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Rationalizing Irrational Fears

May 20, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

I consider myself a pretty brave dude. I’ve experienced all sorts of physical adversity, emotional doldrums and spiritual crises in my short little life. I’ve confronted nerve-racking challenges, braved strange wildernesses and even, at times, given public speeches in front of tens of people. I am confident I could face Charon and the Styx while showing no signs of fear or apprehension. I stand ready for anything this mortal realm can throw at me, but still two things have plagued my stalwart existence on this blue and green rock, two things that I cannot seem to overcome regardless of exposure or maturity.

Squids:

Squids should not be allowed. I would be the first in line to vote for a President who had an active anti-squid stance. They are horrible, flowing nightmares made of death and malicious suffering. Their “ink” is actually a demonic ichor, capable of rendering a man insane with one squirt. Their soulless, doll-like eyes pierce the thin veil of reality and offer a glimpse into the horrible void that is their watery home. They have no remorse and will eat you and your children (present and future) given the opportunity. We are just fortunate that they prefer the icy abyss, and rarely test our warm beach shores. Everyone thinks that sharks are the real threat in the ocean, but that is only because they have never experienced the horror a multi-tentacle squid-hug. I haven’t either, but the mental scenario I have created is truly awful.

My fear of squids started out as a fear of anything underwater; fish, seaweed, semi-buoyant driftwood, pool cleaning robots, etc. This quickly evolved into a fear of all sea-faring invertebrates, and I remember being quite afraid of sea cucumbers at an early age. While I still find sea worms and other squishy things to be a tad unsettling, they do not invoke my primal fear quite like the image of a squid does. I also seem to have no problem with Octopi, and find them quite fascinating/cute in the right context. Even squids that are dead or drawn in an adorable manner cause uneasiness in my mind.

I cannot decide if my adult fascination with H.P. Lovecraft exacerbated or surpressed my fear. His focus on ancient, evil cephalopods piqued my interest, and made me feel I was not alone in fear of the unknown deep. Lovecraft’s obsession/loathing encompassed the entire ocean, not just squids, so it is impossible to say how he truly felt about them. I’m pretty sure he hated them though.

People (namely Tiffany) like to tease me about this silly fear. Anything even remotely squid-esque will cause me to shift in my seat nervously. Some have even gone out of their way to send me links to stories of giant squids; links that contain pictures. Pictures of GIANT versions of my fear, with insinuations that they can get much, much bigger, or that the pictured specimen is just a baby. If there are squids the size of office buildings somewhere down there, I am never letting water touch my body again.

The irony is that I quite like fried calamari. I guess pieces of a squid don’t bother me, but things (and the latent suggestions about what really exists in the ocean) like the following make me want to run shrieking into the night:

Clowns:

If there is anything more alien and terrifying than a multi-armed, swimming murder machine, it has to be a circus clown. I am not talking about the intentionally demonized clowns that are the focus of things like “IT” or “Killer Klowns from Outer Space“, but the ordinary, disturbingly exuberant kind one might find at a county fair.

The people who voluntarily dress and act as clowns are the scariest by far. They wear far too much makeup, dance without music and often do and say things that are unnecessarily happy. I am a very energetic, generally optimistic person, but I have never in my entire life considered being or dressing as a clown. It is not normal, and people dressed as clowns should be tested for brain damage.

I have no problem with people being lively and fun, in fact I encourage such behavior on a daily basis. Taking life too seriously is a major issue in the paths I walk, and I am often the first to make light of an overly dramatized situation or inject some silliness into the otherwise cold and corporate. But I do not wear a wig when I do this. I do not wear over sized shoes, nor suspenders. I do not laugh maniacally over nothing, at all times. You can be a clown, without actually being a clown. I wish someone would resurrect The Ringling Brothers, Barnum AND Bailey to tell them this. Not that they were responsible for the origin of clowns, but they definitely had a hand in making them “popular”.

I was always confused by the popularity of clowns. Why have they not faded into historical obscurity by this point? Most other things from the 1900s seem horribly antiquated at this point, but somehow clowns, much unchanged from their original concept, still exist. We live in a world of computers and smart phones, but some guy squirting water out of a fake flower on his lapel still passes as entertainment? Clowns are the lowest possible form of comedian (even below mimes), to the point that they should not be alive anymore. I’m not saying we kill all the clowns, but we should definitely kill the idea of a clown. And if some clowns get killed in the process, so be it. The only clowns that may be ignored are French clowns, as they have a legitimate excuse for being clowns: they are French.

