Half Baked Schemes: More Evidence That We're Underemployed

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we have quite a bit of time on our hands. Between fulfilling our job duties and managing our social obligations, we still end up with about four days worth of time with nothing to do but express our creative genius and talk shit to each other. If you weren’t jealous of our glamorous lives before, you definitely are now, sorry about that. Despite the outlet this blog has created for us, we’re full of schemes galore. Cooking up revenge fantasies for exes, ruining weddings, scamming our way into the professional world a la Bob Benson (minus the sexual slavery), etc.

We need to get out before we get this professional.

Nefarious schemes, one and all, none of which we can actually put into action without more or less destroying our integrity, and more importantly the moral high ground we seem to possess in every situation we encounter. We’re completely unbiased in that particular judgment call, of course, it just always happens that way! Crazy.

Many’s the time Anya has said “if only my job were more demanding, I wouldn’t have so much spare brainpower to spend on scheming and manipulation. It’s appalling how many fantastically evil things I have plotted and never put into action”. Alternatively, she could become a force for good but...ha. That’s boring. No, we’re not motivated by solving societal problems where the world’s greatest minds have failed. We’re more into coming up with some truly useless plots designed to make the world in our immediate vicinity more comfortable.

“Wouldn’t it be great if they had a thing where you just never had to leave the bathtub?” That kind of thing. “You know what we need? Something to just make us fall asleep at night without thinking and wake up feeling like a human at a reasonable hour. Like a nightmare zapper.” While those things will probably never come to fruition (guess we’re stuck with ineffective dream catchers and those trays you drape over your clawfoot tub to hold your erotica and/or snacks), we do have some slightly more thoroughly baked schemes in the making.

I’ll never leave!

If you make any of  these ideas happen and somehow make a bunch of money off of them...throw us a few bones or we’ll sue your ass(es). Unless it’s the child free ones, in which case please send us an engraved invitation and a free pass for life and we’ll let it go.

Our first idea was born of our opportunistic tendencies mixed with the impeccable timing of The Libertarian’s job interview. He was trying to decide on a place in his house to have this Skype sesh, one that looked professional and didn’t expose his bunkbed/tractor lamp/

kitchen/landscape wallpaper to the world. Which we just did, yay! Smelling a chance to make a few bucks off of the millions of unemployed people, we decided to manufacture a line of boring Skype backgrounds that send the right message to interviewers. Messages like “Look at all of these books behind me, I am an Educated Person!” or “I wasn’t lying about living in the area, look at this notable landmark out my apartment window!” or “Let’s both pretend I don’t need this job, at least for the duration of the interview!” We’re open to branding ideas. (Any thoughts on names for this product?)

Or you can use them to get out of doing the job you already have.

You’ve already read about our fake engagement videos on YouTube plot, which may not be a money maker, but then again who knows? Maybe Wonderful Pistachios will give us a commercial...”Anya and Paul do it insincerely!”. Faking a relationship is a slippery slope (especially in these dark days where even your grandmother can use Facebook), but in our situation it’s hard to resist the temptation. The demographics of our office are such that while a handful of co-workers have fully grasped our asexual, opposite sex but completely platonic relationship for what it is, and understand why there is no chance it will go further, most of the others are...well...over fifty and Republicans that really like Paul and can’t imagine that he’s not chasin’ skirts. You can see why we want to fuck with these people, can’t you?

We’ve dreamt up the worst office relationship you can imagine: fights at the office, having flowers delivered from other people giving rise to fits of public sulking, jealous rage inspired by talks with co-workers, confiding in all the wrong people about our issues, mixed in with an unhealthy dose of togetherness. Most tempting of all are those emails that our co-workers far too often send to their entire address book, possibly because they don’t know exactly how to use our email system, more likely because they’re widening the passive aggressive net for “To whoever left their coffee cup in the sixth floor sink for three days”. Reading the replies to those notes is always hilarious, but we’ve cooked up some truly cringeworthy “reply all”s that would expose our “relationship” to the office in terribly confusing ways.

But we kind of have to keep our jobs so...on the back burner it all goes.

