"I Think, Therefore I Ant."
July 31
Are You The
Office Jerk?
”Did everyone get
my funny
dumb blonde email jokes?”
Take the Quiz
& Find Out – You Jerk!
Every office has at least one jerk. It may even be
you. Let’s be honest, it probably is. So... How many of these statements describe you?
1. You size up your co-workers’ cubicles saying things
like, "Yup, it'll be good to be this much closer
to the lunch room." or "I don't know how the company
will get by without you..."
2. You often find yourself delivering a discourse consisting solely of
buzzwords and catchphrases. Example: “Show me some WOW people. Remember, there’s no “I” in team so think outside the box. I'll
get everyone else on the same page through actualized memoization. If anyone needs me, I’ll be thinking with my eyes closed
in my office."
3. You make up nicknames for all your co-workers and love to
use them. (e.g. "You’re fired, Chico!"; "I’m
taking your lunch, Poodle Hair,” and “You’re the man, Boopsie!”)
4. You have an affair with the boss and still haven't figured out that you're the only one who
still thinks it’s a big secret.
5. You're the
acerbic wit who makes fun of everyone who isn't in the room. But that’s
nothing compared to the killer impression the mail boy does of you dying alone
and having your face eaten off by your cat. Now that’s funny!
6. You honestly think you're so important that the office can't possibly
function without you. That means you come to work with the flu, leave your
snot rags lying everywhere and infect the rest of your office because “no
one else matters anyway.”
7. You call
impromptu meetings and launch into long monologues of your views and accomplishments. Example: “Now
I know that ‘Chico’ in accounting, who, by the way, really looks like this
porn actor I saw on TV last night, has crunched the numbers, and I’m up to
speed that those morons in Data Entry agree with his results. But what we
really need to know is this: Has anyone seen my lucky pen? I don’t know
where I put it.”
8. You’re so
clueless that you think sexual attraction is just a matter of averages and
that if you, with your bad haircut, sagging paunch, and questionable hygiene
hit on every sweet young thing in the office, one of them is bound to take the
bait.
9. You bring in street people, take them into co-workers
cubicles and say, “See this filthy wretch, Chico? He could do your job in
his sleep at half the pay. Just so you know!”
10. You send flurries of e-mails to the rest of the company
telling them what you are doing. (e.g., "If anyone needs me, I'll be
in the bathroom. I’m constipated. It’s my wife’s fault; she serves up
food that would block a nuclear dam. Still, she’s a wildcat in the sack. Why
just last night she...”)
11. It
is your trademark to recite rhyming or other cutesy messages as your voice
mail greeting. Sample: “Sorry you missed me/So here’s a friendly
greeting/Leave me a message/ I’m in an important meeting!”
12. You sing aloud to the radio in your office – and you
listen to an all-talk news station!
13. You assume your co-workers are fascinated by your latest
skin eruptions.
14. You've been at
your job for 15 years but still haven't made a pot of coffee or figured out
how to work the photocopier. You believe feigned helplessness is endearing.
15. Every “dialogue” ends with the other person
shouting, "You are such a jerk!”
So how’d you do? If you counted one or two, you’re a
jerk in the works. Get some therapy before it’s too late.
If you scored three to five, take heed, you jerk. You are
on your way to becoming the source of many an eye roll and
surreptitious plan to “spit in your coffee.”
If you do six or more of these on a regular
basis, chances are you are already on the office watch list as the most
annoying turd who ever lived, and have been anointed by your co-workers as
someone who should be taken out by a hit-man – and soon!
Your
Horoscope:
Aries:
Your knowledge of Jewish folklore will get you nowhere.
Taurus: Your
knowledge of Romantic poetry will get you nowhere.
Gemini: Your knowledge of seismic shifts in the earth will get you
nowhere.
Cancer: Your Bachelor of Arts will get you nowhere.
Leo: Your tight pants will get you nowhere.
Virgo: Your map of Atlantis will get you nowhere.
Libra: Your good looks will get you nowhere.
Scorpio: See above (A hint: It will get you nowhere).
Sagittarius: You will continue to view nowhere as not anywhere: And it
will get you there – which is, nowhere.
Capricorn: A Mars/Saturn alliance will get you nowhere.
Aquarius: Your plans to go nowhere go nowhere.
Pisces: You’ve got nothing to wear for when you get to nowhere.
Still Working?