And why kill off clowns? Because they are by their very nature terrifying. Children recoil in disgust and horror when a surreal representation of a person on too much cocaine sticks a balloon in their face. Adults avoid eye contact with these people who have obviously regressed to the point that they think riding a very small bicycle passes as a career. Even other clowns are probably disgusted with clowns. I don’t know, I’m not a clown.

No one can tell me otherwise, this is a universal fear that only some of us have actually come to terms with. Look at the following picture, and tell me why this should be allowed to roam free (and make money?) with the rest of us:

The only thing that could possibly be more scary is some sort of squid-clown hybrid. I started to do a Google image search for “squid clown hybrid”, but then stopped after deciding I would like to sleep tonight.

In Line at Subway™

May 19, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

My office is in the middle of a freeway. This is unfortunate when I forget/don’t make/don’t like my homemade lunch, but cannot afford to take an hour to drive the 100 miles or whatever it is to the nearest shopping center. There are only three options within walking distance: a questionably clean or fresh Asian-run deli, an overpriced, super greasy Asian-run deli, or a Subway™ brand sandwich shop. My choices basically boil down to: food poisoning, afternoon nap in my cube, or cheap, flavorless lumps of bread and stuff.

The choice I am forced to make is sadly obvious.

Somehow (probably due to some karmic, cosmic mischief I don’t understand) I always manage to get stuck in line behind the most disrespectful, tragically inarticulate individuals at Subway™ sandwich facilities. It never happens in a Quiznos™, so it cannot simply be my luck with line-style sandwich shops, and it has never happened while waiting for a table in a sit-down restaurant, leaving me to believe it is isolated to the strange world that is Subway™.

I have a theory that Subway™ suffers from the “Walmart Phenomenon“. Due to advertised low prices and a multitude of locations, these places seem to draw crowds of cheap, ignorant, poorly dressed people. These people are quite possibly the worst kind of people on the entire planet. The kind that take advantage of anything and everything they can, enjoying a standard of living unseen in many other parts of the world but still constantly complaining about their downtrodden plight. They are quite astute at verbally projecting this attitude everywhere they go, however socially inappropriate it might be.

The first time I had an encounter with a disheveled denizen of Subway™ was on Benning Road, in South East Washington DC. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, it is the kind of place a person like me should never be for any reason whatsoever. I was in the employ of a man who did not at all care about his workers, doing IT work for a public charter school. It is very difficult to bring a lunch with you as a roaming IT professional; you cannot keep anything fresh if you have to leave it in your car/parked oven, and very few clients are happy with you squatting like a monkey in a corner of their server room while you eat a chicken salad sandwich. You are pretty much forced to eat on the go, or not eat at all.

One day at this school, I finally got sick of my stomach digesting itself, and decided that the Subway I spied in a strip mall was the safest lunch option available. Upon entering, I noticed that this particular Subway had no tables, chairs, displays or other sundry items that are normally scattered about the room. Instead, it had 6 inch bullet proof glass with tiny holes carved at strategic points, so that customers could literally yell their orders to the Sandwich Technicians™ on the other side.

I got in line behind several other customers, most of who seemed angry with something even though nothing in their immediate environment was actually a problem. I quietly minded my own business and avoided eye contact with everyone until it was my turn to order. Just as I was about to step up to the “window” and yell my order, a young women stepped directly in front of me in a very fluid, ninja like fashion, and began to order her sandwich. Given the location, I decided sheathe my contentious side.

The woman was easily the most indecisive person I have ever seen. It took her nearly 2 full minutes to choose a bread style (from 5 possible options), and then she changed her mind from turkey to roast beef, then back to turkey, in 30 seconds flat. She was yelling far louder than necessary, even with the bullet proof glass, making all of the already uncomfortable customers even more uncomfortable. She finally arrived at the vegetable selection window, where she demanded the Sandwich Technician™ add copious amount of “MATERS” to her sub. The employee was clearly confused, so the woman repeated, louder, “MATERS!!! RED, ROUND; MA-TERS.” The employee pointed at the onions. This was a bad idea. The woman exploded into a beserker rage, akin to a viking warrior charging into battle screaming, “TO-MA-TOES!!MATAS! WHAT IS SO #$@^ HARD ABOUT THAT!?” The poor, minimum wage sandwich guy quickly loaded her sandwich up with many tomatoes. In defense of the employee, technically a mater is one half of a set of breeders, not a sandwich topping.

