Going Down With The Ship

For those of you anxiously waiting to hear about the outcome of my epic battle with Tony and Mrs. Tony yesterday, the exciting conclusion will be the topic of a blog post later this week. And shockingly, yes, someone did actually ask about it!  See how I build suspense and keep people coming back for more? It's like a "to be continued" cliffhanger from your favorite TV drama.  This strategy is precisely what builds and maintains my loyal fan base...or threatens to drive away my sparse audience...one or the other...

Unfortunately, I'm too mentally exhausted this evening to give tennis the blogging attention that it deserves.  I'm left with just enough energy to complain a little more about work!  The dreaded presentation went fairly well this morning--as well as could be expected for a presentation based on outdated, irrelevant information.  But there was one problem--while the overall budget wasn't unreasonably high, one of the business units within the division saw costs go up more than expected.  I knew that would get plenty of attention, and as always, I was exactly right.

During the meeting, the director for that business unit said that he would need to understand in detail what was causing the costs to go up.  I'd fully expected that question and started working on that immediately when I got to the office this morning....but it was going to take some time, so I told him I'd be working on answering that question over the next few days.  But after the meeting, I started getting bombarded with phone calls and emails from other coworkers who support that business unit, explaining that they had just seen a copy of the presentation and asking me what was causing the increase in COGS.  Having the exact same conversation with thirty-eight different people at five-minute intervals was a major obstacle between me and the work necessary to answer the question.

"Why are costs up?"
"I working on figuring that out right now."
"When will you have an answer?"
"As soon as I stop having this conversation twelve times every hour."

Would it have been appropriate to award a prize to the hundredth caller?  I wanted to send a mass email to the company distribution list with one message in the subject line: "I'm working on it!!!"

Once everyone in the business unit had taken their shot at me and the messages finally started to die down, details of the long-feared budget re-work began to roll in.  Again, I knew it was coming, but that didn't make it any less painful.  Around 2:30PM, emails started hitting my inbox with lists of mandatory changes that we needed to make by the end of the day.  Then it was into the Excel jungle.  Once everything was updated, another message would show up, "there's been one small adjustment, please use this version."  Back to Excel, re-working the rework.  Another email: "this is the final, final version--use these numbers."  Back to the spreadsheets.

This continued through the end of the day.  It was one of those afternoons where you find yourself sitting a cubicle, churning through mindless and unnecessary rework, wearing a captain's hat and wondering how fast you'd need to run to successfully break through the glass on the fourth-floor windows:

I'm most proud of the fact that I left the office before 4:45PM.  By the time "final" budget revision version number three came through and I had worked my Excel wizardry, I jumped ship before they could make any more changes.  I don't doubt that versions four, five, and maybe six are sitting in my inbox, but I can't work on something I haven't seen...as far as I know, I met the deadline.  Ignorance is bliss...

But the voyage will continue tomorrow, I'm sure.  And don't let the attire fool you, this is no cruise...well, it might be a little like the Costa Concordia below.  Regardless, I promise to write about a new topic tomorrow, and results of that tennis match will be forthcoming shortly.  As one reader pointed out, there's been way too much writing about office work lately for a blog titled Away From The Cubicle...

Plan-Tastic?

Here I go again--for the third Sunday in a row, I'm staring down barrel of another potentially awful week of work.  Will things continue to go defy expectations for the good?  I sure hope so, because tomorrow was supposed to be a day of semi-celebration, but things took a turn for the south on Friday.

Once again, last week exceeded my wildest hopes and dreams.  Once all the pieces of the budget were in place on Monday afternoon, it looked like the total story would be relatively acceptable...not spectacular, but we wouldn't be sharing terrible news, which would make things much simpler.  Despite the not-so-terrible message, by the time Thursday rolled around and it was time to present the budget yet again, I was prepared to get bombarded with questions.

Me and the other guys in my group once again agreed on shirt colors on Wednesday, and we all showed up in yellow for the presentation.  Apparently it's tough to get mad at a wall of sunshine, because things went unbelievably well.  The strangeness of our attire--accompanied by a few more "Three Stooges" remarks--lightened the atmosphere right from the start, and we barely had to answer any questions, even on the portions of PowerPoint that included less-then-spectacular news.  So much for the probing and prodding I'd been fearing for three weeks--we were out of the room early!

