おじさんハーレム

Stories and anecdotes from the office because I work with some crazy, unique people

[ojisanharem]

CEO: "I feel like recently we see each other more often at the convenience store than in the office"

[ojisanharem]

Injury?

I'm working at the office for the first time in a while today. This afternoon, I wore the provided office slippers on my way to the break room to get snacks. Our CEO sees me and we say our greetings before he makes an observation.

CEO: "Is your feet injured or something?"

Me: "? No... I feel fine."

CEO: "Oh, you seemed to be walking weirdly. Must have been my imagination."

Me: *laughing* Maybe. I'm fine.

CEO: *looks down at my feet* Ah! Maybe because the slippers are too big!

Me: *laughing even louder* Yeah, they are!

[ojisanharem]

Temporarily going out of the office

Boss: *thinks I’m going home for the day* お疲れ様です！

Me: 後で戻ります。

Boss: あぁ、そうですか。いってらっしゃい！

[ojisanharem]

"It's not healthy!!"

Our VP found me hording the Puccho's in our office "store". He eyed the stack of candies I got and watched as I dropped coins in the piggy bank to pay for them. Then, as I walked past him to go back to work with the candies on hand, he warns me, "Don't eat too much of that. It's not healthy!"

I laugh and agree with him. And as I walked away, he repeats, "It's not healthy!!"

[ojisanharem]

Unagi Pie

Someone brought "unagi pie" to the office. It doesn't really look like pie, and definitely doesn't look like unagi. It's appearance and texture look very similar to Otap, a Philippine snack.

A co-worker then says it must be made from some part of an unagi. Though, he says, it doesn't taste anything like unagi at all.

I asked whether that was a fortunate thing, to which he just laughs.

[ojisanharem]

Multiple Monitors

A co-worker stopped by my cubicle to inform me of changes to the specifications of a project. While listening to him, I type away on my keyboard, taking notes of things I need to do and all that. Suddenly, he stops and looks at my my screens that are in front of him.

"Where are you typing into?!"

For a moment, I am confused. But then I laugh and point towards the bottom corner of the monitor right beside him.

[ojisanharem]

お前を消す方法

Our VP and one of our leaders just told me about the  お前を消す方法  joke regarding the dolphin office assistant back in Windows 95. It’s so funny. I can’t stop laughing about it.

I didn’t tell them that the only assistant I knew was the clip. But I just searched it and apparently, the clip is the default for English versions, while the dolphin was default for East Asian versions. I really should have mentioned it because I think it would have been a nice discussion. I know there are jokes everywhere about how Clippy was annoying, too.

Because of our generation gap, they did ask if I’ve ever used Windows 95. I told them that the oldest version I’ve used was ‘98, and even then, that was only a little bit. Most of my childhood memories are of using Windows XP.

[ojisanharem]

Wiggle

Our VP discovers during a meeting that the seat he's on makes squeaky sounds whenever he moves. Naturally, he decides to make music by wiggling around in his seat.

[ojisanharem]

Evil Glare of Doom

So I accidentally directed a stink eye to our VP. I really didn't mean to. He just said something very confusing, and I couldn't understand anything, and I just can't control my facial expressions, and I accidentally looked at him and made eye contact while I was scrunching up my face in confusion. OTL

[ojisanharem]

Price of Coke in the U.S.

My boss and I were talking about food prices in different countries and ended up wondering how much a bottle of Coca-Cola costs in the United States. We estimated it at around $2 but had to be sure. So using our good friend Google, we searched for "coke price in the US" and were promptly shown results of the query "cocaine price in the US".

:|

We were laughing for a while before we finally calmed down enough to change "coke" to "coca-cola".

[ojisanharem]

Durian

Coworkers are going crazy with the smell of some durian candies. My Southeast Asian self is just over here wondering what would happen if the actual fruit was here in all its smelly glory.

[ojisanharem]

So RED!!!

When my boss saw me at work yesterday, this was his first comment because of the bright red blouse I was wearing.

I told him since I'm travelling the next day and have already packed I didn't have much choice on clothes.

[ojisanharem]

Last Friday

A report came in from a customer that they encountered problems with our application at 5pm on Friday.

I'm the person-in-charge of the part where the problem occurred. Immediately, my boss and team leader discussed with me how we will go about the investigation.

After finding out the cause and identifying a few ways to fix it, the three of us gathered again to figure out the fastest way to fix it for the customer who sent in the report, as well as the remaining customers who may but haven't yet encountered the same problem.

We deliberated on what would be the best balance between a fast and safe solution before we divided the tasks between us. Team leader would make the fast fix. I would test the behavior on other versions of our product, and boss would handle communications with other teams.

It was 5+ hours of non-stop fast-paced work on the issue before we finally managed to get the fix sent to the customer service person who will take care of it early Monday morning.

Monday and Tuesday, I worked on fixes and tools to help handle the problem for other customers. And Wednesday, I worked on a proper fix for future versions of the product.

Throughout all of this, not once did anybody get angry at me or yell at me or blame me. And though it is embarrassing that all of this is my fault, I also feel truly blessed.

[ojisanharem]

Go home!

"We'd prefer not to pay so much overtime so please go home on time. Thanks."

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[ojisanharem]

Lesson Learned

Boss asked me if I was okay since there was a fire near my place last night. He showed me a video he took of the fire. I told him I didn't know and was just sleeping beautifully. "Okay, that's good. At least there's no problem."

He said he's asking to make sure because last time there was another fire that he took a video of. It was nearby Teammate A's place so he showed it to TA the next day at work and apparently the place that was burning was TA's place.

[ojisanharem]

Quality Assurance

One of the things my boss said that I often remember is:

"The QA people are not testers. As the name suggests, they make sure of the quality of the product. This includes everything from checking unnecessary features, UX, accessibility, fact checking, consistency, etc. Testing just happens to be a big part of their job."

This really cleared up a lot of my assumptions when I entered the company as a fresh graduate.

[ojisanharem]

Dorks

There's a big event the company is preparing for and I'm going to be working with the same people as that other time I went to a similar (albeit smaller scale) event.

I remembered how they pranked me on the train and how our VP who orchestrated the prank was laughing like a kid on the other side of the train car.

Now I finally found the perfect word to describe them. Dorks. They are funny, childish, middle-aged dorks.