t really matter any more because the whole ordeal had so quickly gone from being about him to being about me. And while I absolutely loath the spotlight in any situation, and especially at work, to be recognized for something I quite frankly should have been disciplined for was absolutely more than I could ever ask for.

The whole situation reminded me of a time long, long ago when I was not quite so well versed in office politics as I am now. I had just started working for an engineering firm right out of college and was stuck on a team of drafters that was unofficially headed up by perhaps the biggest dick I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with. His name was Noah, he was just 24 but had already been working for 6 years as a drafter straight out of high school, and felt that 6 years of drafting experience gave him the authority to oversee his entire fiefdom.  

There could not have been a bigger ass in the corporate world – you could often catch him flexing his muscles to check himself out in the reflection of the office windows; he would routinely hoard all the work on the team so he could work 6 or 8 hours of overtime while I couldn’t even bill 20 hours of legitimate work in a week; he referred to one of the older guys in the group as “Short Bus” even after I informed him that the guy’s son had special needs; just after the unjustified war in Iraq started he openly suggested that “we” can’t trust anyone with a darker shade of skin, especially in a time of war. I’m not making any of that up. This kid was an absolute piece of work.

Not to be outdone, our boss, Ken, made his best effort to be a pretty big dick himself so in the biggest boner move I could have imagined, Ken appointed Noah as the head of scheduling for our group, which basically meant that Noah got to oversee who was working on what at any given time. In his first act as our fake boss he issued a meeting request for the following Monday at 8 AM to all of the drafters in the group. I found that odd because Noah had already told me he’d be in late on Monday because he had a doctor’s appointment, so I mentioned as much to him. Just that quick that sawed-off sonofabitch immediately sent out an e-mail to the entire group, copying our boss, that said:

“Hey, we’re going to need to postpone that meeting Monday morning because my new secretary, John, just reminded me that I’ll be in late that day.”

I’m not making that up. I’m still absolutely livid just thinking about it today, so you can imagine how I felt about it 8 years ago. I got that e-mail at 4 PM on a Thursday and I sat at my desk until 6 PM that night just positively fuming from every pore in my body, contemplating how’d I’d get back at that fucker. Then, in the single most idiotic moment of my entire career, I penned the following response, copied the entire group and our boss:

“As Noah’s new secretary, he wanted me to let everyone know that the reason he’ll be late to the office on Monday is because he has a doctor’s appointment to have his lips permanently fused to Ken’s ass.”

Again, I’m not making a word of that shit up.

I positively laughed myself silly all the way home that night, right until I walked in the door, told the wife what I’d done and she helped me to realize how fucking stupid I was. I then spent the rest of the night in the bathroom alternating between dry-heaving my lungs into the toilet and emptying my bowels onto the floor. If ever there was a time for that scene in Office Space when Milton burns down the building, that was it.

I reluctantly crawled into work the next morning, absolutely terrified of what was going to happen to me. What unfolded in reality though, still boggles my mind to this day. By the time I logged onto my computer it was full of e-mails, one after the other, each more laudatory than the first – “This is absolutely hilarious!” “Oh my god, I can’t stop laughing!” “This just made my week!” I was getting e-mails, all of which copied our boss, Ken, and that shit-licker Noah, from people I didn’t even know in the company. One girl was even like, “Oh this is so funny! I miss working with you guys so much!” I’d never even met her. And then the cherry on top came from the boss, Ken, himself saying, “This is the funniest e-mail I have ever seen!”

Once I made it through all the e-mails I looked over at Noah to see he was completely red in the face and shaking worse than a dog shitting a peach seed, he was so pissed. It was at that moment that I looked to the heavens, laughing hysterically to myself, and said, “Thanks for doing me a solid boys!”

