Office Antics

Being in a lab all day takes its toll on you. It's one thing to have a thesis project to juggle with classes, when you have very little free time. But it's another to be stuck in the lab all day racking your brain for something to do. It's as painful as trying to keep your eyelids open for more than 5 minutes, it's very hard! So Alfred and I have cooked up some juvenile antics at work to pass the time and get some giggles out of them. Let's see, there were a bunch of chairs and tables that were sitting in the hallway for a few months. We thought that they might be garbage, since they were made circa 1971. I scoped it out to find a decent chair to bring back to the student office. The present chairs that we have suck! Yes sure they're brand new 2005 rolling chairs but they don't have arm rests, they're too high and they are covered with plastic. If nobody else has noticed, sitting in those chairs for over half an hour, despite being cushioned, gives you SWASS, or sweaty ass. Not comfortable at all. So I found a nice fabric-covered bucket seat, arm-rests included. It's on wheels, lower to the ground for my short legs and bright orange! On our way back to the office, chair in hand, the maintenance guy stops us and asks us if it's our chair. No says Alfred, we were just borrowing it for a few minutes. Then the guy looks at us suspiciously and says ok, but that he needs the chair back. Supposedly all that tacky and out-dated furniture was in the hall while the room they belonged to was being cleaned. I decide to stay out of it because I am a terrible liar and Alfred was doing a good job. Almost in the office, then the lab manager comes out of the lab and sees us carrying this bright orange chair, OMG, busted! But then he goes: "I'm not even going to ask," and walks on. Anyways, the stolen...I mean borrowed chair was supposed to be returned last Wednesday but it is still sitting in our office for me to enjoy. I'll give it back soon, I swear!

Since Alfred is obsessed with poker, he always has a pack of cards on him. So we learned how to play 2-man euchre. We were playing at lunch-time and the manager walked in. It was like deja vu. I was working at another lab a couple of years ago, playing euchre at lunch, and my lab manager came in and told us to stop playing. But this time, the manager goes: "I have to ask, so what's the deal with the orange chair?" Again I let Alfred explain. Then he asks me a lab question and doesn't bring up anything about the cards. Phew. Sometimes I feel like a little kid trying not to get in trouble.

What else? We've been trying to set up one of those mini basketball nets in the office. The thing was so poorly engineered that it's taken almost a week for us to actually get it assembled. It required me to find some smaller screws to attach the hooks to the backboard which hang on the door. Plus also finding a screwdriver, and of course will and motivation to get it done. After finally putting it together we tested it out in various locations in the room, and settled on putting it on the door, where it's meant to be. Considering that our supervisor's office is right next door and the lab is just across the hall, we have to be quiet and covert. Other people also use the room too, not just us. So I think that we'll have to use it only after hours or at lunch. We had an after hours game of Bump and I got my butt kicked, but I blame the ball I was using.

Alfred thinks that we're going to get fired.

I was just listening to Untitled by D'Angelo. One of my all-time favourite songs. And I remembered seeing a picture of D'Angelo now. A far cry from how he looked in his 2000 video. D you used to be H-O-T. I guess once you reach your peak, it's just downhill from there.

What happened D'Angelo?