"You fight well, sir, but you cannot defeat my blade!"
My work place isn't going to win any awards for professionalism. For one thing, although everyone has to sign a statement swearing they will behave in an appropriate manner (or, at least, one that doesn't make everyone else in the room heinously uncomfortable) I have yet to walk into the stock room without either seeing at least one of the inventory guys humping another one or hearing a monologue about someone's balls.
The danger, of course, in working with your friends is that sometimes you forget that your friends are kind of weird and fixated on their genitals. It's not an average day at work if I don't hear, "I miss you inside me" from my gay supervisor as an aside. I hardly notice unless something, or someone, else calls attention to it. Or things get taken beyond the average, vaguely gay groping, discussions of "broners" and maybe that one time L put my name tag down his pants.
We recently got a new guy in at work who, as it turns out, is friends with at least one of the existing members of the team. Apparently this new addition means it's time to unzip in the back room.
"So, that just happened," the inventory supervisor said, after getting flashed by the multimedia guy.
"I saw it coming," another guy said. "It's why I turned around."
"We all saw it coming," I said. "It took him, like, four minutes just to get the zipper down."
"Oh come on," said the flasher, waving a wad of bunched up plastic wrap after awkwardly zipping himself up behind it. "I covered it up. You know, for the ladies." He nodded at me, the token female in the room.
"Yes, thanks for that," I said dryly. "Because it's not like you can get through the day without drawing attention to your junk, now we all know what it looks like."
"Mmmhmm, you just got balled," the multimedia guy said smugly.
"I'm so happy to be working with people who never made it past puberty," I said. This was ignored because the flasher had already moved on to humping the inventory supervisor, a hilarious sight considering he's half the man's height.
It's true, the people I work with are very strange and highly inappropriate but it's the most comfortable work environment I've ever had. Any one of these guys would jump in and possibly destroy anyone who actually offended me and, weirdly enough, these are people I actually trust to make sure that I don't wind up getting hijacked by some stranger when I've had too much to drink. So, when I get invited to hold hands and skip on my way out the door, I just roll with it.
--
I was working my way through lunch when one of the cafe guys came in with an armload of discounted toys. He put them down on the table and proceeded to open the jars, upending a series of half clothed severed body parts all over the table.
"Oh my god, these things are great," he said, fitting an arm into a socket in one of the torsos. "They're interchangeable." He frowned. "I think I'll put this head on this one."
"Okay," I said, "you do that," and went back to my food.
The next thing I heard was a series of clattering noises followed by cries of "Isildor will vanquish the minions of Sauron! For victory! AAAAAAH!"
And: "You fight well, sir, but you cannot defeat my blade!" "Your attacks are weak and your guard is open. You will fail! Doof, dumf, Argh! "How can you have defeated my blade! Oh, it is a mortal wound!"
And so on. It went on for several minutes, very loudly, until my boss popped her head into the breakroom and said, "Dude, how long are you going to do this?" Because she never asks people directly if they're slacking off of work. She just makes some question in a tone that implies they have better things to do.
"Until the end of my break?" my coworker said.
"Oh," my boss said. "Well, in that case, carry on."
I munched on my sandwich and watched with no little bemusement as my coworker moved his fighters into a series of ridiculous poses, one of which left some poor night doing the splits, and then whipped out some kind of backdrop and brandished it at me.
"Um," I said, "thanks and all but I don't really--"
"Hold it up so I can take a picture."
"Oh-kay," I said and looked up to find that our audience had expanded.
So, while I was holding the backdrop for his tormented force of fighting men ("Hold it up higher. No, that's not right. Put it down lower--to the left! The left!) the peanut gallery, which included my boss, were laughing their asses off. Mostly, I suspect, at the look on my face which probably said something like, "What am I doing here? How did this happen?"
But finally he got a picture and went right back to comically removing limbs from his knights in the heat of battle ("Argh! You have severed my arm! But I still have my other arm! Oh no, you have taken that too! I am bested and mortally wounded, etc.)