So the overall moral of this saga is not that I megalomaniacally love sharing my own passive aggressive e-mails with everyone so I can pat my own back, even though I kind of do; the moral of the story is, you can be as successful as you possibly can be; you can have whatever title you need or any level of importance that makes you feel good; but the reality is that no matter who you are, how successful you may be, how much power you may have, no one, and I mean no one, likes an asshole. You can be an asshole everyday of your life if you want but someday – and it may not be for a long, long time from now – someday you’re going to be an asshole to the wrong person and then you’ll be tasting that silent but deadly fart of passive aggression in the back of your throat before you even know what happened.

Happy e-mailing. 

Electronic Etiquette - Part 2

Posted by John

So after Johnny Bedwetter Architect from Dallas made my month by setting me up with the biggest electronic ass-ripping opportunity of my life, I was kind of content letting it end there. Actually, that’s not true at all; I was really, really, really hoping it would go a lot further so my passive aggression could be fully nurtured into its most glorious potential, but I had to be honest with myself that it may not be in my best interest for the situation to develop any more. I mean, there’s a fine line between being gratifyingly passive aggressive and just being a subversive dick, so you really have to tread lightly in these situations.

Fortunately for me, I only had to wait about 30 minutes after my e-mail response to get another absolute softball from that ass-monkey architect:

John,

Thanks for your response. 

I realize that at times my sarcasm can be rather corrosive but I’m happy to see that you were able to recognize it as an expression of frustration rather than any personal disparagement. 

I think that you’ll agree that communication between us is going to be important and if you have any concerns, suggestions or complaints please don’t hesitate to let me know. 

Your humble servant,

Again, I assure you I didn’t make a word of that up. I could only gaze up to the heavens in wonderment as I tried to figure out why God would look down so favorably on a wretch like me who was getting so much joy out of reveling in this poor man’s self-destruction.

So let me break this one down for you as well.

“Thanks for your response”: Thanks for your response? Are you seriously thanking me for making you feel like the biggest dick on the planet? Did you think I was not going to respond? Or did you throw that first e-mail out there, insulting me, my colleagues, and the entire engineering staff, and honestly think to yourself, “Oh boy, I sure hope he responds to my e-mail; I think we can have a truly lovely correspondence with one another”??? My God, not only are you a complete ass, you have absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever!

“I realize that at times my sarcasm can be rather corrosive”: Rather corrosive? RATHER CORROSIVE? Listen turd-muncher, eating candy is rather corrosive on your teeth; your “sarcasm” was like sucking chrystal meth through a pipe made out of dum-dums. And if you realize that your sarcasm can be a little corrosive, why in the fuck do you send out an e-mail dripping with corrosive sarcasm? You’re like the uni-bomber of cynical e-mails.

“I’m happy to see that you were able to recognize it as an expression of frustration rather than any personal disparagement”: Thanks dude, I’m really happy for you too. I’m also really happy that you were able to misinterpret my passive aggression as an expression of what a great guy I am rather than me actually trying to undermine your entire career right out from beneath your nose.

Why would you even come up with the words ‘personal disparagement’ if it wasn’t in fact personal disparagement!?! That’s like lying to your wife so you can go to the strip club with your buddy only to come home and be like, “Hey, honey! Randy says hi,” to which she replies, “Randy? You told me you were going out with Bob…” You are a jackass among idiots.

“If you have any concerns, suggestions or complaints please don’t hesitate to let me know”: Uh, yes, I have one of each – 1) Concern: I’m concerned that you’re retarded; 2) Complaints: you personally disparaged me then thanked me for misinterpreting your personal disparagement as frustration; 3). Suggestion: go fuck yourself.

“Your humble servant”: My humble servant? Who the hell do you think you are, one of the apostles? I can tell you this much Bartholomew, in about 12 hours you’re going to wish I was Jesus and would forgive you for your trespasses but I’ve got news for you – I’m not that kind of guy. If you turn the other cheek to me I’m going to stab you in the goddamn face with a plastic shiv I meticulously whittled out of my TI-95 calculator.

