#CubeLife

[my-cube-life]

My cube has more decor than my bedroom what does that tell you about me

[my-cube-life]

Despite having an especially private cube, I admit I (unintentionally and frequently) draw unnecessary attention to myself. Just this morning, I turned on my phone only to accidentally hit the "Play" button on my music player as I was setting it down. Can't run from myself, THERE'S NOWHERE TO HIDE! Shouted Whitney. I grabbed my phone and pushed "Pause" in a panic but the button froze, so I was forced to turn down the music instead (though this gave Whit-Hoo the dramatic fading-out a diva like her deserves). 

Something similar happened my first week at the office. I had just gotten comfortable with listening to music as I worked, so I logged on to Grooveshark and pulled up my Iggy Azalea "High Energy" playlist. I tucked my ear buds warmly into my ears, then turned up the volume on my laptop to let Iggy's aura wash over me. My world, rhyme viscious, white girl team full of bad bitches! I noticed that the music seemed kind of distant, so I turned up the volume even more, thinking it was just because my work laptop was not made for jams of this nature. Talk shit get his nut fucking nutter butter! I let this happen for about two minutes before realizing that the reason the music was so distant was because it wasn't coming through my ear buds, it was coming through my laptop speakers. I had forgotten to plug my buds into the audio output. Holy shit! All the blood in my body rushed to my face as I stuffed the ear bud cord into the computer in a panic. In the long minutes that followed, I ended up turning off the music altogether. Was too flustered to enjoy it, I suppose. 

[my-cube-life]

In the past month I've come to appreciate my S Cafe lunch chats with the other interns so much it makes me emotional. Today we delved into several particularly stimulating topics, one of them being time travel. One intern mentioned she was glad she would still be 22 when she graduated college next May, an offhanded comment at the time which then spurred the unanimous agreement that we had been born in the most dynamic and revolutionary millennium to date. Of course, we acknowledged that all the new 2000-babies will likely grow up thinking they were born in the most revolutionary millennium, and as much as we'd like to think they're wrong, what if they end up being right? Imagine, by the end of the 2000's, graduating college students might be embarking on intergalactic senior trips. 

Girl: Yo so what are your summer plans?

Boy: Well as of right now, I'm thinking we'll hit up Mars and Saturn on our way out to Omega Centauri. 

Girl: Rad, man! Have you gotten your Cosmic Passport renewed?

Boy: Yeah, but I still have to book my ticket for the Galactic "Air"Bus. I'd so much rather take the Space Rail though, like I can't work around the whole "8 fluid ounces" bull shit.

Girl: I feel those feels.

Come the millennium after that, we'll probably have forged our way into the realm of time travel, though time travel is much trickier than space travel because there's always the off chance that people may engage in some sort of tomfoolery in either the past or the future. There are definitely regulations that may be implemented to prevent such tomfoolery. For example, those who wish to time travel may only travel back in time within a particular dimension. And obviously, we would only be able to travel so far into the future because if we travel too far ahead, we may bring back knowledge of medical and technological breakthroughs before our society has the capacity to deal with them, which would result in either chaos and destruction, or an expedited move into the "future" which would in turn change the future (though whether this would be a total negative is obviously up for debate). 

Yes, time travel is a little trickier, but it's definitely in the realm of possibility. 

Further S Cafe lunches need to be had in order for us to flesh out these ideas, but we are at a strong starting point, for sure.

Please message me if you have any opinions on this matter! Thanks, love my followers!

[my-cube-life]

Sometimes when I'm plugging numbers into spreadsheets or working through compliance modules I let my mind wander, and lately I've been repeatedly revisiting one thought: Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could age memories? Not erase them (though I remember reading an article way back about some procedure that could rewrite memories to erase any emotional association--fear, for example), but apply the healing effects of time to a particular memory so it's not as potent...some expedited process that fuzzes up a memory the way the passing of time seems to. Imagine if we could age memories of a setback in our careers, or the death of a relative. We would still be able to access these memories, but aging them would help us more quickly cope with the reality of the situation.

[my-cube-life]

whitney houston is very conducive to quality excel work btw

[my-cube-life]

sometimes i work on excel for so long i fall into a trance and when i come out of it i somehow have a spreadsheet full of numbers

[my-cube-life]

um

[my-cube-life]

Japanese Banana Art Is So Damn Appealing

Darth Vader. A Xenomorph from Aliens. Attack on Titan. That's not mentioning the various other characters as well as animals, too. They've all been brought to life in amazing banana sculptures.

The great thing about buying fruit in a non-supermarket setting is that every fruit is priced the same. That means, a big banana costs the same as a small banana. And today, I got a really BIG banana at S Cafe for only $0.75. Like, absolutely ginormous. At first I was afraid it would be mostly peel, but upon inspecting it/opening my banana, I was happily surprised. The peel was actually thinner than usual!

After I paid for my banana, along with another equally phallic lunch item (a cheesy chili dog), I brought it to my lunch table, where my coworkers and I had a blast snapping pictures of the banana from a varietal of perspectives--against a water bottle, alongside a napkin dispenser, next to our heads. It was grand. When the time came for me to finally eat the banana, we took a moment to praise it, and someone dreamily thought out loud Wouldn't the world's biggest banana make a fine gift for someone? We then began contemplating whether we were in fact in possession of the world's largest banana. After a few minutes discussion, we eventually took our search to Google (the world's largest search engine), where we stumbled upon a phenomenal article about banana art! We came to an agreement that even better than simply gifting a banana intact, was gifting a banana with the receiver's face carved into it. We then contemplated sculpting our banana into a totem pole of sorts, complete with top-down carvings of our coworkers' faces.

We laughed about the idea for a while before slowly pulling ourselves together for another afternoon in the office. 