Then Friday happened.  I was working furiously on putting together a slightly different version of the PowerPoint for our final presentation of this *&#$ budget (final of the month, anyway) on Monday morning.  Then an email arrived informing us all that the total add-up across all the divisions didn't come out as planned, and we might have to rework some assumptions and basically re-do everything on Monday to reduce the overall expense estimate. I knew something like this would happen...it was hardly a surprise, but it didn't make the situation any less frustrating.

The part that will never make sense to me is that we're supposed to be building an unbiased forecast of cost of goods sold expense.  We're essentially providing our best guess on what it will cost to manufacture products X, Y, and Z next year.  There's no incentive for me to guess high or low--I just take the available inputs and call it like I see it.  If, at the end of the day, we're going to end up being told what our estimate needs to be, why do we spend all this time estimating?  If someone could have told me right away what that final COGS estimate should be, I'll happily take back the past three months of pain.

Once again, I have to bite my tongue to avoid screaming at anyone who will listen that putting numbers in a spreadsheet has absolutely no bearing on actual cost of goods sold expense.  Seems to me like we're just setting ourselves up for disappointment and bad news.  I think I'm going to try to pulling something like this on the weatherman next time I see a forecast I don't like:

"Hello...channel 22?  I see your 7-day forecast calls for snow and freezing temperatures.  I don't like that, so tell me it's going to be 90s and sunny, okay?"  The forecast causes the weather...right?

The absurdity of the situation continues...as I previously mentioned, we're already scheduled to rework everything in early June when the fiscal year ends.  Now we're going to redo the past two weeks of work, then wait two more weeks and redo the past four weeks of work.  Any reason we couldn't just be patient and rework stuff once...or maybe not at all?  That would make way too much sense...

This nonsense would suggest that the presentation scheduled for tomorrow morning would be delayed, but that's not the case.  We get to go through the effort of finalizing this presentation, walking into the room and declaring, "Here's the budget you've been waiting months to get a look at!  By the way, I should mention that this is going to get overhauled in the next few hours, so everything I'm about to tell you irrelevant."  That shouldn't annoy anyone...and we'll look like geniuses!

I now sit at the second eye of this hurricane, and I'm wondering if more storms are headed my way.  As of noon tomorrow, we were supposed to be celebrating the completion of the toughest part of May's grueling budgeting process.  But now that meeting looks to be a pointless and potentially embarrassing mess that will officially kick off a slurry of entirely unnecessary rework.  That improving outlook for the future that was growing inside me last Sunday is now shrinking at an alarming pace...

Back To The Disaster

A few days I ago I received an email from the captain of my USTA tennis team, asking if I could fill in for someone and play in a mixed doubles tournament this weekend.  I had to thing long and hard about this one, because the last time I played tennis, which was more than a month ago, it was an absolute disaster and left me thinking about introducing my racquets to gasoline and a zippo.  I hadn't picked them up since that day.

I told the captain I hadn't been playing and that I desperately needed to practice.  But the summer USTA season starts next Friday, and she said the tournament would be a perfect way for me to get ready for the season opener.  That was a new one to me--usually I practice to get ready for a tournament...using the tournament itself as a warmup would be potentially embarrassing experiment.

She promised it would great time and told me that Tony, a guy who played on our team last fall, was also singed up for Open Mixed.  For some reason she thought that would help convince me to sign up, but Tony's presence was hardly a selling point.  He's a really nice guy, and there's no one I'd rather have on my team, but there's also not a single person I would less like to risk facing in a match.

Tony came within a few matches of qualifying for the U.S. Open (yes, that U.S. Open) last fall and plays low-level pro tournaments all over the country.  The one time I practiced against him last year, he absolutely crushed every one my hardest first serves like he was taking batting practice and I was lobbing him softballs.  I've never come up against anything like that, and I almost had a seizure from all the flashing my life was doing before my eyes.

But I figured I better get ready for the summer season, so I agreed to play and signed up for the Sandy Dyer Open.  The captain was able to round up a few people last night to get me some practice before today's match.  When I got Lifetime this afternoon (the same one from that early Saturday match months ago), Tony was already on the show court playing a match, which was great news for me, since it meant that I wouldn't be playing against him.  And watching his match was absolutely hilarious.  Tony's mixed partner was his wife, who isn't quite on the same level as Tony...it looked like she wasn't sure which end of the racquet she should hold on to.  I've never seen such an extreme mismatch of ability on half a tennis court.