So after getting an e-mail like that how do you think I responded? Well, the only way I know how, of course – more passive aggression:

Thanks Greg. Communication has definitely eroded around here as a result of all the recent layoffs that seem to just cut deeper with each round. But as always we’ll just need a couple days to steady ourselves and move on as usual and everything should get back to normal sooner than later and for better or worse.

BOOM! Oh, you didn’t think I’d do it again did you? Well hell yes I went back to the woe-is-me-all-my-coworkers-have-been-fired-and-it’s-too-much-for-me-to-bear guilt trip again! Why would I not go there? It “cuts deeper” but we need to “steady ourselves” for “better or worse”! I have no idea where this shit even comes from!

Again, I probably would have been satisfied if it had just ended there. But I knew it wasn’t over there and when I went to bed that night I might as well have been 6 and it might as well have been Christmas Eve because I was about to shit my pants with excitement. I have never gotten ready faster or gotten to work any sooner than I did that next morning and believe me, I wasn’t disappointed… 

Electronic Etiquette

Posted by John

After the recent layoffs things have been a bit hectic around the office to say the least.  Everyone is having to pick up tasks that they didn’t have to just a week prior, juggling multiple deadlines, too many meetings, and not enough information. It’s expected in these types of situations and for the most part we accept it because we’re thankful to still be working.

Tuesday of last week was particularly hectic as I had several meetings back-to-back, and several on top of one another. It was inevitable that I wouldn’t be able to make it to all of them so I missed one in particular – a conference call with our architectural team in Dallas. One of the other engineers had to miss it as well so we sent one of our young electrical engineers in our place to take notes. It’s understandable that the architectural staff in Dallas was a little peeved that we didn’t attend the meeting, but you’d think they’d understand given the circumstances. So needless to say, I was a little surprised to see the following e-mail from the senior architect when I returned to my desk:

Gary and John,

Thanks for your valuable input in the conference call today. 

I’m sure you’ll both agree that it was very beneficial to coordinate issues between yourselves and our structural  engineer.  This meeting was helpful in getting us all off on the right foot.

Oh, that’s right you both blew off the meeting.  Well, it’s a good thing that no deliverables are upcoming.

Oh, wait, there’s an Owner Review package due next week.

Regarding the Owner Review.  We will need your drawings by Friday afternoon so that we can send them to the printer here on Monday.  The meeting with the owner early the morning of the 20^th.

The files will need to be uploaded as pdf’s so that you will be able to verify that the information is showing up correctly on your sheets.  We don’t want to have to QC your work on this package.  We will have a full QC at the next (75%) submittal.

BTW, are you both planning on having your administrative assistant sign and seal the drawings too?

I can assure you I didn’t make a word of that up; that’s a real e-mail from a real senior architect. At first I thought I misread something, so I read it again. After each line I kept waiting for the sentence, “Ha! Just kidding guys. Next time make it to the meeting if you can,” but it never came. So I read it again. At that point I felt nothing but rage coursing through my veins, “Who in the fuck does this sawed-off sonofabitch think he is???” To make matters worse, that ass-turd had the cojones to copy the entire project team as well as the head of engineering for the whole company on the e-mail. I was so unbelievably livid, my blood was boiling, my face flushed red, and my hand was gripping the mouse so tightly I distinctly heard it scream in pain.

Now let me break down his e-mail for you: First of all, he comes out with the most blatantly, actively aggressive, childish sarcasm imaginable. I’d expect that from a 14-year-old whose friends stood him up at the theater for the late showing of Hot Tub Time Machine – “that was a hilarious scene when they transported back to 1988 and Rob Cordrouy suggested they invent Girls Gone Wild… Oh wait, you boners weren’t there because you stood me up to go see Date Night with a bunch whore cheerleaders. I hope it sucked, assholes!” - not a 50-something-year-old senior architect. Secondly, he passive aggressively insults our ability to review our own engineering drawings. Just to be clear, the owner review meeting he references is a 35% review. 35%, I tell you! That’s not even a real percentage! I could take a shit on a piece of paper, slap a t-square on it and give you 35% engineering drawings. Thirdly, he refers to the girl who attended the meeting in our place as an administrative assistant! She’s a goddamn graduate electrical engineer! Lastly, and bestly of all, he copies the head of engineering on the e-mail. It just so happened that the meeting I was attending instead of this stupid fucking 35% meeting was a meeting with the goddamn head of engineering! I’m not making that shit up.

