Air Time
Back at work, dreaming about the playoffs, plus, a Pesach preview. Those stories and more, you’re reading Air Time.
The back at work days.
After spending two years away from the office, I made my return to the beige cubicles this week. Nothing reminds you that you are working like sitting at a desk surrounded by walls that you are encouraged to green and yellow colored push pins into.
Oh yes, mission statements and inspirational quotes abound here. Yesterday’s quote of the day, which, I kid you not, is on every desk in this building, quotes Confucius. What happened? Why am surrounded by quotes that belong in a fortune cookie.
You know that I have a desk. It comes with a phone. The phone is great if I am dialing locally, because I don’t need to dial my area code. My phone is not great if I miss a call, since I have no clue how to retrieve messages, and no one has bothered to tell me how to get the last girl’s message off. If you do call me, at 248-455-3645, and I am not here, you will discover that Betty left this desk, and her cell phone is on message if you want to call her as well.
I started this gig on Monday. I am not really sure what I am supposed to do most of the time. My boss went out of town, with vague instructions about starting to do some work if I got an email with information telling me to do things.
That’s another thing. Maybe it is the culture of large companies, but my boss is constantly CCing me on everything she does. Things I don’t need to know, things I will never need to know.
I will say this about her. She is very nice, and treats me like a regular employee here, even though I was contracted here to write some manuals. I have seen other contract employees who get treated like crap, but she is not like that.
The office is layed out pretty strangely. There are no real hallways here, so the bathrooms are in the office area. And the stalls are on the small side, from left to right, so when you are sitting on the can, your knee is always bumping the toilet paper dispenser.
For those of you who got a visual there, you’re welcome.
I have internet access, but I can’t check my email, which means when I have my clients who email me things, I can only respond on my lunch break from the library across the street, or after work.
So far, no major problems stemming from that, but I could see some potential problems down the road if I stay here for too long.
Being at work makes you hungry, too. Something about staring at a monitor without moving all day long in a little beige aera makes you cry out for some color. Yellow chips, brown pretzels, chocolate-colored chocolate. But to top it off, I am dieting. I never planned on dieting, it just happened. Which is to say, one day my wife said that we were both dieting. And we could not go back to our regular food lifestyle until a certain amount of weight was lost. Sad to say, that amount of weight is more than the two pounds I lost in week one of this diet, and I don’t think I am going to get there this week either.
So instead of hanging out with the dark food colors, I found myself with red apples, green beans and orange oranges. Not that its bad, but it doesn’t have the same pick me up as a snickers and pepsi.
I did get to Joe Dumars Fieldhouse this week, where my Jerusalem Pizza hockey team won its third game in a row. It was chippy, especially in front of the net, but we knocked off Chaos 7-2. We need 10 points to clinch a playoff spot in the ten game season. Right now we are 3-1, but the teams we beat were not the class of the league. Still, we have two more games which are very winnable, and then some games that we will just have to wait and see.
I don’t know what these NHL guys are thinking though. They have a chance to play hockey every day, and instead they pissed away this season for nothing, and they are never going to have it as good as it could have been again.
We are going to NJ for the first days of Pesach. The seder is nice there, but it means spending more time with Spencer Lewis than I would normally like to. In case you were wondering, nothing has changed. He is so damn stubborn. If he would just open his mind for one minute he would see the pointlessness of a soccer match, especially when put up against a football, baseball, basketball or bowling match.
I think I hit the bottom of the sports viewing barrel. Bear in mind, I will watch almost anything that is sports related (with the obvious exception of soccer since it is not a sport and not sports related) as long as it is on TV. I watched the curling championships on CBC for two weeks last month, and I still don't understand the rules. I have watched the paintball championships, and although I don't remember the team names, Philadelphia beat Detroit in the Paint Ball War championship match. I can even flip on NASCAR for ten minutes on a slow Sunday. I watch the bowling, golf, tennis and poker, but I did not realize that there was still one more level to descend into. One more sport that could broadcast its events, and pull me in.
I have now seen it all though. I watched the Darts championship series. Those guys can play. They needed a number, they threw it and hit it. Even with all the distraction of the TVs and the fans behind them, they were able to put it all out of their minds, and play darts at its highest level.
I have good news to report.
I accidentally kicked out the plug from my computer, thinking this entire email was lost. All I lost, though, was the last things I wrote. Somehow, this computer managed to save everything else. So even though it is not a Mac, there are some nice features.
I am tired of hearing about Terry Schiavo. I don't care that they are now fighting about her burial. And now we are on the pope's deathwatch too. I've got Tuesday PM in the pool, but I get the feeling he won't be around for opening day this coming Monday.
Baseball is back, so is spring, and so is the snow, scheduled to come in just for Shabbos just so we don't forget it over the summer months.
I am sick of Nascar being forced down my throat by NBC and ESPN, tired of hearing about steroids, and curious why sports web sites still have the NHL listed as a sport.
But I can’t wait for Sunday night, when I turn on the TV, and watch the Yankees play the Red Sox. I hate both those teams. They are bad for the game. But its good to have baseball back.
That's it from here. This is Air Time. I am Air Time. And you've been reading Air Time.
Shabbat Sholom
The back at work days.
After spending two years away from the office, I made my return to the beige cubicles this week. Nothing reminds you that you are working like sitting at a desk surrounded by walls that you are encouraged to green and yellow colored push pins into.
