I Want To Get Off Here! No Here! Maybe Here! Or Here! No Here! AHHHHHHHH IT HURTS!!!

This is what happens when you decide to fling yourself out the window in many directions... You've been forewarned.

I have come across an odd, yet somewhat frequent occurance in my building at work, where people decide to hit multiple floors while on the elevator...

The first time it happened, the woman seemed so methodical that I thought it was probably attached to some sort of an obsessive compulsive disorder, but now I think the people are just crazy.

This morning, an older gentleman was walking just feet in front of me, when he ducked down the elevator isle to floors 16-34; my elevator isle. I find it very pleasurable when I get to ride the elevator up to my floor alone, but that was obviously not going to happen today. He pushed the button to summon the closest iron monster, and stood there, without moving, like the elevator button had become his own Buckingham Palace.

Of course, the farthest elevator down the hall opened, and as I was taught manners, I let him get to the elevator first. He walked so slowly, that I feared we were going to miss the elevator altogether, and slight terror coursed through me when it appeared that the elevator doors were going to crush the old man upon entry. Needless to say, we made it inside just fine. I pushed the button for my floor, and then like random, the man put his hand flat against the wall of buttons, lighting up 5 floors. Thankfully, the floors he chose at random were above my destination, so I wasn't going to have to stand through 5 flights of nothingness.

Either way, I wanted to hit his hands and say, "NO! Bad man! You can't get off the elevators onto five floors at once! You're not Multiple Man!"

Seriously though, this has happened a handful of times already, and I'm scared it'll occur yet again... it'll be just my luck if the next time it happens, I encounter none other than Buddy the Elf himself... Christmas is just around the corner afterall...


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Yeah I Bit Unemployement, And I'd Do It Again!

So, I recently decided that temping was the perfect way to work full time jobs and get paid OK money, but still be able to pursue theatre, leave work for a few months if I got a tour or another Chan gig, and still have work to go back to when I was done.

I signed on with a temping agency in downtown minneapolis, and the next day I started working for a company on the 21st floor of the the AT&T tower. Now, if I were to tell you that the AT&T tower is the blue building in the picture above, that wouldn't really narrow it down... not in the Minneapolis skyline anyway.

It's the squat one with a lot of personality on the left. The one that is SUPER reflective... it shimmers at night, and if you're in the right spot during the day it could look like this...

Oooooh!

I mainly do data entry stuff... which is fun... but the real entertainment comes at lunch time... when everyone gathers in the lunch room on Floor 22, where the view is just amazing I might add... and we watch tv. Now, most of the time it's HGTV, which isn't that entertaining to me, especially since I usually take a 30 minute lunch instead of a 60 minute lunch, and most HGTV shows are an hour... doesn't usually work well... but some times we watch those tacky Judge shows, which make me happy...

Yesterday, it was Judge Mathis... which is the inspiration for this entry... a girl was suing her former friend (they're always former friends) for biting off the tip of her finger during a cat fight... in the end the plaintiff won, and they had both women standing directly outside the courtroom with a security guard towering between them, as the girls were arguing with eachother... again... but this time they weren't even looking at eachother, it was hilarious...

"Yeah, I bit her finger, and I'd do it again if she sticks it in my mouth again!" (this woman had been denying it the WHOLE time until now.)

"She's just stupid. Why would I put my finger in her mouth?"

"You did it once! That's why I bit it!"

"I didn't put my finger in your mouth, you put your mouth over my finger!"

"Uh huh, whatever"

"Whatever"

Apparently, the clip I found is a goody too, even though it's from a different episode... I haven't yet been able to watch the whole thing, but maybe this episode will actually be on tv today during lunch... that would be fun. Oh the excitements of corporate world.

UPDATE... no Judge shows today... not even HGTV... but Sports Central... I usually only fall asleep during work, but now on my lunch break too? Great... :P

Ta Ta Tuesday

Today was supposed to be the "Employee Appreciation" party at work, where the office closed down at 12:30 and everyone went bowling!

I didn't want to participate, as I felt it a little too ironic for this company, SO I called in yet again. This time; however, I told my manager that I would not be finishing my two week notice, as I wouldn't be able to do my job sufficiently even if I did show up, and that would be a detriment to both me and the company. I did wish them a happy bowling jamboree with plenty of turkeys to go around.

Tata, Ciao, Au revoir, So long, Farewell!

Later today I watched Big Brother, and I have to tell you - I am so fed up with this season. I honestly will not be blogging anymore in regards to it, and I might even stop WATCHING it - sticking to Biggest Loser Couples for Tuesdays' time slot, Next Top Model for Wednesdays', and maybe take a break from TV totally on Sundays. They've just turned it into an increasingly-dramatic version of The Real World. Imagine the same dramatics from that faded reality tv show created by MTV, and now LOCK the crazies inside the house and never let them out for partying or even for some random job. Can you imagine the insanity? Now multiply it by ten and you have BB: Matchmaker. Boo CBS. BOO!

On another note, my throat was stinging and sore all day... I hope I feel better tomorrow.

Until then, to you for now and to my former employer for good...

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Friday Fish Fries... err Pesto Linguinis!

Busy weekend ahead! Land-ho!

Didn't go to work today, with what's on my plate in the next few days, I need some rest, and I really don't want to step foot in that building any time soon. Time to take my well-deserved gondola ride into the hectic weekend.

Found out that my car - who was speaking to the whales last week, was actually screaming to me; it was saying "I'm running out of power steering fluid! HELP!" Needless to say, I started using my dad's truck today for transportation.

Went to Maggiano's Little Italy for the first time after the show tonight. Friend and fellow actor, Patrick Morgan, pretty much offered me a new job - LOCATED in St Paul. I just moved from St. Paul to Minnetonka to be closer to my work... now I need to move back!? We'll see what happens, or if I even follow through with getting the job.

It All Ends Thursday

As Nicole Kidman sung oh so beautifully in Moulin Rouge:

'I was a fool to believe,
A fool to believe,
It all ends today,
Yes, It all ends today.'

Thursday began with a horrible day at work. I had just finished conversing to my good friend, whom I'll refer to as John, telling him how I was tired of the corporation in which we were employed, and how I felt that we simply weren't appreciated anymore, when less than an hour later, John calls me from the parking log outside, having just been terminated. The reason? For missing work, WHILE spending his time with his dad and family as his father was in ICU; terminally ill - the company only cared about the former part of that last statement.

It was appalling to me; their heartlessness in this situation, and it really showed me just how much we were worth, SO I put in my two week notice.

All Aboard!

Caboose is leaving us today. He's turning his square weels away from us and choo-chooing on down the road.

I encountered him throwing a plant away, it was awkward.

So long Caboose.

Misfit #2 Attacks!

There are two microwaves in our breakroom, which is nicer than only having one, but when so many people on our floor take their lunch at the same time, two just isn't enough...

I walked into the breakroom today around 12:45 to heat up my lunch. There were only two other people in the room. One of them was using the white microwave, leaving the black one wide open for the taking. I wasn't worried though.

I opened up the refridgerator, took out my lunch, and was about to put it in the microwave when I noticed that I still had yet to take off the yellow sticky; all of my lunches are marked with a small sticky note so that everyone knows who it belongs to - no stealing now! I took off the sticky, walked to the garbage and threw it away. I turn around to go back to the microwave when all of a sudden Albino Clown With Little Hair leaps out of nowhere, throws his lunch into the black microwave, pushes his time in and hits start, all with the rapid speed of a Peregrine Falcon swooping in for the kill.

Albino Clown With Little Hair knew very well that I had nonverbally staked the microwave as mine to use next. He knew he had just 'budged in line', and the few of us in the room just looked at him.

To ease the situation, Albino Clown With Little Hair turned around and jokingly said "Is it Friday yet? He he... he he" His laugh was a little too reminiscent of Krusty from The Simpsons. As he looked at me, waiting for a response, I noticed that he is quasi cross-eyed. Yay! The afro was replaced by his weird eye problem. I was a little happier after I found this out.

"Not yet, unfortunately..." I responded.

Something that was fortunate though, was the white microwave became free in just a matter of 14 seconds, and I was able to put my food in to heat up as I took a bathroom break in between. I was half expecting to be followed by the misfit, so he could show me his texting/peeing skills yet again, but thankfully he stayed in the break room and was gone by the time I got back.

Next time, I think I'll go into the break room around 12:15...

Orange Mamba, You're Fired!

Not to pull a Donald here... but I finally got to experience the orange Mamba, and I have to say, it's my least favorite flavor of the bunch. I was so excited at the first glimpse of the orange package wrapping, when I first opened the stick, but I just didn't find anything special about them. Blah.

Also, I found out today that due to the loss of a flex client my company is going to have to downsize our department. Nobody knows who they will need to get rid of yet, but we will be notified within the next 5 days...

