Remembering happy days at work

I don’t know if I should start with the meeting in the Cape Cod conference room or the insomnia-induced emails that got us to that point.

Either way, I must include that Saturday afternoon, when I was interviewing for a job in a T-shirt and jeans because the offer for the interview came up while Suzi and I were house-hunting after she got a job on the Cape and therefore we were going to be moving from where we had been living outside Albany.

And while that was going on, my father-in-law poked his head in to ask if there were any restrooms in the building.

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Me and my big mouth

She’s no longer my manager, and our offices are now next to each other, but when I first moved to where I am at work, I used to walk across the room to tell my manager I was leaving for the day.

And frequently, 10, 15, 20 minutes later, she’d walk out of her office to find me still there … for the same reason I often told Suzi, “I would have been home sooner, but …”

… I was gabbing.

Save us from the jargon!

Every office, every professional situation has its BS, its jargon intended to make its speaker seem smarter.

Problem is, everyone knows its BS, except perhaps the spreader of such BS.

Moving upstairs

With any move, there are details you have to figure out.

Such as where the paper towels are (above the counter, instead of under the sink).

And now, since I’m now around other people and walls are thin, whether I’d have to wear headphones when I listen to music (so far, no).

And since I have this weird thing about hitting the top step with my right foot, how I have to hit the first step in order for that to happen. (Also with my right foot.)

All by my lonesome

It’s a little after 8 a.m., and I’m by myself in the office.

This isn’t a surprise. I’m usually one of the first arrivals, and the one person who is ever there before me doesn’t work Fridays. He, like most of the rest of the people I manage, finish their work by Thursday and work long hours to do it, so they get to take Fridays off.

Everyone else will arrive later.

Apparently, people need special gaming chairs. Who knew?

As my wife and I walked into Staples to pick up a toner cartridge for our printer — we also wound up buying an iPhone charging cable, right in the entrance were “gaming chairs” with a special cooling system.

They looked like rebranded office chairs intended to capture the “spends a lot of time sitting but may not have an office job” market, but whatever.

That one person in every office

At work today, I was thrust back into a role I hadn’t played for quite some time.

The guy who has to fix the toner in the printer.

I must just have that look, because the co-worker who asked me to help her change the toner had no idea of my past, but there I was, trying to figure out where the button was to extricate the old toner.

Ripening in the refrigerator

I think it was the strawberry Nesquik that broke me.

I was washing my lunch container after eating yesterday when one of my coworkers came into the kitchen to clean out the refrigerator.

A bunch of people had moved to another office that morning, and so between them leaving and not many other people using the fridge, she figured this was as good a time as any.

A true masterpiece

Behold “Minimalist Lobby”:

”The lack of furniture and rugs represents the emptiness many people feel in their workplace, while the black elevator doors emobody the potential for danger should one attempt to climb the corporate structure.

The only escape is through the doors, into an unpredictable, often cold world.”