Memoirs Of J

So a lady at work believes in ghosts and is an atheist. I mean hard-core believes in ghosts. By this I am referring to the fact that she’s a paranormal investigator. I think it’s strange that someone who so fervently believes in one supernatural concept denies another supernatural concept completely enough to declare atheism as opposed to agnosticism.

Seems a bit incongruent. You’d expect an atheist to also deny the existence of any supernatural being, like ghosts, angels, whatever, no?

Don’t get me wrong, I think ghosts are more plausible than God, but come on. Not by much, people. Not by much…

We went to the traveler’s club international restaurant and tuba museum for dinner last night. It was so weird. First because it’s a tuba museum, obviously. Second because of some of the strange people there, and lastly, the food Curtis ate.

The tuba museum part? Well I just don’t get it. Who thought to cram a museum for rusty old tubas together with a restaurant? It gave me something to stare at other than people though, for once, so that was good I suppose. The only rationale I can come up with is that the tubas are supposed to give the place an eclectic, unique vibe, and it definitely does do that. And this may explain the disproportionate level of weirdos in one place.

I’m not saying everyone there was weird, but our waitress was a bit…off. It’s kind of hard to describe, but she reminded me of someone who should have been in that movie Reality Bites, only minus the witty, intelligent character part.

Since the place is so little and it was a Friday night, it filled up very quickly. A few of the tables are 6 seaters and it is a seat-yourself place. So we ended up at one of these 6-tops since the booths were all taken. A waiter came to ask us if we cared if three people sat at our table and we said we didn’t care. We honestly didn’t care, but for the life of me I could not figure out the situation of the people who shared out table. It was this older, white, affluent-looking couple accompanied by a friendly yet, and I’m not saying this to be mean, partially retarded black woman wearing an oversized Saints t-shirt and baseball hat. Julia blabbed at them and everyone else she saw. The Saints woman and the older guy seemed friendly enough but the older woman made quasi-bitchy comments about how we were eating but Julia had no food (she had been well fed before we left, plus I had applesauce in her bag for when she got hungry).

So we’re sitting there waiting for our food with these people, polite but not going out of our way to make conversation. I’m not sure why everyone feels obligated to make small talk when they are confined to an area with other people. Even I do to an extent but I really have to be in the mood or else drunk to actually act on it. We were relieved when our appetizer (fries and queso) arrived.

The queso was very good, nice and spicy, and the fries were thick and crispy potato wedges. The only bad thing about it was that the amount of queso was about 3x as much as needed for the amount of fries provided.

Our dinners came out shortly after we finished the app. I got lemon chicken with steamed vegetables and Curtis got bobotie, an African dish of lamb meatloaf with curry and spices. It came with some lamb kabobs and a shit load of cabbage (yuck), and yams. My dinner was very good, but I thought Curtis’s was gross-looking. He said was good though. He even ate the cabbage.

We finished our meals, fed Julia her applesauce (as well as various pieces of yam, rice, cabbage, pea pod, and anything else that seemed suitable to give her), and tried to keep J from squealing at eardrum-piercing decibels. It took forever for the waitress to bring our bill. We probably waited about 20-25 minutes just for the bill. It wasn’t a huge deal for us as we weren’t in a big hurry or anything, but there was a small crowd waiting for a place to sit so you’d think they would want to get us out of there so new customers could sit down. We decided that next time we go there it will be during the week when it shouldn’t be so crowded.

Despite a time of recession where most corporate employees are overloaded by picking up the slack amid downsizing, some useless office workers are finding creative and unique ways to spend their time at work. Dippy Thibs, who is paid a respectable salary to perform menial tasks and paper-shuffling for 8-10 hours per day, recently decided that she had too much free time at work and therefore needed to find activities to fill her day.

Thibs took to coupon clipping and bargain hunting like “a fly seeks shit,” according to her coworker, C. “Dynamite” Barn. Barn, who prefers to be addressed as Dynamite, explained that it is normal for Thibs to spend upwards of seven hours during the “work” day plotting her shopping routes and ravenously searching ads that offer mere pennies off.

“She’ll go 30 miles out of her way to save ten cents on a pack of tampons. I mean, I realize that she must go through a lot of tampons because she does have a really heavy flow, but doesn’t she spend more in gas driving 60 miles to save a dime?” When asked why she knows the particulars of Thibs’s menstrual flow, Dynamite explained that Thibs is “very open- far, far too open” with her work family.

As odd as it seems, this is not an uncommon phenomenon in workplaces today. Dynamite and other office employees describe a workday filled with bargain hunting, novel reading, sleeping, sipping Jagermeister from a flask, girl scouting, evangelizing, fantasy sports, excessive smoking, violent bowel-purging in the name of weight loss, and scrapbooking.

“Yeah, it’s kind of unbelievable,” says “Jen,” an employee who did not want to reveal her real name. “My least favorite is the bathroom stuff. Some people seem to make a sport out of seeing how quickly they can clog the toilets and fill the restrooms with noxious, lingering, gag-inducing fumes.”

Sadly, companies turn a blind eye to the rampant time-wasting; therefore nothing is being done about it. Dynamite and “Jen” expressed discontent but admit that it is unlikely that things will ever change. “People will always be lame, entitled slackers expecting the rest of us to do their work while they gobble up the credit. I just try to get through the day with minimal irritation,” explains “Jen”.

The company that Dynamite and “Jen” work for declined to comment, but recommended that any disgruntled worker seek help through the company-sponsored employee assistance program, where one phone call and up to four face-to-face counseling sessions are laughably anticipated to solve deep-rooted emotional issues.