Now, after receiving an e-mail like that you pretty much have three options: 1). Be the bigger man, take the high road, and let it pass – you won’t get any satisfaction out of it except when you return home to your wife and she assures you you’ve done the right thing, but at least you live to fight another day; 2). Be the smaller man and bitch-slap that guy right back with scathing e-mail of your own – the gratification will be immediate but so will your likely termination; 3). Appear to be the bigger man who takes the high road while in fact chopping that fucker’s legs right out from under him with the most subtle, passive-aggressive response possible – the gratification will be immediate and with any luck, it’ll grow exponentially with time.

You can imagine which option I took.

When that douche-lick pushed the send button on his e-mail he had no idea how big of a mistake he was making. By coming at me with a scathing, sarcastic e-mail like that he was walking squarely into the lion’s den of passive aggressive sarcasm. I’m like a ninja assassin of passive aggression; I’m like a roadside IED of passive aggression on the route from Baghdad to Fallujah; I’m like the silent but deadly fart of passive aggression that you can taste in the back of your throat before you’ve had a chance to plug your nostrils.  

So I took my time to make sure I got it right, and sent that shitface architect the following response, copying everyone on the e-mail:

Greg,

Let me apologize for Gary’s and my absence from the meeting this afternoon; there was a conflict with another project meeting and with recent staff reductions we’ve all been asked to pull double duty on several projects, as I’m sure you’re familiar. No excuses though, I should have contacted you before the meeting to let you know our status.

Kim Stewart who sat in on the meeting in our place is working with Gary on the electrical design/drawings and I’ve already got a download from her on the information that was covered in the meeting in addition to the conversation you and I had on the phone. I’ll also be contacting the structural engineer directly to discuss unit locations with him and will report any relevant information back to you.

Your sarcasm is noted and taken in stride and I can assure you we will have 35% engineering documents PDF’d and ready to go Friday afternoon.

Regards,

John

BOOM! Did you see that? Did you see what I did there? First of all I apologized right off the bat, immediately disarming his earlier e-mail and establishing myself as the bigger man. Then I snuck in an apparently innocuous excuse that was in fact an atom bomb of passive aggression – I told him we couldn’t make it to the meeting because of all the recent layoffs! No I didn’t! Oh, yes I did! I actually blamed our absence on all the recent firings! How bad does that asshole feel now that he chastised us while we’re still reeling from the layoff of a bunch of our coworkers? That would be deplorably insensitive of me if it weren’t in fact entirely true! Plus, I added in the subtlest uppercut to his nuts by personalizing it to him by saying he should be familiar with that type of situation. You know what? He is familiar with it! They’ve had shit-tons of layoffs in the Dallas office! BOOM! Thank you shitty economy for allowing me to make this guy feel like a complete dick! Then I backed off by again accepting fault for the situation, further dismantling any sort of hostility he could hope to harbor. After that I really pissed some gasoline on the flames by letting him know that the young female he incorrectly assumed was an administrative assistant because she was young and female was in fact an electrical designer. BOOM and BOOM! Oh man, can this get any better? Yes, yes it can because then I dealt the knockout blow to his soul by acknowledging his sarcasm, absorbing it like it’s not even there, and without even saying it suggesting that I can deliver a set of 35% engineering in a mere three days without even flinching. BOOM! Oh, I was so happy with myself.