[my-cube-life]

Stina, I have to know--did any of The Four have *slightly short* pinky fingers? It is of the utmost importance. Yakuza members who have shamed the organization in some way are routinely made to *lop off the tip of their little fingers.* Usually the left hand. Awaiting a follow-up report with the utmost anticipation.

Hi, Anon. Great question! As you'll find from the pictures embedded in my last post, I was too far from the yakuza to see their faces, much less their potentially stubby pinkies. I have zoomed in and zoomed in on my photos searching for an answer but no luck. Never before have I so greatly suffered from the limitations of an iPhone camera. But don't fret!! 'Tis yet another reason to await the return of the Four!! Thank you again for your question, can you please reveal your identity??

[my-cube-life]

OH MY GOD. THE YAKUZA. 

Who knew this moment would come so soon! I was not expecting...I didn't think they could possibly...

They were as magnificent and peculiar today as they had ever been. Lord knows what they conversed about, but the man with the rolled sleeves menacingly and repeatedly smashed his fists together for a minute. 

I only dream of learning their secrets.

[my-cube-life]

I've had a hard time determining what appropriate office behavior entails. Normally, I can be professional when the situation calls for it. I go to business school, goddammit! But everyone at my office is so nice and genial, I forget from time to time that I am a lowly intern and they are my superiors, not my buddies. 

My point is, every once in a while I act out of line and then am not sure how to recover. Last Monday, I saw my line manager for the first time in a week and was so excited I spread out my arms and screamed his name. He gave me an embarrassed half smile and scuttled by me, striking down my offer to embrace entirely. Not wanting to seem fazed, I stood there grinning for another minute before allowing my arms to fall limply to my side. Apparently hugging is outside the realm of office etiquette. Dammit, you know this! I chastise myself every day.

[my-cube-life]

The company I work for is fairly large, so its headquarters (where I work) splits its employees among three different buildings, two of them adjacent to one another and the third about three-quarters of a mile down the road. It just so happens that I'm placed in the third and most inaccessible building. Don't get me wrong, I love my office. The main office is too tense, the second office is too difficult to maneuver--my office, on the other hand, is nicely gridded and completely zenned out, which is ideal for a worker like me.

The only con with my office is that unlike the other two buildings, it doesn't have a cafeteria. Instead, it has a janky broom closet that thinks a sign reading "S Cafe" renders it a legitimate establishment. Um...no. But given that the nearest cafe is nearly a mile's walk down the road, and given that New Jersey has been experiencing an especially rainy summer, I find myself frequenting S Cafe at least three times a week. 

Anyway, I was eating at S Cafe with one of my coworkers last Thursday. After finishing our food, we leaned back in our chairs and looked out the floor to ceiling windows across from our table. The windows open out to a side view of a parking garage. Normally, this would be of no interest to us. But that day, as we were chatting and staring aimlessly out the window, a group of four Japanese businessmen emerged from the shadows of the garage and stood equidistant from one another in a perfect diamond. The sun struck the quartet in une maniere dramatique, shrouding their facial features and highlighting only their starchy dress shirts and pressed slacks. After prattling for a moment, the men shifted, one man moving back ever so slightly. He had his sleeves rolled up, as if part of the yakuza. Suddenly the group shifted again and the man with the rolled sleeves shot out an arm to grab something.

My coworker and I collectively caught our breaths. Shit was about to go down, man. Shit was about to go down.

It looked like he had grabbed a revolver, but we weren't sure. It may have just been his Blackberry, but from where we sat, it could have also been a revolver. There was just no way to tell.

Shortly after he grabbed either the revolver or Blackberry, the ensemble dispersed, walking first in the same direction then separating as they reentered the shadows. Every day since, I have made a point to visit the S Cafe in hopes of catching sight of the Mysterious Four, the corporate yakuza. No luck yet, but if finding a rainbow bagel in my office has taught me anything, it has taught me anything is possible. I patiently await the return of the Four.

[my-cube-life]

omg i just turned off my phone so i would have enough charge to play 2048 on the shuttle home what has become of my life

[my-cube-life]

This is entirely my opinion, but I genuinely believe my cube is one of the most sought-after cubes in the office. Obviously everyone has a connection with their respective cube; cube-bias is a real thing, of this I am certain. But my opinion still holds, for these reasons:

My cube is a hop-skip away from the only ladies' room on the floor. 

My cube is also a hop-skip away from the ice-cream freezer, which provides free ice-cream.

My cube is one cube away from a window, which I would argue is better than having the window cube itself because I don't have to deal with the frustrating blindness that is direct sunlight.

My cube is positioned in a square of cubes; imagine a box with a point of entry on the north end. I sit to the right of that exit, angling north-east. Those who pass by my cubicle cannot see the happenings of my laptop without coming off as wickedly intrusive. Not that I have anything to hide, of course, but the sense of privacy is especially heightened for me and thus enhances the attractiveness of my cube.

[my-cube-life]

My coworker introduced me to her Tumblr, and I commented, "If Jackie Kennedy had a Tumblr, this is what it would look like." 

We both agreed that creating "celebrity-made" Tumblr's would be an interesting art project.

[my-cube-life]

Cube decor's been on my mind a lot these days. I haven't done too much research on the matter, but my gut tells me one's cube decor should be an honest reflection of one's personality (ethics, see). People have told me I'm the restless type--not active, per se, but my legs do get jittery when I've been seated for a time--so I've decided to fill my cube with moving objects. A mini-waterfall, a lava lamp, maybe even Newton's cradle. Another thing I'd like to have in my cube is a display case for the rainbow bagel I found earlier this afternoon. (Please see below.) 

I wonder if having a beautiful cube will improve my work performance overall. Only time will tell.

[my-cube-life]

Don't let living in a box keep you from thinking out of the cube.

C.L.