I sat on my ass... all day

I heard the ladies today discussing their weekend activities. Stacey, of course, comes up with the best story. First, her son got dehydrated because he didn't drink enough water. Her son is between 5-10 years of age. Who is ultimately responsible for his health?

It's of no matter, because the real meat of the story comes when Stacey gets to her Sunday activities. Her quote is verbatim this: "I sat on my ass. All day. I did nothing."

Of course you did.

Live Blogging 8/8/12

I am at a birthday event for a coworker. Stacey is here. She ordered a huge pasta dish. Didn't finish, which surprises me how she only had half a loaf of garlic bread. However, she ordered cannoli for dessert so "I wouldn't feel left out." One other person got dessert.

Par for the course, even when our breakroom hits the road.

Priceless cupcake moment

In the wake of the previously mentioned office birthday event, there were a multitude of cupcakes remaining in the break room. The following day, I happened to be cruising through the break room around lunchtime, looking for opportunities as usual. I noticed Stacey was eating a cupcake, surely after a mega-lunch that would bust the gut of ordinary men. I announced, "My, there is a lot of sugar in this room." Stacey, while shoving a cupcake in her already full mouth, gets out, "I KNOW!!"

But wait! There's more!

Directly following Stacey's remark, a large man in our office who I will call Frank, started to head out of the room with a cupcake on his plate. Now, let me take you aside to describe Frank's eating habits. He makes claims about eating "just a protein shake" or "just a granola bar" for lunch. This is all true. What isn't mentioned is the Burger King breakfast and numerous desk snacks that Frank eats. Anyhow, as Frank heads out after my comment he says, "yeah..." in a very guilty tone. Fun Fact: You don't have to take the cupcakes.

Doritos Taco Bell Excitement

My apologies for my absence, dear readers. I will try to make it up to you as much as possible before I have to leave town for work for a month or so.

Here is a wonderful story from a recent company event:

The office workers were gathered in the office lobby for a birthday celebration replete with cupcakes and other unhealthy treats. It was delightful.
A coworker had recently purchased a Taco Bell Doritos taco, and I was imploring to the mix of Nacho Cheesier with Taco Bell filling. He felt it was acceptable but nothing amazing.

Our favorite office ladies chimed in on this conversation, saying that combination sounded "gross", "disgusting", and "weird." I took opportunity to share some news I had recently read.

I said, "Well, I did hear they were going to make the same taco but with Cooler Ranch flavored Dorito shells." One would think I had announced a gold rush. The reaction was astounding, "Wow, when is that coming out?", "We should get some!", "That sounds awesome!" Throw in ranch and suddenly the product is a winner.

I plan on buying Cooler Ranch tacos to put in the break room as soon as they are available.

Fun Roomate Wanted

This is a story about myself for once, but it involves a social experiment nonetheless. After my last roomate moved out, I have decided it is once again time to list my spare bedroom for rent. I posted the following ad on Craigslist.org:

$450 / 300ft² - Fun Roommate Wanted in Chesapeake (Chesapeake)

Looking for a roomate to occupy my first floor bedroom. Room is roughly 15x18 and includes a closet and private bathroom. Utilities included.

I am a 23 year old professional looking for someone who is also employed full-time and doesn't mind guests and who does more than just work and sleep. I am active during most of the week but enjoy relaxing on weekends and some weekday evenings when possible and would enjoy a roomate who shares the same schedule.
I occasionally have friends over and welcome your guests as well. I have a living room with TV, eat-in kitchen, and back deck as common area. Verizon FIOS included in rent. Washer and dryer available as well.
Must be employed and financially responsible. Cash preferred.


Send me an email with questions and interest.

Please note that I did not specify my gender in the ad. I did this intentionally, partially as an experiment and also to ensure that the respondants valued my qualities and expectations as a roomate primarily. I have no gender preference and see no need to provide that information at the outset.

I was surprised at the responses, here is the tally of responses by gender so far:
Male: 6 (one was homosexual)
Female: 13
Unknown: 1 *I did not respond and the name was not enough to give me an idea on gender.

Now, the question is, what is it that makes women more inclined to respond? Are they more prolific Craigslist users? Perhaps they appreciate my proper grammer and clear definitions of the ad? What is it about this ad that is more attractive to them?

