A discussion about the 500 mile diet.

Last summer my sister was telling me about the 100 mile diet. You only eat things grown within 100 miles of your house. She said it’s good for the environment and benefits the local community and economy.

I asked her why I should spend more on food and suffer the inconvenience of not having oranges or certain fruits, so that local farmers could make more money? In other words, what’s in it for me?

We had a back and forth for awhile and then I was all motivated to post the ideas we discussed to this blog. Then I just didn't bother. I didn't feel like it.

Now one of my coworkers is telling me the same thing and I'm annoyed. She started aggressively telling me about this 100 mile diet, while I ignored her.

When she stopped talking I said. "You and I have a different mindset. I totally disagree with you."

Then she said, "Let's hear what you have to say!"

I said, "No, I'm not going to get into with you at work."

Then she went on for a few minutes about how she hates buying chicken at the supermarket and only buys organic eggs laid by free range hens.

I said, "I don't want to pay more money for inferior local food. No thanks."

She said, "It will only cost more until the infrastructure is built!"

I said a couple more things about liking eating oranges and melons in the winter. Then I turned away from her and stared at my computer. I could hear her still talking about it, all riled up.

At one point I glanced up and she was waving a banana at me.

Lesson: Don't argue with socialist co-workers about fad ideas. They'll wave a banana at you.

It's always good to have something to look forward to.

I was talking to my coworker and she said she was feeling down about the prospect of continuing to work indefinitely for our organization. I told her I felt relieved that my time here was coming to an end. Scared, but relieved.

It's always nice to have something to look forward to - even if that thing is uncertainty. Why? Because there's always a chance things will work out better. For example, I may find a better job that pays more money.

Not likely though. Most of the time things don't really get much better. But it's nice having "hope".

More than a change in my employment, I'm looking forward to the arrival of my new son and daughter. Though I'm very scared and nervous about it.

Back to my co-worker. She was trying to get me riled up on some issue here at work and I said, "You know, my concern with this problem in my life right now is here." I gestured with my hand, very low.

"My concern for my family and my future job and my future baby is up here." And I raised my hand very high above my head.

I wanted to put things in perspective for her.

My boss is obsessed with the Olympics.

While it's certainly nice that we're hosting the Winter Games, it quickly gets tiring. It's really all you hear on the news, radio and street. Literally all the time. For months.

So now that the games have started, my boss has become obsessed. She has news alerts emailed to her and loudly announces various Olympic doings. "WE JUST WON A MEDAL!" or "DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS EVENT?"

She even comes over to our computers and forces us to watch clips of the Olympics on Youtube. She does this at work, while I'm trying to concentrate on something. At first, I politely responded. Now I just ignore it and let my other co-worker answer her questions.

I keep my back turned and pretend to squint in concentration at my monitor.

I had to buy my boss a birthday card and it was super hard.

I didn't think it would be so tough. I mean, a card's a card.

But to find one for your boss is different. It can't be overly-familiar, and that rules out 75% of the cards. It can't be humorous because your boss can't share your warped sense of humour.

It can't be sappy because that would be too kiss-ass.

The other cards are for husbands and wives and kids and nephews. Or they're money-holders. And I ain't given my boss money.

So I stood there like a moron for ten minutes, like I cared about which card I got him.

Finally I settled on a lame, generic card that said "Happy birthday and all that jazz" and had a cartoon character playing a saxophone.

Still, birthday cards are totally worth it. There's nothing else that quite says, "I wish you a happy birthday but I don't care enough to put a lot of energy into anything so here's a card."

A birthday card is the perfect amount of politeness. It's the bare minimum birthday standard, and it's an excellent subsitute for a real gift.

You don't even have to put any creativity into it. Someone else, whom you will never know or never meet - likely in India, wrote that poem or joke that you are now sending your loved one.

The only down side is that it's a waste of paper. When I get a card I pretty much want to throw it in recycling right then and there unless it contains a note or a picture. I find cards ugly, and people who hang their Christmas cards in their window blinds are ugly people.

A work story about staples.

At work today I heard a large bang and my co-worker said, "Now you know why I need an industrial stapler."

The bang was the sound of the stapler. She showed me a thick stack of papers, now stapled together.

I nodded.

After a moment she excitedly said, "Look at this!" She came over to my desk and pointed to the stack of papers she had just stapled. "That's a damn near perfect staple."

I looked at the staple and it was perfectly straight and positioned in the corner of the stack. I congratulated her on her stapling.

Then I added: "And now I know how to mess you up. When I staple something for you I'll be sloppy with the staple."

"No!" she said.

You should never tell a co-worker your salary.

I thought this was a no-brainer, but apparently lots of people talk to their co-workers about salary. My friend was a few weeks into a job when someone came up and asked his salary. And I was a few weeks into this job when someone I didn't know emailed to ask my salary. (That person had a reason - they were hiring for a similar position in their province.)


Talking about salary can only make things worse. Let's say you and a co-worker tell each other your salaries. You make more. Now your co-worker is angry and bitter and might go to the boss to ask for a raise. The boss gets mad at you for revealing salary.


What if your coworker makes more. Now you're jealous and angry and you say dumb things like, "I'm gonna look for a new job where they appreciate me!"


Same with bonuses. A lot of companies think they're doing their employees a favour by having bonuses. But at bonus time, people get angry. They were expecting more. The other department didn't deserve that much, etc.


This is especially true when bonuses are tacked on to your salary. Like if they hire you and your salary is $40,000 with a 3% bonus. That's bad news. Because what will invariably happen is that the company won't do well and your bonus will be cut. Or you won't do well and your bonus will be cut. And you will be livid! By then, you've thought of your bonus as a salary - because they told you right out that it was 3%.


They shouldn't tell you what your bonus is. They shouldn't even approximate. They shouldn't even say there is a bonus. They should just randomly give you a cheque and say, "Here's a one-time bonus. Good job." People would love it.


In my last job, while I was negotiating for a higher salary. They reminded me that I got a bonus. I said, "But that's not guaranteed. It's a bonus." The HR person said, "Yes, but we've never not given anyone a bonus. " Basically she implied it was guaranteed.


My first quarter at work a woman in my department didn't get her bonus.

Biography of co-worker (part 2)

(cont. from part 1)

His Dad was a criminal who lived on a commune. One set of grandparents came from eastern Canada, and were involved in the "sex-trade".

He's often on the phone with bureaucrats trying to get copies of his family records - marriage certificates, addresses, etc. He posts this information on his blog, along with other interesting articles he writes.

Sometimes lawyers threaten him because he bashes companies on his blog. He says there's "tons of spy ware" on his blog so he can check to see who reads it. He often traces his reader's computes back to corporate head offices, where he thinks lawyers are reading his blog and strategizing how to sue him.

He's looking forward to going on employment insurance and "milking the system as much as I can".


Although he tell lots of crazy stories about his life, he claims that he's interested in my life because "middle class people from Ontario fascinate me."

He eats sugary food and says he's trying to quit sugar because of diabetes. Once I heard him say to a co-worker, "Be a hero and go to Tim Horton's for us." Whenever I go the gas station I buy him pop or Twinkies.

On weekends he's always doing something interesting: building a shed on an island, attending a film festival, sleeping in all day, playing Sims 3 and torturing the characters. I asked him how that went - playing Sims - and he said he ended up hating the game because you could not customize as much.

I once made the mistake of telling him I didn't have time to vote in the last provincial election. Now whenever the government does something bad he comes into my office and says, "See?? You should have voted!!"

Biography of co-worker (part 1)

I work with an interesting guy. I thought I'd write a quick and dirty character description.

He's gay. Openly gay. And a self-described "socialist" who is hardcore left wing. He randomly says things like "rich people are evil and should be taxed". "We need more public transit." "The government should put evil banks out of business."

Once I challenged him. I said, "Who's going to pay for this stuff you want?" He said, "Rich people." I said, "There won't be any rich people left."

