I've discovered recently, cube farm living is not for me! Not even on the very short term. No, I'm not dissing the people who are forced to work in the environment - I'm dissing the environment itself!
I personally have not found a suitable solution to making this a creative and productive environment for myself. I have gone the route of the MP3 player - to a great deal of success. I sing horribly off key at the best of times, so with ear buds in, imagine if you would how disturbing I can be. It is a matter of simple revenge - the chicky whose cube is adjacent to mine is very loud on the phone.... she chats to Mom, the daycare workers and anyone walking by. She is an example of how unintentionally disrespectful we can all be.
I've also noticed something else about this type of working environment - permission is granted on the masses. It is currently almost mid afternoon, yet over 90% of the worker bees are still out of the office. It appears that if one does it, it is okay for everyone else to do so as well - I wonder how everyone knows it is time to go back to work?
Oh enough of uninspired work situations - a challenge for the new year will need to be a remedy - I am sure there is a consulting model in there somewhere.
On to more fun and games. Good grooming Hot Cherry Chicks. Yep, once again Janine Falcon of canadianliving.com gives us some good advice. This time on the 17 top mascara's. Hummmm, I'm sure we all could have done with the top five - eliminates the confusion. Just in case you are interested and need to replenish prior to the holidays, here's the link.
On other fronts and back to the work side of life. Here's a funny (well at least interesting) story from a friend this past weekend. This friend in particular is a really big flirt - she's cute, articulate, engaging and has no problem striking up a conversation with anyone. Recently she was bored at work and even though she is in a long term dating relationship, thought she'd check out one of the many online dating sites.
She posts a profile, tells a few lies - 'I'm boring, so I just enhanced a few things' and before you know it, she is chatting with many new acquaintances. All is going well over the course of a few months, she meets a few men, develops online 'friendships' nothing more - harmless right.
Well, this past week she makes preparations for a meeting with a client. She briefly mentions to one of her online chatters, 'I've got to get going and catch this meeting with a client - they sound totally boring, it will likely be a waste of time'. Her online connection agrees, 'aren't they all' and by the way, he too has a client meeting soon that he needs to prep for, they'll chat later on in the day.
Off to meeting she goes, in to the board room she walks with her boss, she looks up about to extend a hand on introductions only to gaze deeply into the eyes of her online romance.
I of course asked her.... and what next???? 'Nothing' she says. 'My career, my life, my professionalism danced before me - I just about fainted!' I guess Buddy was suitably unimpressed and took total insult to her earlier comments. He hasn't spoken to her since.
I also wanted to know what her boss thought of all this and if indeed she told him. 'I couldn't help but tell him, he noticed that I turned a pretty icky shade of green'. And..
... 'he laughed and lectured me about online messing around.....'Moral of this story...... oh I don't have one yet..... there has got to be more to this story and I'm waiting on the second installment. In the meantime, it fits right into the 'oh my gosh.....isn't that funny'.
We know there are many of these stories out there - come on, you all know of them, share with us!
In the meantime, keep your cool in these last days leading up to Christmas - don't let the season get to you.
Have a wonderful Hot Cherry Day!