I believe this downsizing mainly has to do with the operations team (i.e. claims processing/implimentation/etc.), and I've heard through the questionably reliable grape vine that us in the call center really shouldn't have anythign to worry about, but I can't help but freak out a little bit. Anybody who is going to be terminated will have a month or so before they actually have to leave, which gives them good time to find a new job...

Severence compensation will also be given, once the employee actually leaves... apparently our company's policy is one week's pay per full year of employment. Which means if I got terminated I would only receive ONE weeks worhth of severence. WTF?

As you can tell, today has been rather disappointing. So, I apologize for nothing shnazzy.

Bald Clowns Make Me Cry

The Humorless Albino Clown came to work today with his entire afro shaved off. His hair is now super short. It makes me sad because now he looks semi-normal. Our little albino is growing up and slightly shedding his misfit ways! Now we just need to stop him from texting while he goes pee.

I really am sad... Seriously though, what would you do if you were a clown and your giant afro was your trademark? You wouldn't throw it away, or substitute it for something flat or bald.

Don't you love your clown ways Mr Albino?

It's as if Fabio became a girl... all Fabio fans would be so disappointed that their hunky romantic-novel-model was now a really awkward and probably very ugly woman. Such are my feelings with the clown - you gave me laughs... now you make me cry.

On a lighter note - the entire customer service call center on the 8th floor is having their own version of the Academy Awards, and our small 6 person flex call center is included! We have many topics, and for each one everyone can submit nominations of who they think fits the requirement the best.

For example, this week the topic is "Best Overall Attitude On/Off The Phones" and all day yesterday people were making nominations. Today the top 5 nominations were revealed, and I'm one of them! Huzzah!

The somewhat sucky part is now everyone votes, but only our peers are voting for us, and since there are around 20 new employees on the 8th floor that were hired after my group moved down the 6th floor, there's very slim to none chance that any one of us in the flex call center will win anything. Of the 60+ people upstairs, a very large chunk of them don't even know us. *sigh*

We have a dead air Party Conference line that people can call into when they're working on projects - so it doesn't hurt their other stats - and I'm thinking of campaigning on it during my afternoon break. Granted, most times there's only like 1 or 2 callers logged into it at any given time, but it might help boost my votes!

Now I just need some slogans...

"Vote for Rob Rob, or get a clob clob"...

"Vote Rob McNamee, that's pronounced like Big Macs are Nummy! And no, I will not buy McDonalds for you if I win"

"Ladies and Gentleman of extension 4505. Vote for Rob in this week's Acadamy Awards. He likes you... in a proffesional manner only... and wants to make you laugh. Too bad he's stuck on the Island of Misfit Toys. Only you can pull him out of that slump by showing him he's still great! - I am Rob McNamee, and I approve this message."

"Vote for Rob or go to his show 'The Fantasticks' showing at Bloomington Civic Theatre every Thursday through Sunday for the next 4 weekends - if you do neither, you WILL be dead to him"

Oh man, I just got an e-mail from my manager telling me I can't campaign. Oh well. Here's to crossing fingers. I could use a lucky rabbit's foot key-chain made up of albino's dead afro right now...

Speaking of lucky... help me dry my clown tears, Britney...

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The Word Corporation Means...

boring... bland... statistics... performance reviews... rules... guidelines... suitcases... water coolers... a life of gray... gray suits... gray cubicles... gray coffee cups... gray expressions... gray hearts... no wonder why Milton was so attached to that red stapler.

or, it could also mean 'Town Hall Meetings' like the one we had today - mandatory meetings to tell us workers how we're doing - usually consisting of silly powerpoints that say "1/1 Wonderful!" and the like...

or, as one man said during the Q&A portion of the meeting, "The word corporation means 'making a body'. How is our company working towards doing that? I mean, even geese know to pass information to their next destination"

Shoot me now... please.

What do I care about how my company is working towards "making a body"? To me this either is some gorey literal meaning, close to the skin suit fetish in Silence of the Lambs, or it makes me think of being of one mind, as if I am a small insignificant detail and my only purpose is to serve the collective as a whole - wait, isn't that what I already am? Whatever way, I see no appeal in either of these options.

