friday the 27th

I walked in at 10:07 (seven minutes late), sat down in my cubicle, started processing "Opt-Outs"*. My "boss"** was on the phone when I first walked in, and a little bit after a while she heard me tapping away and asked if that was me...

I wanted to establish "my routine" as quickly as possible. With my old boss, I used to go to her cubicle as soon as I got to work, and I found I don't like to check-in as soon as I get in (it gives me a few minutes to be late), so I gradually phased that out. I'm sure it was also annoying for my boss, to have me interrupt her and ask what needed to be done. And I like to start with something light, like checking my e-mail or doing those Opt-Outs. It means I don't have to be fully alert until 10:30ish. It's also better for everyone, since it means that I'm not doing really important stuff unfocused and I'm not as bitter as the guy in the cartoon. Today, the whole thing felt kind of awkward and pushed, but hopefully, it'll just come to be expected.

When I did go over to see what needed to be done, I almost laughed out loud when I saw her with her iPod doing data entry stuff (see my last post!). Apparently, I'm not the only one that uses an iPod as a surival tool. I did that cool stuff until lunch time.

As I ate my lunch, I brainstormed what kind of stuff I could put on the SalesBoard (decorating the middle of it is one my responsibilities). I wanted to put up pictures of our customers with blurbs about them since right now, it's just a boring list, but when I went over to my boss to feel things out a bit more, I decided that they didn't want/need me to change the format of the customer list- I should do "fun stuff" for the middle. A lot of our customers are in the Healthcare industry, so I spent some time surfing the Net for good healthcare jokes for a "joke of the week" section. The challenge was finding appropriate, yet funny jokes. Most of the ones I found were either too dirty or too cheesy. But this is next week's joke:


Jon's working at the lumberyard, pushing a tree through the buzz saw, and accidentally shears off all ten of his fingers. He goes to the emergency room.

The doctor says, "Yuck! Well, give me the fingers, and I'll see what I can do."

Jon says, "I haven't got the fingers.

"The doctor says, "What do you mean, you haven't got the fingers? It's the year 2000. We've got microsurgery and all kinds of incredible techniques. I could have put them back on and made you like new. Why didn't you bring the fingers?"

Jon says, "Well, heck, Doc, I couldn't pick 'em up."
(Alternate ending: Jon says, "Well, shit, Doc, I couldn't exactly pick the fuckin' things up!")

At some point, I went over to my boss and asked if there was anything she actually needed me to get done that was more pressing than my searching for jokes. And that's when they gave me my assignment (insert scary music here)...

TO BE CONTINUED