He's disorganized and chaotic. He gossips a lot and dresses in grubby clothes. He bad mouths the boss constantly and was recently laid off, although he says he was "fired" because the boss hates him. I explained it was a layoff and he insisted it was a firing because he "hates, corporate jargon newspeak."

He has a blog. He's a writer with thousands of dollars stashed in his apartment because he doesn't trust banks. He gets phone calls and letters from the government threatening to "garnish" his wages because of a multi-thousand dollar student debt. He proudly shows off these letters.

He's disorganized and forgetful. If you ask him to do something like file a letter, it probably won't get done. He blames it on a "condition". He often randomly yells out "shit on a stick!" or "eff word!" Again, due to a condition.

He says he's losing hearing in one ear and is terrified of his teeth falling out. He bikes to work and runs into the office breathlessly late every day with a random announcement like, "I dumped water on my neighbour's dog", "I flipped my mattress and saw hundreds of bed bugs", or "my air conditioning collapsed on me last night".

He's a whiz with office equipment and is great at designing and writing publications. He asks a lot of personal, irrelevant questions like, "Are your sisters straight?" or "Where are you going for your walk?"

It took him a few weeks to remember my son's name was "Jake" and not "Jack." Once he got it, I switched it up and called my son "Jack".

He's super nice and has great customer service skills. When I recommended he get into sales, he said he would never do it because they are the "scum of the earth".

(continued)

The fine art of faking sick at work.

Came in the office yesterday morning and no one was here. A voice mail from one woman, "I have a bad migraine." A voice mail from another, "My kid is sick." And the big boss is on holidays.

That leaves just me. It was a beautiful summer day. This was the classic fake-sick-day off. Everyone does it, and at my work, everyone happened to do it at the same time.

The weird thing is I planned last weekend to take Weds off as a fake sick day. When my co-workers both did it at the same time, a day earlier than me, (they beat me by a day) that put my own fake sick day in jeopardy. How could I fake sick a day after they did? That would look bad.

Unless I claimed to "catch" something from them. But then if they were truly faking they would know that I didn't catch anything. Still, this was the excuse I used.

I phoned in today and said, "I don't feel well." Faked sick.

A few thoughts about faking sick:

• You might want to build up your sickness the day before. Put Kleenex by your desk. Blow your nose loudly. Cough a lot. Say, "I feel like crap." When a coworker suggests that you go home, say, "No I'm gonna tough it out." Makes you look like a hero. The next day is your fake sick day.

• Fake sick mid-week. It's less obvious than when you fake sick on a Friday or Monday for a long weekend. If you're sick on Friday everyone knows it's fake.

• You can tell it's a fake sick if the person is back to work the next day. If they were truly sick, they'd take more than one day off. No one recovers from sickness in just one day.

• On the other hand, if the person shows up for work then leaves early or after a couple hours, this could be a genuine illness. Unless they are super-devious and planned to do that to make their fake-sick look amazingly real.

• The worst part of fake sick is the phone-in to the boss. That's why it's preferable just to email. If you have to speak with the boss, make yourself sound miserable. I do this by frowning as I talk, and speaking in a very low, unenthusiastic mono-tone voice.

• Sometimes you have to fake healthy (meaning you have to go to work sick and pretend you're healthy or people might get angry). The perfect excuse is "allergies". "No, that's not a cold or flu. It's just allergies."

• In my last job, they made us watch a video about how to sneeze. (You shouldn't sneeze into your hands. It's unsanitary and just gross. Instead you need to sneeze into the shirt-sleeve of your arm. The germs die quickly this way.) They also put hand-sanitizer everywhere and had meetings where they told us never to come to work sick and had posters about the flu up in the lunch room. Here's an idea: if you care so much about our health why not just give us more sick days? That way we won't come to work sick.

• The best illness to fake-sick is "stomach ache". If you say "headache" a do-good coworker might offer you aspirin at their desk. But if you have a stomach ache, no coworker will offer you exlax. Plus no one wants to be around someone with a bad crampy, diarrhea-like stomach. They want you to go home.