After I sent that e-mail I was positively grinning from ear to ear. It would have been enough had it ended there, but luckily for me, and oh so unluckily for that poor, poor shit-stain of an architect in Dallas, it didn’t end there at all… 

Wish You Were Here

Posted by John

Bad news – we had another round of layoffs at work last week and the New Kid was let go. Believe me when I say I have no intention of insensitively making light of this situation; as much as I’ve used the kid as fodder for the blog he truly has been a good friend and great to have around so I’m terribly sorry this happened. I wish him the best and really wish this never had to occur.

The whole event is upsetting for a number of reason, but not least of all because he was my only lunch buddy. Of course I’m not trying to make this about me, rather I’m just pointing out how fragile work friendships can be, especially within the current state of the economy. I had some stupid lady stop by my desk today and be all sympathetic like, “Ahh, how are you doing?” I wanted to be like, “Fuck off, don’t pity me! It’s not like my dog died; I just don’t have anyone to walk with me to Subway now. Why don’t you ask him how he’s doing; he’s the one that was let go.”

So instead of wallowing in misery for his or my sake, I’d like to take a moment to reflect back on some of the New Kid’s finest moments during his time of employment – as tastefully as I can of course:

-The time when the New Kid went to the bathroom and forgot to lock his computer so I sent an e-mail from him to the Old Guy in the office complementing his shirt and asking where he got it then witnessing the beautiful awkwardness unfold as the Old Guy told the New Kid where the shirt came from and the New Kid had no idea what in the hell he was talking about.

-The time I manufactured an e-mail from the New Kid to the Boss asking to be transferred to a different division. I could barely keep from shitting myself watching the New Kid try to scheme a way to get onto the Boss’ computer and delete the e-mail before he read it, even though the e-mail didn’t actually exist.

-The Ruffles Smokehouse BBQ Chips with Ridges at the Office Thanksgiving Potluck incident.

-The store-bought French quiche at the Italian-themed Office Christmas Potluck incident.

-The Mission: Impossible I Dirty Santa Gift Exchange debacle. And perhaps just as humorous was his confusion, even weeks later, about why that wasn’t a good Dirty Santa gift. Uh, because it’s a shitty gift for any dirty holiday mascot gift exchange, dude.

-Introducing a liter of liquor to the chocolate fondue during the 12 Days of Gluttony, unbeknownst to an office full of sober Southern Baptists and recovering alcoholics. Oh, it’s so good when it hits your lips…

-The time our boss had to retrieve him from the bathroom stall because he was late for a meeting. I wasn’t there for it but I’ve played that conversation out in my head every day since it happened:

New Kid: Oh my god, my colon is about to explode! I didn’t think I was going to make it in here. I didn’t even get any paper down on the seat, for Christ’s sake…”

Boss: “New Kid! New Kid!... You in here?”

New Kid: Fuck! “Uhh… yeah…”

Boss: “You’re late for our meeting!”

New Kid: Ahh, shit! “Uhh… okay. I’m just about done…” What the hell am I supposed to do now?!? Come on, push! Breathe and push!

Boss: “Hurry up, I’ve got things to do!”

New Kid: Dear God, if I push any harder my eyeballs are going to explode out of my fucking head!

I’m not sure if the next 45 minutes in that meeting were more hilarious or just horribly awkward as I watched the New Kid’s face change from pain, to fear, to shear terror. I’m not sure what happened in that stall after the meeting finally adjourned, but I didn’t use the office restroom for a month after that.

-His horrible rust-colored-workout-fleece Office Sweater that he wore every single day in the office.

-His $80 lizard-skin belt with monogrammed belt buckle.

-Bringing a bowl of Cheerios to a department meeting then slurping the milk up when he was done. Hmm, I wonder what the toy in the bottom of the box is going to be?

-Following that up a few days later with a piece of toast dripping with peanut butter. Mmm, I wuv pea’ut buh-er soo muh!

