My coworkers love Powerpoint presentations, especially if there is animation or sound included. When I refer to animation, I don't mean the slick looking motion graphics used in television commercials, music videos, or movie title sequences. I'm referring to the craptastic, looping, animated clip-art files that are widely found on the interwebs (and are license free for a good reason). Combine these animated gifs with some equally visually unappealing graphics and annoying stock sound clips, and the end result is akin to a newb web developer's wet dream, circa 1997.
At my best I'm a mediocre, but competent, multimedia author. I'm not claiming to be a presentation god, or even a high priest for that matter. But I'm of the firm belief that a simple slide show presentation is more effective, and less lame, than one with gratuitous sound, animation, text dissolves, and slide wipes. So I get pissed when I have to sit in a meeting that is longer than it should be because the presenter is pausing to call attention to a fucking cash register ding sound effect that has no relevance to the presentation. This is usually followed by the presenter smugly grinning, pleased with him or herself, as my idiot coworkers chuckle with glee.
Okay, I get it. You have this information(that is only important to you and maybe one other person) to present, and you want to make it fun and exciting (in hopes of masking your own lameness.) But it would be even more fun if the excess bullshit was trimmed from the presentation so that I could get back to slacking sooner. Better yet, just send me the presentation in an email that I'll delete anyway. Crisis averted.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Email Chain Suck-off
You can show your appreciation for someone or something in a polite and gracious manner. Or you can do it in such an overly dramatic manner that a punch to your face would be more appropriate than someone saying "you're welcome".
In my office, it's not enough to personally thank a person, or group of people, for doing something nice. (Keeping it classy is not the mantra around here.) Rather, it is silently encouraged that thanking be done in a grandiose manner by sending a gushing email to the entire company. At that point, the person isn't really thanking someone else so much as he or she is trying to demonstrate how awesome they are. This email is usually followed by another person trying to one-up the previous email. On a good day I might get a string of these emails. This truly exemplifies the Email Chain Suck-off. Most of the time, though, I'll receive one or two emails that hint at the beginning of a Suck-off, only to receive a half dozen simple "thank you" emails. You might think there is nothing wrong with a simple "thank you" email, but the reality is that those people are just hitting "reply all" and using the "thank you" from their email signature to do the thanking for them. It never ceases to amaze me how far some people can push the boundaries of being lazy. Thanks for cluttering my inbox with your Thank You Spam, assholes.
In my office, it's not enough to personally thank a person, or group of people, for doing something nice. (Keeping it classy is not the mantra around here.) Rather, it is silently encouraged that thanking be done in a grandiose manner by sending a gushing email to the entire company. At that point, the person isn't really thanking someone else so much as he or she is trying to demonstrate how awesome they are. This email is usually followed by another person trying to one-up the previous email. On a good day I might get a string of these emails. This truly exemplifies the Email Chain Suck-off. Most of the time, though, I'll receive one or two emails that hint at the beginning of a Suck-off, only to receive a half dozen simple "thank you" emails. You might think there is nothing wrong with a simple "thank you" email, but the reality is that those people are just hitting "reply all" and using the "thank you" from their email signature to do the thanking for them. It never ceases to amaze me how far some people can push the boundaries of being lazy. Thanks for cluttering my inbox with your Thank You Spam, assholes.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Eponymous
The building I work in is like most office spaces, where there are a handful of office rooms with doors and a lot of floor space divided up by desks that make half-assed cubicles. The part of the office I work in is fairly open in that we have our desks with tall hutches marking off each of our own desk areas. Being in the marketing department, the noise level is generally low in this area, so there isn't much need for cubicle components such as partitions. But there are a few people in my department who make me wish my desk were surrounded by cinder block walls.
One of these people, who I will refer to as Jeans, works a few desks down from mine. "Jeans" is short for "Dad Jeans" because the clothing he wears, specifically his pants, are unflattering and unfashionable, just like Mom Jeans. Jeans is my arch-nemesis. Jeans annoys the crap out of me for many reasons. Jeans is a very loud talker, and is oblivious to this fact. He spends most of his day either carrying on non-work related conversations from his desk, or meandering around our department carrying on non-work related conversations. Regardless of who he is talking to or the nature of the conversation, his speaking volume starts out at like 7 or 8. And if the conversation involves something that excites him, such as statistics, home schooling, or Meatloaf, then his volume goes up to eleven.
Not only is Jeans a loud talker, but most of what comes out of his mouth makes me want to throw rocks at it. Jeans likes to talk about his children - a lot. He and his wife have six children, all under the age of 10 and home schooled, and are expecting a seventh spawn sometime this summer. I believe the reason for all the ankle biters is that she is uber Catholic and wears the pants (i.e. micro manages his cock). Between home schooling and talking about his kids, there's a whole lot of his chit chat I can do without.
I can also do without his views on, well, everything. At first blush he comes off as an educated, intelligent, and well spoken guy. Listening to him for more than five minutes, it becomes apparent that he's one of those people who knows just enough to be dangerous, but makes up for his real depth of knowledge by talking a lot. Being the data analyst and statistician for our company, he does actually know a lot about those subjects. Unfortunately he attempts to apply professional analysis to every topic of conversation. For instance, he spent the whole week after returning from his vacation to Disney World by analyzing the behavior of his kids and how that related to the park operations. Seriously?!
