Adventures in Workplace Stupidity
In the cafeteria at work today, the good people in the Human Resources department were offering us lowly wage donkey's a suprise buffet of bonbons in another one of their zany corporate attempts to improve upon the existing workplace moral. Hey, it’s a nice gesture and I appreciate their efforts to appease both my sweet tooth as well as my rapidly expanding waistline. I love free candy as much as the next guy. Honestly, I do!
For this particular festive spread, they offered what appeared to be the remnants of a mass Valentine’s Day Clearance sale, with bowls of flavored popcorn, jelly beans, sugary heart-shaped confection candies, and of course, those fucking cinnamon hearts that you simply cannot avoid even days after Valentine’s Day has passed! In order to help themselves to this plentiful candy booty, employees were required to dish out their portions of candy plunder from the bowls onto a handheld napkin with plastic cafeteria spoons.
WTF?
Who’s bright fucking idea was that? Are we so paranoid now about contagious germs and infectious disease that we can’t even use our hands to scoop discounted candy out of the same bowl? Shit, it’s probably all most of us can do is to just hold ourselves back from launching ourselves face first into the candy bowl with open mouth and just start mowing down like starving hyenas. Surely they jest. Has the earth suddenly reversed its rotation or something?
Do you know how LONG it takes to scoop out mini-bitesized candies onto a balanced napkin with a plastic spoon? Why not just give us chopsticks and a banana leaf? What, are these morons like the corporate Khymer Rouge or something? Give us the proper tools to do the fucking job, man! The queue of employees, all eagerly racing to get back to their work stations after their 15 minute coffee breaks, were moving through the line at the same rate it would take an entire Retirement Community to work their way through the aisles of food bins at the local Bulk Barn. Heaven’s forbid if any motherfucker should even think of trying to spend any time attempting to pick around any particular colored candy in the bowl. There would be mutany among the ranks I’m sure!
I opted to waive my right to get in line behind my co-workers for my opportunity to slowly and awkwardly load up a single napkin of sugared treats. I had images in my head of Russian breadlines and prison camp inmates all waiting behind me for their own chance to feed their cravings as I delicately maneuver jelly beans from the sea of vile cinnamon hearts with a plastic spoon that’s shaking like Michael J. Fox finishing a bowl of soup. Just think how long at that rate, it would take to scoop out an adequate portion of small, slippery-to-handle candies large enough to satisfy even a fat bastard such as myself? Christ, I’ll be there working over those bowls all fucking day like a focused surgeon in an Emergency operating room!
There will be employees behind me in line dropping from starvation and exhaustion before they’ve even had a chance to help themselves to the candy bowls before I step away from that candy buffet, let me tell you! Unbeknownst to anyone but me at the time, was just how close to a Cambodian Killing Field situation they nearly came to having on their hands had I instead chosen to join that line!
I could picture the possible scenario playing out now over the walkie-talkies between Work Force Management and my own Team Managers:
“kkkkkft! Terry Nash is now on a 36 minute personal break. Over.”
“Roger that, Command. He’s at the candy bowl. Over.”
“kkkkkft! Copy that. Over”
(some time later…)
“kkkkkft! Terry Nash is now on a 65 minute personal break. Over.”
“Roger that, Command. He’s, ahhhh…still at the bowl. Over.”
“kkkkkft! How much longer at this point? Over.”
“Can’t tell. He’s only managed three jelly beans so far, so we suspect that he’ll either be full by the middle of next week, if the plastic spoon doesn't wear out first. Over.”
For this particular festive spread, they offered what appeared to be the remnants of a mass Valentine’s Day Clearance sale, with bowls of flavored popcorn, jelly beans, sugary heart-shaped confection candies, and of course, those fucking cinnamon hearts that you simply cannot avoid even days after Valentine’s Day has passed! In order to help themselves to this plentiful candy booty, employees were required to dish out their portions of candy plunder from the bowls onto a handheld napkin with plastic cafeteria spoons.
WTF?
Who’s bright fucking idea was that? Are we so paranoid now about contagious germs and infectious disease that we can’t even use our hands to scoop discounted candy out of the same bowl? Shit, it’s probably all most of us can do is to just hold ourselves back from launching ourselves face first into the candy bowl with open mouth and just start mowing down like starving hyenas. Surely they jest. Has the earth suddenly reversed its rotation or something?
Do you know how LONG it takes to scoop out mini-bitesized candies onto a balanced napkin with a plastic spoon? Why not just give us chopsticks and a banana leaf? What, are these morons like the corporate Khymer Rouge or something? Give us the proper tools to do the fucking job, man! The queue of employees, all eagerly racing to get back to their work stations after their 15 minute coffee breaks, were moving through the line at the same rate it would take an entire Retirement Community to work their way through the aisles of food bins at the local Bulk Barn. Heaven’s forbid if any motherfucker should even think of trying to spend any time attempting to pick around any particular colored candy in the bowl. There would be mutany among the ranks I’m sure!
I opted to waive my right to get in line behind my co-workers for my opportunity to slowly and awkwardly load up a single napkin of sugared treats. I had images in my head of Russian breadlines and prison camp inmates all waiting behind me for their own chance to feed their cravings as I delicately maneuver jelly beans from the sea of vile cinnamon hearts with a plastic spoon that’s shaking like Michael J. Fox finishing a bowl of soup. Just think how long at that rate, it would take to scoop out an adequate portion of small, slippery-to-handle candies large enough to satisfy even a fat bastard such as myself? Christ, I’ll be there working over those bowls all fucking day like a focused surgeon in an Emergency operating room!
There will be employees behind me in line dropping from starvation and exhaustion before they’ve even had a chance to help themselves to the candy bowls before I step away from that candy buffet, let me tell you! Unbeknownst to anyone but me at the time, was just how close to a Cambodian Killing Field situation they nearly came to having on their hands had I instead chosen to join that line!
I could picture the possible scenario playing out now over the walkie-talkies between Work Force Management and my own Team Managers:
“kkkkkft! Terry Nash is now on a 36 minute personal break. Over.”
“Roger that, Command. He’s at the candy bowl. Over.”
“kkkkkft! Copy that. Over”
(some time later…)
“kkkkkft! Terry Nash is now on a 65 minute personal break. Over.”
“Roger that, Command. He’s, ahhhh…still at the bowl. Over.”
“kkkkkft! How much longer at this point? Over.”
“Can’t tell. He’s only managed three jelly beans so far, so we suspect that he’ll either be full by the middle of next week, if the plastic spoon doesn't wear out first. Over.”
1 Comments:
...can you even imagine the multitudes that will queue up when they serve coffee? There's really nothing I can do but laugh cynically at the line for free Tim Horton's hot chocolate and coffee as I casually saunter to the nearest coffee shop which is -- no word of a lie! -- a three minute walk from work. yeah, it costs 1.25 but at least I won't collapse from a lack of caffeine before lunch. Natch.
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