-His Louis Vuitton George Costanza wallet. Seriously, this thing was a fat as a triple-decker deli sandwich. I almost lost it the day I found out the reason it was so fat, and incidentally the reason he had to replace his credit card every two months, was because he actually carried change inside the wallet. I shit you not. There was like $7 in nickels, dimes, and quarters inside the goddamn wallet.

-The time we both skipped the Office Baby Shower recently and then snubbed both Administrative Assistant’s and the pregnant lady’s offers to help ourselves to leftover baby shower food only to be caught by all three of them as we returned to the office a few minutes later with take out we’d gotten down the street. Holy shit, do you want to talk about a horribly awkward encounter? Try stepping off the elevator with bags of food in your hand as three people are wheeling a cart full of leftover food that is going to the dumpster after you denied offers to consume said food not once, not twice, but thrice… and really four times actually because apparently the baby-to-be was done eating too.

-The time the New Kid’s buddies were in town for the weekend and they went out to a bar where they ran into the Hot Marketing Girl from the office. Except the Hot Marketing Girl had no idea who the New Kid was and the New Kid, as wasted as he was, made the catastrophic mistake of telling his buddy, as wasted as he was, that the hot girl across the bar was the Hot Marketing Girl. So Wasted Buddy went up to Hot Marketing Girl and was like, “Hey, you work at XYZ Firm, don’t you?”

Hot Marketing Girl: “Uhh, yeah. Do I know you?”

Wasted Buddy: “I’m New Kid. I work in the Plumbing Department.”

Hot Marketing Girl: “Oh, no kidding. I can’t believe I’ve never seen you there before!”

Wasted Buddy: “Yeah, that’s crazy. I can’t believe you haven’t seen me before either…”

Small talk ensued as Wasted Buddy is quite charming when he’s wasted.

HMG: “So where do you live?”

WB: “In the Sunset Apartment Complex over near Midtown.”

HMG: “Oh my God! That’s where I live!”

WB: “No shit! That’s crazy.”

HMG: “What building do you live in?”

WB: “Building B.”

HMG: “Oh! My! God! I live in Building B! I can’t believe I’ve never seen you before…”

And queue horribly awkward train-wreck scenario for New Kid and Hot Marketing Girl. Fortunately for the New Kid this all occurred unbeknownst to him and he was only made aware of it after the fact. Unfortunately for the New Kid, he just happened to share the shuttle into work with Hot Marketing Girl, who also happens to be his neighbor, the very next fucking Monday! He said he could actually see the wheels turning in her head as she looked at him and recalled seeing him out a few nights before and then coming to the realization that New Kid was not in fact Wasted Buddy and Wasted Buddy was not in fact New Kid. Suffice it to say, that’s the last time he ever spoke to Hot Marketing Girl, even though he never actually spoke to her.

-The time he wore this shitty-ass, ratty-old Red Stripe beer t-shirt to work on casual Friday that looked like something I wouldn’t even use to polish my ass, let alone actually wear to work. The Boss noticed right away and pulled him aside to say that per company policy we were required to still wear collared shirts on casual Fridays. The New Kid was embarrassed and ashamed for his poor outfit choice that day, until he emerged from the Boss’ office to see 6 other people wearing t-shirts, two people wearing ball caps, one pair of flip-flops, and one pair of goddamn house slippers. It would seem that the Boss just didn’t care for Red Stripe. So in a brilliant bit of spiteful irony, the New Kid showed up to the office last Friday to clean out his desk wearing none other than the shitty-ass, ratty-old Red Stripe beer t-shirt. Touche, New Kid… touché.

--

I really will miss the kid and truly do feel terrible that he’s been let go. I wish him the best and hope he can become a New Kid somewhere else very soon. If you would please, in memory of the New Kid and all that he meant to me, pour out a little milk from your cereal bowl at your next department meeting. 