 Familiar place...marginally better weather than early March...

Tony was covering every inch of the court, shamelessly--and successfully--playing 2-on-1 against the other team.  His wife hit the absolute minimum number of shots, serving and returning when it was her turn and immediately getting out of the way to let Tony work his magic.  If they other team managed to get the ball to her, they won the point...if they couldn't get it past Tony, he'd crush a winner.   Tony and his wife ended up winning in a super-tiebreaker, and then my partner and I took the show court against one of the Lifetime teaching pros and his partner.

Aside from last night's practice session, I hadn't even looked at a tennis racquet since April Fool's Day, so expectations were low.  Not to mention the fact that I'd never met or played with the partner the captain found for me before this afternoon.  With a packed Lifetime lobby looking on, I just hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself and get laughed off the court.  Things started shaky, but we miraculously pulled off an exciting comeback and won 3-6, 7-6 (5), 10-5...though I did get drilled in the arm, the ankle, and nearly took a forehand in the face.

I couldn't have been more pleased or surprised by the win, especially when it looked for a while like we were going to get absolutely destroyed in the second set.  When I returned to the lobby post-match, there was some bad news: in tomorrow's match, my partner and I will be playing keep-away from a semi-pro player. I never bothered looking at the draw sheet, but sure enough, we'll be meeting Tony and Mrs. Tony in tomorrow morning's match.  This promises to be one of the strangest mixed doubles matches I'll ever play.

 Free tattoos, Sunday at 11AM!

Let's just hope my partner and I can successfully direct the majority of our shots at Mrs. Tony tomorrow, or I'm going to show up to work on Monday with Wilson logos tattooed all over my body.  I'm buying a football helmet tonight and stuffing a pillow down the front of my shorts before tomorrow's match.  Hopefully that doesn't interfere with my vision or my movement...time will tell...

Fear The Mullet

Every office has a token crazy employee, and mine is no exception.  Two cubicles away from me sits perhaps the only person in the company who kills and cooks her own possum on a regular basis.  Her appearance, attitude, work ethic, and general demeanor suggest that she was conceived, born, and educated in a Wal-Mart parking lot in the deep south.  She has the most outrageous mullet you could ever hope to lay eyes on, framing a face that looks like it was genetically engineered to appear in a mugshot underneath the headline, "Woman Arrested After Stealing Case of Colt 45, Beating Ex-Husband."

This woman is, by my estimates, in her mid-50s.  She's one of those low-level employees who gets to the office before any of the normal people and leaves promptly at 3PM.  She never says a word or makes eye contact with anyone in my group, despite the fact that we sit right next to her and have walked past each other every weekday for over a year.  A few months ago, one of the new guys in my group first started and had the privilege of sitting directly across from her.  Being friendly, he said hello and introduced himself to this insane woman, not realizing the pointlessness of his effort.  She said hello and hasn't spoken a word to him or anyone else in our group since.

Based on this description, you'd think that I don't know a thing about this quiet coworker, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  That's because she's on the phone--constantly.  She is very obviously talking to her equally pathetic friends, whom I can only assume are sitting in their trailers collecting unemployment checks, since they're able to spend the entire day on the phone with this woman. I have no idea how she got this job in the first place, but I'm quite certain the only reason she still has it is because everyone in a position to fire her knows that she's got a pickup truck with a fully loaded shotgun rack sitting out in the parking lot.

If the phone calls alone weren't bad enough, she's an incredibly loud talker and has the strangest, most obnoxious voice I've ever heard.  During these grueling hours on the phone she is multi-tasking, constantly playing Farmville or logging into her Facebook account.  She makes absolutely no effort to hide this, even as countless people walk by and peer into her cube.  To top it all off, the topics of her conversation on these phone calls are limited to a handful of subjects: reality TV, celebrity gossip, her family's self-inflicted legal problems, and occasionally the real treat--details of her doctor's appointments.