Out of all the schemes in all the stages of baked, one really stands out to us as a money maker and a lifestyle. Child. Free. Days. We think every restaurant/theme park/zoo/store/place in the world really, should have days where children are not allowed to be there. Can you imagine the bliss? The relative silence? The ability to curse without people staring you down with murder eyes for perverting their innocent children’s ears? Walking around without worrying about tripping over creatures crawling on the floor? Since we can’t legislate good parenting, can we just kick them all out for ONE DAY a week? Fine, a month? CAN YOU IMAGINE A FLIGHT THAT DOESN’T ALLOW CHILDREN? We would pay so much extra for that shit.

Keep. It.

Make it happen, internet.

Any other brilliant schemes we’re missing? 

The Dating Survey

A few short years ago, Anya found herself single after a long period of turbulent relationship bullshittery (is there any other kind?). When she was ready to start taking applications for arm candy, Paul decided to help her out by developing a very sophisticated screening system, that would keep out the Cheating Bastards, the Never Gonna Happens, and the Don’t Waste My Times. Twas a valiant effort.

And now behold, what could be a very helpful tool in your personal life. Feel free to add your own incredibly pointed questions, it’s done wonders for Anya.

Name:

Do you pronounce your last name correctly?

Describe your penis. Does it have any quirks/faults/piercings/diseases?

Do you like Ginny Weasley?

Were you born and raised in another country?

Will your family make good in-laws?

While returning possessions to an ex, have you ever “accidently” mixed in items belonging to your current squeeze?

Do you act your age?

How many people have you slept with? / Have you slept with more people than Natalie Portman has?

Have you ever been on a daytrip to/vacationed in/owned property in Crazytown?

Are your friends lame?

Are you on any medications? Is yes, list what and why.

Do you have any pets? If so, do they hate sex?

Are you from the south?

Do you have an opinion on anything?

Where is the most exciting place you’ve traveled to?

Do you have any life goals? Do I fit into them?

Do you regularly brush your teeth?

Are you capable of communicating your thoughts/intentions/feelings?

Do you watch Fox News for any reasons other than providing laughter?

Are you willing to accept that I’m right about everything?

Do you sing? If yes, should you sing?

Are you a ginger?

Are you currently involved with anyone else?

Is your main goal in life to see as many nipples as possible?

Are you from [Hometown]?

Are you age appropriate for me?

Do we work together?

Do you subscribe to a diet that is wholly incompatible with mine? If so, can I cajole you into sharing ice cream with me anyway?

Everyone lies. Agree or disagree?

Have you ever attended a fishuneral? (A funeral for a fish). If so, how did you feel about the experience?

Do you want children?

Do you look like you would fit in with the cast of Jersey Shore?

Are you actually just trying to exploit my numerous resources?

Will you be able to cope with the fact that I generally hate humanity?

Honest to God answers that were turned in via social media (we’ve cut the blah yes’s and no’s because they’re boring):

suprisingly straight (referring to his dick. yup.)

? (DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A WEASLEY IS)

if i tell them too (like you can boss your family into being good in-laws...once religious conservative dickheads, always religious conservative dickheads)

only if a Crazy Train runs through it (NO excuse for living in Crazy Town, sir)

y-and we limit his poontang (his cat’s...poontang.)

n fuck gingers (acceptable)

fuck [Hometown] it smells like dick cheese

Another gentleman caller:

fantastic (this is a heinous lie, also, it’s shocking how many of them will address the penis question)

n - older (acts older than his age? ha.)

nowhere really (not well traveled)

yes - probably, though that's a bit crazy to ask (YOU’RE crazy for thinking it’s crazy that I would like an idea of whether or not a relationship fits in with your long term life goals!)

yes. i am. fuck you paul. lol (this very eloquent “fuck you” sort of undermines his claims of emotional intelligence)

n - gingers scare me (funny how this works)

Even Lindsay says no to this shit.

Time Thieves

Is nothing sacred to you people!?