"Help me, sandwich," I muttered, "You are my only hope."
--
On another note, I'll be up in NYC hanging with bauble for the weekend. \o/
The danger, of course, in working with your friends is that sometimes you forget that your friends are kind of weird and fixated on their genitals. It's not an average day at work if I don't hear, "I miss you inside me" from my gay supervisor as an aside. I hardly notice unless something, or someone, else calls attention to it. Or things get taken beyond the average, vaguely gay groping, discussions of "broners" and maybe that one time L put my name tag down his pants.
We recently got a new guy in at work who, as it turns out, is friends with at least one of the existing members of the team. Apparently this new addition means it's time to unzip in the back room.
"So, that just happened," the inventory supervisor said, after getting flashed by the multimedia guy.
"I saw it coming," another guy said. "It's why I turned around."
"We all saw it coming," I said. "It took him, like, four minutes just to get the zipper down."
"Oh come on," said the flasher, waving a wad of bunched up plastic wrap after awkwardly zipping himself up behind it. "I covered it up. You know, for the ladies." He nodded at me, the token female in the room.
"Yes, thanks for that," I said dryly. "Because it's not like you can get through the day without drawing attention to your junk, now we all know what it looks like."
"Mmmhmm, you just got balled," the multimedia guy said smugly.
"I'm so happy to be working with people who never made it past puberty," I said. This was ignored because the flasher had already moved on to humping the inventory supervisor, a hilarious sight considering he's half the man's height.
It's true, the people I work with are very strange and highly inappropriate but it's the most comfortable work environment I've ever had. Any one of these guys would jump in and possibly destroy anyone who actually offended me and, weirdly enough, these are people I actually trust to make sure that I don't wind up getting hijacked by some stranger when I've had too much to drink. So, when I get invited to hold hands and skip on my way out the door, I just roll with it.
--
I was working my way through lunch when one of the cafe guys came in with an armload of discounted toys. He put them down on the table and proceeded to open the jars, upending a series of half clothed severed body parts all over the table.
"Oh my god, these things are great," he said, fitting an arm into a socket in one of the torsos. "They're interchangeable." He frowned. "I think I'll put this head on this one."
"Okay," I said, "you do that," and went back to my food.
The next thing I heard was a series of clattering noises followed by cries of "Isildor will vanquish the minions of Sauron! For victory! AAAAAAH!"
And: "You fight well, sir, but you cannot defeat my blade!" "Your attacks are weak and your guard is open. You will fail! Doof, dumf, Argh! "How can you have defeated my blade! Oh, it is a mortal wound!"
And so on. It went on for several minutes, very loudly, until my boss popped her head into the breakroom and said, "Dude, how long are you going to do this?" Because she never asks people directly if they're slacking off of work. She just makes some question in a tone that implies they have better things to do.
"Until the end of my break?" my coworker said.
"Oh," my boss said. "Well, in that case, carry on."
I munched on my sandwich and watched with no little bemusement as my coworker moved his fighters into a series of ridiculous poses, one of which left some poor night doing the splits, and then whipped out some kind of backdrop and brandished it at me.
"Um," I said, "thanks and all but I don't really--"
"Hold it up so I can take a picture."
"Oh-kay," I said and looked up to find that our audience had expanded.
So, while I was holding the backdrop for his tormented force of fighting men ("Hold it up higher. No, that's not right. Put it down lower--to the left! The left!) the peanut gallery, which included my boss, were laughing their asses off. Mostly, I suspect, at the look on my face which probably said something like, "What am I doing here? How did this happen?"
But finally he got a picture and went right back to comically removing limbs from his knights in the heat of battle ("Argh! You have severed my arm! But I still have my other arm! Oh no, you have taken that too! I am bested and mortally wounded, etc.)
"Help me, sandwich," I muttered, "You are my only hope."
--
On another note, I'll be up in NYC hanging with bauble for the weekend. \o/