Notes from CubeVille
Posted by Moose on March 10th, 2008. Filed under: Uncategorized.There’s something warm and comforting about CubeVille – walking in at 9 in the morning, booting up my computer, getting a cup of tea, and logging onto my bank account, fat and satisfied after Friday’s paycheck. Yes.
But like any small hamlet, CubeVille has its quirks.
I feel bad eating crunchy vegetables. In case my wholesome snack of red bell pepper strips bothers someone over the beige wall to my left or my right. Or three rows over. It’s unnaturally silent in this large room, given how many people I know are in here. My wet crunching echoes. I feel like it must be interrupting someone’s interpretation of a TPS report, or my crunching is tantamount to bragging, “Yes, I consume only vegetables and lean proteins.” I want to stand up and declare, “No! I’m not trying to flaunt my healthy choices! I only eat this because yesterday I ate three cheese quesadillas, a whole bar of baking chocolate, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s! I only left the last two spoonfuls for show!” But I don’t. Instead, I finish my snack, chewing very, very quietly.
You know what can be chewed silently? A chocolate donut, that’s what.
More disturbing than the silence is what the silence implies. Often, I’ll have to stifle my snickering – mostly because it indicates that I’m reading this or watching this. Instead of doing what I’m paid to be doing: editing something long and staid. I understand these chortles must be quashed, that we must uphold this mythical Work Ethic of which employers are so fond.
What I can’t understand is such shameful waste of life’s small gifts.
Several weeks ago, I found my favorite typo. Ever. In a memo full of what one may and may not do in a court of law, was the word “asses.” It was clearly meant to be “assess,” yet there “asses” languished. For years, if the date stamp on the web site is accurate. I know I laughed. And I know my laugh bounced uncomfortably through the vast room, until I ducked my head and put my hand over my mouth.
I carried it proudly to my supervisor. Where it earned nary a chuckle, just a tight “I’ll look into it.” I admit, I was crushed. How could such a splendid example of human error be so utterly squandered? How?
I feel like someone in a fuzzy, green Grinch suit is going to pop out from behind my cubicle wall and yell, “THERE IS NO LAUGHING IN CUBEVILLE!”
March 10th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
My favorite typo ever was when I was sticking mailing labels onto envelopes during my incredibly boring first job out of college: this poor woman’s address had been typed out as White Bitch Lane instead of White Birch Lane. I took it to my (very, very Mormon) boss, cracking up, and was met with a stern look of disapproval, as if it had been ME who had typed White Bitch Lane instead of White Birch Lane. (No chance — I wasn’t important enough to type. I just had to stick stickers onto things.)
March 10th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
It IS funny!!
Especially since it was that exact typo. Our church hosted a family night a few weeks ago and Matthew lead a session for the parents. He used Asses instead of Assess on his Powerpoint slides, and the whole room giggled and snickered.
I am kind of glad I had not proofread for him, because seeing Asses on the big screen was pretty delightful.
People who don’t find the humour in Asses and Bitches (re: Holly’s above comment) are likely, um, asses and bitches.
Now I need to go wash my mouth out with soap.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
We were pitching a book years ago about the disabled persons (a great book really) to a few companies and instead of signing it “Best Regards” it was signed “Best Retards.” Thankfully (OH THANKFULLY) we caught it.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
*about the disabled workforce
I even screwed up the comment. I shouldn’t be allowed to type NOW.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Oh my god, y’all. I need to stop reading the comments until I get home. LEST THE GRINCH POP OUT AND SMITE ME FOR LAUGHING IN MY CUBE.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Well, and of course there’s that darn letter L — too skinny to be missed, and resulting in problem sentences like, “the company went pubic in 2001.”
March 10th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Oh man, what a great great post. And the comments just make it better.
I work in the medical transcription field and wow do we see some crazy things. More on the “people really did this” end rather than the typo end. We did all laugh like mad when a plastic surgeon described his patient’s “before” look as “National Geographic.” Priceless.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Um, the plastic surgeon was doing breast implants, if that wasn’t clear from the above post.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Drunken editing is even funnier. Sometime last year I had this (drunken) conversation:
“… but she always evaded to me. Wait. What? She ran away from you, to you?”
“No, dude! I meant elluh… allah… e-l-u-d-e-d to me.”
“She accidentally escaped from you… to you?”
“No, she like — she was — she referred to me, you know, like she was talking and said something about me.”