Survivor: Zombies

Posted by John

The wife and I watched the recently-released-to-dvd movie Zombieland the other night and both quite enjoyed it. It followed in the same vein as Shaun of Dead in the newly successful arena of zombie spoof flick – plenty of camp, lots of gore, and an actual script that went behind just brain eating undead horror. Plus, Jesse Eisenberg turns in the performance of a lifetime by portraying if not the only, certainly the best onscreen character with IBS.

The premise of the film is pretty simple – some sort of ambiguous mad-cow-like disease turned one human into a zombie who then in turn spread the zombiness to just about everyone else on the planet in a matter of months. Now there are only a few people left trying to survive and hold on to their humanity. The main character, Columbus (named for his place of origin, Columbus, Ohio), has survived thus far by keeping a list of rules to avoid zombies that he holds sacred and unbreakable, that include among others:

1.     Cardio: You have to be able to outrun the undead.

2.     Limber Up: How embarrassing would it be to succumb to a zombie because of a pulled hamstring.

3.     Double Tap: When it comes to killing zombies, don’t be stingy on the bullets. Always shoot twice to make sure you’ve done the job.

4.     Be Careful of Bathrooms: zombies are mindless, not dumb; they’ll get you at your most vulnerable point.

5.     Don’t Be a Hero: How can you save humanity if you’re a zombie? Look out for number one first, just like the airplane safety warning – affix the oxygen mask to your face before assisting anyone else.

The movie doesn’t elaborate on all his rules of survival so it got me wondering what they might be and also got me thinking seriously about how I will survive when the inevitable zombie apocalypse occurs. But first, it’s necessary to separate zombie myth from fact.

The concept of a zombie first came about in Afro-Caribbean Voodoo lore as the idea of a person who is brought back from the dead and being controlled by a powerful sorcerer, but it wasn’t until the success of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968 that zombies really came to the forefront of popular culture and took on the foundation of what we now consider to be a zombie. No doubt popular culture has shaped the zombie over time through various movies, books, and comics like Romero’s Dead series, the 28 Days/Weeks series, I Am Legend, and the games-turned-movies Resident Evil series. While each director, author, and artist takes their own liberties with zombies, there are a few common themes:

-The Cause: Be it witchcraft, a virus, a biological weapon, or an alien bug, something either raises the dead or turns the living into the living dead.

-The Effect: once you go zombie you don’t go back. There is no cure, only the insatiable desire to consume human flesh, and in some cases, a particular affinity for brains.

-The Spread: A bite, blood transfer, or saliva; it requires contact with another zombie. To date I’m not aware of any zombie outbreak that has gone airborne.

-The Outbreak: It could be a few dozen, a few thousand, or the world’s entire population. The point is, it’s nearly impossible to contain once it starts.

-Mobility: The undead have definitely become more mobile as time has passed but they still remain stiff and awkward and easily outmaneuvered, except for the fact that they are apparently as silent as fucking ninjas and can sneak up on you wherever you are.

-The Solution: It’s hard to do, but you can kill zombies. Guns, bombs, bats, machetes; use them all and use them liberally.

So with that out of the way, I’d like to offer up a few of my own suggestions for surviving a zombie outbreak (In the interest of full disclosure, American author Max Brooks wrote the Zombie Survival Guide in 2003 which I have not read though plan to sooner than later. While some of my ideas may copy his, it is purely unintentional):

Choose Your Vehicle Wisely: I understand when you’re on the run from the undead there is a lot of security in a massive SUV with a ton of hauling capacity and more importantly, plowing capacity, especially if you prefer to kill your zombies without getting out of your car, and certainly this seems to be the norm for the protagonists in movies like Zombieland and I Am Legend. But let me just throw this at you – when you’re running from brain eaters while criss-crossing the country in search of the last vestige of humanity, wouldn’t you want to be getting 50 miles to the gallon instead of 15? The last thing you want is to get nabbed by a zombie while filling up at the petrol station, right? Doesn’t it just make sense to drive a hybrid then? [“Yeah, but it’s going to be really expensive when you have to replace one of those hybrid batteries.” Perhaps. But it will also be really expensive for you to replace your SUV when it rolls over a dozen times after hitting a pothole]. Plus, it’s one thing if you’re driving a huge carbon spewing SUV when everyone else is doing it because there’s safety in numbers, but when you’re the last person on earth, wouldn’t it be a bit ironic to be the one and only person ruining the eco system? How would you explain that to your future generations once you’ve staved off the zombies and repopulated the earth? “Yes, I realize I am solely responsible for repopulating the planet with all of you; the same planet I am also solely responsible for destroying because I drove that Chevy Suburban for all those years while I was fighting off the zombies, but it’s just that I really enjoyed the head room in that thing. Plus, I really feel a lot safer when I’m sitting up high on the road…”

