Should it be THIS bad

We're a very friendly place, so this isn't about anything bad, but I do get IMs from people sitting six feet from me asking about some procedural thing, and I still answer out loud. Can't help it.

 

That happened to me when I first started at this place. The slot, sat four feet from me, would message me about the section. It was so strange.
I stopped it. Every time she pulled that crap, I would say loud enough for others to hear:
"Regarding your message you just sent me..."

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Though, I think I'll go with waiting for her to sneeze, just so I can e-mail "bless you."

 

Sprinkle some black pepper on her desk and keyboard when she's not around.

 

I collect scowls and ill whispers whenever I go into the newsroom during the day, which is rare -- in an afternoon paper where the sports section is put together at night. And I think I'm a decent dude. The news staff, for the most part, does not like anyone in their section, let alone the night guy in sports.

Of course, the differing views of the news and sports staffs is a whole different deal.

However, it makes showing up for company functions much more of a thrill, for me. If only to make one person's day a little worse ...

 

my first gig also was the best as far as boozing it up with co-workers goes. we didn't go out every week, but we did meet at least once or twice month and usually put in 8-hour shifts at the bar of choice.

 

We're kind of a rarity, because things are better now than they were 15 years ago. We've got some cool younger people on the news desk, folks who come around and interact a bit.

And y'know what else I've discovered? The people who don't talk to the sports department, they're usually the ones who you really don't want to deal with anyway.

Quick story from when things were worse:

At this time, we were adjacent to the news desk. We got one of those little Michael Jordan plastic basket/backboard deals and stickied it to a file cabinet, used a Nerf basketball for shooting. Each night, we'd have H-O-R-S-E contests after first-edition deadline.

Well, one night, my piece de resistance was going to be a foul shot -- punted into the basket. I was wearing loafers. As I kicked the ball, my shoe flew off ... straight up. The tiles in the ceiling then were made of this soft asbestos-type stuff, and the shoe made a perfect hole in one of them, and entered with just enough angle that the shoe stayed up there in the ceiling.

You had 10 people in the sports department crying, they were laughing so hard. Including me. And 15 feet away, you had 15 people watching the proceedings with blank stares and no sign of a smile.

After about 60 seconds, one of my buddies looked over at the news desk and shouted in their general direction, "You people are brain-dead."

That was the definitive moment.

 

At our joint, everybody works inside enclosed cubicles. To talk to anybody else in the office, you have to either call them on the phone, or get up, walk to their cubicle, and see if they want to talk.

At the budget meeting the other day, the publisher, a dead ringer for Steve Buscemi in his creepier-clammier roles, announced there was "too much nonsensical laughter" in the news meeting and it was interfering with the "decision-making process." Henceforth, meeting participants are only to laugh if they can "explain the humor process" behind their outbursts.

The news meetings were already about as much fun as a colonoscopy; now they'll be about as much fun as an autopsy. Hahah. Ooops, sorry for laughing.

 

Hello, Dilbert!

 

Maybe all the years of working in an asbestos-filled environment affected their funny bones or something.

 

That's really just some weird shit. Sweet Holy Jebezus....

 

NO MORE FUN OF ANY KIND!!