May 28th

After a frenzied 20 minutes of early morning reports, we interns peeled off to the W.P. Chrysler museum for an indulgent breakfast of BAGELS! and muffins. When I had my orientation there were 30 interns trolling the room, lackadaisical in their approach to brown-nosing; there was not a broken spirit among them. Now, we number 60, and more then half of us harbor the kind of spite that can only be bred in 21^st century working conditions. During the first couple of weeks, all we could do was complain about how we were expected to take 2 hours of work and stretch it into an eight hour day, every day. Now, if any of us is asked to do anything that we haven’t done up to this point in our young careers, the bitching and bemoaning of management is only surpassed by the feeling that our universe has fallen prey to the hawk called Entropy.

We had a mini-conference where we were taught how much Chrysler cares about going green, how much they care about customer service and how much their interns mean to them. I figured they had about $600,000 worth of worthless interns in the room, so it was appropriate when we spend 20 minutes doing a team building exercise involving pipe cleaners. The pale faced leader of the presentation then told us how his leadership style was that of a cheetah: family oriented, speedy, agile, and predatory.

They gave us markers and half a sheet of paper to write down what kind of leaders we were… This is what I wrote.

What kind of leader are you?

A CRAFTY, RAPACIOUS

GROUND HOG

When the lady collected my card, a few kids in my row saw my writing and busted out laughing. The main guy started reading responses, droning on and on about being “morally focused, enthusiastic, charismatic, enrapturing, and respected.” All of a sudden, he sees my barbaric scrawl reading “Crafty Ground Hog,” and pauses. The guy to my left is writhing in his chair, and my face is turning red, but the guy handles it well and just moves on to read the next generic statement. Only a crafty ground hog could get away with writing the only non-serious statement in a room full of comparatively hard-edged malcontents. Up to that point, I think I had been known as the guy who had a fever last week. At least now I’ve laid brick for future traversing on Intern Mountain.

Aside from the breakfast, this day has been quick and unproductive. Sal is gone, apparently because a tire blew up in his wife’s face when she was trying to inflate it. Nobody else dares handle me without oven mitts or a bee suit, so I have once again effectively slipped through the teeth and disappeared straight into the mouth of the enemy.

May 27th

I received chastising on Friday for not tucking in my shirt. This was much to the chagrin of my “fly by night ego” and the event, in part, kept me from labeling Friday as my best day here so far. Bagels, a diminishing sickness, and casual dress day all combined to pique my perceived significance and whet my sense of self-worth. When I was called out for looking homeless, I vowed to myself that every “Casual Friday” from now on will find me in the customary dress of the elite; a suit and tie. Come to think of it, I might have actually looked like I drank my dinner from a wine bottle and made my knightly castle in an alleyway behind Applebee’s – I was pale and emaciated from my battle with a supervirus, hadn’t shaved all week, and had a look in my eyes that said “I need food. You spare coin for me?”

Greg wanted to go the gym before work this morning, so we agreed to get up at 5:40 and subsequently roll out in fox-like fashion. I was up, I was about, and G took his semi-sweet little time rousting. We worked out for only 20 minutes, sleeked up, and padded off to our day jobs.

M&M emergency (10:50 – 11:15 A.M.)

With a plate full of remedial tasks, a stomach full of air, and a head full of dreams, I snuck off to the M&M machine. Earlier in the morning, I had a discovered a worn dollar bill in my workout shorts, an odd occurrence indeed. This cashless society, of which I am a part, places little importance on paper money and even less on its bastard children, coin. I wanted to rid myself of the bothersome bill through the purchase of one pack of Peanut M&Ms. The machine gladly sucked up the bill, dropped me 15 cents change, and started gifting me my snack. A literal hang-up, though.

The machine, seeing my greedy smile and extrapolating my intent for the bag of chocolate nuts, decided to withhold my goods. I banged, begged, brayed, and balked, but to no avail. I pandered to Greg for spare change, but none was provided. An Indian woman was whispering sweet nothings to someone on her cell phone, so I couldn’t come right out and kick the machine like I wanted to. I finally decided to love and let live, returning to my cubby. I scraped up 61 cents from my backpack, and borrowed 20 cents, netting myself two bags of candy. My taste buds tell me it was well worth the effort.