Cookie Experiment Day 1 Results

Today I went to lunch with my brother, so prior to leaving I dropped a baker's dozen of home-made chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen table where the ladies were eating and said, "I brought dessert!" Responses were all positive, with a very clear "WOW!!" being voiced as I was leaving. I returned from lunch to find a single cookie remaining the in the container. I would call this mission a success. I will repeat this test with some other sweet later this week. Hopefully my informant will be here that day and can bear witness to consumption habits.

Looks like the 500 calorie/day diet is a thing of the past.

Cookie Experiment Introduction

Between my last post and this one, some of the ladies have apparently begun a 500 calorie per day diet. Most people with any knowledge of science know that this will result in them GAINING weight because their bodies will think they are starving.

I made cookies last night and will be testing the ladies today. I am going to offer them cookies as dessert at lunch. There are two ways this can play out:

1) COOKIES ARE ACCEPTED
In this scenario, the cookies are eaten. This proves that no restrictive diet is being followed and gives me free reign to feed these individuals as much junk food and sweets as I can afford.

2) COOKIES ARE REJECTED
On the basis of the restrictive diet, this scenario has the cookies rejected. This opens the door for me to critique their other meal choices and provide them with insight as to why what they are eating is likely very unhealthy.

Either way I win. My thought is this: if these people refuse to lose weight, I will fatten them up. You can't escape my schemes.

Social Experiment using Ranch Dressing: Background and Hypothesis

Background

Given my advantageous position of being able to hear the entire breakroom, I have come to the conclusion that that ladies LOVE ranch dressing. My informant and trusted coworker, who we shall call Mr. X, sits in the break room almost every day. He has told me the things the ladies eat and it seems that ranch is the most popular condiment (it is never a dressing as they do not eat anything as healthy as salads). This was great news to me, because I have experience with experimentation using a type of ranch- cool ranch Dorito's. I checked the fridge and it appears that there are five types of ranch just in the door: Ken's, Wishbone, Kraft (two bottles, one opened and one full unused bottle as a spare), some three cheese ranch, and a ranch Lay's dip.

Hypothesis

If a setup of potato chips and ranch dipping sauce is displayed at lunchtime on a daily basis, then a behavior will be formed that causes the subject to ignore the content of what is being dipped (in this case, the chips) and continue to dip if the dipping instrument is changed.

 

 

In short, my proposed experiment is this: Set out some ranch dressing and dipping chips (they don't eat veggies) every day to get them used to dipping something around lunchtime. If they continue to do this day after day, I will one day switch the chips with veggies. I want to see if they notice the switch or if the taste of dipping ranch is enough to motivate them to eat the veggies.

Vegetables

I heard someone ask if Stacey was eating healthier because she had- and I am not making this up- VEGETABLES with her lunch!

It has been so long since I have gotten good material, here are some great tidbits. The ladies asked one of the single women how her weekend was, because "our lives are boring." I guess it's good they can finally see that, I have known it for quite a while. When interruptions to your routine constitute excitement, your life is officially boring. The good thing is that they can somehow live vicariously through the single folk. I guess living vicariously is another sign that your life is boring.

I must find out what these vegetables were that were being eaten.

Sodium Part I

I imagine I will have many more posts on this subject, so I will begin by introducing the character in question. This individual, who we will call "Stacey," recently gave birth to her second child. I did not know this individual pre-pregnancy, so I cannot comment on her former figure. However, since having the baby, a somewhat unstructured attempt has been made to lose the baby weight. Given what I have witenessed, this goal seems unachievable.

Here is the setup of what Stacey chose for lunch:
- 1 Panera Potato Soup
- 1 Panera Chicken Salad Sandwich with Extra Mayo
- 1 package of Ranch dressing for dipping

Here is the rationale behind this choice:

"I am trying to watch my sodium intake."

UMM, WHAT??!? Watch your sodium intake go where? UP?

By my calculations, courtesy of some excellent consumer information websites on the Internet, the sodium breakdown is as follows:
Potato Soup- 910mg
Chicken Salad Sandwich- 1750mg
Mayo: 150mg

This adds up to about 2700mg of sodium, or 115% of daily suggested intake. Unless this is her only meal for the next 27.6 hours, Stacey should consider some healthier food.

