Monday, April 20, 2009

Work Week - The Office

Here's where make a living:

(Click to enlarge its 5 megapixel glory.)

Who cares if I can't see outside? See all the space I have? There's room for me to sit, and room for a visitor to sit. That's all I need. And all my visitors need. (I have no visitors.)

Let's start with my workstation. See the plastic cup adorned with the Royals logo? I brought that in to hold my drinking water. I like to have a full cup with my lunch, and one more cup during the afternoon shift. People that happen by sometimes see it and talk Royals with me. Strangely, these people know very little about the Royals, but I guess it's better than talking about the weather.

To the right of the cup you can see my eyeglasses. Remember when I polled you to see which ones I should buy? They're only for reading my computer screen all goddamned day, so when I get up from my chair I like to take them off and give my ol' schnoz a break.

Did you notice my computer's mouse is on the left side of the keyboard? Well, I'm actually right-handed, but I use the mouse with my left hand. That tradition started when my right hand turned claw-ish due to the Playstation+mouse combo. Now I can play all the video games I want, pain free! Thanks, left hand.

On the other side of the keyboard are my Grado SR60 headphones. I bought them via Amazon for about $70 -- it was money well spent. If you're like me, and spend so much time listening to music at work that you don't bust out your nice home stereo system too much, I recommend some nice headphones like these instead of that junk you stick into your ear canal.

Next to those sweet cans is my phone. It's new, but it looks like it was manufactured in 1988. Our voice mail system is a total pain in the ass. Sometimes, when callers hang up at a certain point in the leave-a-message process, a message is recorded anyway -- it is just a lot of white noise and clicks, and you can hear other people's voices, and you can hear the voice mail lady robot voice. It can go on for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. Every time I hear it, I think of TRON.

If you really zoom in you can see a robot-shaped pencil sharpener, a gift from my sweet lady, between the phone and my electric stapler. You put the pencil into his chest, and as you twist and sharpen it, the robot winds up. As the robot unwinds, he marches. I like to keep his arms pointing straight up in the air, to remind me of the robot on Conan that would raise its arms as it sat on the toilet and made robot poops.

Above the phone, you can see that I have a habit of pulling the overhead cabinet door out as far as possible. It's to block the light from some overhead bulbs that would otherwise shine in my eyes as I'm looking at my screen. Are you loving my cubicle yet? Do you love it?

On the back shelf, you can see that I keep a lot of mugs around. I like to drink 2 cups of tea in the morning -- usually green tea, using the same tea bag for each cup, but sometimes black tea.

I also keep some Cherry Coke Zero back there. It's pretty solid. I like to drink mine cold. Also in view are a bag of pretzels and a cylinder of raisins. I bring the big bags into the office instead of rationing each day's portion in a plastic baggie. You're welcome, Earth.

You can see my keys and my phone to the right of the pantry. I keep my phone on vibrate. As far as I can tell, I am definitely the only person in the office who does this. Sometimes, I might go TWO HOURS without glancing at my phone, callous acts which sometimes result in the world ending.

This concludes my cubicle tour. Later this week - a photo of another part of my workplace!

8 comments:

a-dub said...

Thanks for the tour, Daniel! Now I can visualize you replying to my emails. This changes everything. EVERYTHING!

Maybe I'll give you a tour of my workspace. Maybe everyone will do this. Maybe this will become an incredible internet trend and Parez Hilton will call you the "most trendy blogger of 2009"!

Word verification: trimplog

Jenny said...

I particularly like the "Bee wise, immunize" stuffed bee. Yeah, bet you thought you could get away without commenting on that!

Nicolas Frisby said...

Your photo is blurry – hadn't had your tea yet?

I have the same head phones. That Flickr item also betrays the exact location of my office.

(sesses)

dn said...

I would love to see everyone follow Nick's lead. Or is it my lead? It's still my lead. Follow my lead.

Jenny, I thought about mentioning it, but it seemed like a lot of background info to type for too little payoff.

Cara said...

I think this is my favorite post EVER.

dn said...

Thanks Cara. That's my favorite comment of yours EVER.

bar said...

Now I too am in love with your lady friend. Can we get an up close on the pencil sharpner? Maybe a few to achieve stop action effect?

Off to a eerily similar workspace. Except less exciting, with headphones that are deteriorating and the wire needs wiggled every once in awhile.

Anonymous said...

nice desk dan. also, tron is in my top 5 movies of all time.

pat