In a huff, she moved to the payment window (which was actually a bulletproof lazy-susan) where she informed the clerk, upon seeing the total price, that she did not have enough money to pay for her sub. The clerk would not relinquish the sub through the bulletproof lazy-susan. Surprisingly against all prior evidence, the woman calmly said, “&#$% you” and walked out.

If this had been my only run-in, I would have chalked it up to an angry lady and some mis-communication caused by counter-to-ceiling bulletproof plexi, but this kind of thing happens all the time. Not a month ago I came across a woman who wanted more banana peppers than humanly reasonable, but did not want to pay the 35 cents for an extra topping. She regressed into a sort of animal rage, snorting all kinds of obscenities and wailing her limbs wildly over this 35 cents. In most cases, a person is only paying 5 dollars for the 12 inch, 900+ calorie sandwich, so an argument over 7% of that seems a tad ridiculous.

I was also witness to a girl who requested to speak to a manager because her chocolate chip cookies were too “old”. This girl had no business eating cookies in the first place (nor the 3 lbs of mayonnaise drenched meat she had ordered before that) but that did not stop her from demanding that the entire place grind to a halt to bake her fresh cookies. If not for my fear of being publicly murdered by a stranger, I might have said something.

I will attempt to chronicle any future, extraordinary Subway™ tales in this blog. To close, and offer a little more insight into mental processes, here is a picture of what I was imagining the entire time I was writing this post:

You’re Welcome – 2.0

May 18, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

One of the papers I wrote in college highlighted the awkward social implications of holding doors for strangers. The full text can be found here. Since writing that paper, the art of the door-hold for me has expanded beyond college campus level and entered the hyper-politically correct realm of Corporate America. Not wanting to cause an HR issue, I will attempt to present the following analysis of Corporate doorholdsmanship in the most unoffensive manner possible:

In college, few doors are locked. In fact, most are so open, you really don’t even have to turn a knob or handle; a slight nudge in the right direction leaves most doors wide open. But in the Corporate life, most doors are locked; with keypads or intercoms or card-swipe things. No longer are mysterious rooms in cafeterias, dormitories, lecture halls, faculty offices and bathrooms left unprotected from my inappropriate and clandestine searches. Nay, now all doors are securely locked, despite how hard I kick the door, or jam a credit card in the narrow light emitting crack on one side of the door. Where I once could unravel any mystery, now lays before me more uncertainty than Frodo faced setting out from the Shire.

Ultimately, this lack of open entries leads to one main problem: holding doors. When a door cannot be opened it is difficult to hold for other people. Chivalry is appreciated (in some cases even expected) in Corporate life, but with no chairs to pull out (as it leads to awkward meeting situations), no umbrellas to hold (as it rarely rains inside your cube) and no maidens to save (I’ll leave this one alone), we’re left with a few unsatisfying ways to be Knightly. I have broken it down into the following:

Holding bathroom doors:

Level of awkward: MEGA AWKWARD
Level of necessity: Minor

There is no hiding the fact that I am male. Men tend to be solitary bathroom goers; I have seen more than one man turned away from a bathroom by “overcrowding” caused by one extra occupant. Many do not even begin to appreciate a door being held for them upon entering a bathroom. It probably reminds them of that fancy strip club they went to that one time their wife was out of town that they really don’t want to remember for obvious reasons. Either that or they feel their privacy is being infringed upon and another man is basically advertising that they are walking into the bathroom with them. As it stands, the Corporate Men’s Bathroom door hold may be the most awkward and difficult to pull off door hold in the entire known universe. The timing must be uncanny; not only do you have to match your walking pace with the other soon to be peer to reach to door at the correct time, you also have to be headed that way anyway without seeming like some creepster who follows dudes into the bathroom. This is incredibly difficult, as you feel like a creep even when the meeting is entirely accidental.

Conclusion:
The only time you can really get away with this one is upon exiting the bathroom. You can tactfully hold a door for someone who has just finished washing their hands, with little worry of social pariah status being projected upon you via questioning glares. It is highly recommended that you simply avoid joint bathroom visits whenever humanly possible; taking 4 flights of stairs to find an unoccupied bathroom to achieve this is completely acceptable. I cannot speak for thefemale side of things; I feel if I stand around waiting to hold the Women’s bathroom door, I’ll have much more to worry about than social awkwardness.

