A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Last week, my coworker started to rant about how certain food products last much longer than they really should. Growing up on a farm, he was used to food spoiling rather quickly, like a carton of milk expiring within a week, or bread molding after a few days. Now, you can have a loaf of bread and after two weeks, it will still show no signs of molding. Makes you wonder what kind of preservatives are really in there.

The conversation then turned to eggs. After complaining about how long they last (and how he throws them out after a week because he gets scared of them, along with his milk and bread), he mentioned how they used to be so much smaller when he was young. And that got me thinking, when I go to the grocery store, I usually buy the extra large eggs. Why? I don't know. I think that's just what I had picked up when I started doing my own grocery shopping and have been getting ever since.

I remember once being in the supermarket and trying to figure out what the difference was between extra large and jumbo - I couldn't figure out which was bigger since both sound pretty big to me. And that was when I noticed the only other size - large.

Why do eggs come in large, extra large, and jumbo? Whatever happened to plain old small, medium, and large? It's like the opposite of how all the clothing and shoe sizes are running big as a marketing ploy to make people believe they're smaller than they really are. In the same way, maybe eggs are sized at large, extra large, and jumbo to make people believe they're getting more for their money. Hey, at the very least, you're getting some large eggs, right? Maybe size really does matter.

Door Close

Why do elevators have "door close" buttons when they never work? The only door close button I have ever found to work is in my current apartment building, but otherwise, these buttons seem to be a waste of space and only serve to trick people into thinking that they have some control over the elevator.

Yesterday morning I was happy to get into an empty elevator and was looking forward to having a quick ride up to my desk on the 15th floor. I pressed 15, hit the door close button, and stepped back to wait for my departure. Well, I waited. And then I waited some more. I hit door close again and nothing happened.

Then, after what felt like a minute of waiting, just as the doors made a creaking sound and began to close, someone jumped into my elevator and made the doors jolt wide open again. She pressed the button for her floor (of course, it was lower than mine) and stood back to wait for our departure. It must have reset the elevator because it was nearly another minute before the doors started to close again. And just as they began to close, another person jolted the doors open and hopped into my elevator.

After that, a stream of people entered my elevator and once it was full, the elevator finally decided to shut its doors and begin on its merry way. Now that the elevator was packed full of people, it stopped at nearly every floor below mine and when I finally made it to the 15th floor, I found myself the lone person in the elevator. Once again, first in, last out, and all at the hands of a taunting door close button.

Door close button, what is your purpose in life? Why do you exist and tease me so?

I'll Get You, Stall Number 1

Quite a while ago, I vented about the modern convenience of toilets equipped with sensors to automatically flush at the sign of any movement. Since then, I learned to deal with the excessive flushing. But recently, I changed my regular stall and am now regretting it.

My old stall of preference was stall number 3. My general impression is that everyone passes up the first stall (because who ever takes the first thing they see?) and usually opts for stall number 2. So, as a result, I used to take stall number 3 since I thought it was less used. But I was wrong. To my horror, I have often walked into stall number 3 to find used toilet seat covers still hanging on to the seat and urine on the floor. One too many times have I been burned with stall number 3 that I recently changed to stall number 1.

Now the problem I have is that stall number 1 doesn't flush enough. Whereas my old stall number 3 would flush when I got in the stall, once while I was going, and then again when I was done (I figured out how trigger it without manually flushing), stall number 1 will only flush once when I'm close to being done, and not again. It's the most aggravating thing to see toilet paper still floating in the bowl when I'm finished, and gives me no other choice but to manually flush the toilet by pressing on the idiotically small rubber button that's just an inch above the toilet seat.

I have now learned how to press, and hold, the little button with the corner of my shoe, using my talents in balance and thigh strength (I guess those one-legged squats I did in wushu really paid off!). While it's a nice little workout, I'm getting rather tired of it and am ready to try a new stall. But someday, I'll get you, stall number 1, and your rubber button too.

My Neighbor, Thumper

In the ever-changing world of an outsourced office environment, we are constantly letting go and hiring people. The cube next to mine has been empty for about a month now, and this week I got a new neighbor.

Now, the cubicle structure in my office is one that is supposed to encourage teamwork. Someone had the bright idea that if people had to stare at each other all day long, then they would have to work together and be "one team." As a result, the cube walls are only waist-high, and when sitting I have a clear view of my coworkers.

Which brings me to my new neighbor, Thumper. Thumper is friendly and kind, and has the vigor of a new employee. The thing about Thumper is that he thumps. On the keyboard. And I'm not just talking about your run of the mill heavy typer. Thumper is of the hunt-n-peck variety.

I noticed this characteristic the first day he started, but in just three short days, it is slowly starting to drive me crazy. From behind me, I can hear him tapping out an email, and, because of his hunt-n-peck style of typing, his thumps come in spurts. The only way I can describe it is "thump.......thump thump thump thump thump......(you can almost hear him thinking and his nose is now getting closer to the keyboard)....thump thump thump...."

Apparently, I was the only one to notice Thumper's loud habit. And now that I've pointed it out to my other cube neighbors (we sit in clusters of 6), it's starting to drive them a little bonkers too. Sometimes, just for fun, we'll start pounding on our keyboards, but Thumper is so in the zone typing his emails that he never notices.

Not only does Thumper thump on the keyboard, but we also discovered he's a heavy walker too and he's not a big guy (what is it with skinny heavy walkers, anyways?). Good thing he's just my neighbor at work and doesn't live in the apartment above mine.

What not to say to your employees

After much anticipation, bonuses were finally announced this week. With all the press my company was receiving in the media about how the "big bonus" was back, my colleagues and I were reasonably optimistic about our compensation. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed.

After presenting me with my compensation, my manager looked at my sad, sad face and said, "You don't look very happy." Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not one to hide my emotions. If I'm mad at you, you'll know. If I'm sad, you'll know. I'm not one to keep a person guessing. So, of course, my response to my manager was, "Well, I'm not."

After further discussion, my genius manager then made the following insightful comment: "Wow, I hope I didn't just unmotivate you with this." And if I thought that this review couldn't get any worse, he then went on to ask me how old I was. After some slight hesitation, I told him my age and he responded with, "Well, this is pretty good for a 26-year-old!" I'm sorry, but was that supposed to be motivating?

That night, my disappointment quickly turned into anger and resentment as I kept hearing "I hope I didn't unmotivate you" and "this is good for a 26-year-old!" over and over again in my head. If he hadn't unmotivated me from not compensating me well, he definitely managed to do so with his dumb-ass remarks during my review.

Never before had I felt more lied to by my senior management. I'm a rather naive and trusting person, but I could clearly see through all the BS reasons my manager gave behind the compensation decisions. And as a result of the unmotivating spiel that my manager delivered in hopes of keeping me productive, I have renewed energy to post on my blog, which helps me kill time during the day while remaining minimally productive.