Keeping it real.

“The employment law firm Peninsula report that employees spend up to a staggering three hours a day on personal internet surfing – that’s 40% of their working day.”

Is this really news to anyone? Whoever wrote that article is either living under a rock or knows his boss reads that. Anyway.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who agreed with me that there are a few common trends with post-grad working life, one of which pertains to this discussion (and here is my thesis):

Post-undergrads who begin working almost immediately upon graduation have, in most cases, the penchant to give off the impression that they are working hard.

I’m dumb.

So work is finally picking up… but at the same time I am not sleeping enough. Everytime I need to use my brain, my eyelids start dropping and my head hurts. You know that feeling you get when you pull an allnighter and it’s 6am and you’re just in this virtual reality? -> me right now.

I tell myself every time I go home that I am going to sleep earlier that day, but it never happens. CMON!

Edit: My boss just said that he doesn’t have enough ‘bandwidth’ to work on some things. I was talking with another working friend at another company and apparently, “I’ll ping you” as a phrase to contact someone is NOT prevalent in non-tech companies. Go figure.

Office Terminology 101

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I decided that it is quite interesting to look into corporate America and to see what their phrases and expressions really mean. There are things that people want you to believe they are saying, but the true definitions are a lot different than the interpretations made from the pretty-sounding words.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that I have or have not done any of these in any shape or form; this is merely an objective look at what I have experienced in my time.

Feel free to tell me some other phrases and words you’ve encountered and I’ll add them. I’ve split it into verbal and nonverbal communication – office terminology after the jump.

The Handicap Stall.

My office is really a hilarious place. As in, I need to shove free napkins into my mouth or I will burst out laughing in my cubicle. I share a lot of it in my office blog, but this one is too good to pass up here.

This is kind of what my story is about. Also it is freaky.

Office bathrooms are a scary place, I think we all know that. It is a public facility, so naturally people (read: Asian workers) will take as much advantage of the location as possible. Any office employee can attest to the truth of my upcoming statements: Need to floss and gargle after lunch? No problem, camp out in front of the mirror and go ahead.  Felt like you missed a spot and would like to shave? Sink and mirror for the win. Need to take a smelly one? No problem.

My favorite is when the unavoidable happens – you need to take a dump, but alas: someone is already in the big handicapped stall. Common sense is to NOT dump simultaneously, as that leads to awkward stares while hand-washing. In any case, identity is considered sacred, especially when you are taking advantage of aforementioned bathroom in the nastiest and smelliest way possible. English majors, file this thought away as “foreshadowing”. Everyone else, file this under “bad freakin omen”.