There’s a sign on the fridge at work that says “If you didn’t put the food in, please don’t take it out.” There’s also a sign saying that the fridge will be cleaned out every Friday evening, and anything left in there at that time will be tossed. Someone is falling down on the job, because there’s a partial carton of milk in the fridge that’s dated March 1st. It’s been with the company longer than I have. There’s also some yogurt with April expiration dates and several styrofoam containers that have been in there since I started. Maybe someone’s doing a science project?
I’d tape a sign under that one that says, “Will cook food for money!”
Maybe the person who’s supposed to clean it out is taking the sign too literally.
I wasn’t nearly that clever when I encountered a handwritten “LOCK IS BROKE” sign on the secure shred box…I just added the “N” with a nice red marker.
The passive-aggressive Office Maven did almost nothing but make cutesy multi-colored signs in Comic Sans. Her latest was “Coffee Machine IS BROKE…”, so I copied her style on my own: “Signs like this are why I’M FRUSTRATE…”
One place I consulted at had an ungrammatical sign like that hanging for weeks. Then someone added a handwritten note: Just like everyone else who works for this chintzy company!
Now that promptly got management attention! Within 2 days, the sign was down and a repairperson even arrived to fix the machine.
And you didn’t all get an email threatening to remove the machine over it, or demanding to know who put the sign up, or just mass threatening everyone’s jobs?
This was pre-email.
We did hear that there was some management effort put into trying to identify the handwriting, but the writer seemed to have carefully printed in a non-identifiable way.
It did get mentioned at the next departmental meeting – the manager said something in manager-speak like ‘this could have just been brought to our attention in the normal way (the sign hanging there for weeks didn’t do that?) instead of using insults, because we really do care about our employees’. There was a bunch of muttering around the table and a couple of sarcastic “yah, sure’s” – the manager looked up, and then clearly decided to not go into that, and continued with the meeting.
As a consultant, I wasn’t there every day – but this made me realize that the employee morale really was as bad as it seemed. I was glad to get out of there when the contract ended.
A year or two later, the company was bought out by a national company in a hostile takeover, merged with one of their divisions, and most of the local management staff let go.
I ran into someone I knew who had worked there (and still did) and he said the management was quite surprised that the stockholders had voted for the takeover. They thought they were safe because they had put a lot of their pension funds into their own company stock, along with employee 401K funds (which were only matched when put into company stock). So between pension, 401K & ESOP, there was a large block of shares controlled by current employees. The company management was quite startled when those employees voted overwhelmingly FOR the the takeover. But as he said, the employees knew better than anyone how badly the company was being run.
Heh…I modified the sign with my right hand. While I typically write left-handed, only a few people at work know that I can write with either hand; of those, only one or two can identify something I’ve written with my right hand.
Diabolical, and of course brings up the classic Princess Bride quote from the sword fight:
**Inigo: I admit it: you are better than I am!
**Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
**Inigo: Because I know something you don’t know.
***Man in Black: And what is that? *
Inigo: I am not left handed! [switches sword to his right hand]
There are wasps in the climate controlled file room. Pest control has been called, everyone has looked everywhere and no wasp nests have been seen.
Third floor, sealed windows, doors that automatically shut and lock. There is no water or food in that area, so how and why are they getting in? Most of them are dead or almost dead but some of them are flying around. We see at least 10 a day.
Is it just me? Do vermin just follow me around?
Looking forward to hearing Wasp King stories!
Just so you know…I hates you!
And your annoying coworker who grates cheese at his desk? Yeah, we want Cheddar Guy stories, too.
Having gone through this in my house last year, with yellowjackets - they’re getting in through the ventilation system. We had yellowjackets coming in under the outside siding to make nests, and getting sidetracked into the basement and the exhaust vents for the bathrooms. Have an exterminator take a look at the place.
Thank you! I’m sorry for your house problems, but this would explain it.
I really couldn’t understand what was attracting insects to that area. I’ll talk to the building management people tomorrow. They have been very responsive, but were baffled.
I’m ranting on behalf of my husband.
After a six month stint of unemployment, he landed a contract engineering job at a Large Tech Firm here in Silicon Valley. He was told he was replacing another person whose contract was up, and to report to her to be trained for her desk.
Well, no one had told the woman she was going to be replaced. Her first knowledge of it was when my husband introduced himself as her successor and asked for his training.
She was pissed as hell, naturally enough. Her own contracting company should have communicated with her, but they didn’t. So my husband has to sit within a few inches of a very pissed off, very pissy and nasty woman, and beg her for training. She’s not cooperating, or cooperating only just enough to seem like she’s doing what’s required of her. The powers that be at the Large Tech Firm are just turning their backs and letting it all sort itself out.
The very angry woman will be gone in a week or two, but in the meantime my husband is in a very ugly spot indeed.
Oh, and he sees why she’s being replaced. She’s incompetent and has a bad attitude, and her desk is a mess.
Excellent!
I should probably watch that movie someday…
Probably?
AND you should read the book. For anyone who hasn’t read it, the book’s got a whole other layer of storytelling on top of what the (brilliant) movie shows.
From the blurb at BN.com:
My girlfriend MADE me read it. The version with S. Morgenstern’s original text in red. I’ve never read anything cleverer.
(And yes, I ended up marrying her)