Rocket Powered Steam Roller

My work environment right now is fairly toxic. But only to me, and a select few who actually realize that this place tends to be a bit on the ridiculous side.

This morning when people started arriving I was explained something I already knew for at least twenty minutes despite my polite interruptions of, “Yes, I happen to have found this out yesterday”.

Yesterday when I arrived back from holidays I had about 40 emails, about 2 of which actually had something to do with me, and one of those was from my mother.

The bigger, and more ridiculous part of this work environment is that everything and I mean EVERYTHING is apparently URGENT. Everyone power walks their way around this place as though it is going to explode with wasps if they walk at a normal rate. This part doesn’t bother me because I am a naturally fast walked and this way at least people move. The part that bothers me is the people who are rushing around and then try to explain everything to you using three words and assume you will understand.

There is a woman here whom I call “The Leprechaun”. She looks exactly as a leprechaun lady should look and I swear on Freddie Mercury one day she came in wearing all green. I almost cried in happiness. She is the absolute bane of my existence here. She chases everyone around to the point of people (by people I mean me) actually physically hiding from her. It is pretty easy because she stomps around really fast and really loud so she doesn’t actually see her surroundings.

Anyways, every single thing the Leprechaun does is 100% urgent. As in should have been done before she asked or even before she knew about the project. Usually, this is because she was given the stuff two weeks prior but she put it into the terrifying cavern of her desk and it has only just resurfaced through an intensive search and rescue procedure. None the less, the Leprechaun doesn’t really ever realize that anything other then what she is doing is important. She is guilty of the lack of explanation when she asks for something, and is even worse because she for some reason refuses to email so once she babbles off her string of incoherent gibberish and hangs up you have no idea what the answer to your simple question was.

Other times she marches up to, passes you a folder that is three inches thick, rambles off some irrelevant words such as “Landscape, dinosaur, turtle babies!” and runs away leaving you to stare blankly at this jumbo folder of nothing and waiting for the inevitable phone call where she tries to explain by saying “Ashuallllllyy (she has a really thick French accent and she says this word a lot and every time I lose another piece of my sanity) just print, jive, clog, turnip.” And you hang up and sigh dramatically as you attempt to decipher the magical cryptic language that is high level management penmanship.

That is a lot of whining about the Leprechaun, but it’s been two and a half years of this crazy person. And it’s just getting worse. Maybe because there is some super deadline coming up, so everyone is running around as if an evil elephant was driving a rocket powered steam roller at them but I am just about sick of it.

In a month I will be leaving. Normally I am not necessarily sad about leaving but at least concerned as to where I will work, today I could not care less where I will be working in a month but I cannot wait until I am free from the talons of the Leprechaun and her gang of evil minions.

PS: Yes I know, “Making fun of people is mean”, She is mostly nice and I am mostly nice to her except when I cannot control my “your being an idiot” face and that is beyond my capacity when she tests my limits so please don’t hate me. You know you have one at your work too... everyone does.

Rocket Powered Steam Roller

My work environment right now is fairly toxic. But only to me, and a select few who actually realize that this place tends to be a bit on the ridiculous side.

This morning when people started arriving I was explained something I already knew for at least twenty minutes despite my polite interruptions of, “Yes, I happen to have found this out yesterday”.

Yesterday when I arrived back from holidays I had about 40 emails, about 2 of which actually had something to do with me, and one of those was from my mother.

The bigger, and more ridiculous part of this work environment is that everything and I mean EVERYTHING is apparently URGENT. Everyone power walks their way around this place as though it is going to explode with wasps if they walk at a normal rate. This part doesn’t bother me because I am a naturally fast walked and this way at least people move. The part that bothers me is the people who are rushing around and then try to explain everything to you using three words and assume you will understand.

There is a woman here whom I call “The Leprechaun”. She looks exactly as a leprechaun lady should look and I swear on Freddie Mercury one day she came in wearing all green. I almost cried in happiness. She is the absolute bane of my existence here. She chases everyone around to the point of people (by people I mean me) actually physically hiding from her. It is pretty easy because she stomps around really fast and really loud so she doesn’t actually see her surroundings.

Anyways, every single thing the Leprechaun does is 100% urgent. As in should have been done before she asked or even before she knew about the project. Usually, this is because she was given the stuff two weeks prior but she put it into the terrifying cavern of her desk and it has only just resurfaced through an intensive search and rescue procedure. None the less, the Leprechaun doesn’t really ever realize that anything other then what she is doing is important. She is guilty of the lack of explanation when she asks for something, and is even worse because she for some reason refuses to email so once she babbles off her string of incoherent gibberish and hangs up you have no idea what the answer to your simple question was.

Other times she marches up to, passes you a folder that is three inches thick, rambles off some irrelevant words such as “Landscape, dinosaur, turtle babies!” and runs away leaving you to stare blankly at this jumbo folder of nothing and waiting for the inevitable phone call where she tries to explain by saying “Ashuallllllyy (she has a really thick French accent and she says this word a lot and every time I lose another piece of my sanity) just print, jive, clog, turnip.” And you hang up and sigh dramatically as you attempt to decipher the magical cryptic language that is high level management penmanship.

