October 28, 2004
Cubicle Etiquette
With the help of the cubicle, the grand visions of the more efficient business future have finally and truly been realized. Across the world, vast indoor fields of tiny fabric-walled pens are enabling industry to continue on its mighty, faceless march across humanity. This great movement sprang from Nature's own Bosom, from her examples of the super-efficient beehive, to the entirely natural Concentrated Animal Feeding Facilities pioneered by the pork and poultry industries.
Unfortunately, the nuances of the human worker animal require a new set of rules for the modern-day Concentrated Human Worker Facility. Like swine and pullet hens, people are going to be annoying, and people will complain, regardless of attempts at politeness. In these potentially ugly situations, its often more effective to be David Banner than Miss Manners. A few helpful tips:
Respect for cube space is important, and communication is key. A thin, almost invisible strand of piano wire strung across your cube entrance will leave a clean but nasty cut across the windpipe, and will send a clear message regarding your personal boundaries.
"Good fences make good neighbors," but an open display of personal armament only improves the situation. Like maintaining a mutual nuclear deterrent, the credible threat of immediate and effective violence, together with the credible threat of swift and equally effective retribution, will stave off many a cubicle quibble. Flashing a bit of gunmetal when you say "Good Morning," will often insure at least several hours of peaceful coexistence.
Loiterers -- No one likes to hang out where there's a strong, foul, organic odor. You figure out the rest.
Know your audio. It's instinctive for us to deal with our neighbor's questionable musical choices by turning up our own selection du jour, but first, take a moment to calm down, gather yourself, and consider what you're about to do. Are you fighting Creed with Puddle of Mudd? Indistinguishable, it'll never work. Reba with Alan Jackson? Neither of you deserve to live, much less win your stupid little battle. You must always take taste as well as aural physics into account. Nothing says "screw you" to a Barry Manilow-playing neighbor than a selection from Ice-T's magnum opus, "Body Count."
Finally, while innovation is required by our changing environment, don't forget some of the old stand-by's: tire slashing, planting gay porn, prank calls, email bombs, and urinating in plants. Someday, Big Business will find ways to sort of safely and legally remove our higher brain functions, solving these problems once and for all, and insuring peace and productivity for all proles and plebes. But until then, with a little thought and effort, and a little help from the innumerable, voices in your head that keep getting louder and louder and won't stop talking about the kittens, the horrible, horrible kittens of doom, oh God make it stop, we can all find a way to live and work together in mutual harmony and respect on a firm foundation of fear.
The Man
Posted by Rob at 06:37 AM | Comments (0)
the creamy evil
You know, I enjoy the fact that I have friends here around me in Austin that have migrated here from across the United States, and indeed, the world. In my own little melting pot of friends, we all benefit from the rich cultural diversity. Sometimes there is debate, but almost always, respect and appreciation. However, there are limits to this cultural relativism that are only right and proper. I cannot justify or accept the use of carrots in stews by Hungarians. I do not embrace or even condone the ritual slaughter of marmosets by Uruguayans. And I cannot ratify, by my silence, the continued, unquestioning glorification of Marble Slab Creameries by infidels raised in the Houston area.
Essentially, anyone who's spent a significant amount of time in Austin, which generally means anything more than eight months, claims Amy's as the superior ice cream store. However, Austin is infiltrated by an ever-growing number of people fleeing the humidity, mosquitos, traffic, and complete lack of sensical zoning in Houston, including many who believe that Marble Slab is, in fact, far superior. These are people that turn their nose up at Amy, and would stone her, if they could.
It seems innocent enough - worship the gargantuan corporate purveyor of frozen butterfat, and demonize good, wholesome local institutions like Amy's. But those who do so, while motivated by what passes for refined taste, are actually unwitting pawns of the Slabpire and its unholy crusade. Recently, noted and respected Oliver Stone-wanna-be filmmaker Michael Moore produced a short film uncovering the insidious, weblike web of insidiousness linking Marble Slab, tobacco giant Phillip Morris, the Bush and Hoover administrations, Osama Bin Laden's backup dry cleaner, and Aaron Spelling.
The filmmaker interviews several former employees of the company who
worked in secrecy at the so-called "Slab Lab", hidden deep within a
mountain, just off of a dusty rocky road in Puerto Rico, where the company maintains several vanilla-only locations. These former employees all report that for decades, they had actually been paid by a research affiliate of Phillip Morris to study the possible cross-application of certain chemical additives, many of them known carcinogens, between cigarette and ice cream production.
"We tried lots of things in those days. The sky was the limit, and our
budget was endless," says one former researcher, who would only be
identified as "Doug". "We tried chocolate chips in cigarettes, cyanide
ascorbate in ice cream cakes. We were told by the company to look at the ice cream cup or cone simply as a 'nicotine-cream delivery device'. It was horrible. And no one knew. I mean, there's a reason The Slab has locations in almost every state on the East Coast, except for Virginia, where Phillip Morris is based. Plausible deniability. Deceit and obfuscation. Sixty Minutes refused to air my interview 10 years ago because, well, actually, I couldn't find their phone number, and the Internet was sorta sketchy back then."
