The Office Escape Scholarship

Have we mentioned that Office Tan has a special rescue fund for office workers who are trapped in an environment with idiot-gross colleagues? The fund pays for the recipient's salary so that he or she can run far far away from the oppressive (or just gross) place of employment.

Our first recipient is our dear friend Sporty Finance Woman. She became eligible for the award last week when her colleagues launched a Chicken Mcnugget eating contest upon learning that the greasy poultry fritters had made it to the 99 cents menu. One ambitious colleague hastily assembled a $50 grand prize while another called the McDonald's manager to pre-order 200 nuggets.

We cannot and will not let Sporty Finance Woman rot in this fraternity house that masquerades as an esteemed financial company. (We have important principles at Office Tan).

With that, we present Sporty Finance Woman with lots of money so that she may escape to her new life where no one will think that eating frozen chicken scraps is a noteworthy achievement.

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Here's some more damn porn.





Happy Monday...perves

Not Very Earth-Shattering Observations

This week was really kind of uneventful except for watching a client go from totally sober to completely shi% faced in about a martini and half. This would have been fine if we were in the meatpacking district or something but we were in a restaurant frequented only by the wealthy, 75+ group in one of NYC's least trendy neighborhoods. As I looked around the restaurant, while keeping one eye on my tipsy table companion, I noticed some really ridiculous outfits that I could tell were these people's idea of "really fancy." There are a few articles of clothing that I'd like to review. For starters, what is up with the excessive use of hot-pad, fresh-off the sheep wool for making blazers? What ever happened to garbadine or other finer "spun" wool varieties? Do retailers specializing in geriatric fashion not offer their patrons any other kind of blazer? And must it be dyed fire-engine red with gold buttons that don't end until they're practically in the poor woman's mouth? I also noticed by the coat check some elderly males making a big song and dance about where their hat was being placed in the coat closet. I've seen this before. Is the expensive hat that cannot, under any circumstances, be stuffed into a sleeve the "I Have Arrived" article for the old dude? Maybe it's kinda like the obscenely priced watch for the young wall street-er after their first big bonus. Speaking of over-dressing for mundane activities, now-a-days if you see someone dressed up on the plane you know that person is expecting some nookie on the other end.

Melissa Ferrick, Drive, Michfest 2006

Check out the sign language lady.

What the Girl Scouts did to me

Last year I bought a subscription to US Weekly from the Girl Scouts. Well, not directly from a real girl scout, but a girl scout's mom who happens to be a receptionist in one of the offices I frequent. I have to say that when it ceased to show up every week I missed it a little. Now I satisfy my need to read useless prose on numerous celebrity gossip blogs. However, one thing that I do not miss at all is the section called "Stars, They're just like US" where they have pictures of famous douche bags buying broccoli with stupid captions like "Even Paris Hilton needs a little green in her diet." Of course she does! Is this supposed to be breaking news to the American public that even celebrities may have the same nutritional requirements as us "common folk?" What about how easy it is to shock the public? For example, when Madonna and Britney Spears (and Christina, too, but no one really cared) made out at the Video Music Awards. The ENTIRE world stopped to process this display. Did people think that while they were performing they discovered their undying lust for each other and couldn't hold off any longer? STOP FALLING FOR THIS NONSENSE. It was PLANNED folks. It's just too easy. But I can't talk... I almost kicked someone's ass in a Duane Reade last week over a magazine with the scoop on the latest celebrity cellulite sighting.

