Zee Masterpiece!
So I think I'm close to having my cubicle the way I want it. I'm still missing a footstool under my desk, some under-desk canvas storage, and a nice wooden small table/stool to stick that wicker basket on the bookcase on as a mail out box. But it's good. And the flower pics are normally world pictures and LA pics and will be small xmas ornaments for xmas soon.
But anyway,
Let's recap...
The original desk space in a fucking hallway for two months. I had a box under the desk to put my belongings in.
The cube I was moved into while they were doing construction. Except I forgot to take pics before so this is Simona's shit in there as she was moving in.
The cube I was then moved into because Simona just had to move in because they were hiring Kathy and Kathy had to sit where Simona was sitting. Yes, all my crap fit into one box.
My final cube under construction. They split one long cube (where Kathy's boss sat up until all this) into a smaller conjoined set of cubes. Which is fine, whatever. But they left the desk in there, so now it's a permanent fixture - too big to put sideways, too big to fit through the wall, too heavy to lift over!
And this was what it was like when I moved in. I have whittled away at the shit on my desk that I didn't need until it's more or less gone.
And this is what it looks like now when people stand behind me and knock on the wall to get my attention. Framed LA photo from Kryssi on the wall, LA 2007 calendar from Ferret on the other wall. And yes, all but one plant is fake. Beside my CPU on the floor is a 2008 calendar of all Doors, which Michele got for me for no reason than I'm awesome.
This is the other direction and you can see Kathy's cube decor, which consists of dog shit. Well, dog STUFF. Puppies in teacups as a poster. Fucking SAVE ME. The mirror is to see who is behind me when they knock. People think this is hysterical and brilliant at the same time. That sad pathetic plant on the desk is formerly this poor thing before it went crazy and lost it's hair. The matted photo is of a stairway and two doors in Greece, it not only matches the color of the walls between the photo tinting and the matting, but it reminds me that every shitty hallway leads to a door to something better.
You can see how a big ass desk helps when you have a bunch of projects. The back 3rd of the desk holds two cloth-covered stands to hold the plant (adds visual interest and height to the cube) and the photo spray; the dish I just created with rocks, a palm statue and interesting shaped shells from OC MD; my monitor; my mirror; my slimline CD player/radio.
The only reason I went back to a pencil cup is because now I have to mark documents, and I have to do it so the Mittens can see it - no excuses as to why they don't make changes I write! So I have four red pens and two green, in addition to my "Yes, you caught this one, yay for you" highlighter and two normal pens for signing things. The Dove hand lotion is new, it's lightly scented and my hands are parched from flipping paper all day.
The second 3rd holds the pending projects in a row. KTDA in the big folder is going out next week, those are all the revisions to a 200+ page report.
The front 3rd holds current projects I have to do That Day, like the mail, and the report I have to recreate because some fucktard (Left Mitten) saved over it with a revised version of a different company. On the left side it holds my Gregg manual and my timebook and phone. My post its are reminders of must do, and it's amazing they're down to just two when I left on Friday! I get special colored post-its so people see what I'm saying. I drafted a special post-it to get printed so I can stop scribbling "Please sign and return to..." It will save time. They haven't been ordered yet :P
And yes, I color coded my interoffice phone list. Pinkish orange is IT guys, green is accounting (unintentional!) and yellow are the people who get the most calls.
This is the latest edition to the cube and the thing that took THE LONGEST to find. I swear, they just don't make tropical looking vines! I found these by chance in a bottom bin in Michaels, thought they looked bamboo-y enough AND draped enough to cover that center divider. Then I had to find a container that was tropical but not too rustic. I ended up buying a container with a fucking ugly set of plumes, had Dave rip them out, and put the items I wanted into the foam. I hate that fucking dog. It looks like he has encephalitis. But Kathy put him up before I got my plants found, so he lives in the "cave" now. All good jungles need a parrot. Ours has two.
The arrangement that started the "jungle" theme, because it has fronds. I liked the seeded container, as well. It was normally $70, on sale for $20 at JoAnn. The rocks I got at Target, to play off the seed theme. See, you have greenery, wood elements, and now stone elements, to offset the giant metal desk and plaster walls. I hate those fucking teacup dogs. Kathy isn't the 12 year old you'd imagine, no no, she's like, 50 something. DOGS IN TEACUPS ARE NOT ADULT DECOR. Thankyouverymuch.
This is Brilliant Idea No. 4,294 - Project Workflow Board. When I started being the proofer, I needed to know who was working on what and how far we were along in the process. Obviously we have a lot of shit going at once, and this is just the major projects, not the invoice letters, regular letters, emails, printouts and scanning. It's working really well, anyone can see where we are in the flow - engineers, the admins themselves, my boss.... Also helps me remember which admin is working on which project and if we're overloaded to tell the engineers to eff off or to take on some things myself, as long as the Proof column is mostly checked off! Originally was going to be a 5x8 notepad, but this will save money, and paper, and be visible to anyone who thinks admin sits around all day. I'm the "C" on the list, and the "FC" on the far side stands for "File and Circ" which are the two copies of everything we keep in our office. Numbers are the amount of out-bound reports we need to make.