"Doug" was found on a tin roof, Sunday, bludgeoned to death with a small, metal club-like object that some observers agreed could have been a really heavy, extraordinarily large, lead ice cream scoop. Local authorities, however, all of whom smoke and eat ice cream, declined to label the death a homicide, instead classifying it only as, "kinda weird".
Hippie Vermontian ice cream Communists Ben and Jerry released a statement the next afternoon, decrying the apparent murder. "This is not surprising. We've lived in fear for 20 years, except, like, when we're really stoned and don't care. But you cannot keep the truth from the American people, man. That, like, sucks." Leaving the press conference, an enraged Ben added, "If you're gonna pick on someone, butter pecan me, you fascist freaks!"
Moore's film also reveals ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, and the
company he once helped run, Halliburton. Halliburton is currently the
contractor responsible for constructing 32 Marble Slab franchises across Iraq. Earlier this week, feeling left out of recent journalism, ABC claimed to be in possession of photographs showing ice-cream related abuse of the Iraqi populace. The images are chilling, to say the least: a child, no more than 9, crying, an empty cone in hand, the improperly-secured ice cream scoop it once held melting on the desert sand at his feet. Another shows a woman screaming, clutching her forehead in agony, as nearby U.S. and British soldiers laugh and point at what some G.I's jokingly call a "brain freeze."
Tuesday night, Moore took the opportunity at the recent Ted Nugent
Bowhunting Video Awards show to grandstand for the cause, as he accepted the award for Cleanest Marmoset Kill With Compound Bow, Over 50 Yards - "Stand up against the irresponsible extension of the mili-dairy industrial complex. Start by voting! Ice cream change begins at home!"
Posted by Rob at 06:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2004
It Happened On August 20
Well, August 20 is an auspicious date, indeed. It is the birthday of such notables as Don King, Commodore "I got yer enemy right here" Perry, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Hayes and Courtney Gibbs of "Baywatch" non-fame. It is also the day on which Pope Pius X (no relation to Malcolm) died.
Further, in 1865, President Johnson declared an end to the "insurrection" in the backwater state of Texas. August 20 saw the first TV broadcast for home reception in 1930 New York City, Leon Trotsky's assasination in 1940, and Messner's solo ascent of Mt. Everest in 1980. Oddly enough, August 20th is a good day for Major League pitchers - 4 no hitters have been pitched in the last century on that date.
Tomorrow is Hungary's Constitution Day, Senegal's Independence Day (which Bill Pullman had nothing to do with), and Admission Day in Hawaii. I do not know what Admission Day is, but I think the most logical assumption would be that it is a day on which people are compelled to admit things to each other, about past indiscretions, personal fears, and what they really think about the way the other smells. I would also jump to the conclusion that the murder rate in Hawaii is unusually high every August 20.
But, with the exception of the birthdates of Isaac Hayes, and former Miss Texas Courtney Gibbs, who to this day doesn't remember our 3-year sweaty relationship, these occurences all pale next to what happened on August 20, 1988.
I have it on information slightly more credible than Fox News that on that day in 1988, a crowd of shocked bystanders in the farming community of Pfigston, Idaho watched as a 13 year-old girl named Marnie Cragglestein took the stage at the county's annual Potato Calling Contest, and declared herself Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Exalted Arbiter of Abandoned Doughnut Holes. Within minutes, word of the surprise, unchallenged coup reached both major media outlets and the halls of power across the world. It had apparently escaped notice that the position had been vacant but otherwise available for millenia. Somewhere in Vermont, former Secretary of State and momentary U.S. President Alexander Haig was said to be "annoyed that he hadn't thought of that."
Ms. Cragglestein maintained her position of power for approximately 38 minutes, during which her accomplishments were staggering: she declared equal rights for marmots; ordered the immediate arrest and execution of all people aged 42; instituted a moratorium on the use of sprinkles on ice cream; and declared then-hip Debbie Gibson to be "a Stupid Stupidhead."
Then, suddenly declaring herself to be in serious need of a nap, Cragglestein stepped down, but not before naming her cat, Mr. Fluffinstuffles, as her permanent successor. Mr. Fluffinstuffles' reign was marked by persistent grooming and mewing before he was assasinated three days later by an unmarked black sedan reputed to be driven by the suddenly un-hip Debbie Gibson. Gibson later went on to be relatively insignificant before enjoying a revival as a Broadway singer.
August 20 is, therefore, celebrated by many individuals who may or may not actually exist as the only time in history when the universe made any sort of sense at all, thanks to the visionary leadership of Cragglestein, who, after 8 years dancing under the name "Toyota" in a gentleman's club in Washington D.C., became a successful lobbyist for the powerful sex-toy industry.
Posted by Rob at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)