Holding the Front Door to the Office:

Level of awkward: Somewhat Awkward
Level of necessity: Medium/High

Unlike its bathroom based cousin, this door-hold is more common and more expected. It is also completely based upon the time you arrive at work in relation to all your coworkers. If you find yourself to be a sniveling, pathetic shell of a person, get in early or come in late to avoid having to share your entry with any of your coworkers. If you are the bold, daring sort, arrive at the office during peak entrance times to guarantee the maximum number of doors holds possible (my personal record is 6 at once!)

Even though this door hold is easy to plan, it is very important to get right. As covered in my above essay, timing is key with all correct door holds. Since most Corporate office doors are on the heavy side, you might consider holding the door far ahead of time, to prevent the all too common, “Oops, the door was heavier than anticipated, so I dropped it and it may have smacked you in an undesirable body part” problem. Every time you let a door slam into someone’s torso/leg/arm/child, you run the risk of that person claiming you are “incompetent” or “dangerously clumsy”. This must be avoided at all costs. Be sure to hold the door completely, with both hands, while simultaneously moving your body out of the way of incoming traffic. This may be painful, but trust me, it’s worth it. That next bonus you get will have nothing to do with your performance, it will really be because everyone admires how deftly you handle the front door every morning.

Conclusion:

Don’t suck! This is the easy door hold in Corporate. You can screw up every other hold all day everyday, but still be redeemed if you get this one right. The only thing that may make it difficult is a secured entry (keypad or card swipey doo-dad), so be sure to arrive at the door in time to swipe, swing and stay. The three S’s. I just made that up, but it seems to make sense I think.

Holding the Door to the Building:

Level of awkward: Not Awkward to MEGA AWKWARD
Level of necessity: Low to OMG DO IT

This one is a no-brainer. Hold the door for anyone; coworker, security guard, UPS guy, random vagrant, murderous looking guy wearing camouflage or maintenance person. You cannot discriminate here, if someone is coming in or going out with you, you have to hold the door, otherwise your principles could be called into question by a complete stranger. As long as you don’t let random people into your specific office, you’re golden. You will be completely absolved of all possible guilt in any subsequent situation if you follow the above advice.

If you decide to get picky, and not hold for some people, you may run into the classic, “I let the door limply swing shut so you had to reopen it, even though you are the CEO of a company 40 times the size of my own” syndrome. This is why you must never make an assumption about an entering individual, despite his attire or demeanor. Remember, everyone looks some kind of homeless on casual Friday.

Conclusion:

The outside door to the building is unlocked all day anyway, so it’s not really your problem if some crazy maniac gets into the building. Open all doors at all times without even thinking about the consequences. Just claim you’re, “thinking outside the box” and I promise you won’t get in trouble.

There is no Office, only Zool

May 17, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

Food does not last long in my office. Not because it spoils; there are more potent forces at work here than wussy mold and puny bacteria. It is consumed by the office en-mass; the cubes a black hole, the kitchen its event horizon. Anything edible, left in a remotely public area, disappears before most people even knew it was there. I am not saying this in disgust of my coworkers, but instead out of sheer amazement and obscure admiration. It takes a force of will (and stomach of iron) that I am not blessed with to pull off this voracious feat.

During the 2009 holiday season, one of our graphic designers brought in a fruitcake, as a joke. This “cake” was truly an abomination upon baking and there was little about it that even seemed edible, never mind palatable. The batter was some strange hybrid of pumpkin, spices and Devil’s Food Cake, while the haphazardly drizzled icing was of the burned cream cheese variety. I’m pretty sure she said she got it from Ross. This thing had green candied cherries. Green cherries. Even Sam I Am wouldn’t have touched this thing.

I have a rule that I will try almost anything once, so I managed to force down a very tiny sliver of this cake, much to the chagrin of my onlooking coworkers. The next hour could only be described as a fruitcake delirium, with my poor brain and stomach playing host to the nightmare. After recovering, I decided to place the cake as far from me as possible, which happened to be in our public kitchen. I left it there in hopes that someone would destroy it (if it even could be destroyed by conventional means) and went on my way.

I came back not an hour later to get some water (having been severely dehydrated from eating the cake) and noticed that the cake had not been destroyed, instead someone had actually eaten a slice. A slice much, much bigger than the one that ruined my morning. I couldn’t help but shudder at the idea of someone actually enjoying this monstrosity. I went back to the designer who had brought the cake and informed her of the development. She was amazed and said she felt a bit guilty, as she never expected anyone to actually eat it.