We are now going to turn to something of a serious subject, at least something that is bound to get us seriously testy.  We will admit that we’re not spending every second of every day working as hard as we possibly can. Sorry, that’s what happens when you pay someone weaksauce wages to do a full time job functions with no benefits. We take our full lunch hours. Sue us. The thing is, while we aren’t taking required breaks, we’re doing our job. All the time. You know, forty hours a week, like you’re supposed to when you have a goddamn job. If you think we’re bitter about our underemployment in a vacuum, you might be shocked at the depths of days-old office-coffee bitterness we’re about to reach given what everyone else in the office is up to. Strap in.

Here’s the thing:  Contrary to what you might believe from our online personas (and the above statement), we’re excellent employees.  If you’ve read any of our Overheard in Office pieces, you might realize that we don’t actually have to put that much effort to truly shine here.  We also have the joy (luck? poorly-paid pleasure?) of being at the bottom of the totem pole at our organization and because of our relative unimportance, we’re able to remain a kind of a neutral unit and keep ourselves out of most of the dirty departmental office politics.

Office politics!?  Blech.

Being unimportant also has its disadvantages beyond the pathetic pay grade. Because we have no real say in anything that actually matters at work, we’re often sucked into every uncomfortable, lengthy, and bullshit filled conversation that our “superiors” don’t want to share with their actual co-workers. They think they can interrupt our work because we’re twenty years younger and can’t say no. It’s a really healthy dynamic, obviously.

Welcome to the complex world of Time Thieves.

Another hour of my life wasted chatting about dead relatives. Great.

The thing about Time Thieves is that they’re not all bad.  Some of them are actually great, in terms of both person and timing. When we’re stuck at our desks waiting for those last excruciating twenty minutes to pass until lunch, when we’re waiting for our attachments to load at 3pm and we need a distraction from our Junior Mints craving, we welcome a weird chat with a weird co-worker. “Fodder for the blog!” we say to ourselves, open up the Overheard in the Office Google doc, and settle in to take some notes. For you, our readers, we will sit through the umpteenth retelling of No Boundaries’ sorry tales of love lost, friendships with flavor, and craft shows. We will nod silently as Troubled Temp details her medical woes. We will smile through gritted teeth as That Guy talks about his children.

But. BUT.

God help those Time Thieves when they are stealing OUR time instead of company time.  When we’re about to take our daily lunch walk (to maintain both our figures and a healthy distance from the building while we rampantly talk shit), do NOT stop us three feet from escape into the fresh air to ask about our weekends (and by ask about our weekends, we mean ask us about our weekends solely for the purpose of creating an opening for yourself to blabber on about yours). While we’re on afternoon break, we’re not available to help you figure out something you should have been able to do for the last decade (lookin’ at you, Microsoft Office). And for all that is good in this world (puppies), don’t be the fucking asshole that wants to chat until 5:20pm because you got in late and have to stay late.

All/Only thing that’s good in this world.

WE WORK FOR AN HOURLY WAGE, SIR. WE STOPPED GETTING PAID TO LISTEN TO YOUR BULLSHIT TWENTY MINUTES AGO. But how can we escape when we’re trapped in a cubicle, door blocked by a neverending stream of shit talking? Not to mention the fact that it’s almost always this awful mixture of inane chattery, shit talking about management, and thinly-veiled intolerance (context: the perpetrator whose long-winded conversations led to the invention of time thievery terminology is known to blast Rush Limbaugh from his office).  If we’re really unlucky, there’s a dash of sexual harassment on the side. Or should we say the cherry on top. Wink. (We put you through that because it’s an example of the caliber of cleverness involved in said harassment.)

Time Thieves: Check yo selves. Make your idle chatter and involve us in your Game of Thrones level subterfuge while we’re on the clock, not while we’re clearly trying to cherish the few minutes each day we desperately need to help us decompress after our last interaction with you.

Thanx.

