Executive Washroom, followup

So far, my investigation into the presence of a secret executive washroom has yielded no results. If there is one, however, the CEO does not use it. Earlier today he used the urinal next to mine as I kept my eyes straight ahead and tried to finish as fast as I could.

Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

My mom got me this little clock for my cube. The best part about it is how the face doubles as a reflective surface. I finally have my cube mirror. Now I know when my stealthy group member sneaks up on me in an attempt to catch me not hard at my craft. Game on, buddy.

I've also noticed my neighbor's screensaver. It's a quote from South Park, "Respect my authoritah!" which I found slightly odd, because he's a soft spoken middle aged Japanese dude. You find out the strangest things about people.

Engineers are a funny lot

I'm looking through the databases for our old product, the ADIX. The hardware database has the filename "ADIXHard". The software database has the filename "ADIXSoft". I think this is one of the main reasons we developed a new product, so we don't have any more penis jokes within the company.

Training Week, Day 5

I paid attention for a total of 45 minutes today. The rest of the time I spent daydreaming and playing Solitaire. And the best news? We're done at about 4PM. Remember those days in elementary school, when you got early release? That's exactly what today feels like.

Too bad it's raining. Here's to the weekend.

Training Week, Day 4

Our teacher likes to turn out the lights in the training classroom so he can use the projector. Never in my academic career have I been able to stay awake in a classroom when it's dark. This is no exception. It reminds me of Mrs. Dunham's chemistry class, when 2/3 of the people would be food coma'd after lunch. With more drooling.

I traded business cards with the people in our class. I have a feeling we were all thinking the same thing. "These cards are going to go in a stack so I can show people how many industry contacts I have. Also, I have 500 more of these, I need to start getting rid of mine."

Our office building isn't that big, it has maybe 80 employees. There are two restrooms that I know of, and I never see any of the bigwigs in the bathroom. Not that I'm keeping an eye out. It leads me to believe that either they have their own chamberpots, or that they have a secret executive washroom that other people don't know about. I mean, these five people have their own secretary, why not a private commode? I'll do some more digging on this. So far, I've found an unlabeled locked room. Interesting...

Training Week, Day 3

Yet another day of phantom traffic and no sun + fog. And another day of me wanting to take naps in the middle of my training session. At least I'm wearing a different shirt today. For the four weeks that I've been here, with the exception of Fridays and that one formal day, I've worn the same pair of khakis. Gross? I don't care. They haven't been washed or ironed in like, at least two years. Why? Because I'm an engineer, and I work with dudes in the office all day.

My mom won't cook with Teflon pans anymore because they supposedly cause cancer. Yet she has no problem packing my lunch in these "microwave-able" containers that deform with heat, and then more or less regain their original shape.

Speaking of cancer, half of my training class including my teacher are hardcore smokers. Everyone sprints outside as fast as they can when breaktime comes around. I, on the other hand, run to the bathroom or to my cube to check my email. At least we have our priorities straight.

Training Week, Day 2

I hate the days where I don't get to see the sun. Not to be confused with the days that I sleep till 5 PM because I'm too hungover to open my eyes.

I also hate the traffic jams that are seemingly resolved by the time I get to where everyone was stuck. If everyone is going to be wasting time sitting in traffic, someone needs to have died a horrible death. And they deserve it, for wasting our collective hours. Gosh I'm grumpy today.

At least Older Scott Caan and his buddy Lenny are fun to hang out with. They're prime examples of how you get physically older, but you stay the same age. Lenny showed us porn that he brought on his laptop. Then they started sharing it on the network.

Training Week, Day 1

What's better than getting paid to poop? Getting paid to get learn. The company is sending me to certification camp to learn how to use their systems. Kind of makes me wish my parents had done the same thing. Like, for each A they'd give me 1000 dollars, each B I get nothing, and everything else I owe them 1000 dollars. I think my GPA would be a lot higher than the C+ I ended up with.

There's a guy in the class that looks like a 50 year old version of Scott Caan, except he's old looking and his Just For Men dye job needs a bit of a touchup.

My thoughts exactly

I believe this image accurately sums up the way I feel about work.

Time warp

I love the feeling when you get to work at 9, sit through a meeting, do some desk work, next thing you know it's after lunch and only a couple of hours until the weekend. It feels like 45 minutes has gone by, instead of six hours. I love Fridays.

