By the way...

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear meeee, happy birthday to me...

Fu Manchu for you to view...

Please see post below titled "Office Space". I am indeed Lawrence.

I got the job...

The big boss stops by my desk and says an exciting phrase.

Jeff Probst: “We have to talk.”

He says it with a shit grin on his face. I was just waiting for my background check to clear, and then the job was mine. He pulls me off into the main isle, far away so no one could hear him.

Jeff Probst: “You got the job. Now when we go in to this meeting, the other team leads think that I’m playing a joke on you. When we go in there, I am going to tell you that something went wrong with your background check. I want you to get really pissed off at me and storm out.”
Mark: “Can do.”

We walk in to the meeting and my two team leads (essentially managers) are sitting at the big round table. The big boss and I sit down.

Jeff Probst: “Mark, as you know we had several employees fill out applications for this job. We did a background check on all of them. Your background check…(long dramatic pause)…came back with a problem. There is something on your background check that is keeping us from giving you the job.”

Mark: “What?!?” (slightly shaking my head in disbelief, while making an incredulous look on my face) “That’s bullshit! What is it!?”
Jeff Probst: “They couldn’t release those details to us.”

(I push my seat back)

Jeff Probst: “You can stay onboard here as a contractor, but we can’t give you the job”

(I stand up, throw my pen across the desk and it hits the wall and I say to him)

(I storm out of the room.
One of the team leads chases me down the hall.)

Team Lead: “Wait! Mark, are you ok?”
Mark: (I stop and hang my head low) “Yeah…let’s go back in there.”

The End

Good stuff, good stuff. Anyway, my boss finally tells the leads that I was in on it and we all laugh our asses off. I got the job AND I got to screw with my bosses. Fantastic.

Office Space...

Yes I am. Who are you??


On a separate note, some lady at my work retired and I got hired on afterall!! Yay! No more complaining about not getting that job. I rule...

Obsessive Compulsive...

I have come to realize that I am obsessive compulsive about doing my laundry. Let me first explain that I have more clothes than any other guy ever. I go about a 3 weeks without doing my laundry. When I finally do, I want to clean every last piece of clothing. I literally plan my outfits around it. I will separate my huge 3 week pile of clothes into about 6 different loads. Then if I start out with the white load first, I can't wear anything white until all the laundry is done. If I do, then that white shirt will be left sitting in the hamper after the wash is done. I need to have a full arsenal of clothing. Ever last piece but the clothes I am wearing is clean. I can choose from everything.

Now, I feel the need to tell you that I have already done the Blue Load today and the Whites Load today. The piles remaining to be washed: Brown Load, and the Green/Towels load. So I had to plan out what to wear tomorrow. I will be wearing a khaki (brown) pair of pants, a brown shirt, green boxers, and brown dress socks.

Tomorrow is jean day at work. I will be passing on jean day and will be wearing khakis, just so that it will work out with my laundry schedule.
Obsessive compulsive...

Leah...

So I have this friend, Leah, that moved to Hawaii. She's always whining "no one ever wants to talk to me, no one ever calls me"...blah blah blah. So she calls me up and leaves a message. I called her back 5 minutes later and she talks to me for about two minutes and then was like "well..." and it's the kind of "well" that like saying "well...i should get going". Two minutes!? Why did you bother to call me in the first place if you didn't want to talk to me? I was all ready to talk and catch up but noooooooo....two minutes is all I get. So she just wanted to call me and leave a message, and make it APPEAR that she wants to talk to me, or that she is a better friend than me because she called...she doesn't actually want to talk to me. So that's my theory, thought i'd let the world know and make Leah angry.

Just not fair...

I work as a contactor on a computer help desk for a large insurance company. Recently a position was supposed to open up at work. The big boss at my work started to gear me up, telling me to "get my resume ready" and basically hinting to me in every way possible that this job was obviously mine. Today at work, the big boss and my immediate boss call me into a meeting. My immediate boss tells me that he is stepping down from his position. He will be filling the position that I was supposed to get. WTF what kind of boss steps down from being a manager, all the way down to the job he was managing. Let me relate this for you. That's like a manager of a grocery store stepping down to become a cashier. WTF I've worked there for over a year now, making dogshit pay and working my ass off to make a name for myself. I've done just that. My bosses seem to be very impressed with me (and i'm not trying to be conceited) and essentially the big boss already gave me the job. He said to me "I can't guarantee you the job, you know. We still need to let other people interview, but you're my obvious first choice." WELL FUCK YOU. So I've worked there for all this time and only 2 positions have opened up since I've been there. I don't have another 6 monthes that I can spend wasting my time. I am absolutely crushed...and I have to go to work tomorrow knowing that my immediate boss is going to be taking calls soon and guess what...he's gonna suck at that too. I don't want to be "bitter guy" at work. I don't want to do a shitty job because I am so angry with this place. I want to quit, walk out, fuck them, never think of it again. Unfortunately I live in the real world, so I will have to continue to work there and get bent over. I really DID like working there and would have been literally THE happiest guy in the world if I would have gotten the job that I DESERVE. but no, I'm back at square one. I wish I could have written a better post for you to read, but I'm hurting and I'm at a loss for words and coherant thought...

Weird Dream…

I had a pretty strange dream last night. I don’t remember the “meat” of the dream, but I do remember the basic idea. I had invented a sandwich burner. Sort of like a CD burner, except with sandwiches. I actually remember going to Best Buy and picking up a spindle of blank sandwiches too. Then I burned my friend’s sandwich and ate it.

Just thought I’d tell someone this before I forget. So in case you guys don’t hear from me in a while, just assume that I invented my sandwich burner and that I made millions of dollars…

American Gladiators…

When I was around the age of 12 or so, I used to sleep-walk at night. I’d always end up in some strange place. Once when we were camping, I woke up in the middle of the night in my tighty-whitey’s laying on a mossy hill. Once I woke up in my 3.5x3.5 foot closet, curled into a little ball, lying on top of all my shoes. Once I woke up and found myself wedged between my mattress and box spring. There was one place that I often found myself when I slept-walked. At least on five separate occasions, I woke up on my bean bag chair, sitting about 5 feet from the TV in the living room. Every time I woke up there, American Gladiators was on the TV. I’m not sure how, why, or anything. It is true that I did enjoy that show quite a bit when I was younger, but not enough to watch it in my sleep.

I told someone about this today and that got me to thinking about American Gladiators. Kind of made me wonder what the good ol’ Gladiators are doing today…

Is Blaze running around throwing tennis balls at people thinking that this is normal behavior? Does Laser relive old memories while watching his pet gerbil roll around in a little toy ball, thinking “where has my life gone…”? Who knows…

On a separate note, I always referred to the big jousting sticks as Q-Tips, is that wrong? “Yeah, beat him with that Q-Tip!!!”

Bad Luck...

For those of you wondering what little ol’ Mark has been up to lately, I will tell you. I recently had two of the most irritating days of my life. Just so we’re caught up here, I went on a fishing trip last Saturday to Michigan for four days and this is what happened before this:

Thursday:
11:30AM I awake, seems I set my alarm clock for 8:00PM instead of AM. I immediately call my boss and show up 45 minutes late for work

4:30PM I receive a phone call from a user who was severely screwed up her computer. I begin to walk her through some steps to fix this. I do the exact same steps on my laptop as I walk her through it so that I have a good idea of what’s appearing on her screen. Then I make a terrible mistake and tell the woman to do something you should never do on these computers. Nevermind what it was, but it left her computer inoperable. My computer, since I was following along, also broke and would no longer start up. I broke two computers in one fowl swoop.

5:45PM I go outside to my car on my lunch break. My front tire was flat.

9:15PM I drive my car to the gas station on a relatively empty tire and pump it up to see if it would hold any air. Surprisingly it did. I went to check the air pressure, and my little tire gauge thingy broke right in half.

9:16PM A bum runs up and kicks me in the nuts.

OK…that last one didn’t really happen, but I did look around half expecting an anvil to fall from the sky and crush me.

Friday:
6:55AM Get up and drive to the shop to get my tire fixed. On the drive there, my Service Engine Soon light came on. Just my luck. I told the guys at the shop to check that out too. The said my car would be done by noon. I’d be late for work, but not too bad.

12:15PM Still sitting at home waiting, I call them up and they claim that they just tried calling me. They said some cam sensor went bad and it would cost me about $180. They say the car will be ready by 1:00

1:00PM I show up and my car is not ready. They tell me that they got the wrong part and that it will be another 30 minutes. Then I sit and wait for 90 minutes. The whole time there is a homeless woman sitting in the repair shop watching soap operas on the TV. She felt the need to explain the entire show’s history to me from start to finish. After 45 minutes, I stop pretending that I’m listening and just look the other way. The woman continues to talk for another 45 minutes.

2:30PM They tell me my car is done, he just needs to take it for a test drive. I see my car driving off

2:32PM My car pulls back into the parking lot, and then promptly right back into the garage.

2:40PM They didn’t feel the need to explain anything to me, so I finally go ask what the hell is happening. Turns out my check engine light was still on. They need to check it out more.

3:45PM Nearly three hours after I showed up at the shop and $300 later my car is finally finished. They tell me that the little light sensor broke so now my Service Engine Soon light will be permanently on.

The rest of the day, was rather normal. The following days weren’t much better. I drove to Michigan and apparently lost two hub caps along the way. I guess they didn’t put them on securely. Then I found out that my windshield wiper sprayer no longer works. They forgot to plug that back in. Then I fish for three days straight, 10 hours a day, and catch only one fish. I AM THE LUCKIEST MAN ALIVE. The rest of the guys are up there until Saturday, so I'm sure the fish started biting the minute I left Michigan's state lines.


Things have gotten much better since then. I can no longer complain. I feel it’s worth mentioning that I am still dating the same girl, and things are going along very very well. We will have been together for six monthes on June 21st. I guess that’s about all the news from me! I just thought I would share my nightmare-ish few days with you all. Take care!