The Officious Offalness of the Office

Two out of two Pawlie Kokonuts daughters are fans of "The Office," the television series (the American version, not the British, original rendition).

While I will while away an idle moment or two watching "The Office," I cannot claim to be a fan (nor a public enemy). (Notice how the previous sentence used "while" as a conjunction and as a verb? Mrs. Rivers of Burdick Junior High School, in Stamford, Connecticut, in the early 1960s, would be delighted that I can make this parenthetical statement.) Why don't I delight in "The Office"? It's simple: it's too much like Real Life (no, not the Albert Brooks movie "Real Life").

Who cares to relive the petty crimes of the cubicle cosmos? The accumulated humiliations perpetrated by hubris-brimming "leaders" and unmanageable managers?

Not I.

I don't miss it.

It would be weird, wouldn't it, in an Andy Kaufman sort of way, to portray in my own office of entrepreneurial independence the twisted power plays and poses of office life, all played by The Laughorist?

Yeah, it would be.

Who-ha Over Whom, ah...

I hardly ever watch TV (I waste my time doing this crap), but it is refreshing to know an Amerkin network television program can feature a humorous argument over grammar.

Admittedly, "The Office" came by way of England (actually, I think I saw all those Ricky Gervais shows on DVD).

Refreshing.

Between you and I, that is (mwhahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAwhowhohee).

Props to the Words to the Wise blog of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Excess-Baggage Handlers

Have you observed the phenomenon of Excess Baggage in your city, borough, hamlet, town, village, shire, or county? It consists of these elements: a seemingly employed person, often a professional, in an urban environment dragging a suitcase or some type of baggage on wheels, with its handle extended for portability.

Typically, the luggage is wheeled into or out of an office environment. Let's explore the possibilities, shall we?

a) it is some kind of terrorist being so obvious as to be, well, undetected

b) it's a lost traveler 18.6 miles from the airport

c) there is now an abundance of transvestites who need to cart extra clothing for a quick change in the bathroom just before and just after work

d) people like surreptitiously to bring in their collection of Bratz dolls for lunchtime fun e) folks are eating bigger lunches

f) there's a sudden onslaught of copier or computer repairers out there

g) the demands of the workplace are forcing more people to stay overnight in the office

h) people are saying they have to work late hours but they are staying overnight in the office to screw around

i) people have so much work they cart it home, work on it, and cart it back to the office

or

j) the same as i) but they are faking it; no work gets done at home

I first saw this excess-baggage nonsense in my daughter's school a couple years ago. Yup. "Mommy, Mommy, my books and lunch and soccer ball and sneakers and bowling ball and globe and calculator and protractor and iPod and cellphone and pens and notebooks and erasers and pencils, but no newspaper, are so heavy I need this suitcase."

I got a taste of this last weekend. On Friday, I stuffed all the papers on my desk into my backpack with the hope of at least sorting stuff out and ranking (see? we don't need that loathsome word prioritize after all) various documents. Of course, on Monday, those same papers came back to work with me, intact and untouched within the backpack. Nice try.

For about 2.5 years I used to work with a guy who did that every night, with the same result. He loaded a bunch of stuff into a cardboard box, brought it home, and brought the same stuff back again, seemingly with no progress made toward accomplishing his appointed tasks.

What a shame that people's daily work tasks corrosively leach into every part of their existence. What next? E-mailing a spreadsheet while at the communion rail? Texting a proposal to a would-be client during foreplay?

Work is work. Play is play. Home is home.

You can quote the ol' Kokonuts on that.

p.s. Please note that a missing hyphen in the title would radically alter the meaning of this post and would instead refer to an overabundance of those employees at the airport.