The other side of the wall has a nameplate holder that the builders didn't remove when they were working in the cube, so that's where my movie quotes and weekly pithy comments get put up (this past week was "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?" and someone added a post it that explained the joke... "H E double hockey sticks." sigh). People really seem to like it. They ask me when I'm going to change it, stop by to play the game, etc. The Project Board shows us what's going out and when. Most of these don't hit their target date because Engineers have no idea how long shit takes. SERIOUSLY. The Specs on Friday? SEVEN WEEKS on the calendar. Also, two people understood and laughed at my "concrete deadline" pun. Because we work in dams. Which is usually concrete... geddit? Second pithy saying on the board, usually Rizzo related ("If it ain't Rizzo, it ain't right!"). The Yay Team is utter bullshit, because the morons fucked it up so many times and it still went out with errors, even after the engineer and I spent hours working on it after Kathy fucked off for the day to wait for the cable guy. But hey, have to acknowledge spending something like 20 hours in 2 days on a project.
My favorite thing in the cube is an arrangement I created myself - I bought the vase, found the ferns, picked out the Hawaiian ginger stems. I'm doing a second one for my bedroom.
Love this vase! And I stuck some butterflies in the leaves. I wanted blue morpho, because they're jungle butterflies, but all Michael's had were crappy muted colors. Ah well.
I have cleaned this fucking bookcase so many times and I still am not quite happy. It's too cluttered. Now that I proof I have to keep proof that my admins are stupid and don't catch all the markups. And I have to cover my own ass as to why I made this markup and not that one. So I have to store (bottom left) all the markups, and gradually move them to brown folders (bottom right) after a month or so. The big projects get their own folder (UniStar) or their own manilla folders in a brown folder. The basket will hold mail when I get a stand for it for the entry. The ornaments and picture is just chillin'.
The plant on top. Not thrilled with it but it will do for now. Plus, brown container. Awesome.
And that's it for the cube! Random pics time now.
Sign from the kitchen several months ago I thought was funny, especially when the following signs showed up!
No idea who replied to that, but they had a few errors in punctuation. This job is driving me insane.
Remember this chain from the last job where I sat around and did nothing?
I forget what it measured up to, many many yards. I think this was looped in 5 foot lengths.
PRETTY! Except for Dave. And yes, we have Dave's old rocking horse in our living room because it was supposed to go downstairs but we didn't have a place yet and then it just... sat.
A nice sunset over the bay in Ocean City, Maryland. Ahhhhhh....
But anyway,
Let's recap...
The original desk space in a fucking hallway for two months. I had a box under the desk to put my belongings in.
The cube I was moved into while they were doing construction. Except I forgot to take pics before so this is Simona's shit in there as she was moving in.
The cube I was then moved into because Simona just had to move in because they were hiring Kathy and Kathy had to sit where Simona was sitting. Yes, all my crap fit into one box.
My final cube under construction. They split one long cube (where Kathy's boss sat up until all this) into a smaller conjoined set of cubes. Which is fine, whatever. But they left the desk in there, so now it's a permanent fixture - too big to put sideways, too big to fit through the wall, too heavy to lift over!
And this was what it was like when I moved in. I have whittled away at the shit on my desk that I didn't need until it's more or less gone.
And this is what it looks like now when people stand behind me and knock on the wall to get my attention. Framed LA photo from Kryssi on the wall, LA 2007 calendar from Ferret on the other wall. And yes, all but one plant is fake. Beside my CPU on the floor is a 2008 calendar of all Doors, which Michele got for me for no reason than I'm awesome.
This is the other direction and you can see Kathy's cube decor, which consists of dog shit. Well, dog STUFF. Puppies in teacups as a poster. Fucking SAVE ME. The mirror is to see who is behind me when they knock. People think this is hysterical and brilliant at the same time. That sad pathetic plant on the desk is formerly this poor thing before it went crazy and lost it's hair. The matted photo is of a stairway and two doors in Greece, it not only matches the color of the walls between the photo tinting and the matting, but it reminds me that every shitty hallway leads to a door to something better.
You can see how a big ass desk helps when you have a bunch of projects. The back 3rd of the desk holds two cloth-covered stands to hold the plant (adds visual interest and height to the cube) and the photo spray; the dish I just created with rocks, a palm statue and interesting shaped shells from OC MD; my monitor; my mirror; my slimline CD player/radio.
The only reason I went back to a pencil cup is because now I have to mark documents, and I have to do it so the Mittens can see it - no excuses as to why they don't make changes I write! So I have four red pens and two green, in addition to my "Yes, you caught this one, yay for you" highlighter and two normal pens for signing things. The Dove hand lotion is new, it's lightly scented and my hands are parched from flipping paper all day.
The second 3rd holds the pending projects in a row. KTDA in the big folder is going out next week, those are all the revisions to a 200+ page report.
