Safety First?

Its quite crazy at my office at this time. The new building has been constructed and ready for occupation. All employees working at four different locations within the city are moving to the new building which is going to be our permanent workplace. Our group is one of the first to be moving. So much of preparation has been going on to make the move organized. Equipments, monitors, chairs, phones etc being tagged so that they reach the right desk. even trash bins have got a label with my name on it! Our company is very particular about Safety at the workplace. That is the first and foremost thing, being an oil industry and all. It applies to us too, eventhough we are at the corporate office and not at the site. Everyday we get emails from management about being safe during the move, blah blah blah.
Our tasks are to make sure the labels are stuck on all our equipment, clean out all the cupboards, trash/recycle all the tons of useless printouts we have accumulated over a period of time... and do all this with 'safety, foremost in our minds'.
Being a new employee, I took it all very seriously and started clearing out my shelves with zeal. Most of the stuff was left by different people who used to occupy that particular cubicle before me. But still I tried to clear out everything without complaining.
You know how these guys in these crime series collect forensic evidence and try to solve the crime, by profiling the criminal?. It was as exciting as that. As I delve deeper into those shelves I was slowly developing a profile of the person who was occupying that cube before me. It was like a psychological jigsaw puzzle, pieces falling into place.

Hmmm.. Lets see. Stapler pins, pens, pencils, sticky notes, notepads, business cards of random people - regular office stuff
whats this? bunch of electronic keys from various hotels. Must've been a consultant who travels a lot.

An used toothbrush. Interesting. Maybe he came in early to work or was obsessive about brushing after every meal..
Ha, he's got a few can's of tuna. Likes his fish.
Lots of little packs of ketchup from McDondalds. Loves his burgers/fries.
Oh! There's a little car which comes free with some McD stuff.

What else.. A box of plastic forks, spoons and knives. I could use that. Open the box. It was divided into three sections.
There are the knives. The spoons in the middle. no forks! Guess he used up all the forks. He's got more little packets of ketchup stuffed in this section? No wait. What the..? yikes!! They were little packets alright. But not ketchup. 20 or 30 of them. "Ultra ribbed for your pleasure"!!

This guy had taken safety at the work place too literally!!

Got on the internal IM communicator. Ping colleague.
Hey listen, who was occupying my cube before me?
She says, It was so-and-so.
Well, I found some weird stuff in here.
What? C****ms?
Yeah!! how d'you know?!!
ha ha! Must've been the property of so-and-so.
Wait let me call this-other-guy...

Before long, there was a bunch of people at my cubicle peering at the box and making funny remarks.
One guy who was still in touch with the owner of the said packets, took out his Blackberry and sent a mail to that unfortunate guy, CC'ed the whole bunch.
"Dude, we found your box of knives and forks. Drop by and collect them. :)"

We haven't heard from him yet.

That was a lot of fun, on a slow afternoon!! I still have two more shelves to go :)

Whats that smell?

Life has changed for the better. No more travelling. No more weekend flights. No more living like a hippy hopping from town to town.
Settling down which was a distant dream has become a reality. Life is bright and sunny. Every new day dawns with the chirping of birds, the fragrance of roses and.. and.. hey whats this mysterious new odor?
I park my car, walk to the office stairwell and open the door. BAM! it assaults all your senses to the max, the sun is shining no more, the roses have withered and this invisible unholy stench encompasses all around you. There in the center of it all is the source of it. Like in a western, with a glint in his eye, he looks at you, feeling the chills running up and down your spine. Knowing the terror he is causing. Everything happens in slow motion now. He slowly turns his back to you and lifts his tail and....
thats all I had to see... I ran. I ran for dear life.
Ladies and gentleman, this is my first(and hopefully the last) experience with a unique species of the animal kingdom called mephitis mephitis commonly known as the striped skunk.
He had gotten lost or something and took refuge in the stairwell of our office building. Numerous people who wanted to take the stairs had similar experiences like I had that morning. One of my colleagues took a good spray on her handbag and hair. Then things happened fast. Animal control was called and they removed him by whatever mysterious method which I dont want to know. They exploded something called deodorizing bombs in the stairwells.
After a week we can still smell the stench faintly in the stairwell and notice the yellow stains on the walls where the skunk had sprayed a liberal dose of his defense mechanism.
I've read a lot about skunks and always wondered how bad could the smell be. Now I know. I wish I never did. My mind can never forget this brutal attack on my olfactory sense.

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Its been quite a while since I blogged. And the title is totally unrelated to the post.

I'm watching the perfectly white and majestic hills around Salt Lake City, UT. Its really a sight to sore eyes, all this natural beauty and blah blah blah.. but this place sucks big time, after a while.
You can visit here for a short vacation, hit the slopes, look around a little bit and go back to where you came from. To live and work here is not something you should try to do. There is absolutely nothing at all here. Technically, I'm not living here. I travel back and forth and don't get me started on that!!
Anyway, we(me and a few other colleagues) went out for lunch. We were standing in line to place our orders and there were these four pretty girls standing behind us. One look at what they were wearing and we knew they were med students. The girls started a conversation with the last guy in our team. He being the only single guy in our team was pretty excited. This is how it went.

Girl: Hi!! Where're you from?
Guy(proudly): California. Actually L.A, you know.
Girl: Hmmm.. The weather should be great over there.
Guy (warming up): Oh Yeah. Bright and sunny.
Girl: You here on vacation?
Guy(feeling pretty important, knowing we were all listening): Oh no! I'm here on business. I'm a software consultant, you know, for company.
Girl: Wow. Thats cool!!
A pause. Smiling and nodding. Girls looking at each other and smiling.
Girl: So what do you do after work?
Guy(getting bold): Well.. I'm pretty stuffed up with work for most of the day.. Are there any good bars, clubs around here? Maybe you guys give me some tips or take me around.
Girl:Well.. there are a few good places (proceeds to name a few).
If you are interested, there are some pretty good high class places but would cost a bit more, you know.
Guy(now really into it): Well, that wouldn't be a problem for me.
A pause again and more smiling and nodding.
Girl(taking a deep breath): Don't take this personally.. but, do you have your teeth cleaned regularly? Do you have dental insurance?
Guy(totally taken aback): What?!! I mean why?.. I don't. But my teeth are quite good!! I take good care of them!!
Girl: Well, we are all dental students and you can have your teeth cleaned for just $5. Its very cheap. You can bring your friends too!!! are you interested?
Rest of us: (trying very hard not to burst out laughing)
Guy(going red in the face, thinking about the miserable meal he is gonna have to sit through with the rest of us): well.. yes... no... thank you... But I'm.. I'm good... thanks. See ya.. bye.
Waitress: sir..SIR!! Can I take your order please??!!

I would say that was a very good appetizer.. atleast for the rest of us.