“Oh, yeah! Eluded, okay. Shit, why does that look so wrong?”
“I don’t know. Wait! I think you spell it like ‘allure.’”
“She was sexy and… and come-hithery? OH SHIT, ALLUDED! My degree is so fucking drunk.”
Um, upon writing this I realized it may have been one of those conversations that is only funny when one is wasted. Perhaps you should go get some wine before you ban me from your comments section.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Get out of Cubeville and back into the Life of the Unemployed with me!
P.S. I love the “y’all” there; you almost had me fooled that you’re a true Southerner – almost.
P.P.S. And I love SLP’s “retard” story. Classic. Right up there with the Belgian whistles.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I once had a long-term temp job at a well known corporation. It was the most depressing, gray, drab, boring place I’d ever worked. It was like everyone stayed in their cubes and were afraid to come out. I only ever saw people or made conversation with them in the kitchen (which was nicely stocked with free tea, coffee, desserts). An example of how desolate it felt there: My friend sent me flowers and balloons to the office the Friday before my birthday and I had to walk down a looong hallway to get them. As I was walking back with the bouquet back to my desk, not one person saw me carrying this huge vase of flowers and balloons all the way back to my cube. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around much longer.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I really did! have a supervisor at one point in my cubicle career that told a coworker and I that we “shouldn’t laugh so much.”
I quit two months later.
Coincidence? Actually, no.
(I would have laughed with you. And tried to frame it.)
March 11th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Our favorite typo came at the expense of a person (who, as far as we can tell, will never know, thank goodness). The name Mahboob was typed as “manboob.” No joke.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Ah yes, with every Cubeville post, my will to graduate fades more and more. Poor Cubeville Boss, clearly the Grinch has visited his Cube one too many times. Now I need to go file a grad school app somewhere – and buy a pepper. Yum. (Your posts always make me hungry – is this good? Bad? Pavlovian?)
March 11th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
noisiest vegetable to eat at a cube?
celery.
all i ate when i did south beach?
celery.
most embarrassing two weeks ever.
no more vegetables for me at work.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
in our cubeville, the section where my cube is located is considered the worst real estate in the office b/c there are few of us who laugh too heartily, too often.
i say YAY to no new neighbors anytime soon.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I lived in CubeVille for eight months. It was after seven years of teaching middle school, so a quiet cube was just what I needed for my sanity.
My “across the aisle” cubemate and I had a running dialogue made up of entirely Seinfeld quotes, which, at times, sent us off into peals of very loud, raucous laughter. The building was one big, open layout of acres of cubes, and people from other departments would weave their way through the maze to tell us we were disrupting the entire floor (seriously, this was like a warehouse size building). To which Marshall would wave his finger at them and yell as they were leaving, “You ain’t gettin rid of the waterpik!”
Everytime we had conversations with difficult customers, we’d shake the phone and say, “Serenity Now!” Maybe it was only funny to us, but I don’t remember ever laughing that hard at work before or after that job.
And the best typo? The typist of our church bulletin forgot the last letter of a hymn and we were all invited to sing, “Come, Christians, Join to Sin.” Maybe not scandalous but a little heretical anyway!
March 11th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
This is when I just adore blogging. When everybody starts tossing the stories on the table. Thanks, all!
March 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
These comments are awesome–Totally pee-your-pants worthy. This is why you shouldn’t speed through “spell-check”–hitting “OK” to all the suggested corrections.
My co-worker sent out an e-mail to an entire division of the Fortune 500 company where we work. She typed the VP’s name “John” Erickson in the body of the e-mail. Spell-check didn’t recognize his last name and replaced it with “correct spelling”….After she hit send, a co-worker came over to tell her that she just sent out a division-wide e-mail referring to the VP as John Erection.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I used to be a typesetter. My best typo? Changing “Old West Cinnamon Rolls” into “Old Wet Cinnamon Rolls.” Doesn’t have quite the same homey feel.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
And also: “yet, THEIR asses languished,” ha ha!
Come work with us down here in LA! We regularly share and laugh over group emails featuring the ‘name of the day’ or ’street address of the day,’ such as the applicant who lives on Farting Street. This is absolutely true! I spoke to him over the phone and verified the correct spelling and everything–all with a straight face in the tone of my voice.
(Sunny: I, naive person that I am, prayed for a happy job after graduation and only had to wait seven months until I found it!)