The topic of call center talk times came up, and boy was it the hot potato in the room. Apparently another of our offices, which resides in New York, has an average talk time of 2 minutes less than our offices - which EXCITINGLY means that their calls are shorter and allow for more calls to be taken every day. Everyone was asking questions about how the statistics of our offices differed - this mainly consisted of two guys (including the goose man above) pretty much complaining about all of the things that they have to do when verifying a caller or documenting a call - the other man even said that he was looked at as pond scum if he didn't include a tax id # in his phone log.

geese... pond scum... a room of hunting Minnesotans... what a party. These two men talked so much, about things that honestly didn't matter, that I think they answered their own question of "where does the 2:00 minute extra talk time come from?"

There was a greasy gleam on the meeting's gray caserole dish though - it was the "feel like a family" time towards the beginning of the meeting where the speaker gives us all a jolly corporate chuckle about their clumsy ventures. We got to make fun of him - a southern man - as he experienced his first Minnesotan winter. The slideshow was... nice, dontcha know.

At one point I turned around and there was Caboose - staring at me from across the room. Well, he was wearing sunglasses - at a corporate meeting inside an office building while it's overcast outside - but I'm pretty sure he was staring.

After the meeting, I came back down to my department to find the Mullet King shaking hands with... get ready for it... the air. There wasn't anyone there... I would be careful if I were you mr Mullet King - or someone might think you're making some inappropriate gesture!

Awww...

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Misfit #6 Harry the Kooshit

If I haven't painted a pretty picture of my work already, I will attempt to do so now.

As I have mentioned before, I work in a call center and there are only 6 people in my team. To make sure that we have as many people as possible on the phones at one given time, we have a "tag" system.

If you've ever heard of a 'talking stick', our system is very similar; just as you can only talk while you have the talking stick, we can only take our break/lunch when we have a certain item that is passed from one person to the next in a pre-determined order. That certain item for us is "Harry". It's a koosh - you know/remember those stringy rainbow koosh balls from the 80s/90s - but it's not in the ball form - it's actually shaped like a 'cousin it' from Adam's Family, but it's rainbow and has a sun hat and sunglasses, and to top if off, it's a key-chain!

I dubbed it Harry the Kooshit. - This can be looked at as Koosh-it or Koo-shit; I prefer the latter. The little guy/girl/it is cute, but the system, while potentially great, does have some flaws.

When you factor in the possibility that any given call could last an hour or more and that it could possibly sneak into your break/lunch time, or the fact that some people just simply forget to pass Harry on, we inevitably get really far behind our regular schedules.

My schedule is as follows:
10:15 - first break
1:00 - lunch
3:45 - second break

However, somedays it looks like this:
10:30 - first break
1:20 - lunch
4:30 - second break

and so far today it's been:
11:00 - first break
2:00 - lunch.

Oy.

I accidentally broke Harry a couple of times - the string of its hat that holds it to the keychain will unravel through the metal loop and detach - causing its sun hat to fly off. I think it might be time to intentionally KILL Harry... for good... 2:00 is just too late to go to lunch... any ideas?

What a vacation!!

Thank You For Calling...

Working in a call center I get many interesting calls. Apart from the standard calls asking for their flex balance or the status of their recently submitted claims, we also tend to get a few crazies calling in here and there.

One such exciting crazy happened to fall onto my line just before my lunch break today. I answered the phone:

"Thank you for calling the service center, this is Rob, how can I help you today?"

"ffar eee invitations?" - the woman on the other line sounded aged, and unlike a good wine the years hadn't improved her. Her tone was extremely soft and her voice, shaky at the least. I couldn't understand some of the things she said.

"I'm sorry, this is *company name here*"

"Do you invitations?" Do we invitations?

"We don't have anything to do with invitations, we are a medical insurance company..."

"ooh... nice to meet you!"

I didn't know how to respond to that. Fortunately, she spoke again before I needed to come up with something to say.

"you a party with invitations?"

"No, we don't have any parties, I'm sorry."

"Oh..." I could tell that her hopes had been crushed from my last statement, and even if she had snuck out of her padded room to make this call while the nurses had their backs turned, I still felt bad for crashing the party in her head.

"Well, enjoy yourself," she added very sweetly.

"Thank you, have a good day," I said.

Calls like these make me laugh, and they at least take away from the monotonous calls that my days are perpetually littered with.

There are six of us in my department. We get to be the voice of the company to anyone willing to hear; even when the majority of our callers aren't willing to listen. Five of us have a specific day of the week to do projects, which involves clearing out the voicemails and e-mails that come in; Wednesday is mine.

Yesterday, as I was emtpying our voicemail box, I came across a lovely man who obviously was very passionate about his flexible spending account.

"The next message is:"

"FUCK THIS!" *click*

"End of message."