Her blatant refusal to do work alternates between hilarious and frustrating.  On the slow days, the Facebook and loud phone calls provide a good laugh for all of us who sit around her.  In fact, she's so busy not being busy that we openly laugh and mock her while she's on the phone, too distracted to notice.  Other times, her antics are frustrating and extremely annoying.  On the busy days--which have been coming fast and furious lately--or when I'm on a conference call, her loud conversations are terribly distracting.  The destruction of shareholder value, a constant presence in her cubicle, begins to radiate outward on days like these.  I can literally feel the waves of lost productivity spreading to everyone within a four cubical radius.

I could easily write a 10,000-word post about all the quotes, all the trivia, and all the observations I've picked up over the past sixteen months, but I'll recap a few of the highlights here:

• Two of this woman's children were recently arrested in a bar fight.
• She watches every single show on TV, including shows that air on different channels at the same time.  Her favorites: American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, absolutely any soap opera, So You Think You Can Dance, Desperate Housewives, and CSI reruns.  Her living room must look like an air traffic control center to pull off this much TV viewing.
• She recently spent an entire Saturday watching a Ghost Whisperer marathon "because there was nothing else on."
• Her friend Trevor calls American Idol's Killie Picker "Pickles."  Crazy woman does not like Pickles.
• This woman also does not like Mark Anthony.  Her theory on why Jennifer Lopez stayed with him for such a long time: "He's not very good looking.  He must have something going on down there, if you know what I mean!" 
• Crazy woman is unable to distinguish between TV shows and reality.  When fictional characters have done something she doesn't like on last night's episode of some show, she gets very upset on her phone calls.
• I could only hear half of the conversation, but just today the crazy woman asked her phone friend, "Did you get the trailer over to the house?"  I found this question rather odd, since I'm certain that the trailer is the house.
• I know more information about this woman's colon health--or lack thereof--than any doctor should ever know.

I'll pause there, because I'm fully committed to posting on this subject again.  Thus far, I've snapped a few photos to hold you over for what lies ahead:

These are all well and good, but I aspire for so much more...to my readers, I make the following commitment: when this woman is in the middle of a phone call and playing Farmville, I vow to capture a video clip and post it on this blog.  Only then can you fully appreciate the annoying voice, the stupidity of the conversations, and the black hole of productivity that lies within the confines of this cubicle.  Shareholders, I'm truly sorry.

In the mean time, I'm considering printing a copy of these pictures and posting them prominently on my cabinet at work, where crazy lady walks by multiple times each and every day.  Will she notice?  Will she kill me?  Who knows...it'll be an interesting and potentially deadly experiment.

Career Tips for Beginners

If nothing else, Away From the Cubicle provides a constant supply of practical, relevant tips that can dramatically improve your quality of life.  In yesterday's post, I provided some spectacularly useful advice for those aspiring to pursue a career in crime.  But if you're like me and you prefer a tamer, more...boring existence, there's some bad news.  Unfortunately, living life on the up-and-up that means that at some point, you're likely to face the dreaded job interview.

Interviewing for a new job can be a very intimidating experience.  It's important not only to make a good impression, but to also size up the potential employer to determine if you'll fit in comfortably with the other workers and enjoy working in the unique culture.  Interestingly enough, yesterday's advice on robbing banks is just as relevant when preparing for a job interview: once again, striking the right balance is critical.

In a formal interview situation, you should make it clear that you'll take the job seriously, yet you don't want to come across as too uptight.  Showing up over-dressed for the occasion can set you up for a potentially uncomfortable and embarrassing situation, so it's important to read the situation carefully before selecting your attire.  You choice should demonstrate that you can pull off a professional appearance, yet also convey confidence that you'll be just as comfortable on casual Friday.

Here's the recent story of a man in Sacramento who learned the hard way what can happen if you misread the situation.  About two months ago, Jose Ayala walked up to a welding shop in the Del Paso Heights area of Sacramento, hoping to get himself a job interview. Business attire would certainly be overkill for a position in a welding shop, so he went a more...shall we say..."casual" route.  Here's a clip to his story, which became an internet sensation:



That's right, Jose not only showed up buck naked to his interview, he was also high on meth.  It was truly a bold move--no one can blame him for not being himself and letting it all hang out (quire literally), but perhaps he took that principle to the extreme.  And Jose wasn't shy about self-promotion, either--when he walked up, he immediately told the shop owner that he was good with his hands.  That's an important skill for an aspiring welder, but when he's standing there naked, I could see where someone might interpret that comment as a little creepy...

