Work is Awesome

As one who finds humor in even the most mundane situations I'd like to share some random stories from the workplace. Work has so much to offer in terms of hilarity, randomness and stupidity that this topic simply must be broached. Keep in mind that each of the following anecdotes really happened to either me or someone I know well. And they are all 100% true.

• A while back I returned to my office from lunch and noticed the red voicemail light on my phone blinking. I call up the voicemail and this message was left for me: "Yeah, I am having problems with my insurance and I am not happy. This is very important and I want you to call me back as soon as possible. I will be here all day so I expect to hear from you." Then they hung up. I listened to this message five times attempting to gather ANYTHING resembling some form of identification as to who this person was or who they worked for or anything at all. Yet there was nothing. Not one reference to their name, company or even what kind of insurance they were talking about. Who takes the time to call someone about their insurance and then leaves a message like that? Really? I desperately wanted them to call back furious with me for not returning their call only to recite there message verbatim. I held out hope for about a week but they never called back.


• My buddy Raji is a banker. He also happens to be Indian ("Dot, not feather." His exact words when I first met him). So he is sitting in the bank one day and a guy walks in. Raji has never met or seen this guy in his life. The guy walks up and says, "So do you like curry?" Raji was so confused he didn't even know weather to laugh or be mad or if the guy was even talking to him. And since you are reading this you're surely longing to know the answer and this is why I'm here - to anticipate your every need. Raji does like curry. He's Indian. Duh.


• My buddy Kalso is also a banker. The bank where he used to work was near a mall. One day Kalso was working and it was very slow. This guy comes in and he is pissed off - I'm just going to call him Guy from now on OK? OK. Guy walks up to Kalso and tells him that he needs $220 in pennies. (Who walks into a bank and angrily asks for $220 in pennies? Anyway, it gets WAY better.) Kalso explains that banks don't just have that many pennies laying around (I had no idea that a bank wouldn't have $220 in pennies - it just seemed like they'd have like five grand in pennies back there to me but I'm a moron so whatever). So Kalso asks Guy what he wants the pennies for and Guy proceeds to explain that he is traveling around in his camper. He had spent the previous night in the parking lot at the mall across the street, got up in the morning and walked into the mall. When he came back his camper was in the process of being towed. Guy told Tow Truck Driver that he was leaving and asked that he unhook his camper. So Tow Truck Driver unhooks him and then tells Guy he owes him $220 for the "Unhooking Fee." This news sent Guy into a rage which resulted in the police arriving on the scene. Cop explained that it's perfectly legal to charge an "Unhooking Fee" and Guy had to pay. This further enraged Guy who decided to head on over to Kalso's bank. Upon hearing Guy's story Kalso withdrew $220 from Guy's account, gave him gunny sack and then went into the vault where he found $220 worth of change. About $200 of it was pennies, nickels and dimes. As Kalso brought out the rolls, Guy broke open each roll on the table and dumped all the lose change into the gunny sack. The whole process took about 25 minutes. When they finished Kalso walked outside to witness Guy drag $220 in change across the street to pay Tow Truck Driver his "Unhooking Fee." This really pissed off Tow Truck Driver, but luckily Cop was still on the scene and he made him take Guy's change since it was legal currency.


• One summer when I was in college I worked at Costco. Working at Costco sucks balls. One job I had was to walk around the store for 8 hours and find empty boxes. I would then bring said boxes up to the cashiers to use to pack up the stuff people bought. As I was doing this mind numbing hell of a job I walked down the diaper aisle. I noticed a box of diapers was open so I walked over to check it out. This was a box of 120 diapers. It had been ripped open and inside were four packages of 30 diapers each. One of the 30 packs was ripped open and you could easily tell that one diaper had been removed. Also inside the box was a different brand of diaper filled with a large amount of human feces. Some asshole's kid had taken a shit and this asshole had ripped open a 120 pack of diapers, then ripped open the 30 pack inside, then changed their kid and then left both the ripped open box of diapers and the shit filled diaper sitting there in the store. This was not amusing to Paul.


• Another awesome task I had while getting worked at Costco was to walk around outside for 8 hours gathering shopping carts in lines of 10. We then got to pull them - all uphill mind you - back to the front door with a rope. Fun stuff. Observing things in that God forsaken parking lot led me to ask the following question: how bored do you have to be before you decide to take two large plastic shopping carts and weld them together with a road flare? Apparently pretty bored because this only happened once while I worked at Costco.


• I promise this is the last Costco story. One day I was boxing crap (not literal crap but merchandise, food and what not) for the cashiers (the least shitty task I had while working there by the way). Some guy comes through my line and buys a 22 foot canoe. I offered to help him out to what I assumed to be his truck and he gladly accepted. We went out front and a co-worker and I waited for this guy to pull his truck around so we could help him lift it on top. About five minutes later this guy pulls up in a Volkswagen Bug. Then he got out of his Bug and asked if we have any string. If you aren't laughing yet you are a dumb...but since I'm such a gentleman I'll explain: a 22 foot canoe is about 12 feet longer than a VW Bug. You could likely take all the string in the whole world and not secure a 22 foot canoe to a VW Bug. Yet this guy was dead serious about having us help him. Thankfully we were not allowed to actually tie anything down for anyone so we got to stand there and watch him try for a half hour before he finally gave up and returned the canoe.