INT. OFFICE -- DAY
Dave
enters the Boss's office.
BOSS:
Ah Dave, glad you could make it up here so fast.
I have a question for you. How
would you like a raise? Say a
hundred thousand a year and all the perks you can eat?
DAVE:
Like it?
I'd love it!
BOSS:
Well you'll never get it here.
Pack up and get out. You're
fired.
DAVE:
Fired?
What did I do?
BOSS:
Nothing.
I just felt like exercising my power in a completely arbitrary manner
and you were the first person I saw in the parking lot.
Get the Hell out of here.
DAVE:
But you can't just fire me on a whim.
BOSS:
You know, you're right. Take two
weeks off, full pay and forget I ever mentioned it.
DAVE:
Thank you.
BOSS:
You're welcome...but before you leave, tell me...tell me you'd eat grass if I
told you to. Better yet, go
outside and eat some grass. I can
watch you from my window.
DAVE:
Mr. Heldon, I still have my pride.
BOSS:
Really? I'll tell you what.
I'll give you five thousand dollars for it.
I'll give you five thousand dollars if you eat grass and...wear your
underwear on your head all afternoon.
DAVE:
Go to Hell.
BOSS:
Then you're fired again...No, no you're not...yes, yes you are.
DAVE:
Let me make this easy for you. I
quit.
BOSS:
Wait...come back.
How about this? You leave my office right now and go back to work and I'll
ask nothing of you. We'll just
forget this ever happened.
DAVE:
I don't know...alright.
BOSS:
You're fired.
DAVE:
Fine! Goodbye!
BOSS:
Hold it...I mean it this time.
Go now, back to work and we'll forget all of this ever happened.
DAVE:
How can I believe you?
You're just toying with me.
BOSS:
You're right and I apologize.
Tell you what, I'm going to give you a raise.
A modest raise.
DAVE:
Alright...
BOSS:
I'll give you a modest raise provided I can call you a piece of shit before
you go back to work.
DAVE:
That's it! I quit!
I wouldn't work for you if this was the only job on the planet.
BOSS:
Not even if I gave you a company car?
DAVE:
Screw your car.
BOSS:
You know Dave, you're the only person who's ever stood up to me like this and
I'd like to say thank you.
DAVE:
I don't believe you. You're not
going to suck me in again. I have
my pride.
BOSS:
I know that Dave and I'm not going to
try and convince you to stay, all I ask is that you listen to one proposal.
You can walk out of here with two weeks severance pay and your pride or
you can walk out of here with two years severance pay in a dress...In a dress
singing 'I'm in the mood for Love.'
DAVE:
Goodbye.
BOSS:
Wait, Dave. I'm writing you a
cheque for two hundred, no half a million, and all you have to do is swallow
your pride, get down on your hands and knees and tell me I'm a God to you and
that if you were a woman you'd want me. The
beg for your job back, and I mean grovel.
Tears, Dave, I want tears. Do
that and this cheque is yours.
DAVE:
Alright...Sir, you are a God to me...
BOSS:
I've changed my mind. Get the
hell out, you're fired.
This Week’s
Featured Album:
Geraldine and Ricky
Trees
Talk Too!
Liner
Notes.
All
Material by Geraldine and Ricky
* Unless Noted
Recorded
Live at The Belleview Hospital for the Insane
Side
One:
1.
Good Wood
2. My Hand’s Up Your Ass (And My Fingers Are Covered In Splinters)
3. Everyone Says I’m Crazy (To Love You)
4. Let Me Do The Talking
5. Shut Up Dummy
6. Trees Talk Too! (Crazy Bedlam Dance Mix)
7. Geraldine (If You Love Me, You Will Kill People!)
Side
Two:
1.
My Split Personality
2. Ventriloquism – Art Form of the Future
3. Once Again, The Children Are Crying
4. Notes on Ricky’s Schizophrenia, Extreme Paranoid Tendencies, Repetition
Compulsion, and His Many Other Mental Disorders *(written by Dr. Seymour
Rabinovitz)
5. The Bitch Wears White *(written by Ricky)
6. Do The Lobotomy *(written by Dr. Seymour Rabinovitz)
7. No More Voices (In My Head) *(written by Ricky and Frank Sinatra)
In my many years as a
clinical psychoanalyst, I had come across thousands of bizarre and disturbing
cases, yet none of them was ever so troubling and freakishly weird as the
split-personality case of Geraldine and Ricky. (Or Ricky and Geraldine,
depending on whom you talked to.)
