The Office Jedi and his Padawan Learner

I will be adding to the rest of the antics troughout the day, as the muse dictates.

I know it has been a few moons since we have last conversed. The muse for today demands that I share some office antics that my co-workers and I have used to consummate friendships. Some of these are just pointless and random, but you should’ve been there to see it…it was levity for all ages! To my lady of perpetual pregnancy, who is trying to learn a new word every week, “levity” is the lack of seriousness at the inappropriate time. However, I would say that it was at the appropriate time.

First imagine that you are in a crisis mode atmosphere at work, everything is hot, the company must spend money fast and frivolously. The entire department is forced to work 55-60 hours a week, this means coming in on Saturdays. I mean this is for everyone, even if you have nothing to do. I had a few colleagues that downloaded music (back when you could do it at work), I knew of some guys finding a shady spot and napping, or reading novels at their desk for 8 hours straight.

However there was an office Jedi who taught me the ways of the business world and the subtlety of office humor and pranks. This was our mission to open the doors of mediocrity and let loose the dogs of comedy. If I was to be Luke Skywalker in this office, then he was definitely Obi-wan Kenobi of the facility. If you watch “The Office”, watch the episode about the Carpet. My sensei embodies the trinity of “The Office”, specifically from the Carpet episode; Michael Scott, Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute. This man has no equal and it was he that set forth the creative anarchy and malfeasant office play that I am renowned for today.

In the beginning there was work. Then stress reared its ugly head. Then High Blood Pressure, followed by heavy drinking and smoking…this is when he stepped in to save me from becoming a lifeless worker drone, who always told the Man, “Hi!” as I went to work. He showed me the ways of the force and he set me free from being boring, unimportant and socially barren. Although, I learned later that without no sacrifice there is no glory, which means in office terms, if you play around eventually you will lose your job and become unemployed. Dammit...he forgot to mention that when he was bounced out of the security gates never to return.

Well, this is not about the eventuality of being down-sized, furloughed, canned, etc. This is about making the best of a pointless and monotonous situation that turns one into an office Demi-god. The ladies want you and every computer geek wants to be you. These stories are actual events. I have changed the names to protect the guilty and conniving bitches that worked there. I hope some of you conniving bitches are straddling an electrical fence with no way off, and every time your feet touch the ground you are shocked with 50,00 volts through your “Ball-sacks”, so now we have a picture of you jumping up and down on a wire getting shocked every time you go down (he he he)….you know who you are! Alas, I digress and I must drive forth to the antics for the day, please enjoy….cause I sure in the hell did.

The Tricycle Ride:

Have you ever seen the movies Grumpy Old Men or Grumpier Old Men? Every time Jack Lemmon or Walter Matthieu pulled into Chuck’s bait shop, they always knocked the trash cans over. So, let me think of how I can take this hilarious part of this movie and transpose it onto my life and make me and my Mentor laugh hysterically, while also putting ourselves out there for the entire world to see. This helped in scoring with the Ladieths of Accounting.

The ride of the tricycle is not unlike any other devil-may-care trip you might take with a friend or two. The only difference is that these “trikes”, were meant for company use and transport of company materials, yeah whatever. They were rusty, orange, they had “Heidi” type wire baskets behind the seat and every one of the trikes squeaked as you pedaled. Despite the fact that all of us that wore the “Lab Coat of Shame” we looked very feminine while riding these big tricycles.

One of our main tasks was to ride from one end of the facility to the other, either to accounting or purchasing to settle P.O.’s, or payments to suppliers. So, Obi-wan jumped on a trike, I jumped on another and away we went, pedaling and laughing at the idiots that had to walk…boy were they really queer! However looking back, if you would’ve saw us in our safety glasses and lab coats riding a three wheeled death machine, then you would’ve laughed more at us, cause we looked like two geeky professors on a lovefest ride to the next Mac Expo.

I would like to say that as we rode down to wherever our destination was supposed to be, I would always let my mentor get just far enough ahead of me that he didn’t pay attention to what I was doing. Are you paying attention to the story? This is where the plot thickens. I would allow him to stop, but not be stopped so long as to not get off the trike yet, before I came barreling through the path and rear ended him. My tire went underneath his trike, lifted it up to where his feet couldn’t touch the ground. So he was sitting there trying to touch the ground but couldn’t while I was behind him laughing hysterically and pushing my tire in further (holy spectacles…that sounded MF’ing gay). It was funny as hell though, because these two metal contraptions crashed and clanged loud and everyone would look out their windows “to see what rose such a clatter”. My mentor always turned red in the face and laughed uncontrollably as if he had sat on vibrating feather duster. After the applause from in the building died down, along with the laughter and finger pointing, I took it upon myself to answer the call of the “office”…this meant I would have to stop like this every time I would ride a trike, and dammit I did for 4 more years. It got to be so routine, that my mentor would ride in front then stop and just crouch up and wait for it….I would always say gently, “shhhhhhh, just take it.” Then WHAM! Right in the trike ass!....ohhh hell, you should’ve been there.

FUTURE STORIES-

Taking a Computer Out of the Facility (Piece by Piece):

Playing Video Games on the Night Shift:

The Ladieths of Accounting:

Stealing Food from Meetings We Weren’t Invited too:

Annoying the Managers with Sly, but Off the Wall Comments:

The Little Blue Building:

The Hall of Shame:

The Contractor’s Trailer: