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...

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!!

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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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