LONGEST FRIDAY EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

rawr.

Target Practice

Cheers to The Butler, you can tell your parents that the private school education has paid off: she'll be interviewing the next 10 prospective MALE employees for the department.

She beat our VP in a drunken game of darts.

Well done, well done.

Now let's get to business. After assessing each candidate's physical features, they will be grilled for the following:

• significant other
• current living arrangements
• life goals
• willingness to dump significant other (employees at The Office only date from within The Office)
• quirks/habits
  

Happy Hour

Every hour is a happy hour. Smile and Dial! And right now it's 5 o'clock somewhere...as in somewhere over the Atlantic.


Cube Chat: "...what's that Will Ferrel movie again? * ugh that movie is so depressing!* wait, what Will Ferrel movie is depressing??*

Jersey Shore Jitters

...what if Snooki doesn't show up tomorrow?

Avid horoscope reader and soothsayer, HookerJones, has a bad feeling about the big event (after all, Lil Wayne did stand her up 3 times - who could blame this jaded damsel?)

But C-dawg and B-fab did their best to calm her.

Basically it sounds like we're "having a f*cking party" over on this side of the floor. Sorry My Homie that I couldn't back you up for that verbal assault.

Speaking of verbal assault...


WANTED. BUCKWILD. BY THE FEDERATION OF CANADIAN MUNICIPALITIES. for overly aggressive sales tactics. if you hear her making cross-border dials, you are at liberty to smack a ho immediately. do not be fooled by her pig tails and pleasant smile.

Monotonous Monday Musings

Walked in at 10:02am today. The pod was a ghost-town. Chi-chetti must've been the lone survivor from the weekend.

But we rallied. The Butler and HookerJones came out from the woodwork just as I was picking up the phone to start my day. Seems like I'm the X-factor here, bringing people together. It's my burden.

Highlight: HookerJones encountered a "This number does not accept solicitations. If you are a solicitor, please add this number to your 'DO NOT CALL' list." I kinda wish I could do that...the message would be more like "This number does not accept creepers..."

Nothing made the day more complete than watching NBC's "The Office" on lunch. Somehow it justifies our lives.

Friday's pay day and we're already planning the ritualistic Friday Pay Day Dinner. Brio's, anyone?

Ty Ty is back in his rightful cube and the sound of his melodious voice has been a delight for all.

Misfortunes of the Fortunate

The most surprising thing about the Tiger Woods affair was that he was actually banging chicks. He always kinda struck me as gay. And the fact that his wife rocked him with one of his golf clubs...that's just great irony.

Well you know what they say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

So would you rather have your wife attack you with a golf club or have your mistress pay $250,000 to put billboards of your affair above the streets of NYC, San Fran, and Atlanta?

<--That's right. The mistress of Oracle's CEO is turning heads and blowing the whistle on their 8 1/2 year affair with some good, old fashioned marketing. Serious vindication.

This is a message to all of the cubicle cronies: the world gets a lot smaller the more your bank account grows. So be careful who you're boning. And always wrap it before you tap it.

There is a lot of excitement for the upcoming week/weekend. Our sales manager's band is playing at a local bar. The "oldies sensation that's sweeping the nation" known as Ruby Shooz.

And I am certainly ready to be starstruck cuz Jersey Shore is coming to town!!!!!!!! J-Fizzle and I discussed it this morning at the gym...

It will pretty much be one of those life changing moments when they let me shake Snookie's hand. But what I really want is to get a good look at that poof on top of her head - if the 'queen of guidettes' uses a bump-it then life as we know it is a LIE. Maybe J-Fizzle will score a birthday kiss from The Situation.

But I'm beginning to wonder how MTV pseudo-celebs are making their way upstate to our rinky dink town. Maybe because in NYC they're on the bottom of Hollywood's totem pole. You can't really consider MTV to be Hollywood anyways. It's like the Island of Misfit Toys for TV personalities. The guy from Real World/Road Rule's, Evan whatever-his-name-is, was here on New Year's Eve. Probably because he knew he'd get a headline. Too bad he only got a few frames on the photo page of the local magazine.

Now moving on from CEO chat and MTV jerks to: a twenty-something moment (ah, I digress). The twenty-something is my high school friend, BKWasp (blogger of Our Home Needs a Husband). She sent me this text:

"New low: digging for ONE PENNY to make the 1.50 for a bagel
and cream cheese. Panicked bc i couldn't find it."

Yikes. Nothing like paying rent in Brooklyn. We'll find our places though. Soon. But never forget that you came from somewhere between corporate domination and the mail room...Cubicle Land. Otherwise you could end up with a billboard of you and your mistress overlooking the streets of NYC - oops.

Thinking Outside the Cube

It's time to get creative.

Did you see that new Allstate Insurance commercial? They ask, "Is it the Great Recession? Or the recession that made us great."

Think about it.

Pole dancing as a fitness class. Ice cream sandwiches as architecture (check out the website!).

In the midst of a money-mongering nation driven by CEOs and corporations, the individual is picking us up and out of the slump.

Maybe it's my twenty-something bubble. Maybe it's the fact that my sister has, once again, been rewarded by doing the bare minimum and been granted carte blanche to rampage until she gets her way. But Uncle Sam's just been giving hands outs - like those stupid participation trophies we all got for rec soccer, and I'm sick of it. From Wal-Mart to Apple...everyyyyone needing to have everyyyything...we've just been trying to build an economy on bed of socialistic quicksand.

I can't help but praise Twitter and Facebook for at least trying to remind us about creativity and innovation. For stressing the importance of networking and maintaining relationships. [caveat: face-to-face interaction and social graces are invaluable. don't replace personal, human exchanges with technology]. We've been lost in a cookie cutter society. I should know. I practically live on Wysteria Lane. But the twenty-somethings, aka 'Boomerang Generation', has been plugging away. We fashion our Facebook profiles to be totally unique to our personality, we find our own voices by writing a pointless blog that nobody reads, through random YouTube videos about Long Island moms, we decorate our cubes with Confederate/Union Army figurines (HookerJones...). I've even worn a full-body banana costume for a presentation in an international economic policy course.

Unknowingly, we've been preparing for the facade of the American Dream to crumble. Or at least to crack. Maybe the "red white and blue" has become more of a "red white and screw you". This whole "Great Recession" thing. It's what you make of it. It's sink or swim.

So props to C-dawg for avidly participating in the economy by taking a pole dancing class (and for those of you who were wondering, C-dawg confirms that it actually is a lot harder than you think. and she only performs for private parties.).

Try thinking outside your box. I mean...cube.

[photo by Stephanie Diani for The New York Times]