Owfice Burn's Nighttime Entertainment

Owfice Burn spent her entire evening watching this on repeat.

ya right, being a kid totally blew

i was "working" from home today. aka..lounging around and sleeping well into the late morning, while responding to e-mails periodically throughout the day to appear busy.

i come to realize that i am the f'in nosiest neighbor ever. while “working” (translation: reading the inside of my eye lids) i hear a commotion outside. i live across from an elementry school park. i peer out my window to discover a large group of unruly ten year olds beating the crap out of one kid. my first reaction was to charge outside and bust up the fight in a really dramatic and heroic fashion. office knight has taught me about seizing such moments for heroic displays. then i thought...nahhh and i decided to do the nosy neighbor thing and rat the kids out to the cops. so i call 911 and report a fight on the playground. 5 seconds after i called the kids were back to playing tag or whatever lame-o games kids play. now the park is crawling with police officers. oops!

looking out at those kids made me recall how much i f'in hated recess when it was frigidly cold out, never mind having to deal with getting the shit kicked out of you. my friend jen recalled a popular winter recess game…it was called 'stay warm' and involved kids huddling around each other on the playground trying to stay warm and rotating so eveyone got to experience the warmth of the center spot. This went on for about an hour, until the adults agreed to let us back in the damn building. this got me thinking that office raider is totally onto something... childhood blew.

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Selective Memory

In a conversation the other day this person announced, "OH! To be a kid again!" And continued to elaborate about how much he wished he was still a kid. Shortly after I realized this person is out of his mind. Why the hell would you want to be a kid again?! I mean seriously. So for all of you weirdo Peter Pan's out there I'm going to ask that you consider the following top reasons as to why being a kid wasn't so grand:

10) You couldn't drive...Which led to all sorts of nonsense like wanting be dropped off a few blocks from your destination to avoid having to hug your parent or grandparent or whoever in front of all your peers.

9) You were broke. I don't care how much babysitting you were doing, you were still broke. Not to mention that every young adult has committed tax evasion.

8) There was a universal rule that you had to respect your "elders." Then you come to find out that adults are just older idiots that are allowed to disrespect anyone as freely as they please.

7) Your wardrobe had to reflect your parents' vision of what a "nice" boy/girl looks like aka duds that will ensure that you'll never get laid.

6) You had to sit in a single room all day with 30 of your peers and one really moody, stressed out "grown-up." And if you did anything wrong it was announced to everyone. Elementary school seriously violates like 10 million HR rules.

5)You were always being forced into weird hobbies that you may have wanted no part of like calligraphy or the recorder or chorus.

4) You had to use your imagination. Yeah, that's not hypocritical or anything, when adults get bored they just go stand in a room and get drunk.

3) You always had to pay in cash and you usually got that cash from the world's most nosy "ATM." It's kinda like if your ATM made judgmental comments every time you went to get money, like "$200, wow that's a lot, you don't have much left, what are you spending it on? A few drinks and a taxi, that's crazy, you're not going."

2) Gross lunches. Why do people think that kids need dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, pizza, french fries and sour patch kids to survive. That just leads to some really not-so-hot adults.

1) You're in constant fear that at any moment someone is going to try to steal your ass by offering you candy or something. Was it really necessary that every frickin' assembly had to revolve around how to get out of a kidnapping catastrophe? Um...Kidnapping is actually not so common.

Now I must go back to my really important, independent life.

Field Trip Recap

Last week, Office Tan broke the big story that Owfice Burn and I were planning a field trip to a massage parlour in Chinatown. For those on the edge of their seats waiting for the recap, here it is…

First, I called the massage parlour to make an appointment and found that the phone line had been disconnected. I tried to tell myself that maybe they had forgotten to pay their phone bill. But let’s face it, I think that someone may have accidentally given an undercover NYPD officer a happy ending which may have resulted in the not-so happy ending of Best Chinese Qi-Gong Tuina Massage Parlour.

Owfice Burn and I did not give up on our field trip though as we knew that our Office Tan readers were counting on the riveting tales that would be born out of our massage adventure. With that, we found another cheap-o massage parlour on the Upper West Side called Magic Fingers. As you might guess, Magic Fingers is an upscale establishment similar to our former venue.

Owfice Burn and I drove to Magic Fingers and upon parking her vehicle, we realized that we would need approximately $500,000 in quarters to pay the parking meter since each quarter purchased approximately one nano-second of time. Fortunately, Owfice Burn and I are very wealthy so we went and exchanged $500,000 in cash for the equivalent quarters at a nearby drycleaner. Then we headed to the massage parlour.