The computer decided not to recognize an important constraint name, effectively leaving me in the laundry room with no clothes on. My office mates made some phone calls to tech people, and the error was erased. Problem is, I now have to start over on something I finished this morning at 10, and it is 2 o’clock. I am strangely and slowly evolving into those around me; it takes me an entire day to do a two-hour task…

I miss the good ol’ days, when my brain cells weren’t intellectually bankrupt and in danger of insubordination. Only impolite dendrites need apply.

May 23rd

Oh, what a splendid day to be alive! I can finally swallow again, and this morning I had my first taste of solid food in the last 2.5 days. I whistled in the shower, gave Gregory a morning hug, and did pushups in the parking lot. But enough about me, lets talk about you!

You left me two days ago; a battered shrimp slowly and unenergetically looping a noose at the end of his rope. It turned out that someone or something had my rope and slowly nursed me back to my health. Those somethings were: tea bags dipped in hot water, apple cider vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, oranges, and aloe juice (gag me.) Notice that all of the above are normally only ingested through the mouth, and, as the mouth bone is connected to the throat bone, this caused me much heartache. I also impressively injected 5000% of the daily recommended value of Vitamin C into my body on Wednesday. None of this really helped, but it felt good to support the fringe herbal remedies industry.

If you would have been perched politely on my Wednesday shoulder, you would have joined me in rocking back and forth in my lunch room chair, eyes closed, shivering. You would have then gone back to the cubicle with me, where we both would have lost 10 pounds through sweating tactics developed in a greenhouse laboratory; a lab with a black floor and located on the equator. If you were still on my shoulder after all this, you would have then witnessed a miracle; your best friend, Yours Truly, rising slowly into the air, weightless, and spinning quickly in tight circles. This would have continued for most of the afternoon, the worst part being that my skin felt more sensitive than a farm-raised and privately-schooled salmon is to derogatory remarks. All my usually graceful movements were handicapped by my feverish state, and on the walk out of the building I would pause every few seconds to just slump against the wall and regain my composure.

Thursday morning bid good day to me by backhanding me across the esophagus. The fever had left, apparently for more exotic shores. I literally had to curl into a ball whenever I needed to swallow, so I brought an empty water bottle with me to work. By using this to relieve my mouth bladder whenever saliva built up, I was able to save myself a good 1000 swallows throughout the day. I had to whisper whenever spoken to, but, as much as possible, I just stuck to the shadows and planned my comeback.

Today is a great day, as I’ve already said. I threw a little gel in my hair this morning (Casual Friday requirement,) wore a pink shirt in support of Greg’s one hour bout of pink eye, and called the Throat Rape hotline and told them to withdraw my complaint. I dedicated myself to a day of hard work and stuck to that credo. I scheduled about 20 total plant days today and fielded 2 calls in regard to John Pickford. I picked off TWO bagels from the Bagel Club and choked them down with cranberry juice at lunch (I’m still not at 100%.) When Sal pulled me aside to tell me I’m doing a great job with plant scheduling, he got so excited that his salt-n-pepper mustache started quaking and I think I heard him say a few uplifting Mexican phrases. If I can’t get him to adopt me by the end of the summer, at the very least I am going to break his will. And if you don’t get what that means, consider this, surely estate and death taxes are lower in Mexico than they are here…

May 20th

Hands cramped, eyes bushed, posture pathetic, headache exquisite, throat hoarse, face slack. The back of my throat feels like Julia Robert’s character in all of her movies; indisputably wronged and not afraid to snivel about it. I cite climate change as the reason for my inability to swallow. The climate change occurred betwixt dusk and dawn, and it was undoubtedly man-made. I woke up this morning not to a breeze, not to a whipping wind, but to a maelstrom. My knickers frozen to my legs by a force called molecular bonding, I made like a mitochondria and powered myself into the living room. The porch door sat ajar and the heating system showed that the air flowing from the vents was at or near 49 degrees. To fight off the oncoming frostbite, I drew up what I hoped would be a shower of magma. It was lukewarm because Greg was also cleansing.

He had two comforters on his bed; I had naught but a sheet. He must’ve had a reason to commit his icy betrayal, but, as the victim in this crime of passion, I’m at a loss. To make penance, he offered me some Vitamin C and a Cincinnati smile. Now I sit here, reflecting on that smile, staring into the pond of forgiveness… but all I can see is ripples of scorn, promulgating from where my horse throat attempted to hydrate itself.

