Sticky Note Destiny

I have this quirk about paper.  I like it.  A lot.  Probably an inappropriate amount.

But I don’t feel that it’s unhealthy.  I mean paper comes from trees and trees were living and there are lots of people that chain themselves to trees so that loggers can’t chop them down and make stuff out of them.  I don’t do that.  I don’t chain myself to the photocopier to keep people from making copies.

I do, however, get moderately upset when static in the machine causes blank pages to come out with the pages that were printed and people just throw those pages in the trash. 

They get angry at the paper because there are blank papers every second page of their five hundred page (single sided) PDF, because “looking at the screen hurts their eyes”.  They should be getting mad at the copier. It’s the copier that is creating the static that causes those papers to stick together.

The paper didn’t ask to be attached siamese-twin style to a page that gets printed on.  And throwing that blank page in the garbage is denying it its paper destiny.

Years and years ago, a seed began to sprout and grow into a really big tree. There it was minding its own business when loggers came along and chopped it down because the tree-hugging hippies didn’t find it worthy of saving.  After that, it went to the lumber mill, so on and so forth it becomes paper.

That paper is then packaged up with more paper, and sent to businesses where we photocopy pictures of our hands because it entertains us.

The least we could do is put those blank pages back into the photocopier so that they can fulfil their paper destiny.

Tinkerbell thought it would be amusing to put sticky notes on my jacket.  This didn’t bother me at all until I discovered that they were blank. He didn’t even write on them or draw little smiley faces or tell me what an awesome job I’m doing.

He robbed these little sticky notes of their sticky note destiny.

So I saved them.  I pulled off each piece of fluff, fuzz and hair, and wrote sticky note protests directed at Tinkerbell and how he was not respecting their rights as a once living thing.

Each of the six sticky notes has been given its own voice and I have ensured that their protest will remain heard by using scotch tape to secure them to my file cabinet.  Scotch tape likes being part of a good cause. 

Two Digit Entry - Simplification

I’ve mentioned that I work in customer service.  We have an automated phone system to help simplify things.

There is a step in the system that says:

“Using two digits for each entry; please enter your birth month and year, (then there's an example) followed by the pound sign.”

I feel that these instructions are pretty clear.  There’s even an example.

But it never fails. Someone will be transferred over saying that the automated system will not accept their birthday.

“I’m sorry to hear that. What did you enter?”

“My birthday.”

“Yes, what numbers did you enter into the phone?”

“04-26-1875.* That’s my birthday. Should I have put the date before the month?”

“No, it’s asking for two digit entry for birth month and year.”

“But I entered my birthday.”

“Yes, however the system is only asking for the month and year.”

“Oh! So I should enter 04-1875.” (Statement, not question).

“No, the system is asking for two digit entry for the month and year. So you would enter 04-75. For April, 1875.”

“Okay, so what do I do now?”

“Once you hang up with me, call the same number back and follow the prompts on the phone.”

“I have to go through that all over again?!”



*Please note, this is a completely arbitrary date. This does not refer to any particular instance of this happening. To my knowledge I have never talked to anyone born in 1875.

Brain Battle. I lost. Or did I...?

I was up late the other night, very late, really, really very late, and all I could think about was maintaining my funniness levels.  I had this entire internal dialogue going with my brain about how staying up late would or would not help my blogging abilities.

Me: What if people stop thinking I’m funny, and they determine I don’t deserve to have webspace.

Brain: Your pages hits are getting higher every day, I don’t think that is the case.

Me: But what if I’m having an off day and I write something no one thinks is funny?

Brain: Has that happened yet?

Me: No, but it could happen.

Brain: We can figure it out tomorrow, it’s time to sleep.

Me: No, I have to figure this all out now.

Brain: It’s 2:30 in the morning, seriously?

Me: When else would I think about it?

Brain: I don’t know, maybe during the day like normal people.

Me: Have you met me?

Brain: Way off the point. It’s late, time to sleep.

Me: Can’t sleep, I have to think about this now.

Brain: You can think about that in the morning. Now we sleep.

Me: No, in the morning I have to think about getting Child ready for school.

Brain: Okay, think about it when she is at school.

Me: No, then I have to think about other stuff. Right now is the ONLY time I can think about this.

Brain: Is not.

Me: Is too.

Brain: No, it’s really not. You need to get sleep.  Do you think you’ll be able to produce anything anyone will want to read if you deprive me of sleep?

Me: Maybe.

Brain: No, you won’t. I’ll be too tired to make coherent sentences.

Me: Maybe people think that’s funny.

Brain: Unlikey. I’m shutting down now, good luck thinking about anything without me.

Me: Don’t go yet…! We need to think about this!

Brain: Muahahahaha…. Zzzzzzz

Turns out, you really do need your brain to cooperate in order to get anything done. Especially when it involves a lot of thinking stuff. 

Also turns out my brain was pretty serious about not helping me that night, after the brain shut off, the subconscious kicked in and I had to endure dreams about people hating me for not being funny.

Maybe subconscious and brain are working together to teach me a lesson, but really I doubt that'll work. In the end, I just ended up with one more thing to write about. So maybe I did win after all.