purple monkey roundup

Once in a while it happens that I start out an entry intending to talk about one thing, only to get utterly distracted by my preface and end up talking about something completely unrelated. The previous post's fat talk, for instance. Dull thing, fat. Doesn't really do anything. Doesn't really go anywhere. Won't help you with the dishes.

What I'd really meant to be talking about last time was the purple monkey roundup.

I don't write about work too often -- not often enough for it to register on too many radars, hopefully -- but work is so inextricably linked to my well-being and happiness that it seems unreasonable not to mention it in connection to my current mood. It's possible that within the last, oh, year and a half, I've made myself somewhat notorious at work for a certain -- shall we say, indifference to the ongoing security of my employment? Pessimistic as the mood is in the Support section of the company, a bank of eight phenomenally filthy cubes at the far end of the warehouse, in recent months I've managed to wrap around it an atmosphere of cynicism unmatched even by your average American voter.

It's had a tangible effect on many of our new employees, who pop their heads over my cube wall to ask me a question, only to slough away a little while later with dazed eyes, slack jaws, and suicidal thoughts. Mine is a witty pessimism, of course, though I prefer to view it as "realism." In my own defense, it's not an attitude that's isolated to me; a few weeks ago we interviewed another potential new boss, (which would have brought us to 6 total bosses) and after my colleague and I left the room, the coworker left behind told the potential employee some home truths about our company.

I have no idea whether they even offered him the job or not. Having been on his interview schedule, naturally we were never asked our opinion or our impressions about him. Out of the fourteen various interviews I've been ordered to conduct in the last year and a half, only one was for a job I knew we were hiring for; only one resulted in anybody in management asking my opinion; only one had a resume I had seen in advance; not one was ever hired. It's not the job market that's the problem. It's the extreme idiocy of the employers.

Several weeks ago in a moment of more-than-usual frustration, a small group of us went on temporary strike and sat about, venting our rage. In a Dilbertian moment, one of us who had been at the company long enough to know better, said something so idiotic that it couldn't be allowed to pass.

"I can't believe we just put that onto a live server without testing it first."

There was a moment's silence while we all stared at her.

"What did you say?"

"I can't believe you said that."

"How long have you been working here?"

"--And you said what?"

...and that was when the Game was born.

It was proposed by the grizzled purple monkey, the wisest of the purple monkeys, that from that day forward, anybody who said anything so stupid that they should have known better, would owe money. Not to the person who called it, but to an innocent bystander, whoever happened to be fortunate enough to be standing nearby.

For instance. If Purple Monkey A said something like, say, "Why don't our salespeople know our product well enough to do a demo?" Purple Monkey B who happened to be standing by would yell, "You owe Purple Monkey C money!" At which point Purple Monkey C would wake up and ask what had just happened.

Or if Purple Monkey B said something like, say, "Shouldn't we have asked the clients if they wanted this feature before we removed it?" Purple Monkey C would pounce and yell, "You owe Purple Monkey A money!" At which point Purple Monkey A would temporarily stop trying to slit her wrists with a Swingline stapler, and ask what had just happened.

As a game, true, it lacks something of the morale-building quality; the fact that anytime anyone used the word 'QA' (Quality Assurance to non-techies out there) it instantly ran him or her into debt would, in a normal company, have raised some alarm bells in upper management. This would have been a lot of alarms, since we have 1 upper-level manager for every 2.5 employees.

Unfortunately, most remarks that involved our upper management also resulted in instant accumulation of debt. "I can't believe our CMO--" "Doesn't our CEO know--?" "Do you think the CFO will--?"

So far, I owe $7. I'm winning this game. Purple Monkey C owes me $214.

I started the South Beach diet yesterday, as per my threat -- promise -- of the last entry. It's driving me to drink. Unfortunately, I'm allergic to alcohol; as a sorry substitute, I'm reduced to writing.

Bloggy though it is, I'm going to keep a running entry about my adventures in dieting. The link is here. I'll start a new one each South Beach week, and link to it on the right.

Unless I go mad, first.

From Sako...

i fell two weeks ago in red rocks, nevada when a piece of rock i was weighing broke off in my hand. when i fell, most of the energy was absorbed by my wrist...and head. as i have no health insurance, i thought it would be wise just to leave my wrist in a splint and ignore the chances of a break. what you don´t know won´t kill you...at least in my case.

i attempted to ´work´ the system today by going to the ER in barcelona and asking for an x-ray on my wrist. when i was filling out my paper work, the nurse asked me who i had insurance with back in the states.

insurance?! who do you think i am? a rich person?! i don´t have insurance!
he looked at me as though i was lying. what does this mean? you DON´T have insurance? i do not understand. the sound in his voice was of utter disgust and disbelief. i could have pooped in his coffee and he would never have noticed.
what do you do if you hurt yourself?
um...i go to a foreign country with socialized medicine...?
surely this is an inconvenience for most. what do the others in your country do?
uh...dunno. i suppose they just go without medical attention or they pay out of their pockets.
your government allows this?! you come from such a powerful country and they do not attend to the health of the citizens? i cannot believe it. your president bush can do this to you?
MY president bush?! no, you´ve got it wrong. he IS the president of the states, but that doesn´t mean he´s any smarter than the average dead lab rat.
it went on like this for a while.

i leave for montserrat in the morning and for laval, france on sunday.

I LOVE SPAIN!!!

sako