Tag: office life

An interesting day

Hearings kept me crazy busy yesterday and the medication let me forget about the headache. It was actually a fun morning.

I thrive on days where I can lose myself in work, where time loses meaning. I love working with the Judge assigned to us, an old retired Colonel from the Marines. I enjoy talking to one of the attorneys I work with – a guy who worked as an enviromental engineer with the State Department of Enviromental Protection – before he went to law school.

Late yesterday afternoon, we got a chance to talk to someone enlisted in the Coast Guard stationed in Louisiana, taking part in the Gulf oil clean-up (only here under our special circumstances).

It was a terribly fascinating, and disturbing personal story.

My days often turn on me like that.

What a terrible mess we’ve made. I wonder if we’ll know the full reach of it in my lifetime.

– – –

Later that evening I was trying on a pair of sneakers at the mall, when the salesman hesitated.

“Man, you look down. You look like you could use a break. Let me tell you something. (In a near whisper) Down stairs, they’ve got the next model up from this one and it’s five bucks cheaper. Plus, it’s not quite as flashy looking, and I can tell you’re looking for something a little more understated.”

Turns out I did like the other pair better, but if I find out the same company owns both stores I’m not gonna take it well.

Maybe it’s best if I don’t check, because it felt good knowing everyone isn’t always out to screw you for the quick buck.

It was a nice, if small, contrast to my afternoon – which was a bad and big contrast to my morning.

Happy peaks and valleys to you!

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Bringin’ the bacon to work

I like crispy pig meat as much as the next guy, but after a while it gets old. After a year or two it gets really old. Truth be told, I was never really crazy for the stuff.

It turns out my office is next door to a deli that dabbles in breakfast. I don’t really have an office anymore, so corral might be a better word. But wether they’re serving breakfast or lunch, they seem to conjure up a reason to serve up a steady diet of fried pig fat all day, much to my nose’s delight.

Yum! Can I get me some more!

I’ll have to ask Cheryl if my clothes smell like fast food when I get home.

I’ve heard that the sense of taste is related, if not in some cases tied, to the sense of smell. Which brings me to this half-baked idea/concern:

Is second hand smell of fried pig fat bad for you?

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More than secure

I know staples are a staple of office life (I’ve been waiting all my life to write that phrase), but I’m a firm believer in the “one stack, one staple” concept. It’s an obsession. It raises my sense of self-righteousness to supreme being levels.

Then there’s the lazy stapler. Every office has one.

How many times has this happened to you? You’re removing a staple to make a copy, only to find an embeded staple waiting in ambush. I’ve run into stacks with as many as ten embeds. It’s maddening.

So please, for the sake of the little fishies down stream – don’t add another staple if you’re adding to the stack. Pull the first one out before you reach for your trusty Swingline.

If you can’t see the symmetry or beauty of a lovingly aligned stack of paper with a single, elegant fastener… think of me. Think of all the other obsessive people out there. We may be a little weird, but we have feelings too.