• Here is an actual email from my buddy Fine (I've only edited a few minor things for readability purposes): Yesterday I was doing a little "burn test" in my office (Editors Note: Fine LOVES to play with matches). I finished and turned around and was working on my computer (surfing the internet) when I started noticing it was getting a little smokey. By the time I turned around my entire garbage can was on fire. The flames were literally three to four feet high. Apparently one of the matches I dropped into my garbage can was not put out. It was just like one of those scenes in a bad comedy where the curtains catch on fire and unbelievably no one notices because their backs are turned. I had a little bit of a panic attack, envisioning my entire office in flames. Of course I didn't have any water or anything, so I resorted to beating the flames out with a cloth bag which fortunately didn't catch fire itself. This of course threw ash and burnt garbage everywhere, which does not smell good. Fortunately my office has two doors, one that connects it with the other offices and one that goes out to the shop floor. So when I got the blaze under control I closed the door to the other offices to try and minimize the noticeability (it didn't work) and propped open the door to the shop as I ran my smoldering garbage out to the dumpster. The funny thing is, it wasn't even close to the worst thing that happened to me yesterday. In fact it was actually the high point of my work day. The second funny thing is that in all my time playing with matches (and gunpowder and making homemade napalm) as a kid, this is the closest I've ever come to burning a building down. The third funny thing is the obvious; how confused everyone else in the office was about the plumes of smoke and horrible smell as I tried to play it off like nothing happened, "What? What smoke? Oh that. That's nothing...I don't smell anything..."
• If you like my blog then this awesome work story is going to change your whole perspective on shit: My wife is a teacher. A few years back she came home from work and said, "I told you about the midget in my class right?" My reply was exactly what you'd expect, "WHAT?!!! NO YOU DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT YOUR MIDGET!!!" By the time I finished saying this I was sitting up in perfect posture like a dog waiting for a treat - that's how excited I was. Wife then proceeded to rock my world. (You readers have no idea how difficult this is for me to write. First of all I'm almost crying because I'm laughing so hard just recalling this and secondly it would be VERY easy for me to kill the family friendly atmosphere of this blog with some inappropriate comments. But thanks to some editing I think I have managed to keep this clean. After all, I honestly LOVE midgets and would never want any midgets to feel uncomfortable reading Paul's Amusings. Midgets are encouraged!) First Wife explained that she and Midget had a secret handshake. This nearly killed me. I literally fell to the floor convulsing in laughter and snorting was definitely involved. Hopefully you understand how funny this is just by picturing a teacher and a midget having a secret handshake. All I know is that if I ever actually saw Wife giving the secret handshake to a midget I might literally die from laughter. So you can easily imagine how I ended up on the floor. Then, after about five minutes of this, Wife tried to kill me dead. She explained that the reason she brought up the subject was because earlier that day Midget had come into her office and said, "Hey, look what I can do!" This was when Midget proceeded to do a cartwheel right there in her office...I honestly have tears streaming down my face right now as I'm typing this. I'm not sure how you mere mortals minds work but I immediately was blessed with a mental picture of the story: Midget strolling into Wife's office. Excitedly saying, "Hey, look what I can do!" Then doing a midget cartwheel. I honestly can't think of anything funnier than this.

This topic will be addressed further as life warrants...

A Great Text Message

A few days ago my buddy sent me this exact text message:

"I got kicked by a retard at work on Saturday."

This is so funny on so many different levels. I think my favorite part is that he didn't elaborate or explain what happened at all. I nearly got into a wreck when I read the message in my car.

Advice for Riding in a Limo...

...always always ALWAYS bring a cooler full of ice cold beer whenever you have the opportunity to ride in a limo.

Worst case scenario: you have a cooler full of ice cold beer to drink while you are driven around.

Best case scenario: you are a hero among your fellow passengers as you share a cooler of ice cold beer while you are driven around.

The Steve "Snapper" Jones Story

Back in college I was an intern for the Portland Trailblazers for about a year. There were some cool things about the arrangement: I helped Bonzi Wells film a bread commercial, I got to pass out sweatshirts to fans who were doused with red Gatorade after Bonzi Wells smashed the cooler into the crowd after being ejected from a game and Scottie Pippen took me for a ride at 150 mph in his brand new Mercedes.

There were also some fairly significant drawbacks. I didn't get paid. And I didn't actually do anything at all. The only responsibility I had was to cut out NBA related newspaper clippings from the sports page of each NBA city across the country, make copies and put them in a binder for GM Bob Whitsit. Yee Haw!

Anyway, one day I was in the offices at The Rose Garden and I was sitting there alone, cutting newspaper clippings for no money like a freaking moron. After an hour or two I left my office to go take a leak. When I arrived at the gloriously huge men's restroom at the Blazers offices there was not a soul in there. After my peaceful and relaxing wee wee I zipped up and walked to the sink to wash my hands. Yes, I'm a hand washer.

In order to appreciate this story you need to understand that back in the late 90's and early 00's Steve "Snapper" Jones and Bill Walton, who were both former greats, formed the most prominent television color analyst team in the NBA. They teamed up with Marv Albert to do many of the biggest games at that time. Unbeknownst to me The Snapper was based out of Portland and even had an office in the building.

Back to the story...just as I am finished washing my hands I see Steve "Snapper" Jones walk into the bathroom wearing an all grey Blazers sweatsuit. I even recall thinking at the time that it was kinda funny that I was in the pisser with Steve "Snapper" Jones. I finished my rinse and started pumping paper towels out of the dispenser. I dried my hands and just as I turned to head for the door...what do I see but Steve "Snapper" Jones taking a piss in the urinal with his sweat pants all the way down to his ankles and his HUGE black ass hanging out.

I did not take this discovery very well at all because - and I swear to God this is exactly what happened - I said in a very loud and disturbed voice, "GOD DAMMIT! PULL THAT SHIT UP MAN!" Then I calmly walked on out while shaking my head in disapproval.

It wasn't until I got back to my office that I became fully aware of how awesome it was that I had just cussed out Steve "Snapper" Jones for exposing his giant ass to me. Honestly, who does that?