Come on get happy (hour)

It’s 5 o’clock. We all work in cubicles. It’s Friday. It’s time to get happy. That’s the general thought process that occurs on certain Fridays when a handful of burned out accountant and accounting associates, (who end up carrying our drinks around for us because they don’t have accounting degrees) all decide to go tear up downtown at a good old fashion happy hour. The way god intended it. Our happy hours can get pretty rowdy. Usually they whittle down to about four or five key players, one of whom is most obviously me (otherwise there really wouldn’t be blog material if it was like “we all had one beer, then I caught a cab. It was fun.”) We have a pretty interesting group of young people who all manage to forget that we all work together and will see each other on Monday. At our happy hours there have been: (in no particular order) physical wounds, break ups, hook ups, promotions, demotions, yelling at ones boss, name calling and being thrown out of a bar. I guess I should clarify that our happy hours really only start as happy hours. By about 8 o’clock we’re out for the night, and that’s where the trouble happens. So for about two or three hours, we’re you’re typical corporate office workers out for a drink, sipping on Cosmopolitans and discussing what a damn shame it is that George in payroll hasn’t been promoted and how nice the new carpet is on the 12th floor. But come 8 o’clock the “marrieds” and “oldies” have gone home to their spouses and the rest of us are off and running. Of course occasionally a “married” or “oldie” slips into the group, and the next thing you know your 50 year old supervisor is introducing you to a new shot called a “snow shoe”, the contents of which could probably remove paint from a car.

I was particularly excited this summer when a new intern, we’ll call him hot intern, emailed me a website link to every happy hour that goes on in the city, broken down by drink specials and cross referenced by proximity to work and range of appetizers. I was thrilled to have some new blood injected into our night life. Did I mention that this intern is hot? But the interns have the fatal flaw of always wanting to hang out at college spots. So last week we gave into them and went to the diviest club in town, where it just so happens one of our super serious, corporate interns works! She’s a server on weekends and a tax intern during the day. (Sounds like a super hero if I ever heard of one.) It’s so funny to run into her at the club. One minute you’re doing tequila shots, the next minute the girl who works in corporate taxation is asking for your drink order! Then there are the even more awkward incidents when you email her at work for a tax spreadsheet and she asks if you’d like to open a tab.

She makes this huge transformation after work to become a server at this club. The girl even wears a leather choker and hot pants. (Not work appropriate attire.. or at least our work.) I’m trying to decide which career path she’s actually pursuing. At work she’s all business, busting out the power suits and pumps, but at the club she’s wearing a shirt that says “Your boyfriend says hi.” But we’re not one to judge, especially when she gets us in free and gives us an hour of free drinks.

OK I could go into way more detail about our crazy times at bars and which ones we’re not allowed back to. Suffice it to say that at the last happy hour, one of my friends left with a cut on her arm and shoes that weren’t hers and a handsy co-worker of mine unhooked my bra on the dance floor. Please tell me my parents don’t read this. Or my boss for that matter.

Adventures on a New Floor

My new floor smells like cookies. It permeates the whole floor and is constant. The cookie smell is undeniable, but none of the people who work here notice it. I wonder how long it will be until I, like all the other hapless souls on this floor, suddenly stop smelling it and then someone new is like “does someone have cookies?” and I’ll be like “Hmm... no I don’t smell anything.” But for now it feels like a Girl Scout is standing behind me. Mmm, now I want a Girl Scout cookie.

OK hold on, I’d better back up here. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m in a new department as of last week. It’s pretty exciting. It’s a totally new job with totally new people on a totally new, cookie scented floor! So you know what that means… all new people to make fun of! And let me tell you, this floor is ripe with blog material.

The first day I moved down here from my happenin, young, well-lit floor I was pretty bummed to find a dark, quiet, messy cubicle to greet me. I couldn’t bring anything cool with me, so I’m stuck with this stone aged computer that has four thousand post-its stuck around the yellowed monitor, which I’m convinced are holding the thing together. It’s the kind of computer you scoot past in the computer labs at school, the kind you might see in a museum and go “Damn! People used those?” OK so maybe I’m exaggerating. But the keyboard has a distinct layer of grime that has only been worn away on the space bar and is sure to contain some kind of hazardous bacteria. But I’m slowly getting settled and bringing my own, bouncy, full-of-light personality to this desk space. I put some photos up, as well as my flowery calendar. I got some office accessories and now there’s a place to put paperclips, instead of showering them all over the desk, which is how the previous occupant apparently stored them.

OK there’s plenty more news about my new job and floor and department and boss, but I just realized it’s getting late. I actually got to the office at 7 today, per my new boss’ request, apparently so that I could warm my office chair an hour earlier, greet a whole new set of homeless people on the walk in, and answer the phone call of my boss at 7:45 who said “Oh, were we supposed to meet at 7?” So since I got here so damn early, I’m leaving a little early too. But tune in next time for another exciting post about Heather’s adventures in her new position. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an uncanny desire to go home and make some cookies.