The front 3rd holds current projects I have to do That Day, like the mail, and the report I have to recreate because some fucktard (Left Mitten) saved over it with a revised version of a different company. On the left side it holds my Gregg manual and my timebook and phone. My post its are reminders of must do, and it's amazing they're down to just two when I left on Friday! I get special colored post-its so people see what I'm saying. I drafted a special post-it to get printed so I can stop scribbling "Please sign and return to..." It will save time. They haven't been ordered yet :P
And yes, I color coded my interoffice phone list. Pinkish orange is IT guys, green is accounting (unintentional!) and yellow are the people who get the most calls.
This is the latest edition to the cube and the thing that took THE LONGEST to find. I swear, they just don't make tropical looking vines! I found these by chance in a bottom bin in Michaels, thought they looked bamboo-y enough AND draped enough to cover that center divider. Then I had to find a container that was tropical but not too rustic. I ended up buying a container with a fucking ugly set of plumes, had Dave rip them out, and put the items I wanted into the foam. I hate that fucking dog. It looks like he has encephalitis. But Kathy put him up before I got my plants found, so he lives in the "cave" now. All good jungles need a parrot. Ours has two.
The arrangement that started the "jungle" theme, because it has fronds. I liked the seeded container, as well. It was normally $70, on sale for $20 at JoAnn. The rocks I got at Target, to play off the seed theme. See, you have greenery, wood elements, and now stone elements, to offset the giant metal desk and plaster walls. I hate those fucking teacup dogs. Kathy isn't the 12 year old you'd imagine, no no, she's like, 50 something. DOGS IN TEACUPS ARE NOT ADULT DECOR. Thankyouverymuch.
This is Brilliant Idea No. 4,294 - Project Workflow Board. When I started being the proofer, I needed to know who was working on what and how far we were along in the process. Obviously we have a lot of shit going at once, and this is just the major projects, not the invoice letters, regular letters, emails, printouts and scanning. It's working really well, anyone can see where we are in the flow - engineers, the admins themselves, my boss.... Also helps me remember which admin is working on which project and if we're overloaded to tell the engineers to eff off or to take on some things myself, as long as the Proof column is mostly checked off! Originally was going to be a 5x8 notepad, but this will save money, and paper, and be visible to anyone who thinks admin sits around all day. I'm the "C" on the list, and the "FC" on the far side stands for "File and Circ" which are the two copies of everything we keep in our office. Numbers are the amount of out-bound reports we need to make.
The other side of the wall has a nameplate holder that the builders didn't remove when they were working in the cube, so that's where my movie quotes and weekly pithy comments get put up (this past week was "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?" and someone added a post it that explained the joke... "H E double hockey sticks." sigh). People really seem to like it. They ask me when I'm going to change it, stop by to play the game, etc. The Project Board shows us what's going out and when. Most of these don't hit their target date because Engineers have no idea how long shit takes. SERIOUSLY. The Specs on Friday? SEVEN WEEKS on the calendar. Also, two people understood and laughed at my "concrete deadline" pun. Because we work in dams. Which is usually concrete... geddit? Second pithy saying on the board, usually Rizzo related ("If it ain't Rizzo, it ain't right!"). The Yay Team is utter bullshit, because the morons fucked it up so many times and it still went out with errors, even after the engineer and I spent hours working on it after Kathy fucked off for the day to wait for the cable guy. But hey, have to acknowledge spending something like 20 hours in 2 days on a project.
My favorite thing in the cube is an arrangement I created myself - I bought the vase, found the ferns, picked out the Hawaiian ginger stems. I'm doing a second one for my bedroom.
Love this vase! And I stuck some butterflies in the leaves. I wanted blue morpho, because they're jungle butterflies, but all Michael's had were crappy muted colors. Ah well.
I have cleaned this fucking bookcase so many times and I still am not quite happy. It's too cluttered. Now that I proof I have to keep proof that my admins are stupid and don't catch all the markups. And I have to cover my own ass as to why I made this markup and not that one. So I have to store (bottom left) all the markups, and gradually move them to brown folders (bottom right) after a month or so. The big projects get their own folder (UniStar) or their own manilla folders in a brown folder. The basket will hold mail when I get a stand for it for the entry. The ornaments and picture is just chillin'.
The plant on top. Not thrilled with it but it will do for now. Plus, brown container. Awesome.
And that's it for the cube! Random pics time now.
Sign from the kitchen several months ago I thought was funny, especially when the following signs showed up!
No idea who replied to that, but they had a few errors in punctuation. This job is driving me insane.
Remember this chain from the last job where I sat around and did nothing?
I forget what it measured up to, many many yards. I think this was looped in 5 foot lengths.
PRETTY! Except for Dave. And yes, we have Dave's old rocking horse in our living room because it was supposed to go downstairs but we didn't have a place yet and then it just... sat.
A nice sunset over the bay in Ocean City, Maryland. Ahhhhhh....