Ricky and Geraldine were
brought to my office by their traumatized and severely alcoholic parents. They
claimed that Geraldine and Ricky’s relationship, while initially cute and
funny, was now bordering on the “weird and scary.” It was also implied
that the two had begun to “hurt people.” While drinking from a flask,
their mother blurted out that they shared a bed and were involved in
“unnatural activities” together. I promised to do what I could.
Right off the bat it
became apparent that Ricky was the dominant aggressor in the relationship. He
insulted me, broke my office lamp and swore like a turret’s victim.
Geraldine, for her part, tended to smile vacantly and look glassy eyed. The
fact that Ricky constantly referred to her as a “dumb bitch” and a
“controlling whore” demonstrated just how conflicted he was about
Geraldine, and her role in his life. The fact that his hateful words seemed to
have no impact on Geraldine whatsoever allowed me to conclude that she was the
“enabler” in this relationship, and, I suspected, probably also very
passive aggressive.
The first thing I did was
have them committed. I then began to creatively mix and prescribe mind-bending
drugs that would cure them. Large doses of powerful hallucinogenics would be
required! Ricky really seemed to take to them and talked endlessly about all
the “cool colors, man!” whereas Geraldine became listless and started
sprouting mustache hairs. I would
need to rethink my methodology.
My next brainstorm was to
put them in straightjackets and separate them. Again, the results were not
what I had hoped for. Ricky became silent and lay in the corner, inert,
refusing to eat, move, breath or talk, while Geraldine began forming an
extremely unhealthy relationship with a wooden chair.
One late night, while sitting in my office drinking and masturbating in
moderation, I finally arrived at what would ultimately be the perfect therapy
to help these two troubled souls slay their mental demons and find peace of
mind: Lobotomies all round!
Later, my secretary suggested that instead of carving out small pieces of
their frontal lobes, maybe I should encourage them to record an album. She
noted that I could then analyze the resulting creation and search for
psychological clues in the words that might serve as the root source and
foundations of their mental disorder. Since I couldn’t find my lobotomy
scalpel, I decided to go this route. Perhaps it might prove to be therapeutic.
The result was Geraldine
and Ricky’s “Trees Talk Too!” a combination of traditional gypsy music,
talk-therapy and ventriloquism comedy with some clinical observations by me.
I obtained some intriguing
insights into the brains of both of them through the material. It was obvious
that Ricky was the creative visionary whereas Geraldine was simply the
straight woman and Ricky’s goonish plastic-haired sidekick. Of course I had
to keep a lid on some of Ricky’s “artistic concepts.” His idea to have
Geraldine strip would have excited the other patients far too much, and there
was no way in hell the two of them were going to perform a “live sex
show.”
As the creative power
struggle became more enhanced between the two, so did their hopes of recovery.
Geraldine often talked of a sock puppet from her childhood that she wouldn’t
mind revisiting and Ricky began working on a solo stand-up comedy act about
insanity, wood products and his immense dislike of carpenters and termites.
By the time the album was
recorded (live, at our very own Belleview Hospital for the Insane) a rift
between the two had formed that would never be mended.
Shortly after the album
was recorded, Ricky met me for a private consultation and admitted that the
time had come to give up the “unhealthy act of ventriloquism” and “get
on with life.” He told me had discarded his puppet, Geraldine, and as far as
he was concerned I could toss her into the incinerator.
I asked him if he didn’t
want to have the Geraldine dummy as a keepsake (this was a test!), but he told
me it would just be an unpleasant memory of his troubled mental times. He was
free of the dummy and happier for it... I had solved the case!
I congratulated Ricky on
his incredible breakthrough and then when he wasn’t looking, I gave him a
lobotomy (I can’t help myself!) and sent him on his way.
I’m proud to say that Ricky is now a functioning member of society and a
small-time criminal and a petty thug at worst.
Geraldine, of course, was
nothing more than a stuffed puppet made of wood shavings, foam, glue, plastic,
and cheap pinewood. However she sits on an honored place on my office
bookshelf. Sometimes when I look into her glassy eyes I swear she almost looks
human...
Dr. Seymour Rabinovitz
Belleview Hospital for the
Insane (1972)
Cover photo: Hans the Orderly ©
1972 Bedlam Records
This Week's 10 Favorite Search Terms for
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