The real kicker, for me, is when he divulges on matters of pop culture. This guy is far from the pulse of anything remotely current. At times he appears to be proud of his lack of knowledge. As if that somehow excuses him from making ignorant comments about a certain film or genre of music. At other times he'll act like a self proclaimed expert on American Idol because he watched one episode in the middle of the season. Since his faux agrarian home life doesn't let him out much, he treats the one movie a year he gets to see as "teh best evr!!1!".
Personally, I look down on people who are obsessed with Top 40 music and American Idol, but really, it's just a matter of taste. I probably shouldn't fancy myself a snob when it comes to these things because I don't give mainstream stuff a fair shake when it comes to truly appreciating it. Between spending way too much time on the interwebs and my girlfriend always having VH1 on, I think I have enough exposure to mainstream pop culture to shit on it all I want.
One thing I can't stand is when people comment on pop culture and have zero basis for voicing their opinions. Jeans is one of these people. To the untrained ear, he probably sounds like he has valid reasons for disliking rap music yet comes across as kind of hip because he liked Hey Ya. To me, and anyone else who gets that, this comes across as extremely lame. I admit that getting this bent out of shape over pop culture is petty, but when I have to constantly jack up the volume of my headphones to drown out his diarrhea of the mouth, it becomes a little more personal.
Jeans is not innately a bad person. He's a good hearted guy who is extremely annoying to certain people who have figured him out. Basically, Jeans is Ned Flanders. Sure, Ned Flanders is a likeable character in the small doses you get of him in your 20+ minutes of a Simpsons episode. But if you had to work with Ned for 40 hours a week, every week, then you may develop anger issues. This is why I miss my partition.
One of these people, who I will refer to as Jeans, works a few desks down from mine. "Jeans" is short for "Dad Jeans" because the clothing he wears, specifically his pants, are unflattering and unfashionable, just like Mom Jeans. Jeans is my arch-nemesis. Jeans annoys the crap out of me for many reasons. Jeans is a very loud talker, and is oblivious to this fact. He spends most of his day either carrying on non-work related conversations from his desk, or meandering around our department carrying on non-work related conversations. Regardless of who he is talking to or the nature of the conversation, his speaking volume starts out at like 7 or 8. And if the conversation involves something that excites him, such as statistics, home schooling, or Meatloaf, then his volume goes up to eleven.
Not only is Jeans a loud talker, but most of what comes out of his mouth makes me want to throw rocks at it. Jeans likes to talk about his children - a lot. He and his wife have six children, all under the age of 10 and home schooled, and are expecting a seventh spawn sometime this summer. I believe the reason for all the ankle biters is that she is uber Catholic and wears the pants (i.e. micro manages his cock). Between home schooling and talking about his kids, there's a whole lot of his chit chat I can do without.
I can also do without his views on, well, everything. At first blush he comes off as an educated, intelligent, and well spoken guy. Listening to him for more than five minutes, it becomes apparent that he's one of those people who knows just enough to be dangerous, but makes up for his real depth of knowledge by talking a lot. Being the data analyst and statistician for our company, he does actually know a lot about those subjects. Unfortunately he attempts to apply professional analysis to every topic of conversation. For instance, he spent the whole week after returning from his vacation to Disney World by analyzing the behavior of his kids and how that related to the park operations. Seriously?!
The real kicker, for me, is when he divulges on matters of pop culture. This guy is far from the pulse of anything remotely current. At times he appears to be proud of his lack of knowledge. As if that somehow excuses him from making ignorant comments about a certain film or genre of music. At other times he'll act like a self proclaimed expert on American Idol because he watched one episode in the middle of the season. Since his faux agrarian home life doesn't let him out much, he treats the one movie a year he gets to see as "teh best evr!!1!".
Personally, I look down on people who are obsessed with Top 40 music and American Idol, but really, it's just a matter of taste. I probably shouldn't fancy myself a snob when it comes to these things because I don't give mainstream stuff a fair shake when it comes to truly appreciating it. Between spending way too much time on the interwebs and my girlfriend always having VH1 on, I think I have enough exposure to mainstream pop culture to shit on it all I want.
One thing I can't stand is when people comment on pop culture and have zero basis for voicing their opinions. Jeans is one of these people. To the untrained ear, he probably sounds like he has valid reasons for disliking rap music yet comes across as kind of hip because he liked Hey Ya. To me, and anyone else who gets that, this comes across as extremely lame. I admit that getting this bent out of shape over pop culture is petty, but when I have to constantly jack up the volume of my headphones to drown out his diarrhea of the mouth, it becomes a little more personal.
Jeans is not innately a bad person. He's a good hearted guy who is extremely annoying to certain people who have figured him out. Basically, Jeans is Ned Flanders. Sure, Ned Flanders is a likeable character in the small doses you get of him in your 20+ minutes of a Simpsons episode. But if you had to work with Ned for 40 hours a week, every week, then you may develop anger issues. This is why I miss my partition.
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