workplace violence – Crasstalk

Hatorade: It’s Got Electrolytes

Hate. It’s a strong word and one that I use a lot. I hate that I hate as much as I do but I try not to think of how meta that is. We’ve all recently discussed things that we hate on Facebook and things that annoy us in general. Today, I would like to break you off with some things that I hate about: THE WORKPLACE.

Cap’n Crunch – These are the people who love potato chips. Fucking love them. In fact, they love them so much that they insist on savoring them for as long as possible…with their mouths open. How the fuck can you take 3 minutes to eat one chip? Ask Cap’n Crunch and they’ll set you straight.
The Turd Burglar – This is the lady or gentleman who never quite learned that there are ways of determining whether or not somebody is in the bathroom stall. They try really hard to barge into your stall like some kind of crazed moose and then say nothing when they realize that they’ve made a mistake.
Havana Omelet – Speaking of bathrooms, it is my opinion that the turd burglar (or TB) has nothing on the Havana Omelet. This person has no shame and will not hesitate to bust ass in the stall next to you with the power of no less than 1.21 gigawatts of rectal fury. Not everyone can control how their bowel movements work out but maybe this person should try avoiding the ghost chili burger at Carl’s Jr, next time.
Howard Hughes – This is the upstanding individual who is convinced that you can get cancer of the butt by merely looking a surface that hasn’t been rigorously cleaned with a disinfectant wipe. Yes, germs are everywhere and they are coming to eat your children but have you ever considered letting your immune system do its job every once and awhile?
Wolfgang Puck – What’s that you brought for lunch, fella? Is that ‘hot sauerkraut goulash’ Hamburger Helper? Eat it in the fucking break room (or parking lot) because it smells like hot garbage.
Casey Kasem – So you like Nickelback? I don’t. Neither do the other people in a 5-mile radius. Remember when I looked at you as though you were the Toxic Avenger and told you that your music sucks? I wasn’t joking. The first clue would’ve been when I followed my first statement up with the words, “I’m not joking”. There is no accounting for taste and there will also be no accounting for where I hide your body.
Clever Name for Ergonomic Keyboard Users – I have no rational explanation for this one. I just really hate when people use those stupid keyboards.

I could go on for days but I would really like to hear what you guys hate.

– Gooch

Toiling for a Tool? Ten Telltale Signs

Do you own your own business? Does your father speak like Mr. Bottomtooth on Family Guy, and let you draw a (no show) paycheck – from the company that amazingly bears the same last name as yours, while you spend the Summer banging chicks all across the European Continent as your Eurail pass hangs out of the back pocket of your Gap chinos? Well this post isn’t for you, Bunky. Move along. I’ll wait a sec….

Now, if the rest of the unwashed masses (me included) are ready, here are ten easy ways to see if you are toiling for a tool.

1. Does your micro-managing, vinyl-shoe wearing boss hover around your workspace and see if you are sending personal emails or taking personal calls and generally being unproductive? Tool.

2. Does your boss ask if you have finished Project X, as you are walking out to a much-needed, Wednesday liquid lunch? Tool.

3. If your boss likens your productivity to that of a sedated tree-sloth, during written review time, on letterhead, and makes you sign it. Tool.

4. If your boss mentions to you, in the break room – in front of the mouth-breathing HR Temp – that this is the fifth time this month you’ve been late, but never compliments you for taking the goddamn red-eye back from the mind-numbingly, soul-crushing conference she made you attend against your will, so that you don’t miss another workday? Tool.

5. When your boss is leaving at 11 a.m. on Thursday for a long weekend of cough syrup, TV Dinners, and masturbating until the sobbing starts and he dumps the vague outline of a Powerpoint he has to have for his ass-kissing meeting with Corporate at 9 a.m. Monday. Yes, he’s a tool.

6. Upon being reduced to throwing yourself under the warehouse forklift and jeopardizing “Slow Dave” the driver’s retirement in order to secure the afternoon off because your boss requires 946 hours prior notice. Tool.

7. When look forward to hunkering down in your basement and devoting every one of the precious few hours you have to yourself, at night, after work, searching the internet for: odorless, tasteless, easily purchased, fast acting, nervous system crippling, sphincter bleeding, sweet sweet poison for your boss – when you should be sleeping. Tool.

8. After enduring another closed-door conference call to your one and only new perspective client this month – in which you luckily closed some new business, no thanks to Mr. Has-No-Clue who insisted he “sit in” and now you can eat this month and by the skin of your teeth and sheer will, you barely survive the olfactory assaulting, gag-inducing aroma of those sense-stultifying, Sansabelt pants he’s worn for the third time this week and he has the nads to attempt a high-five and a “bro hug?” Tool.

9. If you refuse to talk about your personal, weekend business with your boss, which may or may not include: using your home-made trebuchet to hurl cat-eye marbles at Mitzy, your patient, but struggling goldfish; wearing neoprene; huffing modeling glue; abusing the On-Demand porn privilege with Comcast (to the point of a warning call), but she sees you as the perfect sounding board for an opinion of her newly e-bay purchased, Civil War Reenactment costume she is currently modeling before you. Tool.

10. If your boss waits until you are in the communal commode to take his “morning squirt,” which he does whilst humming the entire theme to Rocky, while you, once again, and hopefully this time successfully, evacuate the four pounds of government cheese you had to subsist on this past weekend and have been painfully carrying around in your lower intestine. Tool.

Hopefully, this will help you identify the tool you work for.

Wednesday Daytime Open Thread

Hello there Crasstalk. Hope you are having a good day and are making it through the week without getting into too much trouble (you know who you are troublemakers). We are running a little thin on articles for the next couple of days, so if you have been thinking of putting together a post this would be a great time. Email me if you need help at crasstalk at gmail dot com.

Here are a couple of truly awesome workplace videos to guide you through the work day.

Have a wonderful day.