I know a lot of funny people. Every now and again, I'm going to turn things over to one of them. We'll call it Pinch Hitting. And we'll start with a neat freak brimming with pent-up anger. In fact, we'll call her Angry. She lives in New York and earned a diploma from Columbine High School. A framed copy does not hang above her desk. This disappoints me.
You can send her fan/hate mail here. And if you'd like to be a featured Pinch Hitter, send me an idea of what you'd like to write about (same address). We'll see what we can do. If you want to design a logo as well, that will help your case.
Some Things I Hate About Working – A Partial List (Part I)
Misleading terminology:
‘Project’
I come from a creative background- to me the phrase ‘I have a little project for you,’ conjures up fond memories involving cameras, location scouting, multiple wardrobe changes, partial nudity and yard gnomes, or at the very least, crepe paper and glitter. It does not however, in any way translate into, ‘label these 900 envelopes then stuff them with the 6 separate pages of inserts that we need you to individually tri-fold with geometric accuracy, and oh yeah, we need them done in the next two hours.’
‘Field Trip’
No we aren’t talking about an educational jaunt to the zoo, the planetarium or even that little mock prairie town with the life-size teepee replicas adorned with real beaver pelts. This one means: ‘get your coat on and take this box half your weight and twice your girth out into the blinding snow/wind/thunder storm to our sister office eight blocks down.’ And you certainly don’t get a food allowance, a memorial t-shirt or a souvenir plastic arrowhead for your efforts.
‘Time Sensitive’
A nice way of saying, ‘drop whatever the hell meaningless task you are currently working on to do this other meaningless task of the supposed highest import that I should have done weeks ago but I’m personally too damn lazy to bother or too stupid to properly execute… and do it right-the-fuck-now.’ There’s nothing ‘sensitive’ about that.
‘Team’
Someone must have busted that one out with a smirk when his or her co-worker declared ‘opposite day.’ To me, it implies an all-for-one attitude where groups of people are affably working towards the same goal, to reap the same rewards. I mean I guess you could say we are a team in the sense that we are working for the betterment of the salary of the executives, but if we were really all in this together, I think said wealth and the preceding workload would be a bit more equally distributed.
Improper use of Pronouns
‘We really need to get this project done for the good of the team, and the matter is very time-sensitive so we need to take a little field trip.’
Translation: ‘I really need this shit taken care of and you are going to do it for me, then I’m going to take all of the credit in front of everybody else.’ Now how that grammatically requires the use of ‘we’ (and the implied teamwork therein)- I have no idea.
Workplace recycling, a three-part rant:
1. The whole idea of recycling is just a bunch of bullshit. Do you know that its actually been disproved by countless individuals? I guess the amount of fossil fuel resources it takes to ‘recycle’ something is just as detrimental to the environment as letting the shit pile up in heap and then breakdown naturally. I’m not sure how ‘killing trees’ factors in to this whole equation, but I’m sure some scholar has that sorted out, and it’s not like that shit won’t grow back eventually.
2. I’m not really into the outcome logistics- like toothbrushes and toilet paper made from ‘renewable resources’? Seriously, I’m so not ok with scrapping plaque off my incisors with what used to be someone’s toilet seat, or swiping a poorly written then ‘properly discarded’ term paper through my ass.
3. Like so many other things, the people that support it just plain ruin it for me. I can’t deal with watching them get all condescending about the part they’re taking to save the world and then they try to push it on whoever is standing within earshot with guilt tactics insinuating that the rest of us just don’t care about this fine planet. But it’s a completely unjustified cause (see point 1). If they want to do something meaningful they should all just drop the smug superiority complex and stop using so many disposable things in the first place. Like paper for instance, figure out how to proofread on-screen and adjust the margins on your current ‘project,’ and you won’t have to keep reprinting that ten-page document that could actually fit onto about four pages. So spend some time with a Microsoft Office tutorial and climb off my ass for dropping an empty foil lined bag of potato chips into the bin for ‘PAPER ONLY!!!!!!’ Because odds are the janitor cares about as much as I do about your crusade and it all ends up thrown in the same dumpster, the one marked for ‘TRASH ONLY!!!!!!’ anyway.
Stumble This
Reddit!
Man, we need this women on the writing staff full time. Brilliant.
*applause*
Even though I love a good rant, when it wouldnt work without ignorance it just falls flat on its face.
Though I agree that more effort should be made to avoid paper use (proof-reading, etc) then simply recycling it, even as a joke you still show ignorance of the entire process. Its like people who think evolution means a monkey pops out a human. You can't criticize it when you don't know how it works.
That, and despite opinion on recycling, anyone so color-blind and illiterate as to put chip bags into a blue recycling bin isn't on any level a step up from the people who don't proof read in the first place. I put this alongside people who leave their dirty dishes in the company kitchen sink as if they'll wash themselves.
Evan,
Actually proofing can be done in M$ office via their commenting tool. Yes, I find it easier to proof on paper, but you CAN proof on screen.
Is this going to lead into a Sheryl Crow discussion? Because I can tell you right now I need more than three squares to wipe my ass
well played, scara
Hey, not all recycling bins are blue, in some offices, they look just like trash cans.
I guess that puts the ignorance ball back in serotonin's court...
Anyone who uses the words "proof-read" AND "proof read" while ranting about people who don't proofread, is clearly a comic genius.