Oversharing is Not Caring

While we were deciding on how to keep the blog afloat during our vacation, we spent quite a bit of time hemming and hawing over posts to write for the posts scheduled while we were gone, including those leading up to the big day. Since we have SO MANY dedicated readers, we knew we couldn’t let you wonder what happened to us while we enjoyed overpriced tropical drinks and salsa dancing! (Or whatever it is we’re actually going to do on vacation). We eventually elected to write a post about Facebook, its uses and misuses, a subject that weighs on us almost daily. Unfortunately, that post has been preempted by this one, a musing on the latest addition to our office and the problems coming along with... her.

The Troubled Temp.

We’ve discovered that real world temps have little in common with Ryan.

As Anya put it: We should write this one about oversharing now, since I have a white hot burning rage toward this day and the Troubled Temp, and it is leaving me a hollow shell ready to collapse in on itself and I’m not sure how long the vengeful creativity energy from that can last until I’m left with nothing but an ulcer.

As you may have guessed from her title and description, Spent Supervisor is rather averse to anything that requires actual work for her (unless it also serves the purpose of making life harder for one of her office enemies).  Our company has a rather lengthy hiring process, which she loathes, and to put off actually dealing with current gaps in the office, she convinced our HR department to contract a couple of temps for the next month.  This allows Spent Supervisor to feel like she’s doing something to solve our current office issues, while not actually doing any additional work, while making our jobs exponentially more difficult for... a couple of reasons.

We were both ready to basically ignore these temps, and put as little effort as possible into actually training them since they can’t fulfill all of our real job functions AND they’re only going to be here for a month. Not. Worth. Our. Time. What we were NOT prepared for was basically being forced to play host to someone who, not unlike a mosquito, just sits around whining in our ears literally non-stop all day and sucking the blood (energy) out of us. Another thing she has in common with mosquitos? Anya wants to slap the shit out of her everytime she sees her. (Luckily for her, I won’t. Maybe.)

Another person who brings about intense slapping urges.

Troubled Temp, like a disturbingly high number of people in this world, labors under the impression that people would really love to hear about every single aspect of her life in great detail. From accent confusion to baby daddies, cause of death to divorce, we have a veritable alphabet of anecdotes from the Troubled Temp, none of it solicited. For seven hours of the day, three days a week, we endure a ceaseless and unrelenting stream of bullshit about Troubled Temp’s family issues, feelings about her life/job/the weather, questions about what we’re typing/who that phone call was from/is that Facebook on your phone.

Anya’s mother makes a habit of complaining about technology today, and how it is leading to the downfall of civilized society. As much as we hate to admit it, she has a point here. We all know people who are hell bent on sharing too much information with too many people, far too often. We shit you not, Anya has a Facebook friend who uploaded a picture of herself at the grocery store captioned “waiting for prescriptions at the pharmacy, ugh!”. REALLY!? At that point, you might as well be posting all of your medical information and heavily filters pics of the prescription bottles on your goddamn Instagram.

WHAT’S YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, WHILE WE’RE AT IT?!

Lock it up!

We’re not saying we should all be ascribing to Victorian ideals of etiquette, but we cannot be alone here when we implore everyone to draw a few fucking lines of propriety.  We obviously share essentially everything with each other, but that is due to our numerous years of platonic life partnership.  We would never repeat some of the things that come up in our very private kikis to our co-workers, dental hygienists, or fellow members of our online apiary forum.  You should only be sharing certain things with certain people, although it’s not exactly a top-down hierarchy.

To illustrate our point, let’s use your father and one of your friends (this is just a regular friend, between “close friend” and “frenemy” on the friendship scale).  These are both people who are important to you, who you (probably) trust, but the things you share with each of them should be totally different.  You are not going to tell the same embarrassing sexual situation story to your father that you laughed about with your friend.  However, that same friend is not privy to the state of your student loan payments or what’s going on with that weird mole on your shoulder, like your father is.

People you should only be sharing basic standard pleasantries with?  Strangers you meet in a professional setting.  We understand that, in general, we have high standards and expectations, and that there are many different (wrong) ways to go about life.  We’re sure that Troubled Temp thinks that she is a friendly bubble of openness and honesty, but everything she does comes off as nosy, invasive, and far too frank for our taste.  To make everything worse, she’s also pretty damn terrible at the actual work portion of her job.  Really looking forward to the next four weeks.