Over the weekend I noticed that Julia’s top two front teeth are coming in. I found this out when she bit me in the face.

I was in line behind some idiot at Subway today. While waiting in line, this chick tells the “sandwich artist” that she “can’t wait to die” because she knows she’s “going to heaven where there are rivers of gold.”

Wow. Too bad it’s ‘sinful’ to kill yourself. Let’s just hope she hasn’t / doesn’t breed.

There is a silent killer in the US workplace today. One that has been ballooning at an alarming rate for the past decade, literally under our noses and at our fingertips while we are at the office. It is a major contributor to obesity, heart disease, and the general laziness that Americans are infamous for, yet it is one that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) ignores. It is the office “pot-luck.”

Pot-luck meals are becoming increasingly common in the American office. A recent study noted that, on average, a department in an office will have a pot-luck every two weeks throughout the year. This is in stark contrast to a similar study that was done in 1990 which showed a department had a pot-luck once every six months. Another finding of the study was that in 1990 pot-lucks mainly covered a lunch or “single-serving event,” while today’s pot-lucks include enough food that it encourages “reckless gorging” throughout the entire work day, and sometimes spilling over into subsequent days.

This reckless gorging, as described by Dr. Harriet Arms in her pot-luck study, is why today’s typical office worker is fat, unproductive, lazy, and is afflicted by many poor health and hygiene issues.

“What’s especially significant to me is that not only did heart disease and other obesity-related issues sharply increase, but these people suffer from more transparent hygiene issues as well, such as halitosis, very poor physical appearance, excessive sweating, body odor, and tooth decay, just to name a few,” explained Dr. Arms.

The negative afflictions that are on the rise are due to the pot-luck, according to Dr. Arms, because of the vast amount of greasy junk food that is available to all workers for free virtually all the time. “Pot-luck prevalence and the occurrence of all of the worker issues I discuss in my study are very strongly correlated. I would go as far to say that there are thousands of deaths each year caused, at least partially, by pot-luck participation.”

A local office worker, who goes only be the name of “Jen,” states that there are other problems with the constant pot-luck phenomenon. “I read Dr. Arms’ study and totally agree. But I think she overlooked some risks that I observe pretty much all the time at my office.”

Jen describes pot-lucks as “breeding grounds” for germs and bacteria on food that is left sitting out all day. According to her, it is not uncommon to see a person noshing on egg salad at 3pm that has sat out at room temperature since the early morning hours. Inevitably, these people end up in the bathroom with severe flatulence and heavy bowel movements. The odors seeping from the restrooms on pot-luck day are often strong and fowl enough to induce vomiting in even the most steel-stomached people. The paint in the restrooms at Jen’s office has been peeling for some time, alleged by her to be caused by the noxious fumes.

Likewise, Jen points out that since most office workers do not wash their hands after using the restroom, and these workers continue to graze through the chip bowls and cheese plates for the remainder of the day, one can reasonably conclude that workers are eating each other’s genital and anus germs every time they eat from the pot-luck selections.

“But it must be so common now that people just aren’t getting sick from that anymore. I mean, it’s been going on for so long that they’ve all developed some sick immunity to these dick and ass germs,” Jen notes.

She vehemently points out that she refuses to participate in pot-lucks due to the “sick” things she has witnessed. “It’s nasty; you’ll see a guy picking his nose in his cube one minute, and the next you see him with the same hand buried in the bowl of pretzels. I can’t believe more people aren’t concerned. I’ve seen communal silverware being dropped on the floor then put back into a dish without being washed first.”

Jen believes that not only is there an abundance of physical risk from eating at a pot-luck, there is mental risk as well. She feels Dr. Arms did not address the emotional or mental side of the pot-luck issue in her study, and that another official study must be performed to look at all risks as a whole.

“There’s a lot of pressure on office workers to participate. If they do not bring an acceptably gluttonous dish to pass, they’re shunned, talked about,” explains Jen. “Gone are the days when you can bring a simple bunch of bananas. Now people are expected to prepare a giant tub of Swedish Meatballs or some other disgusting, fattening dish. Everyone is basically expected to bring enough servings for everyone else. So everyone is bringing 20, 30 servings worth of food, which means you’re left with 400 to 900 servings of food for 20 or 30 people.”

Jen makes it clear that the pressure to perform affects workplace performance. Workers are too busy worrying about what to bring, typically worrying and planning for up to one week in advance of a pot-luck. She notes performance also suffers due to the distraction of food sitting out all day. “The noises from people socializing, the laughing, the farting, the downright disgusting odors. It all annoys people who legitimately attempt to complete work.

Jen continues, “Furthermore, if you don’t eat heartily at these [potlucks], you are shunned and accused of being antisocial. If you are not overweight and a pig, you are an outcast. Literally. I’m a smaller woman and I do not like most foods, and I’m criticized heavily whenever a pot-luck is going on. There are others like me, few, but some. We experience a lot of anguish and anxiety over these things. I’m sick of people coming up to me and whining ‘No wonder you’re so skinny; you don’t eat.’ I assure you I eat, just not constantly.”

Despite all of the risks associated with office pot-lucks as outlined by Dr. Arms’ study as well as from unofficial accounts by workers like Jen, there is no legal ground to ban these events. Likewise, corporations are unwilling to set policy due to the potential backlash that could occur from disgruntled employees.

That leaves the responsibility on office workers to familiarize themselves with these risks and to make informed decisions next time they are tempted by vast layouts of food at their offices. If you are an office worker, take a look in the mirror. Sniff your arm pits. Step on a scale. If the results aren’t desirable, you may be one of the victims of the office pot-luck.

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