I am honored to work in this highly optomistic, patient, and sane environment. It's what keeps me going through the day and it gets my bills paid. I just can't wait for a day to go by when everyone who calls in can show standard mathematical skills and understand that our company has an uncountable amount of guidelines set into place by the IRS and other companies, which we can't control, and not let their panties get in a bunch. Talk about a day when pigs fly!

If I could tell all of these peolpe one thing... it would simply be, be happy!! Be happy like us customer service folks. We're always smiling!!!!! ...

A classic:

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"C2," My Fingers Punched

Let me tell you of something so horribly delicious but so junkie that I have refused to look at the Nutrition Facts because I want to eat them forever.

Mrs Freshley's Crunch Mini Donuts is the name, and tickling my tastebuds is the game! They're pretty much mini donuts powdered with coconut and brown sugar mix. They make me happy when I'm having a horrible day at work. What can I say, I eat my feelings. Thank god for theatre giving me a high metabolism!

Everyone knows I love them, and one coworker even told me that they would buy me a case of them... no strings attached... uh huh, that's weird. You would just buy me a case for nothing? What if I said I loved money? Would you buy me a case of that? Please?

We had a "get to know your co-worker" survey, and I listed 'Mrs Freshley's Crunch Mini Donuts from the vending machine' as my favorite food. It got a corporate chuckle during the "get to know your co-worker" get together.

Today, I found out that they added a second row of the mouth-watering goodness in the break room! I have single handedly changed the vending machine economy here on the 6th floor. Demand is IN for crunch and OUT for chocolate mini donuts. Too bad so sad for the chocoholics, time to jump on the coconut bandwagon I say!

My show opens next thursday and I'm already exhausted. I don't get a day off from theatre until the 29th of the month. I'm so tired. HELP ME MRS FRESHLEY!

I love this guy...


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Dontseemepeephobia

Guys in the coporate world are so weird when it comes to going to the bathroom, at least the ones on my floor are. A majority of them seem to have this insane fear of being seen in the bathroom. They purposefully will avoid anyone and everyone else that's in the room with them.

Granted, I'm not asking them to shake my hand as I stand at the urinal, but they act as if every other guy but themselves has some airborne disease that they need to get away from. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, such as the humorless albino clown who is so comfortable he texts while peeing... but that's just gross.

If you ever walk into the men's bathroom in my department and there is a guy at one urinal, but the other is free, you can pretty much guarantee that if you walk up to that empty urinal the other guy will pack up and run away as fast as possible solely to avoid some imaginary feeling of awkwardness. If the man doesn't run away, you know he's testing his strength not to - or he's completely comfortable with himself - these seem to be a rarity around here.

To my surprise today, I walked into the bathroom and both urinals were occupied, so I snuck into a stall. One of the guys flushed his urinal, and walked out - I didn't hear the sink. Then, the other guy flushed his urinal just before I flushed mine. I opened the stall door and the man was pretty much running for the door. Yes sir, watch out for my medusa eyes! If I see you in the bathroom I will turn you to stone and you will be embarassed for the rest of your life as we reconnect the pipes and turn your mouth into a bidet!

What is up with guys and not washing your hands anyways? Neither of these guys even stopped to do the somewhat popular half-ass and soapless water toss. I mean come on! First of all, it only takes a maximum of thirty seconds to wash and dry your hands (unless it's an air dryer, at that point you might take up to a minute). And if you're going to approach the sink, you only turn the faucet on with one hand anyway, so dispense some soap in the other at the same time! I know most of you guys can multitask! It's not hard!

When I leave the bathroom I almost feel like my hand washing was for nothing. There are two doors that you have to go through to exit or enter the bathroom, and in between them is a hallway of only 4 or 5 feet that doesn't do anything but connect the two doors, it's rather pointless, but with so many guys who don't wash their hands the two door handles are pretty much riddled with germs. I'm not a germ freak, but when you break it down I clean my hands of my germs just to attach other people's germs to them. It's kind of disgusting.

Every now and then the bathroom smells like lemon pez. It's heavenly.

There's also a smaller private bathroom with only one door, but I stay away from this at all cost. This is the crapper bathroom because it's built for only one person and the person going number 2 has all the privacy they would need. However, this bathroom was made extremely poorly and has close to no ventilation. I only walked in there once - when I was stuck behind a family of 10 people who took up the entire hallway leading to the other bathroom and were walking about .5 miles an hour. I will never go back.