May 19th

I galloped homeward this weekend only to find that my quarter horse now operates not on coins but on dollar bills, 3.97 of them to be precise. I ran into a cavalcade of omnipotent mini-van drivers on the way home; all of them seemed to know the precise moment I was to change lanes and they were all skillful at executing their life goal of keeping me from getting home. When I finally coerced myself past the blockade and into Spring Lake, I spent my evening catching up on The Office and exchanging good-natured remarks with Bert. Saturday was prom for this small sibling of mine, and I also got to visit a red-headed ghost from my past.

I have been officially assigned dictatorship over the St. Louis North plant. Any complaints may be amiably directed to my secretary at 616-638-6504. Only call if you have more than 10 minutes of your day to spare, but don’t be surprised if you have to set aside a larger block of time to complete your conversation with my oft quirky and longwinded associate.

I told Greg that I might let him come to Grand Haven/Spring Lake during one of the Coast Guard weekends, and he flushed with gratitude and perhaps some form of Pink Eye Fever. There are no beaches in Ohio, and I would not be remiss if I claimed that, if he tags along, it will be the first time he has ever seen water.

Erica informed me that on Friday she received a parking ticket which stated that if her car lent its presence to the parking garage again, it would be towed. We in-mates had heard that parking in the garage without a Chrysler approved vehicle was outlawed, but we didn’t actually think they would give tickets or tow the cars. It seems odd, seeing as that one garage is the only one our badges will grant us the right of entry to. So, for now, she has to park here. This alligator, however, won’t shed any crocodile tears because I have a Dodge Intrepid, and it isn’t due to breakdown for another month or so.

When I got back to the cubicle after a lunch consisting of a roast beef sandwich and some fibrous yogurt, I had a phone message (my first!) After half an hour of research culminating in the discovery of the default password for my voicemail, I checked the message. The transcript: “Helllllo. This message is for John Pickford. I was wunderin’ if you was interested in our deal of the week, which is, you know, a, uh, the deal is you buy a 30 minute massage and you get 15 minutes free. If you has any questions or concerns call Tranquil Reflectionz Massage at (313)-410-1874. Ask for Ebony Harris. The deal is good through May 25^th. Have a good day!”

Wherever Mr. Pickford is, I hope it isn’t there.

At face value, the common phrases used around this office are somewhere in the ballpark of half-retarded clichés. The ballpark is located between a rock and a hard place, where the Greatest Thing since Sliced Bread now lives with his sister That’s the Killer. Chances are, back in the day, as far as I know, there was a meet-n-greet that fell short according to the Powers that Be. You know what I mean?

I bought a Brita water filter which is waiting for me at home - and if that won’t hydrate a sardonic salt sucker such as myself I don’t know what will. Sal removed the plastic safeguard from his Subordinate Stinger when he sent out this message this afternoon, “Relevant bullets for today...Erica and Wes already can schedule any Assy Plant themselves..” This is by no means true and I feel Erica would agree. I don’t know what teat Salvador is trying to milk here, but, I assure you, that milk is curdled. Needless to say, several bitter co-workers have told me I can schedule their Assy plants anytime while they surf the ‘net all day. Apparently, egos bruise faster than apples; orange you curious to find out what happens next?

May 16th

Sadly, I am very busy at the moment. I sit here, biting on my badge, listening to my Ipod in one ear, and running some optimization software. It is bagel Friday, but I haven’t yet paid my bagel society dues, so I must watch and drool, for now. I may snipe one later when no one is watching.

Poetic Outburst of the Day (10:30 A.M.)

Daily I gripe and dine
I crawl creepily

Into a cubicle
To be rendered an Emulsion

Each day I mete death in a pair of khakis
I click a furious pattern
I urn my wages
But the wages of sin are salaried casualties
Thus, a casual causality:
Access Denied!

The two concubines across from me, who make up 66.67% of the Cubicle Complainers Club, have not stopped talking about American Idol or Dancing with the Stars for the past three days. Quite possibly two of the worst TV shows invented by the inverts in the TV business, I cringe and squirm the entire time the two mud hens chirp back and forth.

