Hurricanes: Pros and Cons

Pro: You can watch more TV.
Con: The only thing on TV is repetitive hurricane coverage.

Pro: School can be canceled if it rains a lot.
Con: It rains a lot.

Pro: They let you realize what a luxury AC in your car can be.
Con: My AC is broken.

Pro: They allow you to spend time with loved ones.
Con: They force you to spend time with loved ones.

Pro: They give ample time for around-the-house chores.
Con: I hate cleaning.

Con: They cause me to become lethargic and overly tired.

Pro: They give people a better appreciation for sunny days.
Con: I live in Florida, so sunny days are just as bad, if not worse.

Work Sucks, I Know

Thanks, Blink 182, for the title of my post.

To clarify, I work two jobs right now. One is in the Dean's Office of a college, which is truly the most boring job imaginable. For the 15 minutes a day I'm not answering the phone I am usually reading online articles or other people's blogs. The one cool thing is I get to drive a golf cart around campus for 30 minutes to an hour each day running errands and documents for my bosses. But that doesn't make up for the droll existence that is the front desk of the administrative offices.

Fortunately, I only work that job two half-days a week (although soon three as school starts back up). My other job title is Underlord of Oversight, and I am the warehouse manager of a vending machine company. I am in charge of finding machines that work and cleaning them for potential customers.

Most of the machines we have, however, are in poor condition, or if they are in good working order, I can't find working bill validators. Today I spent about 3 hours trying to fix a single bill validator (the thing that accepts your dollar bill before allowing a selection to be made). I took apart at least two other mechanisms to find parts to exchange. Finally, when I got all the wires plugged back in and ran it through our tester, the bill comes back out with melted rubber on it.

Neither of my jobs are horrible. They are both part time where I make decent money, and I know once I graduate in December things will become a lot more hectic. But it's just frustrating to have a job where I'm confined to a desk, or another where I can never solve what's in front of me.

Is it possible to have a midlife crisis at age 21?

The Civil Rights Movement (Office Supply ed.)

So my task at work this morning was to separate a large bin of tangled office supplies. I can only imagine it is because my coworkers hate me.

Anyways, as I started separating, I knew there needed to be a certain system in deciding what went where. It was obvious that the gold-colored paperclips deserved to be the administrative body presiding over all other office supplies; they were the most qualified. I mean come on, they're gold.

Monochromatic paperclips were the obvious majority, and being the most reliable and trustworthy of all the office materials, they were duly rewarded for all the work their kind have been known to put in. The monochromes have been faithful to generations of office workers, so I had no qualms in granting them first dibs on any assignment or filing task I was given.

The colored paperclips were a little outspoken. They felt they deserved the same rights as their monochrome counterparts, but I countered with the stark realization that the colored clips tended to get bent out of shape rather easily. Sure, they are aesthetically pleasing, but if I'm working on an important project, I can't have colored paperclips mire my entire document (Al Sharpton is probably rolling over in his grave). The ruling council of gold paperclips agreed with me: it's better for colored paperclips to be seen and not heard (in the sense of their loud, obnoxious colors).

The binder clips were a bit harder to subdue. Although they are large and potentially dangerous (don't let your finger get caught in one of those bigger ones), they are utilitarian at best. They were clearly no better than your average beasts of burden. Binder clip's retarded half-cousin, butterfly clip, had no say in the matter either. If I had my way, I would eradicate the entire butterfly clip population from the office. I feel they are a blight upon our entire nation of cubicles.

Finally, we came down to the thumb tacks. These little pricks really gave me a good fight. Everytime I'd try to put them down, they'd practically stab me to death. Fortunately, they were a very small minority, so I eventually put them in their place (the wall). It was at this point that a very brave monochrome came forward and told me a startling fact about all office supplies: "We're all magnetic," he said.

This really blew my mind. I knew I had to investigate. I contacted the greatest minds the office had (it was really just me) to develop a tool (find a magnet) that could test this bold hypothesis. Lo and behold, that SOPC (son of a paper clip) was right! They were all magnetic. I conferred with the Golden Council and we quickly established equal rights for all office supplies. Everything was going smoothly... at least until the rubber bands started speaking up.

It was at this point that my boss walked up and asked why I was talking to a pile of office supplies.