Is that a microwave in your pocket?

Nothing good today, except for one quote:

"I just want to shove it in there and leave it..."

So do I. So. Do. I.

Caught!

I must confess, the end of this blog might be near. Although in actuality I seriously doubt that.

The folks in the breakroom are aware that I am able to hear everything that goes on in there. However, the circumstances behind their discovery are the amusing, of course.

I overheard them discussing the logistics of a coworker who was picking up lunch that day for everyone. In fact, she picks up lunch every day. Regardless, it was questioned about why she was taking so long. She had been delivering some supplies somewhere and was intending to get lunches on her way back. Knowing this, the group still felt the need to discuss which Subway or Quiznos she was going to and virtually gave her advice about the best choice. This is a grown woman we are talking about, someone who is expert in getting lunch for a large group and fully capable of locating restaurants.

I texted this individual the ridiculous conversation that was going on, and she sent a text to one of the breakroom divas saying exactly which restaurant she was going to and when she would be back. They wondered how she knew they had been wondering this, and suspected me. I did not deny my knowledge of this, and afterwards conversation got incredibly quiet. I couldn't hear anything but "psssspsppssppsspp" for the next 20 mins.

A day later, I have noticed that volume levels have returned to normal so it appears they have a short term memory about my ability to capture conversation. Starting next post I will begin introducing the characters in further details as I intend to take these posts a bit more seriously. It is the least I can do for you, dear readers.

Slimming Down

This is something I heard from a third party observer, as I had my headphones on today while trying to accomplish actual work.

I share this only because I think we had a huge scientific breakthrough today. Here is the transcript as it was emailed to me:
"Breakthrough Discovery: A Chipotle burrito with all the fixings, chips, vanilla wafers, and Dr. Pepper help you lose baby weight too. esp. if consumed in one sitting. Now, I love good food, but you should have seen what she ate during pregnancy. And then the high blood pressure came as a shock. I calcuated she ate 4,000 cal at lunch one day."

I'm heading out to Chipotle as we speak to shed the pounds.

Shit Heard from the Breakroom Part 8

I'm sorry it has been so long, dear readers. I was drawn out of town for work and have been unable until this week to record any events in the breakroom. Some key players have been taking PTO and others have apparently abandoned the quest of breakroom domination. Both of these actions: unacceptable.

We are easing back into normal conversation with a discussion about Taco Bell vs. Chipotle. Not sure why those two are compared, but something about the way the sauce burns the customer's nose is very likely the source of contention.

Why is everyone talking so quietly? Either I am going deaf or they are whispering. Hopefully when we move offices I can get the desk right next to the new breakroom. If it is far away, I will send it back.

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 7

What is so popular about picking gross topics for lunchtime conversation? One would think it would be best to talk about the great sea urchin ceviche they got at Dorsia, but nooo...
Fun Facts from today's science lesson:

• Boys' gymastics has their shoes lined up next to the door and so the gym smells like sweaty feet, because of the sweat and stuff.
• Hockey locker rooms smell like pure urine.
• If you keep sweaty clothes in your car, the whole car will smell.

Coming up next, Mike Rowe will be featured in our breakroom to film an episode of "Dirty Jobs". I bet the guys at Waste Management don't talk about the shit they vacuumed out of a toilet while they eat lunch. It's gross in this office, folks!

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 6

Well this is getting awkward. A joke about someone being attracted to their dad has become a real discussion about how attractive this dad is. Obviously there is a huge age difference between father and daughter (for reasons we won't delve into here). Then the ladies wonder why men date younger women. I would think that answer is pretty obvious. Men are shallow and like a good looking mate. Sometimes we don't care about personality and would rather have someone to just make sandwiches and do laundry. Sometimes. I wouldn't be interested in a much younger lady, but I can see the reasoning behind it.

Quote of the Day: "I dream about spreadsheets." MEEEE TOOOOOOO!!!!

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 5

Once again, we return to our aches and pains. With all of election updates, economic news, and sports headlines the conversation always skips over all of that and return to talking about themselves. How selfish! Maybe I should start leaving copies of the Wall Street Journal on the breakroom table.