I'm not sure that Jose thought this plan out thoroughly beforehand, but I can see a few pros and cons that he might have considered in his interview strategy. The pros:

• Confidence is important in any interview, and Jose immediately made it very clear to his potential employer that he's a very confident man.
• If Jose somehow received a job offer, there's almost no chance the shop owner would make him take a drug test, since those results wouldn't exactly reveal any new information.
• Some employers appreciate staff members who help cultivate a relaxed atmosphere at the office, and Jose's outlook on life seems tailor-made for casual Fridays.

Then, on the other hand, there were some inherent risks with the naked interview strategy:

• Some crazy, stuck-up employers have a weird hang-up about not hiring naked men who wander in randomly off the street--and about allowing heavy drug use on the job.  I don't understand it, but that bias does seem to exist in some workplaces.
• When the cops show up--which they most certainly will--the inevitable naked struggle might give the boss the impression that you don't work well with others.

After weighing his options, Jose went ahead with the clothes-free option.  Unfortunately for him, the story's ending did not include a regular paycheck, just a free trip to the local jail.  It's an unenviable position in which to find yourself, but I feel worse yet for the pair of police officers (and a few bystanders) who had the even less enviable job of tackling and pinning the very naked Jose to the ground.

I have my share of bad days at the office, but not a single one has ended with my laying on top of a struggling, naked man.  If I were those officers after that particular experience, I'd be reading this blog post to collect some valuable, last-minute interview tips in preparation for a job search in a different line of work...

Here's a link to a quick recap of Jose's story:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/man-shows-up-for-job-interview-naked-high-on-meth.html

The First Rule of Bank Robbery

I don't have much experience in this area, but if you're thinking about robbing a bank, one of the keys to success is your ability pose a realistic threat to the tellers.  You need some way scare and threaten the bank staff into immediate cooperation with your plan.  If you show up and threaten to slap the teller, for example, you're like to get laughed out of the bank via an escort from the branch manager.  That's why it's important to come prepared with some kind of weapon...a gun, a knife...even a well-sharpened stick might do the trick if you're intimidating enough.

But, like in so many other things in life, balance is important even when it comes to robbing banks.  You want to pose a realistic threat, but it's possible to go over the top with your method of intimidation.  A man named Marvin Simmons went overboard with his threats in a recent string of bank robberies.  He never showed a weapon, but in each case he passed the teller a note threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb if the teller didn't hand over cash!  Here's the story after a successful robbery in late February:



Surprisingly, Simmons succeeded in robbing at least four banks in Prince George's County, Maryland over the past few months with nothing more than his handwritten, nuclear note.  I suppose the tellers can't risk calling his bluff, but I'm in awe that he was able to pull off four robberies with such a preposterous threat.

It's been a while since my last physics class, but from what I recall, a nuclear bomb creates a rather large explosion...one that would probably wipe all of Prince George's County off the map, bank robber and all.  And while suicide bombings are certainly not uncommon, especially in some parts of the world, I have yet to hear a single case of a suicide bank robbery.

The good news is that Simmons was caught and arrested in Texas in late March.  The bad news is that the ending to his story wasn't nearly as hilarious as it could have been.  The perfect finish would have been an unsuccessful robbery that fell apart when a bold teller responded to his nuclear bomb threat by laughing and saying, "fine, go for it!" while calling the police.

Regardless, my advice to all the budding young bank robbers out there is this: when you make your move, don't get too swept up in the showmanship of the event.  When choosing your weapon of choice for the robbery--whether that weapon is real or simply written threateningly on a note--strike that all-important balance somewhere in between Nerf slingshot and nuclear bomb.  Stick to the basics, and go with a knife or a handgun.  Fear is your friend, but it's gotta be believable...chances are, you won't have the dumb luck that Simmons enjoyed during his successful robbery streak if you go over-the-top nuclear.