That is a lot of whining about the Leprechaun, but it’s been two and a half years of this crazy person. And it’s just getting worse. Maybe because there is some super deadline coming up, so everyone is running around as if an evil elephant was driving a rocket powered steam roller at them but I am just about sick of it.

In a month I will be leaving. Normally I am not necessarily sad about leaving but at least concerned as to where I will work, today I could not care less where I will be working in a month but I cannot wait until I am free from the talons of the Leprechaun and her gang of evil minions.

PS: Yes I know, “Making fun of people is mean”, She is mostly nice and I am mostly nice to her except when I cannot control my “your being an idiot” face and that is beyond my capacity when she tests my limits so please don’t hate me. You know you have one at your work too... everyone does.

Why I need Crayons at Work

I firmly believe my productivity at work would skyrocket should I be provided with the appropriate tools to express my creativity should the mood strike. The problem with my job is everything follows a template, is formatted and quality controlled to the point of the size of the space between paragraphs is adjusted if it is off my 0.05 millimetres.

If this workplace allowed me to establish “creativity time” I truly believe it would not only increase productivity, but the morale as well.

This is the most grey and boring office building imaginable. People here are afraid to display any sort of personality whether it be in their ill-fitting suits or their lack of personal pictures. The most a person has in their office is one small picture of their children (on average there are likely four or five who have more).

In my office I have the most excellent ever-growing collage possible in a boring grey cubicle. I may not have any personal pictures up but I do have a picture of a baby elephant playing soccer, a bulldog in a tutu and a small article about dinosaur farts. Beat that class pictures of your children. Every time someone notices my bizarre display they always smile and say “Oh that’s nice...” in that creepy, slow, plotting way. I am waiting for the day that I am fired for being too colourful.

So, if this workplace could just see the bigger picture for a minute they would realize that personality equals productivity. If you let me wear the clothes I am comfortable in, and decorate my office in ways I want (without the constant fear of judgement) I will be happier, and when I am happier, I work better.

So back to the idea of creativity time. Should my work give me like... say 20 minutes a day to doodle, colour, sketch whatever, even though I am not very talented at any of those things it might help me not want to explode the rest of the day. And the less I want to explode, the happier I am, the happier I am, the more work will get done. This is just logic people, clear and simple. If you give me crayons, that clearly leads to me being a better human-stapler. I can almost promise.

The problem with this is that with my type of attention span, the honest to goodness real truth is that I would likely get caught colouring at all hours of the day which is why I cannot have crayons at work right now. I should probably just go get a job at the Crayola factory, I am sure they wouldn’t be as unfair about the no-colouring-during-work-hours rule. It would just be hypocritical on their part. Or, my work should just understand that my mind cannot be harness for their menial tasks and that I am just meant to draw pictures of a T-Rex driving a spaceship.

I spelled Extinct wrong? Damn the lack of spell check on Post-it Art! I would fix it but instead I will allow the Internet to laugh of my inadequacies. There are many so brace yourself.

Why I need Crayons at Work

I firmly believe my productivity at work would skyrocket should I be provided with the appropriate tools to express my creativity should the mood strike. The problem with my job is everything follows a template, is formatted and quality controlled to the point of the size of the space between paragraphs is adjusted if it is off my 0.05 millimetres.

If this workplace allowed me to establish “creativity time” I truly believe it would not only increase productivity, but the morale as well.

This is the most grey and boring office building imaginable. People here are afraid to display any sort of personality whether it be in their ill-fitting suits or their lack of personal pictures. The most a person has in their office is one small picture of their children (on average there are likely four or five who have more).

In my office I have the most excellent ever-growing collage possible in a boring grey cubicle. I may not have any personal pictures up but I do have a picture of a baby elephant playing soccer, a bulldog in a tutu and a small article about dinosaur farts. Beat that class pictures of your children. Every time someone notices my bizarre display they always smile and say “Oh that’s nice...” in that creepy, slow, plotting way. I am waiting for the day that I am fired for being too colourful.

So, if this workplace could just see the bigger picture for a minute they would realize that personality equals productivity. If you let me wear the clothes I am comfortable in, and decorate my office in ways I want (without the constant fear of judgement) I will be happier, and when I am happier, I work better.

So back to the idea of creativity time. Should my work give me like... say 20 minutes a day to doodle, colour, sketch whatever, even though I am not very talented at any of those things it might help me not want to explode the rest of the day. And the less I want to explode, the happier I am, the happier I am, the more work will get done. This is just logic people, clear and simple. If you give me crayons, that clearly leads to me being a better human-stapler. I can almost promise.

The problem with this is that with my type of attention span, the honest to goodness real truth is that I would likely get caught colouring at all hours of the day which is why I cannot have crayons at work right now. I should probably just go get a job at the Crayola factory, I am sure they wouldn’t be as unfair about the no-colouring-during-work-hours rule. It would just be hypocritical on their part. Or, my work should just understand that my mind cannot be harness for their menial tasks and that I am just meant to draw pictures of a T-Rex driving a spaceship.

I spelled Extinct wrong? Damn the lack of spell check on Post-it Art! I would fix it but instead I will allow the Internet to laugh of my inadequacies. There are many so brace yourself.