Contraband Coffee Mugs

Other offices have shutdown to cut back costs.  So there is a flood of items from old offices coming in.  We've gotten extra desks, file cabinets, computers, projectors, etc.  You name it we got it.  I was out sick a couple days when the good stuff came in and my intern did save anything for me.  Bastard is now taking out the garbage (cleaning my car). 

There is one item though that has been deemed contraband to have, coffee mugs.  Now why would coffee mugs with our own company logo be contraband?  The owner of the company can't stand the site of them.  If he sees you with one it will cause you to get an ass chewing.  That is why it is considered contraband.  There just coffee mugs right?

Well, one of the offices that shutdown used company money to get the coffee mugs.  They paid WAY too much for them.  I think the figure was something like $250 a mug?  There were some fraudulence going on.  I think one of the managers bought himself a personal golf cart shortly after the order was placed.  So it is a sore spot to everyone's boss. 

Our interns are setting up for the next LAN party in the small conference room with all our new non-contraband items. 

Cheers,

Acidity Test Results

Jimbo (Chief Intern) spent the better part of the Friday morning measuring urinal cakes.  I think the gas mask he was wearing made his work go slower.  But it was a requirement from the rule book.  So without further ado, here are the results:

Wayne:
 - original cake size: 7.8 oz
 - final cake size: 6.5 oz
 - total change: 1.3 oz
 - Strategy: Black Coffee!!!

Ben:
 - original cake size: 8 oz
 - final cake size: 7.1 oz
 - total change: 0.9 oz
 - Stategy: Mountain Dew (banking on the potency of yellow 5)

Shaun:
- original cake size: 7.6 oz
- final cake size: 4.0 oz
- total change: 3.6 oz
- Stategy: Flat out cheating and lots of Coke (it can clean an engine right?)
- Reason for Disqualification: Intern was caught rubbing the urinal cake against the urinal to wear down the exterior of the cake.

Roger:
 - original cake size: 7.9 oz
 - final cake size: 5.8 oz
 - total change: 2.1 oz
 - Strategy: Shear amount of coffee. 

Dave:
 - original cake size: 8.1 oz
 - final cake size: 7.6 oz
 - total change: 0.5 oz
 - Strategy: Lots of any fluid

Myself:
 - original cake size: 7.9 oz
 - final cake size: 6.9 oz
 - total change: 1 oz
 - Strategy: Coffee for breakfast, Dr. Pepper for lunch, Water from then on so I could sleep at night.

So Roger won easily.  I believe Roger drinks on average 15 cups of coffee on a regular basis. He picked it up for this event. I'm not sure exactly what he got it up to. But I think at the hieght of the competition we were going through a can of coffee a day. 

It reminds me of the joke, you can tell a real smoker by the number of lighters they go through in a day. 

Straight black coffee seems to be the victor.  Although I wish Shaun wouldn't have cheated.  He really messed up the scientific results.  I would have liked to have had a solid soda variable in the test.  I watered my urine down to much at night just so that I could sleep.  I need my eight hours.  And then another 10 at night. 

Prizes:

Roger took Jimbo as his personal intern.  Jim seems to be the only intern that can take constant ridicule.  For crying out loud he wore the Chiquita Banana costume to a video conference call!  I have to admit it was pretty hilarious.  Jimbo was hidden but not around the conference table as we had a video conference call with HQ.  A big dog from HQ was giving a presentation on benefit changes.  You could tell exactly when he could see Jim.  Props to the VP, he didn't even ask what the hell was going on.  He just put on his corporate smile and kept plugging away.

For second place, Wayne earned a razor.  Not as anything related to the contest.  He just has a discusting mustache that needs to go. 

Indoor Activities

I love the part on the movie StepBrothers where they build bunk beds.  "We have so much more room for activities."  Well, when it rains we need indoor activities.  Just next time it won't be indoor paintball.  That stuff does NOT come off the walls very easily.  The Interns had to repaint some hallways and a couple offices.  And it is not legal to hide in the ceiling tiles!  I don't care what Wayne or Jake say.  I didn't have some 6 foot 6 behemoth to use to climb into the rafters.  So it just isn't good sportsmanship that they should do that.