Migrate to the South: When the man-made apocalypse inevitably happens due to global food, water or petrol shortages, a complete financial meltdown, the rapid dissemination of some sort of plague, or Barak Obama’s second term in office, I for one will be moving the fuck out of the South. Why? My neighbor owns more than 50 weapons including handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, and a 12’ long African hunting spear for some goddamn reason, and he’s always looking for an excuse to use them. I’m already worried about the outfall of shrapnel an stray bullets when a mouse unwittingly invades his home in the middle of the night sometime, so I’m positively terrified of what will happen when the apocalypse actually does occur. That’s why you’re going to see me in Canada where I need only my wits to survive, not a bulletproof vest. On the other hand, when the zombie apocalypse happens you better believe I’m going to hide in my attic until my neighbor becomes undead because, let’s face it, when it comes to avoiding the zombies these southerner rednecks don’t stand a chance; I mean, they’re practically the same thing, all moving real slow, mumbling nonsensical shit you can’t understand; a southerner can’t differentiate a zombie from another southerner. So when my neighbor eventually succumbs to the brain eaters I’m going to sneak up on him, knock his head off with my baseball bat, then raid his arsenal of weapons and ammo and then you better believe I’m going to stay in the one part of the world where there are more guns per capita than teeth. Remember Rule #3 above? Double tap - you can’t have too much ammo when it comes to fighting zombies.

Update Your Facebook Status: In the land of the living there is nothing more pointless than Facebook. But in the land of the living dead, Facebook could very well save your life. When the zombie outbreak occurs I for one will be signing up for Facebook immediately, friending a whole bunch of people, and then setting my status to “zombie”. That way, any zombies checking out their Facebook pages will be like, “Oh, someone already got to him; no point in bothering him now.” I’ll also get an iPhone and download the zombie app straight away so I can track their migration.

Go Vegan: This isn’t really a rule for survival but more just a suggestion for maintaining your sanity during an outbreak – have you ever been to like the Golden Corral and seen a guy eating a bacon-wrapped steak chili dog or something and thought to yourself, “wow, I am so disgusted I don’t think I’ll eat meat for a week”? Well imagine if that guy was a zombie and it was actually a spleen-wrapped brain chili dog. How gross would that be? It would be tofu and rice for me from there on out.

Find the Weakest Link: When you do come across some living humans among the zombies, do a quick analysis to figure out who is the strongest and who is the weakest among them. Then stay very, very close to the weakest of them. When the zombies eventually find you you’re really going to want a one or two person buffer; people you can easily outrun that will occupy the zombies’ time while you’re making your escape.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them: No, I’m not talking about giving up here. I’m talking about learning the one lesson Michael Jackson left behind that we can all learn from – no, not the one about not letting your kids sleep over at a suspected pedophile’s house; the lesson where he teaches us how to dance like a zombie in Thriller. Clearly the only thing zombies like more than eating flesh is dancing so if you can keep them cutting a rug, they won’t be gnawing on your frontal lobe.

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Again, I hope this was helpful and I hope you’re now thinking about your own survival when the zombie outbreak occurs. Just remember, when the zombies do come, if you happen to see me and I happen to be hanging out around you, you’re definitely the weakest link.