Work: Monday, August 8, 2005

Monday's are usually either really good or really bad. This one was definitely not good. Before I even got to work, I was in a bad mood. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had only gotten a few hours sleep, nor was it that I was 15 minutes late for work, as both are regular occurences. My company just received our new uniform shirts, and they are hideous. They are "camp" style shirts, in a bright red rayon/polyester blend. If that is not bad enough, the shirt's proportions are completely unbalanced. The shirts are all short, and each size up increases the width by 4-6 inches, while the length increases by only 1/2 an inch or so. In short, the shirts are among the ugliest I have ever seen. The only thing that I think is okay about them is that they button up from top to bottom, opposed to the previous uniform's polo shirt. This allowed me to wear a nice T-shirt with a picture of Lucky the Leprechaun on it, and have it actually visible. As soon as I walked in to work, my manager said "Tuck in your green shirt, and button up the uniform shirt!". Needless to say, the immediate crushing of my already miniscule freedom of expression was not a good way to start my work day. I was then informed that green T-shirts were not acceptable, and that they had to be white, black, or gray. That sucks.
I got over it, and carried on with work. After about 2 hours, my manager starts asking us where TheELeet is, as he was scheduled to start 2 hours ago. She had some people call him to see where he was and if he was coming in. Another 2 hours later, Tommy was able to get him on the phone. It turns out that he thought he had the day off, as he normally doesn't work Mondays. He was at the DMV, and he wouldn't be able to make it in to work. Our manager went on to say that he should've checked his schedule. This wouldn't be abnormal, if it wasn't for the fact that none of us check our schedule, EVER, because it NEVER changes. Unless, of course, you don't expect it to.
After lunch, Tommy and I were discussing an episode of The Family Guy. The customer service manager walks in, and I say "Nevermind...", because the conversation could have been misconstrued as sexual harassment and the CSM is the one who deals with all of that. The CSM replies, "What? Is it because I remind you of Quagmire?", which is sort of a weird question, as Quagmire is a pervert with the bad habit of date-raping women. The CSM went on to talk about the episode - when Lois went to jail for shoplifting, and the break her out and hide out in Asiantown - and says "Yeah, that part where they are eating the food...". We all start laughing, because the comment was so generic. Ash replied with "Yeah, it's the one where they are using chopsticks.", and "Yeah, it's the episode that something happens...". We were all laughing our about it. In a strange coincidence, not much later the Store Manager came in to our department. He noticed that a file on the Desktop of one of our test PCs was named "gijoegay.mpg". The file was actually named that by it's creator, and you can watch the video clip here. It's not gay porn or anything...it's actually a spoof of G.I. Joe. Anyways, the Store Manager comments on the fact that there is the word "gay" on the computer, and told us to rename the file. He said that some people might be offended by it, and that we couldn't have anything like that on our computers.
After renaming the file and waiting for the Store Manager to leave, we started talking about the ridiculousness of the situation. We all came to the agreement that the word "gay", though referring to a sexual orientation, was not derogatory. It is a neutral word, and we couldn't imagine a situation in which somebody would be offended by the word in the context at which it was seen. Our rationalization was that if the file was named "GI Joe White" or "GI Joe Hetero" there wouldn't have been an issue, so why should there be with "GI Joe Gay"? It's pretty retarded. Ooops, can I say retarded? Is anyone going to be offended? If so, please go f--k yourself, because I don't care. What happened to motherf--king freedom of speech? Do the laws which govern our country not supersede those of corporate policy? Obviously not. To that I say: "That's gay".
Towards the end of the day, my manager's husband brought in a sign advertising our repair services. The sign was the type that a poor bastard stands on corner waving and twirling. When I asked my manager who was going to have to twirl the sign around outside, she told me that I would have to! I knew she was joking, but I still held some reservations, as it was within her power to actually have me outside waving that stupid sign around.
A sad ending to an already horrible day, I managed to destroy a component of a demo computer for the store. I had to send an email to my manager explaining what happened. And then I had to generate a productivity report for myself, and I managed to meet only 15% of my goal. Thankfully, the day is over. Later.