Apples are the Rubics Cube of our office

I'm not sure if you've seen the YouTube videos, but there is a technique you can use to crack an apple in half.  Most guys in the office have tried it.  Most guys have claimed they can do it.  Just no one has done it in front of me.  I think they are full of it.  Personally I think it is a practical joke that apple growers developed to boost sales.  I just made a mess on my first attempt.  I've got one more apple in my bag of two that I bought today.  I'll try again tomorrow.  I can't eat another apple right now.

Hiring!

The economy is in the crapper.  Industries that have been suffering continue to suffer.  Those that have been okay are now feeling the effects.  So what is my company doing hiring? 

[ Deep within a cave with torches attached to the wall for light.  Just picture darkness, bats, sounds of water dripping, and the sounds torches make when they are moved really quickly in a movie. ]

Boss: "We've got no way of making a profit this year.  Most of us were actually frightful of losing our jobs."

Wayne: "Were?  Were afraid of losing our jobs?"

Boss: "Yeppers.  But we figured out a way to keep everyone's job."

[grins all around]

Boss: "Actually there will be quite a bit more people around."

[confused looks all around]

Boss: "By an accounting and tax loop hole the more potential debt we assume the more we can rack up on credit.  The new government has given us the opportunity to take on up to... "

[ Boss puts on glasses and looks at notes on paper ]

Boss: "145 small business loans."

Roger: "So we can use loans to pay for things until things pickup?"

Boss: "That is the plan.  If we use up to 60 loans up are able to coast for 2 years.  If we use up to 120 loans we can expand and make ourselves appear to be more profitable to potential buyers."

Me: "Won't potential buyers look at the books and see we have outstanding debts that are unpayable?"

Boss: "Not if we get enough people that a major buyer can assume such a large debt without blinking.  So we have to become massive."

Me: "But what will all these people be doing?"

Boss: "We obviously don't have enough work for them to do.  We are covering everything already.  I need everyone here to make up fake work for new employees to do."

[ good thing we already do that for the interns ]

Movie of the Week: The Motorcycle Diaries

Fake Meeting sent to HR:
Where: Conference Room
When: 11:30 PM Friday
Topic:

• Changes in the BS reports
• Tracking Sheets
• Lessons learned from the management course Jerry/Dave just attended
• Updated utilities in company software

Real Meeting:

Where: Conference Room
When: 7:30 PM
Topic:

• Film: The Motorcycle Diaries

I'm not kidding they are actually BS Reports.  They stand for Building Strength.  It is a whole teamwork thing.  You would have thought that there would have been one person in management that would have caught it right?  I also hear that they are going to start a training regime called Foundation University.  What are those initials?  I want a t-shirt that says FU Instructor.  I think that would be awesome.

The whole purpose of this meeting is so that we can watch a good movie on an extremely nice projector with the high quality sound system we voted for in the office construction.  Oh, and we can expense the pizzas we buy.  Accounting will only catch us if they look at the time of the credit card reciept.

I don't know about you, but I consider this a team building exercise.

What does an HR person do?

Seriously?  What do HR people do 98% of the time when they don't have any "real" work.  As an HR person you stress at just a few times:

1. Just hired a new employee - what forms do they need to fill out?
2. It is end of the year - are all the tax forms sent to the accountant properly?
3. Just fired or had an employee leave voluntarilly - I have to do an exit interview.
4. Employee wants to know how many vacation/sick days they have used/have left - that took 5 minutes.  I'm going on break now.

Exit interviews.  Those are bridge burners waiting to happen.  You're leaving, what went wrong?

HR Lady: "Since you're leaving do you have any plans of working somewhere elese?"

Porshce: "Yep.  I got a job at XYZ company.  I got a sweet pay raise."

HR Lady: "So money was a factor in you leaving?"

Porsche: "Well money was one.  Bad management was another.  I never got anything interesting to do.  Oh.  And my boss was trying to sleep with me."

HRL: "Excuse me?"

Porsche: "Yeah.  Dave was always looking down my shirt.  He patted me on the ass a couple times.  He found every reason in the world to come into my office and talk to me; music, work, my boyfriend, living in Wisconsin, college,..."

HRL: "I find that hard to believe.  Why didn't you say anything during the sexual harrassment training?"

Porsche: "I liked the attention most times.  Plus Dave made it where other people had to do most of the work.  I could sit around on MySpace and play on iTunes.  But I'm really leaving because of the money."

HRL: "Do you want to file any complaints against Dave?  Should he be removed?"

Porsche: "Nah.  He's your problem now.  I don't want anything to do with it.  You have fun with it."

HRL: "... "

Geocached some items

I left some of my own items out while camping over the weekend. I appreciated the surprise I got while geocaching so I thought I should return the favor.

Out on a mountain bike trail I found some great places in the woods to leave some items. Ever heard of bear bangers? Yeah. Let's just say, don't pull on the rope that looks to be attached to the geocaching box.

Burritos. Now comes smoking. What next?

Shawn went full vegan for a good several weeks before he was finally busted.  You remember the trip to the hospital due to gas buildup?  Well Burrito Babe found out that he wasn't a vegan.  The guy did pretty good.  He cleaned out his house of all toxic protein and memorabilia.  Yes, there is such thing as beef memorabilia, at least when you are a bachelor and haven't taken out the trash with 200 old Whopper/Double Quarter Pount/ or White Kastle wrappers lining your kitchen.  But women are unpredictable. 

Burrito Babe showed up unnannounced two minutes after the delivery driver was making his 2 large extra meat and cheese drop off.  Unfortunately even Shawn isn't smooth enough to get through that one unscathed. 

So smoking is the latest thing.  I liked it better when he was in that cooking class and brought in cakes and pastries.  Or when he was in yoga and had yet another trip to the hospital.  (something about putting your foot behind your head and pulling his groin)  There is a hottie on another floor that smokes.  So in order to find reasons to be around her he recently picked up smoking. 

Now there are some sure fire ways to tell a new smoker. 

1.  Coughing.  Real smokers don't cough.  They actually re-inhale what they just exhaled to get more nicotine. 
2.  Holding a cigarette correctly.  Real smokers know how to hold a cigarette like they've been doing for years, because frankly they have.

Now the brand of cigarette you choose also plays a big factor as well.  It is safe to go with Camel or Marlboro.  But then you have to know the difference between which political stance you are taking when you choose hard pack or soft pack.  What does this say about you as a person?  Or better yet, in bed?

So, Shawn now rolls his own cigarettes in attempt to appear the most manly.  Plus it makes him look like he is smoking weed to the non-smokers.  And when a smoker asks about it knowing that it isn't pot, he can say something casually like, "Its got less of the bad stuff.  I just get the nicotine." 

Now the problem with trying to catch up with a girl on a different floor that smokes is that you have to take a LOT of smoke breaks.  Shawn is probably gonna get cancer trying to hook up with this girl.

Sleep Clinic - Part 2

Jake: "Okay, that's 20 offices.  20 patients.  20 beds.  We can't fit 20 beds in Jerry's office even if it is flipping huge.  We've go 20 old desktops / servers we can use for fake sleep monitors.  So our only problem is keeping all this junk and moving it everyday."

[brainstorming session at the pub]

We decided to create a series of pulley systems in the offices farthest away from Jerry's office.  So we shove all the beds into Jerry's office that we can and the remaining ones get lifted into the rafters above the ceiling tiles during the day while everyone is at work.  We build these decks that look like window washer platforms that hold beds and sleep monitoring devices.  You flip back the ceiling tiles, tug on some pulleys and the platform is safely hidden away. 

Initial contruction cost a bit, but we still had a little bit of money left over in our Research and Development division that I established last year for a kegger / LAN party, nearly forgot about that one.

Interns make up flyers and post some advertisements on Craigslist.  Out of the 57 responses we recieved back on Craigslist, we took the hotest, err, ...most promising 20.  I'm only concerned about one applicant that we still accepted, he has sleep panic disorder.  I think we'll give him some "herbal" tea.  I still have some Loritab left over from my wisdom teeth being removed. 

Jerry goes on his biking trip this Saturday and is gone Labor Day week and the following.  Sleep clinic starts Monday night.  $3k a pop @ 20 patients = $60k.  Let's see if we can make it go down without a hitch.