Cubicle Life -or- The Guy Across the Hall is Wally

[nynnja]

We have a militant maid at my office. She's apparently quite old and has been cleaning this building for some time. My direct boss has been involved in a feud with her since he started. Militant Maid uses nasty industrial cleaning products, which are unwarranted and unhealthy in most offices, she rearranges papers on peoples desks, and really doesn't do a good job cleaning. I thought this was all very silly until my own recent tussle with her.

One day last week I drank a 20 oz. bottle of Diet Coke. For whatever reason I decided to throw the bottle in my trash can instead of taking the 35 step walk to the recycling bin in the lunch room. The day after Militant Maid next cleaned the office I found my empty Coke bottle next to the paper recycling box in my cube. Of course I quickly surmised what happened and thought, "I guess she's reminding me to recycle." After mentioning this to my coworker she suggested that I put the bottle back and see what happens.

Yesterday I noticed I had eaten a few bananas so the peels and lots of other garbage was in my trash can. I figured she wouldn't bother digging through it to get the bottle. Sure enough, this morning the bottle was sitting right there on my desk. Not only was the bottle on my desk but it was on a coffee stain which apparently she couldn't bother to clean because she was too busy pulling bottles out of the trash.

Now it's become a game for me. The bottle is back in the trash. If it comes back I may start sticking gum to it.

[Kyrin]

I'm sure you can be more creative than gum

[nynnja]

Well that was uneventful. Today I came in and found the garbage can not emptied but the bottle was gone. Maybe she recycled the bottle but spitefully refused to empty the trash. Oh well.

[Macheath]

She short circuited your little game, American dog.

(I have this assumption that she's Eastern European or something.)

[nynnja]

I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to our anonymous passive aggressive confrontation.

On a different topic in cubicle-land, I'm currently in the running for a full time position. For now I'm "temporary part-time" and sort of floating in employment limbo. Things are going well but having that "full-time" label, pay, benefits, etc. sure would be a nice load off my shoulders. Not to mention allowing me to look to the future with some certainty. That is until the next economic disaster.

[nyyx]

I started work at my new job last week, but am still waiting for the login to my main work terminal and my company badge. Absent the ability to get much meaningful work done (everything is restricted here, so the internet machines don't have anything work related on them), I've split my time between company training, theorizing on how I'll start my work once the paperwork logjam breaks, and browsing online shops for odds and ends.

Annoying Discovery: Security paranoia is worse here than at my last job, so the sound capabilities on all internet machines are completely disabled. Thus, there are no internet radioz, burnable CDs(again, security paranoia), or regular radio (nowhere near a window) to liven things up.

As entertainment goes, there's one person in the office that will jump on your internet machine if you fail to lock it while you're away, and send a group e-mail exclaiming the victim's willingness to buy doughnuts and coffee for the following day. I've yet to be a victim, and am patiently waiting for an opportunity to pre-emptively strike.

[Wolfkin]

We have a favorite hobby for those that leave a PC unlocked. For some strange reason, the home page always seems to get set to goat.com

[Threnn]

Regarding cleaning people... I went from working in an office that we locked daily, where I could collect a handful of bottles and take them home at the end of the week, to an open floor environment, where apparently even if your bottle was half full, it would be gone by dawn. And even if you took an empty Tim Horton's pastic cup, washed it out, and stuck it at the back of your desk back where the dust didn't seem to be reachable (I envision our cleaning people to have T-rex arms), that was gone too.

Solution for people who screw with unlocked computers... switch your keyboard input to dvorak. Problem solved.

By the way... if your company was so security minded, shouldn't that dude who sits at other people's term and sends email as them be fired for violations? And the person who left their machine unlocked reprimanded?

[Kyrin]

By the way... if your company was so security minded, shouldn't that dude who sits at other people's term and sends email as them be fired for violations? And the person who left their machine unlocked reprimanded?

I was thinking the same thing.

But, you are in a place with a higher security clearance, so I guess it's to be expected.

I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to our anonymous passive aggressive confrontation.

On a different topic in cubicle-land, I'm currently in the running for a full time position. For now I'm "temporary part-time" and sort of floating in employment limbo. Things are going well but having that "full-time" label, pay, benefits, etc. sure would be a nice load off my shoulders. Not to mention allowing me to look to the future with some certainty. That is until the next economic disaster.

I'm pretty much in the same position, except that my spot isn't a temp position. My job security is rather good for my position, though I really would like that full time label and benefits.

[nyyx]

Bear in mind the other part of what I said, all the stuff that needs to be safeguarded is on an independent network, and few hijinks are had there. The seriousness is all in terms of making sure classified information stays there, is handled appropriately, and can't migrate to the internet (hence seperate networks, no sound recording capabilities, physical seperation, yadda yadda...). For the joking around on the web-machines, I'd hope that it doesn't happen often, but for all I know, management has given him the nod to do this as a light method of encouraging people.