I put down my repair kit and I place my finger on the scanner next to the door.
UNKNOWN
I wipe it with a cloth and try again.
UNKNOWN
“Is there something wrong with the scanner?” I ask the guard standing by the door.
He shrugs. “I just work here, man.”
“Can I show you my ID?” I ask the guard.
“Yes, but it won’t do any good,” said the guard. “I don’t know who can enter. And I can’t open the door, either.”
I try again.
UNKNOWN
Then, I realized: It was the scanner I’d been called to repair.
Tag: work
Dead Switch
Roger found a service called DeadSwitch that would let him address a note to be sent after his death.
If he didn’t log in once a week, the service would assume he had died and release the note.
The problem was, he didn’t have very much to say to anyone, let alone anybody to say it to.
So, he wrote a joke note to the president, saying he wouldn’t have to pardon him for all his brutal and horrific crimes now.
A week later, the site got hacked, and all the notes were sent.
Roger never did get a pardon.
Chew on it
There’s a folder on my desk.
I open it, and there’s a stick of gum in there.
So, I unwrap it, pop it in my mouth, and chew.
Charts. Graphs. Tables.
They hit me all at once.
My boss knocks on my door. “Ah, you’re chewing on the Peterson Account. Think the fourth quarter numbers are good.”
I chew some more, shift the gum around my mouth, and it all adds up.
“Yes,” I say with confidence. “Maybe even better.”
“Excellent,” he says, and pops his bubble and leaves.
I spit out the gum and file it under my desk.
The Auctioneer
The man
With the sexiest voice
In the world
Was as an auctioneer
And he’d auction horses
And houses
And cars
And other things people didn’t want
Or need anymore
But his commissions weren’t
All that good
Because his voice was so sexy
Instead of raising their hands
To place their bids
People had their hands
Elsewhere
(He didn’t want to think what they’d do
With auction paddles)
So instead of watching
For people to
Raise their hands
He’d listen for them to raise their voices
In climax
He’d count that as a bid
Coming once
Coming twice
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh… sold!
Elephant In The Newsroom
New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal said that he didn’t care if his reporters were fucking elephants, as long as they weren’t covering the circus.
However, Rosenthal changed his mind after paying a rash of elevator repair bills when reporters brought their dates to the office.
Then there was the stampede at the paper’s Christmas Party. I guess the peanut martinis were too strong, and there was an argument between two elephants wearing the same dress.
Abe put out a memo the next day: no dating elephants.
But clowns? Totally okay with him.
Care to sniff my flower, Mr. Friedman?
Evil Cloud
A hum, an evil cloud of acrid temptation spreads across the office floor, from desk to desk it is sucked in by its unwitting victims, smothering them with the irresistible hungry urge… hunger… want…
“Who the fuck made microwave popcorn, dammit?” growls my scruffy hipster cube-mate Sherman. “That shit’s worse than Tina’s perfume.”
Or Sherman’s aftershave, I don’t say. Smells like a sweaty gun range.
DING! The microwave is done. The sound of the door opening, a rip.
The air handlers will kick in and dissipate this horrid clou-
The microwave door closes. The hum returns.
Damn it! Another bag!
Shovel Brothers
Fred is wearing the same shirt as I am today.
We are shirt-brothers.
Fred also drives the same car as I do. Same make, model, and color.
Which makes us car-brothers.
Toasters? Well, I don’t see how that’s important, but they’re also the same.
So we’re also toaster-brothers.
I’ve even gotten Fred’s signature down cold, too.
I show it to Fred.
His eyes get wide, and he tries to scream through the gag.
I toss two shovels into the trunk with him (we’re shovel-brothers, too!) and slam the lid.
Shallow grave brothers?
Nah. I’ll let Fred have that to himself.
The Fever
We don’t bother taking Ed’s temperature anymore.
You can tell by the sweat and the redness, he’s burning up.
Still, as the doctor told us to do, we’ve filled his pillow with ice, covered his forehead with damp towels, praying his fever will break.
It’s hard to get him to drink, because he’s constantly whispering nonsense and won’t sip from the glass, so we get him to suck on a damp towel when we can… it’s reflex.
When his temperature’s down again, the doctor will inject me, and it’ll be my turn for the fever.
I hope our vaccine works.
Friendly
Most customers are not unpleasant. They tell us what problem they’re having, we solve it, and they thank us.
Then there’s the ones who scream over and over, but don’t tell us anything helpful to investigate the issue.
They shout insults. They threaten legal action.
They scream every obscenity they know.
So, while on the phone, I looked at a screamer’s account and grabbed their address and credit card.
And emailed them to a Russian whose pornography and gambling site we’d recently suspended.
Mafia.
“Burn their house down,” I said. “And charge it to their card.”
They don’t scream anymore.
Giant Robots
There’s nothing I like more than watching gigantic robots beating the crap out of each other.
One lunges at the other with a massive arm, which barely dodges out of the way, and then responds with a wicked jab.
All the while, people shouting and pointing… it’s a thrill-a-minute!
Oh, sure, it would be more interesting with blades and hammers, but all we’ve got here on the assembly line is grabber and welder bots.
Well, until they move operations to Mexico.
Yeah, I saw the memo. Corporate fuckers.
So, screw the Mexicans… let’s have some fun right now!
Fight! Fight!