I was lured into talking for a few minutes in the breakroom while heating my food. After all, you keep your friends close, and your subject matter closer.

The office is so empty today, I didn't expect much. Likewise for tomorrow.

Quote of the Day: "You want to join us for lunch with the girls?" Hahahahahahahahahah... no.

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 4

WAR DECLARED!! THE ANTS ARE BACK! As someone who has had an ant problem, I understand the gravity of this situation and truthfully want to do my part. I will make periodic trips to swat ants, as this invasion is not to be tolerated.

Someone is cooking some awful frozen meal. Even my worthless sense of smell can pick up this odor. I pity their colon.

Funny word confusion: Cajun Pawn Stars vs Cajun Porn Stars. Personally, I like the latter, but I don't think the demographic in the kitchen agrees. Giggity.
Now we hear some family stories about the bayou, but I can barely understand because someone has decided to have a phone conversation in the breakroom at the same time. He is rarely in there, so I forgive him as a guest not understanding the rules of lunchtime. The participants talk, and I listen. No competing conversations allowed.

Is it pop or soda? Neither. It's a Coke. Only one person seems to know this rule, bless her. Pop sounds like got your pants hiked up too high. Soda is the ending part of the name of a wintery US state- Minne-"soda". Of course this segues into sweet tea discussion. Lipton mixes are not correct. Sugar substitutes are also wrong. Sweet tea is this: Boil one quart of water. Drop in three to four cups of sugar.Stir in until dissolved. Turn off heat, put in two tea bags. Allow to steep for 20 or more minutes. Pour into a pitcher and cut with 50% water. Everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong. The idea of having Splenda in my tea is just... ewww.

Soda and beverage discussions ensued for some time after this. We covered nearly everything within NAICS code 31211. Until tomorrow, dear readers.

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 3

Unfortunately we come back to a medical topic, I guess middle aged people have nothing else new in their lives. I want to talk about knee caps. And how regular exercise can affect pain of the knees when doing regular exercise. (There appears to be a lack of dedication to truly "working out." I think this can be summed up by my friend Clifton's statement, "If you go the gym and work out half-assed, you still leave with half an ass.. or more!") It certainly seems expensive to pay for personal trainers. I heard $25 per session, which to me sounds like someone needs to buy some workout tapes! Tony Horton and Beachbody.com will hook you up.


I don't know if you knew about Whitney Houston's life? Well, if you don't let's talk about Bobby Brown and how he affected her and everything. Storytime! He was invited to the funeral, which was a limited seating event, and was allowed to bring two guests. He ended bringing nine or so guests, basically his entourage. I sympathize with the guy, I rarely go anywhere without my ten man entourage. Anyhow, they kicked him out. Moral of the story: Don't go to funerals.

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 2

Smaller group than I expected. A little disappointing, but it is only Tuesday. For some reason they managed to stay on topic for a long time. The armchair chiropractors were out today though, a full diagnosis and re-diagnosis of one of the staff was performed. Deep tissue massages were mentioned. Health insurance was covered in great detail. No stone left unturned. Did you check your HMO? Yelp? Facebook? There is a lot that goes into finding someone to adjust your bones. I learned just how much I didn't know about chiropractice. Ensuing threats of malpractice were issued, a rebuttal was formed. Today was very medical, with all sides drawings from their years of experience in medicine to inform a coworker about choosing a doctor.

Shit Heard From the Breakroom Part 1

My desk is conveniently located next to the kitchen/breakroom in our office. After weeks of hearing the office banter, I thought it might be good to post some of the more humorous conversations I overhear:

Today's lunch discussion began with a discussion about whether or not it was fair to allow honor roll students to go study in the library during their lunch period.

Conversation then shifted to a round-robin discussion about "things that make my eyes water." Some folks are affected by pollen, others by the wind. Excessive sunlight was irritating to one, while another succumbs to a leaky tear duct when she sneezes.

An excellent lunchtime topic arose, when a story about someone being vomited upon was told. Of course, this was an opportunity for all to tell their favoring puking stories. I hope nobody was eating dairy today. This yogurt on my desk is not looking as appetizing as usual.

Looks like we are wrapping up lunch for today, more to follow.

Breakroom Quote of the Day: "'But Mom, you always have a headache and cramps!'"