Like: Gen-u-ine Police.

This may sound inanely stupid, but I’ve actually rediscovered a sense of respect for police officers.

Many people have grown up with that sense of respect, but a good deal more fall into juvenile sentiment I Illustrated in the post below. It’s the typical suburban thing where they don’t see the actual service that Police provide the community. Kids just see annoying old jerks who are trying stop them from having fun. These kids also don’t see that they’re pretty lame… Of course, I was once one of those kids.

The other thing is we’ve lost what it truly means to be a police officer in the myriad of bullshit cop shows where you have to be psychic, or a genius, or a complete antagonistic retard, or David Caruso. They are all fake identities that has no bearing on real life and give no insight into what it means to be a good police officer. And people look at real gen-u-ine police and see them as not measuring up.

Being a true police officer, is a dignified position if there ever was one. It’s a genuine public service and one that suburban America has completely forgotten about.

Of course, the distractions for police officers are well-documented: the shift of focus from service to stat busting, bullshit drug rips, career-first thinking, racism, etc (and that’s what they are, distractions from doing the job right). The corruption of urban police forces is indeed a reality, but one that is vastly over-represented and over-suspected within the community. A suspicion that often can overshadow and even put limits on the effectiveness of said Police. (quick note, statistically/IA, the best police officers are African-American).

But to all the Gen-u-ine POlice who protect and serve and do their jobs to the best of their abilities, I thank ya kindly.

Don’t Like: How Everyone Assumes I’m the Assistant For Any of the 3 Offices Right Near Me

I’m not their assistant.

I just sit near them and only one of them is even in my department.

It’s a simple mistake and I’m more than happy to help you anyway I can with anything simple. I’d be happy to drop them word of anything when I see them or even even deliver something you’re dropping. But after I explain to you I’m not said person’s assistant can you please not ask me to do assistant type jobs for them? No I don’t have access to their calendars. No I can’t go through their files and get you something they need. No I have no idea what the heck you’re asking me about.

Thank you,

Signed,

Me.

Don’t Like: Being Too Busy To Blog

Crazy busy.

Don’t Mind (New Category!): Going #2 At Work

“Love means sneaking down to the Burger King below his building to use the toilet!” - Jane Krakowski on last night’s 30 Rock.

I’m at the age in my life were I’m starting to care less and less about social fears. And let’s be honest, the issue of pooping at work doesn’t deal with social modesty, it’s social fear. Everybody poops so the saying goes and yet there’s still this ridiculous social fear of pooping within a 20 mile radius of someone you know. I know a litany of people who would rather pass a stone then poop with a known person in the vicinity. For some reason, this is mistaken for social modesty; like the idea to do anything but behave like this is gross and uncouth. Chances are someone reading this who knows me is even a little uncomfortable/completely grossed out by this post.

Yes, pooping is gross. It’s also occasionally funny in movies depending on level of inanity. Moreso, everybody does it and the idea that I should be shamed for really having to go to the bathroom kinda sucks. Screw that. I don’t worry about it. I go. I do my business. I don’t advertise. But I refuse to walk back the other way so people don’t think I pooped. Tons of people do that and I refuse. It’s like 4X’s the distance.

Bookstore Guy: “Well there’s Everybody Poops, the less popular Nobody Poops But You” Peter: “Well, we’re Catholic” Bookstore Guy: “Oh well, you want You’re a Naughty Child and that’s Concentrated Evil Coming Out The Back of You” - Family Guy

… I was raised Catholic.

Like: The Sandwich Guy On The Left (though the guy on the right is good too)

Because I can rarely get away from my desk, I often have to go to the sandwich place downstairs, get something and come back up to work. Luckily, the guys who make the sandwiches are pretty good. I don’t know their names, but there’s a guy on the right always calls me “my friend” (I thought I was special until I realized he said that to everyone) and the guy on the left who looks like a latino Josh Beckett. And this guy on the right makes a damn fine sandwich. His best quality is definitely generosity, there’s always lots of quantities to his ingredients. He also takes good care and pays attention to the little things like symmetry and design. I order about 4 different sandwiches and he’s memorized them all. I just say the type of bread and he’s off to the races. With that it’s fun to see the schmucks who barely know how to order a sandwich go up and struggle with the basic concept of what they want to eat. He never chastises them or anything, but he goes through an awkward slow motion and stutter due to said idiot’s poor ordering.  Occasionally he will let out a “vamanos, vamanos, amigo!”. We have a mild rapport going, though it’s not be as personal as my relationship with my security guard Andre. He seems to have that kind of relationship with the more attractive female members of his patronage.

