Bored at Work?

Have you found yourself stifled in work and in life? Have you reached a dead end on the org chart of your career? Do you find it a challenge to contemplate the monotony of your job day in and day out? Are you starting to think there really could be a Matrix and your life forces are being harvested in a purposeless existence? Do you just need a giggle? Here are some things you can do at work to divert your attention away from the mundane. These are several entrepreneurial ventures that you can make from work without sacrificing any of those precious mental health days.
1. Use your time in the office on the phone to make random death threats to residential numbers.
2. Grow weed in your desk drawer.
3. Call Apple Computer and initiate a merger under your authority.
4. Start a grass roots political campaign to reelect Elliot Spitzer, Governor of New York.
5. In-source tech support calls from India.
6. Run an escort service for Russian amputees.
7. Collect Sweet-n-Low from every kitchenette on your corporate campus.
8. Read peoples fortunes over the phone (use Sweet-N-Low packets for material).
9. Become a bookie for cock fighting.
10. Raise a cricket farm in your cubicle.
11. Bring a bunch of old movies to work and run a video rental out of your cube and charge outrageous late fees.
12. Call every extension in the company and tell them there’s cake in the conference room.
13. Bring doughnuts to work and sell them with a 5% markup.
14. Monitor webcams across the world and report crimes when they happen.
15. Write funny lists.
16. Call two separate adult chat lines; place one on hold and tell the other one that you have your girlfriend on the line who wants to join in and repeat for the other line and then conference them in together.
17. Sell Mary Kay cosmetics.
18. Build a deck in your cube.
19. Call a very large hotel and initiate reservations for a major corporate convention including catering, production staff, and limousine rentals and then cancel at the last minute.
20. Start pirating as many office supplies and furniture as you can get your hands on and sell them on eBay.
21. Reserve every conference room in your building for 4:30 on a Friday and then ask everyone to come and bring their key cards and id badges.
22. Swap out sinks in all the bathrooms and educate yourself on rudimentary plumbing.
23. Hit CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW on your keyboard and Feature 86 on your phone, tell HR you think your cube is haunted and then try to get workers comp for mental exhaustion.
24. Make a fake badge that says “Hall Monitor” and stand in the hallway writing fake tickets to anyone that doesn’t have a hall pass.
25. Start a valet service in the parking lot.
26. Start a paper route on your floor and ride a bike down the hallways.
27. Rent out empty office space for rehearsal space to struggling bands and convert common areas to a nightclub after 6 p.m.
28. Advertise a starving artist sale and sell all the cheesy, abstract corporate art hanging on the walls.
29. Sell coupon books for the vending machines and cafeteria.
30. Bring an espresso maker, green apron and alternative accoustic soundtrack and open a drive through coffee stand outside your cube.

Is actually the new uh?

This is funny. I ask my wife if she thinks the term actually is overused or am I actually being my old cynical, self righteous, critical self. I looked up actually in a thesaurus. There are a ton of great words you can use in its place, really; words and phrases like really, essentially, in fact, truly, square business and no shittin. Any of these will work fine in place of actually. I hear it everywhere. I feel like I’m a dog tormented by a high pitched whistle. The term is used at least 3 or 4 times in every news interview, national news withstanding. Relatively intelligent people abuse the term when explaining a topic of which they are a marginal authority. I hear it from anyone giving sales presentations, speeches or toasts. It’s actually very annoying.
Where does this word come from? It’s actually been around since the 16th century. Galileo was heard chastising the Pope with “…it’s actually flat and no, it’s actually not the center of the universe.” I actually looked it up. It is defined as an actual or existing fact; really. (Okay, I’ll stop. Your dawdling mind has actually caught up to the point I’m making).
I don’t understand the need to validate every line of conversation with a disclaimer of truth. Actually is similar to saying “This is indeed a fact that I am prepared to state.” Have we become so immersed in bullshit that a qualification is necessary before every muttered claim? Is it similar to the use of honestly. I hate to stand on the receiving end of that one. As if you had a reason to lie to me otherwise. Do people reply often in conversation with; “are you in jest or in fact serious about that which you speak?” Even worse, actually has worked its way into written word. This is how Well, has become the fastest growing introduction to much correspondence. People write as they speak.
Uh, use to be the filler for a void in conversation and uuuuuuh. I’m sorry. I actually forgot where I was going with that. Actually is used in a similar manner of brain to mouth traffic diversion. It’s a speed bump in an explanation. It’s a delay to let the rest of your thought make it down the snout. Moreover, Actually is an overused indicator of emphasis. I feel sorry for creative writing professors everywhere (and not just in relation to this piece of literary tripe.) We throw actually in to say,
“get ready because this tidbit of information is going to blow your mind”
or “here’s a bit of unsolicited trivia I’m going to drop on you like mad science!”
or “contrary to conventional wisdom or any preconceived notion that your misguided perspective may attempt to bring to this conversation…”
It’s as if the small crumb of wisdom they possess will alter our physical existence and rock our grasp on reality and thus a disclaimer like actually is needed to prepare you. “Screw gravity! Your punctual use of the word “actually” just yanked the blanket out from my humble understanding of the world around me. It’s like Dianetics, man!”
The worst examples are the animal enthusiasts you see on local morning talk shows. The wealth of zoological information they carry in their heads astound the greatest intellectuals of our time. Not to mention the impression they make on morning talk show hosts.
“Actually, Coco here is a marsupial.”
“Actually, bats can see.”
“He’s actually sniffing my dog that I have at home.”

If only I could break a cricket bat over the back over their heads every time they say actually. Cooking shows are no less deplorable.
These buzz phrases come and go. Do you remember basically? That one served as the opener for countless public speeches and lectures in the 80’s. Pop culture sprinkled in Up you nose with a rubber hose; Where’s the beef?; Allrighty then; and Yeah baby! The 90’s ushered in the era of out-of-the-box and touching base with people. Some of these catch phrases were spawned in the workplace. Some were cultivated in social settings. Just like Maude; and then came like. This one may seem a bit juvenile but it’s a verbal mainstay for many 20-somethings. Take heed. It will work its way into your conversational rotation, much like gracias and de nada.