“Oh, the humanity.”

[Office tattoo illustration by Andrew Joyner]

Texts from Last Year Pt. 3 (In Which Anya Reveals Our Healthy Diets)

We now present you with the third collection of noteworthy texts from Anya in 2012.  If you are just joining us for the written evidence of our eternal downward spiral, you can work your way back starting here.  By now you have probably figured out that it doesn’t get better, but it does get funnier.  Enjoy.

Thursday, September 27 8:58am
Haha Faded Hippie is so helpful today. She’s held the door for me twice out of 6 trips to shelve for [other co-worker] and she asked “are you to the 400s yet?!” ...thanks

Saturday, October 6 8:32am
Nothing quite like waking up to the sound of my mom talking shit about my job situation on the phone

Saturday, October 6 12:34pm
You’re missing Frazzled Feminist’s bedazzled jeans, just so you know

Forefront of fashion.

Saturday, October 6 9:05pm
Halloween: I am maine style yellow jacket clad fisherwoman and my dog is a lobster

We feel like we haven’t been delivering enough corgis.

Sunday, October 7 7:18pm
The Libertarian’s mom just offered me a white denim cropped jacket for like five minutes straight, and then some weird sheer silk thing she thought was reallly nice. she started suggesting outfits for the jacket, the Libertarian laughed at me

Thursday, October 11 8:40am
Frazzled Feminist had a shrieking anger meltdown about her kitchen contractors though, so maybe she needs to take the bipolar one

Thursday, October 11 4:08pm
Sometimes I think I can’t be alone because I need someone on call in case I want to hit up the garage too badly

Friday, October 12 11:09am
Ugh guess I’m doing that thing again where I hate eating. Too bad it’s not at a time where I actually need to lose weight.

Friday, October 12 12:43pm
Things I feel guilty about: spending most of the weekend away when we have like three family birthdays to celebrate, even though my mother is being terrible. Things I don’t feel guilty about: hiding an index card from a group of horrible women who impugned my ability to alphabetize

Saturday, October 13 8:48pm
Best quote ever “bitch that was my pussy you was kissing this morning, that was my pussy in his mouth you was kissing” classic.

Sunday, October 14 4:51pm
Ugh My cousin just sneezed onto my ferret’s face twice. Like directly.

So many flavors of disgusting.

Monday, October 15 12:08pm
I’m not very good at this whole don’t talk to people until they talk to me thing. Plus Facebook just keeps amassing evidence of picnics with other girls and all kinds of shit that makes me 100% glad I didn’t eat that bagel or I would have thrown it up

Tuesday, October 16 9:36am
Hahaha every work excuse in the book. I want them to admire my originality, I’ll probably blame my female parts or something since I’m sure Big Boss votes republican and obviously it is a mystery to them. If I don’t show up for lunch, I’m probably passed out on the third floor and no one came looking for me.

Wednesday, October 17 5:49pm
Really hope this whole “not respond for weeks and then tell me they chose someone else” job thing is not a foreshadowing of my conversation with my ex

Thursday, October 18 9:43am
Frazzled Feminist established her (fictional?) presence here today with a giant Starbucks cup. Progress? It’s more believable at least lol

Friday, October 19 1:32pm
Maybe Starbuck [Paul’s friend, not the coffee chain] and I will have spilling beer on the table and tortilla chips sleepover. So there!

Friday, October 19 2:51pm
Probably just going to watch Matthew and Mary’s engagement scene over and over until I stop crying about it.

Still haven’t watched the last two minutes of Season 3, probably going to spend the rest of the show pretending Matthew is on business in America.

Who am I kidding? I’ll never stop crying about this.

Thursday, October 25 9:42am
I’m about to sneak off and eat a cookie in the bathroom, pretty low.

Thursday, October 25 10:58am
Oh god No Boundaries is hitting on private school kids. Probably like 14

Thursday, October 25 4:41pm
Aw shit just watched a vet team member literally tranquilize a monkey with a blow dart. I want that job

Don’t worry, Anya will have better hats.