He also seems to like the non-tomato BLTAs as much as I do (that’s a BLT w/ avocado to you east coasters).

And hey, you know the old addage, “don’t shit where you eat!” … that came out of nowhere but it’s supposed to be in reference to being nice and tipping the people who prepare your food and not being a dick.

Don’t Like: Office Worker Laziness

Ferris was right… “Leisure Rules”

… I’m tired.

Don’t Like: Coming Back To Work After A Vacation

Going through hundreds of emails. Telling the same story of your vacation to every co-worker separately. Trying to catch up on work. Feeling sleepy… And best of all, the story about how that water cooler you used all the time got infested with cockroaches.

Sweet.

Don’t Like: That I Didn’t Set My Alarm Last Night and Still Woke Up At The EXACT Same Time, Thus Symbolizing the Monotony of My Life

Nuff Said.

Don’t Like: Defective Coffee Lids

This morning I actually bought a cup of starbucks coffee. This is egregious on several levels. 1) We have free coffee here at work 2) I hate starbucks coffee, it tastes like burnt ass 3) I really just went in to get a croissant cause I was hungry but ended up getting a giant chocolate croissant and “grande” (wtf? that’s medium) cup of coffee 4) I don’t even really like drinking coffee that much and 5) most importantly, there was a defective lid.

Now if Jackie Childs was asking me I would reiterate that I did not put the lid on, they put the lid on. About halfway walking through the courtyard back to my building. I felt a strange sting on my hands only to realize two sides of the cup were gleaking out the sides and croissant bag was wet. Not having any noticeable aid in this matter, I kept walking so I could hurry to the elevator and get to the kitchen on my floor. All the way, burning my hand. The elevator was awkward in that I was trying to shield my obviously leaking coffee. I tried to direct most of it onto the bag, but there were clearly visible problems to these people. So I ran to the kitchen. Found the ONE SPARE paper towel square (as in singular) that was left over and attempted to clean it. Now w/ a counter I felt I could repair the lid which was placed incorrectly.

I did so and kept walking to my desk only to realize the familiar burning sensation had returned. Panicking, I ran to my desk, spilled more, cleaned more, and through that freaking lid in the trash where it deserved to be.

Fuck you defective coffee lid. Fuck you to hell.

Don’t Like: The Mutual Contempt and Destructive Relationship Between IT Workers and Office Executives.

There is a palpable dynamic in the modern workplace. It’s one I do not enjoy. IT Workers and Office Executives… they freakin’ hate each other. Sadly, I happen to think it is a marginally serious problem.

The dystopic relationship goes something like this: Office Worker (who gets paid a lot more) calls in IT Worker (paid a lot less) to fix problem which may or may not be easily fixable. IT Worker already has wayyyy too much on their plate and is forced into having to deal with situation based on 1) scale of emergency and 2) importance of the requester. So IT Worker comes up to fix (usually too late if it’s an emergency cause they had to deal with some other BS). They attempt to fix and they’re probably the wrong person to be helping anyway. If the problem is seriously complicated the Office Worker gets upset and doesn’t know why the IT Worker can’t just click some button and fix it. Then Hatred grows.

There’s a couple of factors involved in all this. Most Office Workers don’t understand dick about computers or programming and just how freaking hard it is. They often treat IT Workers as inferiors and interpret the tinkering nature with which computers are dealt with as a sign of their lack of intelligence. And that, my friends, is BS. IT Workers are declared lazy and stupid because one often doesn’t understand what they are doing.

Now, that being said, IT Workers (I’m trying to be both fair and accurate here) aren’t exactly the greatest programmers or technicians in the world. This isn’t meant to be a vicious shot, it’s just a reality, since most of the brightest of their people go into different fields and stay away from the IT World. With that, they deal with impatient assholes all day who want them to finish their project. This leads to bitterness and disaffectedness. Which means that many IT Workers who have been there for a while are beaten down, tired and sloppy. And thus the workers make assumptions. Worse, they regard the office workers as inferior idiots who don’t know anything.

So… two groups who have to work together… and they think the opposite groups are idiots. It’s a really, really shitty dynamic folks and all the disruption that results from it could be fixed if people just regarded one another with a little more respect. That’s all.