Here are some links to the highs and lows of Simmons' robbery streak, from success to arrest:

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/02/prince-george-s-county-bank-robber-threatening-tellers-with-nuclear-bomb-73096.html

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Nuke-Threat-Bank-Robbery-Arrest-143589716.html

Beware of the BYOP

A Denny's ad found it's way into my email inbox recently, and it got me thinking about some of the classic scams in the restaurant industry.  It's a poorly kept secret that bars give away free salty snacks like peanuts and pretzels to encourage patrons to order more drinks.  The pictures on restaurant menus take full advantage of the zoom functionality on cameras and make every steak, every burger, every entree look like a mountain of food even when those dishes are often closer in size to a toddler's butt cheek.  And any time a restaurant offers any kind of all-you-can-eat meal, they use the oldest trick in the buffet playbook and push the salad and dinner rolls to keep people from filling up on the expensive meats.

Some restaurants really delve into the psychology books when they design a menu.  One article I read explains how restaurants use tricks like choices of portion size, "Dinner for Two" offers, bundling, selective use of pictures for high-margin items, and location of items on the menu to fool people into spending more for dinner.  It sounds like a classic case of over-thinking, but all this analysis must pay off if restaurants devote so much time and attention to the seemingly mundane details of menu design.

Anyway...back to that Denny's email that I mentioned.  Here's the message that showed up in my inbox:

I'm not crazy about breakfast food, and I'm even less excited about pancakes.  But I'll have to admit, the pictures do look rather appetizing--chocolate, nuts, strawberries, whipped cream, blueberries...not bad at all.  Yet this whole "Build Your Own Pancakes" concept is a bad idea of epic proportions.  At this point, it would be easy for my to delve into all the reasons that this is a poor meal choice for the simple fact that this offer requires one to eat at Denny's...and believe me, that's a list that could go on for days.

The idea of a customizable meal might appeal to some, but let me warn you: this is nothing more than a well-disguised restaurant scam.  I most certainly do not want to go anywhere--let alone Denny's--to build my own pancakes.  Perhaps you're familiar with the more common and concise term for "building your own meal": it's called cooking.  And you can do it at home at a significant discount to anything you'll find at a restaurant.  Best of all, if you "build your own meal" in the comfort of your own home, you won't have to mingle with the unseemly clientele and surly staff at Denny's.

Interestingly, despite the fact that Denny's positions itself as "America's diner," I'm fairly certain that the chain stole the concept for this pancake promo from our neighbors to the south--the Mexicans.  You may not have noticed this, but all of the dishes on the menu at a Mexican restaurant are virtually identical to one another. Think about it--you've got cheese, salsa, rice, beans (black or refried), seasoned meat, and a shell or chip of some kind (soft tortilla, taco shell, or a tortilla chip).

If I listed those ingredients and asked you to name the menu item I just described, you could give a seemingly infinite number of correct answers: quesadillas, tacos, enchiladas, burritos, chimichangas, nachos, or a fajitas.  Mexican chefs clearly aren't the most creative bunch in the world.  But I'm not saying that's a bad thing--quite the opposite, in fact.  I love Mexican food, and if you're on to a great concept, I say don't mess with success.

But the last item on that list--the fajita--is a clever little scam that's gone largely unnoticed for centuries.  Fajitas are priced the same as everything else on the menu, but think about what you're really getting.  It's nothing more than a "Build Your Own Soft Shell Taco."  The staff brings out all the ingredients--tortillas, meat, rice, grilled vegetables--and you do all the assembly.  What kind of deal is that?  When I go out to eat, I want someone else to do all the work for me.  At the end of the meal, am I allowed to scale back on the tip because I helped carry the workload?  Absolutely not.

This scam has succeeded so consistently and for so long because Mexican restaurants do an excellent job of selling the sizzle, quite literally.  No other dish turns heads when it comes out of the kitchen like fajitas do.  They're sizzling, steaming, and they're often delivered on their own special tray, with a little container of tortillas.  It's a much bigger spectacle than the unveiling of a soft shell taco, that's for sure.  When the waiter brings out fajitas, you can hear the collective whisper from the other customers, "I think I'll get that!"  But they never continue watching long enough to witness that poor fajita-eater toiling away, assembling their food for the duration of the meal.

It's a brilliant idea, and you can't blame Denny's for trying to Americanize this little trick.  But I'm onto them, and I'm no fool.  Customizable food may appeal to some, but be warned: "Build Your Own" is just a fancy phrase that's masking its evil synonym, cooking.