Yay for family guy video today!


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Misfit Encounters of the Third Kind

Q: What's black or white and red all over?
A: Misfit #1 - Adidas Baba and his forty hoodies.

I was amazed yesterday when our good friend who is always wearing the same red adidas hoodie came to work wearing something DIFFERENT! Granted, it was a black adidas hoodie, but at least this proves that he isn't physically glued to the same piece of clothing, and that he actually isn't destined to wallow in it forever.

Although, my good coworker friend Jason brought up the good point that it might actually be the same red hoodie just dirtied to the point of blackness... which would be the complete polar opposite from my theory above that he can change clothes. In this case he would make flies and flowers drop dead as he passed; snow would turn brown from the stench and dogs would bark at the otherwise unseen odor.

Remaining optomistic that a misfit will not be my downfall, I would like to assume the former of those two ideas, and say yay! Let's throw him a party! Baby steps... baby steps!

Another misfit encounter I had yesterday was with the leader of Misfit #4 - the permed mullet king. None of the mullets that make up Misfit 4 compare when put up against this man's super chic curl. He seems like a nice guy, and he's always making copies and running around with a box of paper. I don't think I've heard him say one word, but that's how mullets work - they conspire in secrets.

Yesterday, I walked by the small copy room - which isn't too far from my cube - and the king was in there, doing what he usually does, and all of a sudden a huge whiff of fruit struck my nostrils as I meandered by. Misfit #4 smells like pears. Maybe he's made of pears and all of his mullet followers are pear wannabes? That would be scary. Maybe it's his shampoo. Either way, it was interesting.

Then, today... I made contact with Curls. I was getting help from one of our claims processors when he came up to her desk and said "Happy Birthday! Wait, now who's birthday is it? Yours?" he said, pointing at me "Or hers?"

"Hers!" I quickly spat back. Whatever this birthday present was I didn't want it. It was probably some kind of alien puree'ed pear vomit.

"Alright, well Happy Birthday!" He threw down some pre-opened envelopes onto her desk and walked back down the isle of cubicles saying to everyone "Sorry! No more presents today! Ha ha ha... ha"

My claims processer friend turned to me and said "We don't like his presents."

They must be secret mullet presents that are given to people to make them busy so the mullets can then have easy access at controlling the world!

I have never seen this movie... but my sister hates the potato scene, or that's what I remember her saying... hmmmm


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Misfit #2, He's Coming For You!

I stumbled upon Misfit #2 - The humorless albino clown - in the hallway just a few moments ago. He was pacing back and forth in a space that was maybe four feet wide, which meant he was pretty much going in circles. He was talking out loud, and at first I assumed he was on a bluetooth headset, but then I realized this was the albino clown; he's a misfit on the 6th floor who has no social skills. How could he be advanced enough in technology to have a bluetooth headset? On further inspection I realized he was just talking to himself.

"Calm!"
"Take deep breath!"
"Think about this logical!"

He was making hand motions like he was dribbling two basketballs - look at me using sports references! He obviously was trying to calm himself down from some traumatic/frustrating event that just occured.

Maybe he was offered a short cut to the next pit stop, but to get it he had to shave off all his hair. Oh, wait, that was on an old season of Amazing Race....

Bottom line, it was a little creepy. At least he was taking some measurements to try to prevent some kind of outburst...

What do you think that would be anyway? - An albino clown outburst? Think he would run through the cubicles with a big blow-up hammer? Or maybe pop balloons in everyone's ears? Who knows.

I'll probably have some kind of dream about this now.

Speaking of creepy clowns...



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Luck in a Fruit Chew

We have a convenient store here at work. If you want to use a debit card to buy anything there you have to purchase at least 4.00 worth of items, which usually isn't a difficult thing for me, but today I hade some trouble. Most of the time I'll buy a sandwich or a box of two hotpockets along with a pop and maybe some chips and I'm set! Other times I'll simply avoid the limit by having cash on me. Today, I didn't want to deduct 20.00 from my checking account just to get a soda (which is all I needed), and I only had one dollar in my pocket (which with tax isn't enough to buy my oh-so-loved diet doctor pepper), so I had to use my card.

I didn't want to buy anything at this store that I could get from the vending machine upstairs; I could use my 1 dollar bill for that if need be, and plus it was cheaper from the machine. I didn't want to buy a bunch of little things like 10 cent chocolates, and I wasn't in the mood for Dorito's or Gardettos today. I spotted a bag of cheesy popcorn and immediately picked it up. Cheesy popcorn is so good and addicting - so I couldn't resist. It was only 2.00 - I only needed 75 cents more. I grabbed a stick of candy that I hadn't had before, called a Mamba, and walked to the cash register.

