Hop on Over to My Lily Pad

Ed is cold. A vent is positioned precariously above his cube, so he always has a cold draft blowing around him. Brrrr... This makes for a cranky Ed.

It is in the middle of this conundrum that Ed's daughter redecorated her room. It had been graced with the green leaves from Ikea, and when Ed saw her take them down he asked if he could have them. The next Monday, one leaf was diffusing the air between the vent and Ed. It drew a few odd looks. Then many, many people came by to ask Ed what he had in his cube. Everyone was talking about the leaf. More commotion was caused by this new decoration than anything else I have seen. The next day two more leaves had sprung up in random cubes. By Wednesday, 12 total leaves were decorating the cube farm.

Steve hates the leaves. Something must be done to stop this nonsense. He plans to bring in a Vikings tent, hoping that Stephanie (the sole occupant of the HR department) will think it is getting out of hand and make a blanket declaration that all decorations above the cube wall must be taken down. Then it will be back to the same old cube farm that we have grown to know and love.

I kinda like the change-up that the leaves have caused.

Mystery Goo

Steve brought in sunflower seeds today. I got in late, and Steve, Todd and Kurt are all eating sunflower seeds VERY LOUDLY when I get to my desk. My headphones are turned up as high as they go, but I can still hear them constantly crunching those damn seeds. Gross.

Then - horror of horrors - I have to work with Steve on a file, and he comes to my desk and hovers over me while I look at a file. Alcohol is permeating his pores and it is hard to breathe, so I force myself to take shallow breaths until he goes back to his desk, the floor of which is now littered with sunflower seed shells. Most of them have at least been tossed towards the garbage can, even if they missed it by a few feet.

Today is the one day that I am thrilled to have a process meeting. I get to spend the next hour and a half sitting in a calm room, slowly breathing to the sound of program managers droning on about the program. Being able to get away from my desk today was a huge, huge blessing.

I finally sneak out of the meeting at 11:45 when I absolutely can not sit for a minute longer without peeing my pants. Dang those two cups of herbal tea. It is lunch time so instead of going back to the meeting I grab my stuffed acorn squash and sit with Ed and Susie.

Back at my desk something weird has found it's way onto the floor next to my trash can. It is a piece of a plastic pouch that has been cut. Weird. Was that mine? Huh. I toss it into the trash and sit down. About 20 minutes later I notice something brown on my scissors. Do I dare smell it? Roasted garlic. What the heck? I look around, and find that in Steve's trash there is a Thai Kitchen roasted garlic noodle bowl. He must have come over to my desk, used my scissors, put them down covered in his garlic sauce and then thrown part of the sauce packet onto my floor. Kurt and I ponder on how much grossness we have to put up with. We don't want to be responsible for getting Steve fired. We like him. We just wish he would clean up his hygiene.

Nerdiness on the Homefront

The most horrific thing happened last weekend. Let your mind run free imagining the worst things possible. You aren't even close. Let me explain.

Kevin and I went to a church barbeque. You may be thinking this is the worst thing you have ever heard. But it gets worse. Much, much worse. We were sitting in a group when one guy came up to me and said that he recently heard I was a software engineer. I confirm the rumor. He is also a software engineer (which I hadn't heard - you'd think it would be more common to know what our friends do for a living, but that is way beyond us.) He is actually a manager and a consultant, so he travels all over the place with his job.

Then Kara asks him where he works. And *gasp* it is for a company that makes a text editor. And *gasp* *cough* Kara has used this text editor. What's that? You aren't familiar with text editors? Here is a brief explanation of them. They are a glorified notepad. They do cool things like turn different words various colors and allow you to search through the text easily. Basically, they are really handy for the nerdy nerds but not even remotely interesting to anyone else. Engineers engage in many heated debates on which one is the best and which is the easiest to use. It should be noted that the ones that are "easiest to use" take at least a year and two college courses to learn the various keystrokes, but after that it becomes very, very easy to whip through your code. Yeah - I know you don't care. I just thought you wanted some background. But now I get it - it is boring beyond belief.

Text editors certainly aren't fodder for social activities, but here we were, talking about text edits at a friendly gathering. It is bad enough that guys like to talk shop (or discuss the specifics of how nerdy they really are) outside of work, but this is delving to a new low. Does anyone care that version 8 is coming out? Maybe there is a cult-like following to the new versions - like when Stephanie Meyer releases a new book in the Twilight series.

Luckily, it starts to rain. Kevin quickly jumps up and heads to the deck when the first few drops hit us. I start to follow him but [this heretofore unnamed] guy KEEPS TALKING to me. We chat about our nerdiness for awhile, and another engineer joins in. Later Kevin told me he felt sorry for me, but he was talking to Kim on the deck and that his conversation was much more fun than the one I was having. He didn't want to risk a rescue mission where he might get sucked in, and then there would be two social casualties instead of just one. His military training must be kicking in.

Yuck-O-Rama

Gross doesn't even begin to describe the complete revulsion I feel when I walk into my cube, only to be confronted with a glimpse of Steve's feet on my way in. They are puffy old-man feet, and several weeks ago he went to the doctor to get antibiotics for a seeping ulcer on the top of his right foot that wouldn't heal right, which was getting infected. Supposedly the infection is no longer plaguing him, but they are still a revolting sight, and the red scab is glaringly obvious. The five second rule does not apply in any manner in this cube farm.

After lunch I am assaulted once again by Steve's bare feet. I close my eyes and sit in my chair so I can not see the sight any longer than absolutely necessary. But it is a trainwreck and as disgusting as it is, I feel a strange compulsion to look at it every time I walk by.

I send a quick email to Kevin:

If you want to be grossed out, stop by my cube

Thirty seconds later Kevin is looking over my cube wall. I point to Steve's feet and Kevin's face turns from an anticipatory grin to completely expressionless. He turns on his heel and starts to walk away - and I can see his Adam's apple bobbing like he is trying to stop his gag reflex.

I stop his at Ed's desk - he tells Ed that it just isn't right. I ask him if he came expecting to be grossed out and he says that he thought it would be something smeared on my desk, or a leftover lunch that I dug out of a hidden corner. But he did NOT expect this. This is absolutely gross, and not a funny kind of gross.

Why does Steve say that he takes off his socks? His feet sweat and it helps them stay dry if he takes off his shoes while he is at his desk.