In the last two days, I have finished two full schedules; the first for 3 days, the second for 6. So, I am a pretty camper who also happens to be happy. With a penchant for Chameleonism, I find it very easy to blend in with this company. Why then, you ask, can I not obtain for myself a bagel without being spotted? That is easily answered: they placed a tripwire in the form of a secretary to guard the cache of calories. She/It has to move eventually…

After lunch, the bagels were left unguarded, but I was no longer hungry. So I took two, one for this afternoon and one for the ride home. I then attended the big-wig meeting downstairs and I affected an air of importance the entire time. One guy asked me who I was and I told him that if he didn’t know then he could take the rest of the day off, and, by the way, not to bother coming back next week.

I added this as a signature to all of my outgoing e-mails –

This is from the Chrysler website:

“Chrysler Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli is in Washington, D.C., today to talk with government officials about the company's initiatives to support the military. Among the many topics being discussed, he is announcing that the company is working with the U.S. Department of Defense and with Labor and Veterans Affairs to bring current and former members of the military together with Chrysler to find the right career opportunities as they transition to civilian life.”

Makes me re-realize how lucky I am both to reside in this country and to have other people risking their own lives so that I can sit in an office all day. I’m glad Chrysler will help to take care of some of them when they come home.

May 15th

Greg (my roommate) and I pledged this morning at 6:40, on the drive over, to make every Thursday the day when we actually focus and do work all day. As Greg so eloquently put it, “So, if I understand what you’re sayin’ right, Thursday is the day we beat asses around the workplace!” I’m not sure whether to view that as a tribute to the sometimes controversial American pastime of spanking or as a genuine interest by Greg in actually surpassing our co-workers in aptitude by such a large margin that we leave them with sore backsides. Either way, it is only 8 A.M., and I am writing this, not working… I mean, Sorry Sir, I am Working on my Typing Skills; I am Working on my Hand-Eye Coordination.

So I have been working hard since yesterday on scheduling a plant all by myself. As I really haven’t explained what I do yet, here goes: basically, I tell car factories, from Mexico to Canada, when to work on specific cars. This is scheduled down to small increments, for example, a guy/buddy/pal in Canada will see a car for 20 minutes, spraying it with blue paint the whole time. And then the next car pops up, he does the same thing. All of it is scheduled. That wouldn’t be so bad, but then constraints are added. This is the best analogy: You walk into a store with 100 dollars (a factory can do 100 cars a day,) you have to spend exactly 100 dollars. You have to spend exactly 29 dollars on fruit (yellow paint.) You have to spend 60 on food, and 40 on thong sandals (60 cars must be Jeeps, 40 must be Trucks.) On top of everything like that, certain percentages, you have the “blocking” constraints. Stuff like, when you put your frozen pizzas through the self-scan, they must go in blocks of 3. If you have 6, they have to be scanned in different groups. On the other hand, it could be something like this -- out of every 10 items you scan, 2 must be toothbrushes (Dodge Vipers.)

Mr. Johnny C., my neighbor, who wears his shirt unbuttoned (but not all the way) every day and sports a golden chain around his well-lined neck, managed to go on a mid-morning rant that lasted for a good 25 minutes. Topics covered: taxes, window washers, his mother’s bronchitis, how crappy our boss is, how crappy our computers are, how stupid car salesmen are, how much he is paying for his basement door to be replaced, Survivor, a libertarian’s place in laissez-faire (hands off) economics (he didn't really say this,) Hil-Dawg and Baracky the Moose. It started when one of the constituents of the Cubicle Complainers Club, of which John is a member, asked when she would get her stimulus check from the Man. John offered that it should be here soon, but that it didn’t matter because she would have to give it back as soon as Hillary or Barack is elected. Keep in mind that this is coming from the mouth of a lifelong union member who had, minutes before, declared that his experiences with the UAW would give him an edge on Survivor.

I had to take Greg home during our lunch break because he has diagnosed himself with a case of pink eye. Needless to say, I will not being showering him with his usual nighttime Eskimo/Butterfly kisses (whichever one is the eyelash one.) That will have to cease, at least for the time being.

I wore my business watch today. It costs more than the lives most of these people gave up to become worker drones. The hive is busy today with launching the 2009 models. I just checked to make sure it is still 2008. It is. I don’t know if I should tell them. Until then, I am the queen bee, laying 3,000 eggs per hour and carving out the future of my colony. The rest of them? They are my bee-otches (Some older folk might not understand this phrase. Reference “slaves, ball boys, butlers, or Mary Wilder, the blind sister that added little value to the Wilder clan.”)