Oh yes, mission statements and inspirational quotes abound here. Yesterday’s quote of the day, which, I kid you not, is on every desk in this building, quotes Confucius. What happened? Why am surrounded by quotes that belong in a fortune cookie.
You know that I have a desk. It comes with a phone. The phone is great if I am dialing locally, because I don’t need to dial my area code. My phone is not great if I miss a call, since I have no clue how to retrieve messages, and no one has bothered to tell me how to get the last girl’s message off. If you do call me, at 248-455-3645, and I am not here, you will discover that Betty left this desk, and her cell phone is on message if you want to call her as well.
I started this gig on Monday. I am not really sure what I am supposed to do most of the time. My boss went out of town, with vague instructions about starting to do some work if I got an email with information telling me to do things.
That’s another thing. Maybe it is the culture of large companies, but my boss is constantly CCing me on everything she does. Things I don’t need to know, things I will never need to know.
I will say this about her. She is very nice, and treats me like a regular employee here, even though I was contracted here to write some manuals. I have seen other contract employees who get treated like crap, but she is not like that.
The office is layed out pretty strangely. There are no real hallways here, so the bathrooms are in the office area. And the stalls are on the small side, from left to right, so when you are sitting on the can, your knee is always bumping the toilet paper dispenser.
For those of you who got a visual there, you’re welcome.
I have internet access, but I can’t check my email, which means when I have my clients who email me things, I can only respond on my lunch break from the library across the street, or after work.
So far, no major problems stemming from that, but I could see some potential problems down the road if I stay here for too long.
Being at work makes you hungry, too. Something about staring at a monitor without moving all day long in a little beige aera makes you cry out for some color. Yellow chips, brown pretzels, chocolate-colored chocolate. But to top it off, I am dieting. I never planned on dieting, it just happened. Which is to say, one day my wife said that we were both dieting. And we could not go back to our regular food lifestyle until a certain amount of weight was lost. Sad to say, that amount of weight is more than the two pounds I lost in week one of this diet, and I don’t think I am going to get there this week either.
So instead of hanging out with the dark food colors, I found myself with red apples, green beans and orange oranges. Not that its bad, but it doesn’t have the same pick me up as a snickers and pepsi.
I did get to Joe Dumars Fieldhouse this week, where my Jerusalem Pizza hockey team won its third game in a row. It was chippy, especially in front of the net, but we knocked off Chaos 7-2. We need 10 points to clinch a playoff spot in the ten game season. Right now we are 3-1, but the teams we beat were not the class of the league. Still, we have two more games which are very winnable, and then some games that we will just have to wait and see.
I don’t know what these NHL guys are thinking though. They have a chance to play hockey every day, and instead they pissed away this season for nothing, and they are never going to have it as good as it could have been again.
We are going to NJ for the first days of Pesach. The seder is nice there, but it means spending more time with Spencer Lewis than I would normally like to. In case you were wondering, nothing has changed. He is so damn stubborn. If he would just open his mind for one minute he would see the pointlessness of a soccer match, especially when put up against a football, baseball, basketball or bowling match.
I think I hit the bottom of the sports viewing barrel. Bear in mind, I will watch almost anything that is sports related (with the obvious exception of soccer since it is not a sport and not sports related) as long as it is on TV. I watched the curling championships on CBC for two weeks last month, and I still don't understand the rules. I have watched the paintball championships, and although I don't remember the team names, Philadelphia beat Detroit in the Paint Ball War championship match. I can even flip on NASCAR for ten minutes on a slow Sunday. I watch the bowling, golf, tennis and poker, but I did not realize that there was still one more level to descend into. One more sport that could broadcast its events, and pull me in.
I have now seen it all though. I watched the Darts championship series. Those guys can play. They needed a number, they threw it and hit it. Even with all the distraction of the TVs and the fans behind them, they were able to put it all out of their minds, and play darts at its highest level.
I have good news to report.
I accidentally kicked out the plug from my computer, thinking this entire email was lost. All I lost, though, was the last things I wrote. Somehow, this computer managed to save everything else. So even though it is not a Mac, there are some nice features.
I am tired of hearing about Terry Schiavo. I don't care that they are now fighting about her burial. And now we are on the pope's deathwatch too. I've got Tuesday PM in the pool, but I get the feeling he won't be around for opening day this coming Monday.
Baseball is back, so is spring, and so is the snow, scheduled to come in just for Shabbos just so we don't forget it over the summer months.
I am sick of Nascar being forced down my throat by NBC and ESPN, tired of hearing about steroids, and curious why sports web sites still have the NHL listed as a sport.
But I can’t wait for Sunday night, when I turn on the TV, and watch the Yankees play the Red Sox. I hate both those teams. They are bad for the game. But its good to have baseball back.
That's it from here. This is Air Time. I am Air Time. And you've been reading Air Time.
Shabbat Sholom
posted by Air Time at 4:09 PM
5 Comments:
Air Time is now official.
Air: If you want to bump the viewership, why don't you pass the url to the original Air Time list?
Based on your description of the work world you've been sucked into, I want to be the first to offer you political asylum to my office which is larger than a cube, has cable TV, universal internet access, lovely oil paintings on the wall, an enormous action photo of Muhammad Ali, and two Macs.
I at least hope you've been scratching the day count into the side of your cubicle with green and yellow pushpins. It makez the time go by faster.
79 days to go...
Where did you find it? Interesting read » » »
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