There's two main ladies who work at this store. They're both elderly. One is sweet and kind and says "thank you" and "have a great day". The other is bitter, never smiles, and always looks at you with this death stare and asks "Wanna sack?". Thankfully I had the nice lady today, and shortly my card had been swiped and I was walking out with my sack of new goodies.

Question to you: Have you ever had a Mamba? It's a fruit chew, like a starburst... but it's much more fun - sorry starburst. There are a few reasons I say this. The first and biggest reason is that it's like a chance game. Before I opened the package I saw that Mamba had four flavors: strawberry, orange, lemon and raspberry... mmm fruity! When I opened the wrapping though, I only had three smaller packages... strawberry, raspberry, and lemon.

Knock knock

Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Where was my orange Mamba? The package offered me four flavors, including Orange. I didn't see anything saying "Only three flavors in package". There is a "selected from" message, but it didn't tell me I wouldn't get orange!

Instead of being discouraged though... I realized that this could be a fun game to play! Which flavor isn't going to be in my stick of candy today!?

"Hmmm, I'll wager three of my potential lemon Mambas, for two of your potential strawberry and one of your potential orange Mambas, that I won't have raspberry Mamba today"

"YOU'RE ON BUDDY!"

I mean, how fun is that? With my luck though I would always be wrong. I'm taken back to elementary school, when they handed out those cups of popcorn as a treat. We all know now that I love the cheesy kind... well, everyone else always seemed to get 80% cheesy and 15% caramel and only 5% salted. I would always get 90% salted, 9% caramel, and one or two cheesy kernels.

So, I probably shouldn't test my luck with Mambas.

The second reason Mambas rock - this is more sarcastic than anything - is when you open up one of the flavor packages, you get six fruit chews... each in ANOTHER wrapper. So, if I wanted to eat one fruit chew in the store after I bought it... I would have to unwrap three things... eat that, Starburst!

Reason number 3 - they're delish. MmmmmmmMamba! I feel I should get paid for this voluntarily blatant Mamba advertising. If only life was so simple. *shrugs*

So I know they're different, but remember this fun little ditty? I suggest watching it with a stick of fruit chews, it makes it that much more fun.

videos only appear on the actual blog site

Here on the Island...

November 1st my small group of 6 people in flexible spending customer service moved from the gigantic call center on the 8th floor of our building to a more intimate location on the 6th floor with the rest of the flexible spending department.

The 6th floor isn't like our other floors. It hasn't been recently rennovated, so the walls and the bathrooms feel completely out of the 80's, even the people on the floor don't modernize it at all. It's a forgotten floor compared to all of the others. I have often referred to my new habitat as the island of misfit toys, and I have been sent there to be forgotten and grow deformed.

Now that last remark is an overexaggeration, but let me give you a list of people I have encountered while on this floor.

1) The boy who wears the same red adidas hoodie every single day. I don't think he cleans it, otherwise it would have been faded and worn out by now. It's disgusting. I hope to God he has a closet full of them. I refuse to walk close enough to him to catch what I would only assume to be a death-enducing smell.

2) The big, white man with the even bigger and whiter afro. He looks like he's wearing an albino clown wig. I once encountered him in the bathroom - I was at one urinal when he approached the other. He then proceeded to go to the bathroom with one hand as he texted with the other.

3) The girl who was walking around one day with a handful of tacks yelling "Ow. Ow. Ow!"

4) All of the mullets on this floor combined make up a misfit. Really, I know that some people like mullets for the sole fact that they're mullets and they're out of style, power to them, but these women still think it's fashionable. Please, don't bring your "party in the back" to work. Tack it up with a neon pink barette, or even better with a big ruffled scrunchie, please.

The scariest encounter I have ever had with a 6th floor misfit was earlier today. It had blog inspiration written all over it. I will try to describe quickly - I can go on tangents and detailed rants, so bear with me.

I first get an e-mail from misfit 5, let's call him the Square-Wheel'ed Caboose, Caboose for short, asking me "Are you family? And I'm not talking about blood related".

I answer, "Yes, I am."