2 hours later, the cake was gone. Completely. Not thrown in the trash, not forcibly stuffed down the garbage disposal, not melted to oblivion in the microwave; just gone. It had been eaten. By my Office. I cannot pinpoint which individuals ate it, so I assume the shadowy entity that is the Office simply engulfed the cake in a Poltergeist style manner. I did not notice anyone convulsing in their cubicle, or otherwise acting as if they’d ingested something their body would reject, so it is impossible to discern the ultimate fate of the cake. It has given the Office sustenance, that is all I know.

This morning, around 9:30 AM, someone left a container of “Chocolate Cheesecake Fudge” in the kitchen. A small section of this (about the size of my fingernail) damn near put me into a diabetic coma. As of this post, the fudge is gone. While I have no empirical proof, I believe it has gone the way of the fruitcake.

Update:

Becca has informed me that “4 boxes of yellow creme filled, fudge covered, nasty cookies” disappeared from her office in a record 22 minutes. Perhaps this beast is larger than I initially guessed.

In an attempt to understand/study my workplace, I have created a flow-chart of how to handle food in and around the Office:

I’ll never defeat The Grump

May 14, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

This entire week, I have been tired. Not the normal “my job is not challenging so my brain is devolving into a primordial mush” tired, but legitimately and totally fatigued. It could stem from my poor sleep as of late; generally I sleep like a proverbial rock but recently the smallest noise or flux in temperature leaves me staring blankly at the ceiling at 3:00 AM.

This morning, my project manager made a point of stopping by my cube to announce with no remorse, “Oliver, you look bad.” Most normal people might be insulted by this, but the language barrier in our office forces one to not take things said at face value. It is a fun but frustrating game to try to discern the true message from an odd selection of seemingly random vocabulary. My assumption this time was that she meant, “tired” but substituted the blanket adjective, “bad” for simplicity’s sake. I suppose it is also entirely possible that I do in fact look “bad” as my dressing and grooming habits have not changed much since I was 12 years old. Let’s just hope the person in charge of paying me is not actually that blatantly mean.

The problem is that this tiredness is not a new thing. I have been battling the grog of morning since my earliest memories of childhood. I hated waking up to go to the airport, even if the ultimate goal was an awesome vacation. I was loathe to drag myself out of bed to go to school, not because I disliked education, but because of my bed-loving, dawn-hating, alternate personality. This is not just a strong aversion to mornings, this is full sleep deprivation inspired schizophrenia. Today, I have finally decided to name my dissociated persona, The Grump.

The Grump (not to be mistaken for the Grinch) is like a crotchety, dim-witted old man who lives in my subconscious, and only has any power over me for a few fleeting minutes right when I wake up. Even if I have had an undisturbed and otherwise restful night, The Grump makes an appearance, trudging around being angry with any/all of the following:

-Cold drafts
-Sunlight
-Laughter
-Conversations
-Tile floors
-Laundry hampers
-Orange juice

There are many more things that could be added to that list, as the Grump does not discriminate in his morning hate. I have learned to control and even at times forcefully remove the Grump, but there are some mornings when still he catches me unaware.

The Grump is not invincible however, and can be stopped or slowed by using any/all of the following:

-Hot water
-Coffee
-Music (above 130 BPM)
–Pandora

If none of these things are available, the only other option is to wait The Grump out. He normally dissipates after 30 minutes or so, and is best avoided during this period.

There are only 2 mortals who truly know The Grump: Mummy and my Tiffany (Clearly Pandora has also seen him, but apparently there is something in feline DNA that makes them immune to The Grump). These two have faced the beast head-on, and from what I can gather when I regain cognitive composure, actually defeated his rampant pessimism. Normal, non-Grump Oliver would like to apologize to all of those who ever received rude gestures and savage grunts during the hours of 5:30 AM to 8:00 AM.

As of the writing of this post, The Grump has disappeared for the day. My project manager had a close brush with him this morning, but fortunately he had retreated to the depths of my brain before she made her interesting observation. I fear he may resurface soon, but fortunately tomorrow is Saturday, and The Grump has a tendency to sleep in.

Update:
Tiffany has pointed out that some cats are in fact vulnerable to The Grump, as seen below:

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