There is such thing as a free lunch

So on the way to the engineering department lunch, it was revealed that yes, the company was going to be picking up the tab, and yes, this place is rather expensive. The eating machine in me saw it as "go ahead and order whatever the hell you want." So I got the ribs, to a healthy tune of 21 dollars. Also, it's been a while since I've had good ribs. Much to my surprise, everyone else got a sandwich or something, leaving me looking like the young green employee that doesn't know any better. Thanks assholes. They were some awesome ribs though.

Halfway through his third stripper story, the CEO turns to the rest of the table and says, hey guys, take it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Get drunk, play some pool, come back whenever you want. After three hours of that, we all decided it was team building at it's finest. Hands down, best day of work ever.

It's too nice of a day to be inside.

Spring in Dallas comes about mid-February. Spring up north comes about mid-May. Either way, I'd rather be elsewhere. The good news is, today is "the Boss pays for lunch day." I hope. Otherwise it'd just be an asshole thing for him to invite us to this fancy restaurant and make us pay.

Some engineer walks around the office shuffling his feet and looking at the ground. I'm pretty sure it might be related to a self-esteem issue or something. Or he's might just be perpetuating the engineering image.

Something on my desk smells like industrial supplies. I'm not sure what it is, but I keep touching it and my hand smells like it too. I've narrowed it down to something on the left side of my desk, because it only affects my left hand. Today's assignment: sniff everything without getting caught. So far, I've eliminated my armrest, phone, notepad and pen. I suspect it might be the underside of my desk.

Life Goals

Jenn Sterger aka Hot FSU Chick is going to be in both Maxim and Playboy. I've already set aside my ten dollars. However, I must admit that I'm a little jealous of her. The whole "enjoying success while doing something you love" aspect, not the "show off what your parents paid McNamara/Troy to do" thing.

Which leads me to wonder, when am I going to get to that point in my life? What if everything I want for myself never happens? What if I'm lulled into complacency by this job? What if I never live in New York? What if I never get paid to do what I love doing? I've never been more scared in my life.

Only two months before my first day off!

We get 12 days of paid vacation a year. The next one coming up is Good Friday. Know what's so good about it? I get paid for staying home. I'll use this exact joke again two months from now.

I'm the unofficial champ of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon at my office. All those games with Mazz finally paid off.

It's days like these that I don't mind going in to work. I spent the whole day reading about phone systems and doing graphic design. Because other people are too lazy to do it. How's that for irony? My entire college career was spent doing nothing because I was too lazy to do it, and now I'm happy to get assignments thrown my way because other people are too lazy to do them.

Did you know Tuesdays are the worst day for traffic? Even worse than Mondays, when some asshole decides to drive up the divider of 635 and close a total of four lanes of traffic.

Click the mouse when you hear footsteps by your cube

It bothers me a lot that Jack Bauer can accomplish so much more in a day that I ever will. I'm getting really good at appearing to be busy while I have no new assignments handed to me. I guess that's the only bad thing about finishing your assignments ahead of schedule: there's a lot of downtime. I've spent it reading Wikipedia entries on Navy SEALs, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Tony Jaa, muay thai, krav maga and UFOs. Also I paid my Discover bill and signed up for ESPN Insider.

And I still have three hours to go. At least 24 is on tonight.

White Noise

I'm a little disgusted by all this ambient noise around me. Key tapping, mouse clicking, mouse wheel rolling, engineers coughing and groaning, I'm definitely bringing my iPod on Monday.

However, I am thankful that my office is west of my house. As in, I'm driving west in the morning and east in the evening. If I had to stare at the sun while I sit in traffic, I think I'd quit. Or buy a pair of polarized sunglasses, whichever is more financially feasible.

Things that I'll buy because I can now

So I don't get my paycheck till the 15th, but I think I've already spent most of it. Here's where the next one is going.

• XM Satellite radio
• get my 4Runner thoroughly cleaned and detailed.
• cube mirror
• a blazer
• personal trainer, so I can fit into my existing clothes
• rock climbing shoes
• a road bike + cool looking helmet
• CDs and DVDs....nahhhhhh. But I will subscribe to NetFlix
• Mavs playoff tickets
• internet poker and porn. If I have time.
  

Here, take my card

My business cards arrived today. There must be 500 of them in that box. I'm sure my mom would like to have one framed to go next to my diploma. I don't really know why I need business cards, other than to drop them in the fishbowls at cash registers to get a free lunch (my boss's idea). In fact, I think that's the only reason engineers order business cards. Because they sure as hell don't keep them in their wallet for girls to write their numbers on.