He quickly sends a response back saying, "I have been attracted to you from the very beginning! Even when you were up on the 8th floor in the call center, I would see you and I was just attracted to you from the beginning"

"Oh, that's flattering... thanks..." I had seen Caboose before around the offices. He was pretty flamboyant, and also rather round. While I won't judge someone based on their looks, I unfortunately will base an attraction based on looks, and I frankly wasn't attracted to Caboose.

I got another e-mail."Can I ask you... are you dating someone?"

"Ummm, yeah," I lied, "His name is Ryan" - Ryan Shipley you are now my guinnea pig. You will save me.

"JUST MY LUCK!" he said. "Well, now you know who wants you really bad if you end up breaking up"

This was creepy. I barely knew this guy and he 'wanted me'... Doesn't he realize that actions like this, in a corporate setting, could get a sexual harassment suit in your file?? I ignored the last e-mail. About a half hour later I get another one.

"Are you mad at me!? That look that you gave me in the hallway could have killed."... ... ... what???

"I haven't left my desk since my morning break at 11:00," I honestly told him. "I didn't see you in the hallway"

"WRONG BUDDY! I SAW YOU AT THE ELEVATORS ABOUT 15 MINUTES AGO!"

I was honestly getting a little freaked out when I saw this. "No," I responded, "I haven't even been at the elevators since I got here in the am. I think you're mistaken as to who I actually am."

A minute went by, and Caboose was walking down my lane of cubicles. I was on the phone at the time, helping a customer, and he walked behind me and said quietly, as if mumbling to himself but at the same time wanting me to hear: "It was you at the elevators. I know who you are. I'm not crazy. You think I'm crazy? I totally saw you at the elevators"

This kid was NUTS! He took the misfit cake by a mile... mumbling to himself behind me, like he was peeping at me from some hole in the wall and making no attempts to hide the sound of his groaning.

Then... the guy in the cubicle behind me laughed nervously and said "No, you're not crazy. You're right, I was at the elevators"

"SEE!" said Caboose, "I'm not crazy!" and he ran away back up my row of cubicles.

I couldn't help but laugh... my nametag is behind me... Caboose thought it was referring to the guy in the cubicle behind me and so he e-mailed 'Rob' instead of 'Matt' to confess his love... the whole time he thought he was talking to the guy who sits behind me... I sent another email to correct him. He felt like a complete fool, but he still wrote back to me saying, "I knew you were family the entire time. You're cute as hell though too boy." - boy? You're, what, 26? I'm so glad I'm off the hook with this guy. Ryan Shipley, lucky for you, you are off the hook as well! :)

I'll leave you with a fun excerpt that I found somewhat appropriate.

"I'm the official sentry of the 'Isle of Misfit Toys'. My name is--"

"Don't tell me: Jack."

"No, Charlie. That's why I'm a Misfit Toy. My name is all wrong! No child wants to play with a Charlie-In-The-Box so I had to come here!"

-Charlie-In-The-Box from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Robbie McNamee

This is Robbie's 103rd blog. He has recently made posts on his myspace and facebook accounts, but felt the need to start something with a little more umph to it. You may remember him from his other previous (and no longer active) blogs, which include Big Red Hot (blogspot), The Bohemia (blogspot), PoivrePauvre (xanga AND livejournal), UnfortunatePepper (xanga), among many others. He has decided to try to settle down with one blog, to remain active for many a month. Robbie loves blogging about the funny things in life, and occasionally to vent, but usually the funny things.

Robbie is an actor in the twin cities having performed with such theatres as Bloomington Civic Theatre, Minneapolis Musical Theatre, U of M Xperimental Theatre, Swing Low Theatre Co, among others. He mainly specializes in dazzling the stage as a part of the chorus, or making people laugh as a comedically villianous supporting-lead. He is willing to stretch his abilities by hopefully someday playing a sad mid-wife going through the hardships of prison after having just been framed for murder. That would be challenging.

Currently, Robbie works in the call center for a flexible spending department of an insurance company where his motto is "Use it, or lose it, baby!" He has been employed with the company since 12/4/06, and is still amazed he made it past the 3-6 month mark without getting bored and leaving. To this day Robbie still hopes to get a full time acting gig that might take him away from the corporate world. Until then, he will continue to embrace IRS guidelines and healthy callers.

Robbie moved home late 07 to live with his parents again. His goal is to endure his sometimes overly-loving mother, his constantly-working father, and his grandfather who eerily looks dead while sleeping, until he has saved up enough money to put a down payment on a house. He is not without goals.

Robbie promises this will be the only post where he talks about himself in the third person, and he thanks you for supporting his endeavors in the world of blogging.