That being said, I feel more like a real employee now. My first business card that isn't from VistaPrint. Yay!

Edit: Today is lengthy system test day. Unfortunately for me, I have to sit at my desk while they run to monitor it. Fortunately for me, I stumbled across this cool website with all sorts of neat articles. Read the one about the parasite crustacean that becomes the tongue of the host fish.

Indian food is yummy

Food coma + working out last night for the first time since Thanksgiving = Me feeling like a zombie right now. I want to go take a nap in my car. Or hide under my desk. I'll probably end up napping on the toilet.

24 Hour Fitness has got to be one of the biggest scams in the world. They charged an 80 dollar signup fee, along with my first and last month's membership fee, and then charged me for 3 days more while I got up to the billing period, and on top of that, I can't even go work out every day. On the plus side, I feel healthier already just by having a gym membership card.

I got my permanent cube today, which means tomorrow I can bring in my Dilbert calendar and my iPod and other assorted toys. It's way better than my temporary cube, which was right outside the door of Chatterbox Lady's office. This one is so much quieter, I can actually food coma.

Marking Territory

In my seventh day of work, I have used every toilet and urinal at the office. I've also eaten six bananas in the past two days.

edit: This day has taken a turn for the worse. My boss had jury duty in the morning; he was back by lunch. Chatterbox Lady was berating someone over the phone for an hour. Then she proceeded to gossip with Sales Lady about some other lady with a deadbeat husband. Or they may have been talking about Desperate Housewives, who knows. Either way, I can't wait to go home.

Subway "Diet"

As of last night, I weigh in at a disgusting 187 pounds. Also, it doesn't help that, while watching the Super Bowl, I ate three pounds worth of ground beef in nachos form and washed it down with six beers and a bowl of queso. But I digress. As I was waiting in line today at Subway to get the 2.49 daily special, the lady in front of me got a foot long chicken tender sandwich, with no vegetables, topped off by so much mayo and ranch that it looked like an elephant just came.

So yeah, I'm going to 24 Hour Fitness right after work and getting a lifetime pass.

TGIF. I'm ready to get drunk!

My first week is coming to a close, and I have never been so happy to see the weekend come. All I want to do is get drunk and play video games and watch tv. It's the never ending debate: would you rather do something you hate and get paid assloads for it, or do something you love and make peanuts? I think almost everyone chooses money over love. Golddiggers explained.

The air conditioning was broken in one of the test labs earlier. The HR lady walked in to talk to one of the engineers, and then came running out screaming, "Where are your shoes?!? Put them back on!" His feet smelled horrible, they wafted all the way over here. "Where are your shoes" is a really funny question though, because in order to ask it, something has to be not quite right, and the answer is usually something ridiculous. Or maybe I just overthink stuff because I'm bored in my cube.

I need to get one of those mirrors that attach to your computer monitor, so I can tell when the boss is behind me while I nap while pretending to read Page2. Right now it's the back of a CD pushpinned to my wall.

Potato is a fun word to say. Potato.

Traffic jams and traffic cams

I hate traffic. A lot. I hate the fact that most traffic isn't caused by accidents, but by people driving like idiots and not paying attention, and the traffic caused by accidents is from people driving like idiots and not paying attention. When a 20 minute commute takes almost an hour, yeah, I think it's safe to say I have no patience. The good news is, I found this website that has live pictures of traffic in the DFW area. The bad news is, 635 is always jammed up until 6PM. Moving day can't get here soon enough.

In other news, I lost 100 dollars last night in a card room. Not Teddy KGB's place by any means, but it was still interesting and kinda scary. The players look like they're child molesters or some other form of social degenerate. It's definitely a step up from the 50 dollar buy-in games I used to play in college. Let's just say I bluffed at the wrong pot at the wrong time. But, in my defense, I was up around 160 for a good portion of the night. To add insult to injury, none of my eight lottery tickets matched more than one number. Money won is twice as sweet as money earned, but money earned comes in reliably twice a month.

Break's over, back on your heads.

Fat pants

We've got clients visiting today, which means we have to dress business formal. These dress pants that I have on are not compatible with my holiday weight that I have yet to lose. (I did, however, go running last night. Two miles in 45 minutes is not something that I am proud of.) Also in my defense is the fact that these pants are from Express, and the thigh area isn't designed for someone who does squats every time they work out. Once every two months. My biggest fear today is sitting down and tearing the seams that are working so hard to keep my ass in.

In other news, there's this guy at work that looks exactly like Patsy Parisi from the Sopranos.