The lovely staff at Magic Fingers quickly ushered Owfice Burn and I into a room with sheer curtains that served as partitions to our respective massage tables. As usual, Owfice Burn and I warned each other to not peek while we each undressed. I believe I may have seen Owfice Burn peek at me. But who can blame her for being drawn to my Cupid physique. Yes, I am shaped just like Cupid and I am proud of it. Oh and Owfice Burn thinks that I peeked at her but I didn’t.

To put it eloquently, my massage rocked. Owfice Burn’s massage rocked too. But at one point, Owfice Burn and I heard some loud breathing--not the creepy kind--just some weird breathing. We think it was either the heater or that one of our masseuses spontaneously caught Tuberculosis. Not sure. And that concludes another episode of an Office Tan field trip.

An Office Tale - Courtesy of Space Maverick

Space Maverick is one of my dearest friends from college and now works as a very important person in an astronomy laboratory office. I don’t know exactly what she does but I know that it involves very serious scientists, outerspace stuff and maybe even some alien colleagues. Space Maverick revealed this office tale in an exclusive interview with Office Tan…

“I was in a fancy and serious meeting and the CEO whipped out a marker to make some impromptu fancy graphs on the white board only it wasn't a whiteboard it was a $10,000 screen built into the wall for the overhead fancy projector. He drew all over it in red marker and I almost peed my pants. He never copped to knowing that he f-ed up, but how could he not know??? Classic.”

Have you witnessed something absurd at your office? Please send all submissions to Office God at OfficeGod21@hotmail.com Just joking. Who the hell uses hotmail anymore anyway.

Our Dog Died

 
Our happy Monday is not so happy anymore. Count Dogula was born in Tennessee in 1995 and then moved to New York to live with us. He enjoyed eating his food slowly, visiting his girlfriend Meggie in Upstate New York and acting weird around babies. He also liked to kick his legs when his belly was tickled. He really sucked at catching table scraps. "Count was really incredible at separating out the stale rice puffs that he didn't like from the good parts of his kibble. That was talent," said his sister Office Raider. He is survived by Office Knight, Office Raider, Office Parents, Office Older Sister and Office Giant Brother. A son, Rocky, lives in Nebraska. Another son, Morty lives in Pelham, NY. A wife, Lucy and son, Shoe passed away earlier. 

Office Knight's Slippers

Imagine having to wake up to that everyday. 

Kissing Lion

This is just too much! This Lion is such a Ham!

Dirty tricks

Today, in between thinking my usual profound thoughts, I suddenly thought of something that I read about Karl Rove, Bush's top aide and the bad man who masterminded Bush's stolen election in 2000 and re-election in 2004.

It's no secret that he's the queen bee of dirty tricks but this one is my absolute favorite:

"In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising 'free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing,'and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally (Dixon eventually won the election). This incident has been cited by many as the first of Rove's political dirty tricks." --Wikipedia

So basically, he tracked down the rattiest people he could think of (that includes those of us who frequent concerts. HEY!), incentivized them with all of their favorite little vices and sent them in the droves to this opponent guy's rally.

This reminds me of a similar situation that Office Raider had with a disgruntled ex. In his fury, he posted an ad on Craigslist for a blockbuster sale on trumpets and then listed Office Raider's phone number as the contact. For the next few days, Office Raider had to field a barrage of calls from eager trumpet purchasers.

Oh and check out Rove's picture. I love that he's trying to look kind of intense and important.

Another Field Trip

At Office Tan, we strive to bring you fascinating stories based on the real lives of the Office Crew. As a result, Owfice Burn and I have scheduled another visit to a Chinatown massage parlour. Dear readers, do you recall the last trip? No, not the one where I, Office Knight may have heard someone get a happy ending (that was a different place). Far more riveting was the journey in which Owfice Burn got her massage and exited the parlour in her most zen and peaceful state. Moments later, she sped away in her car and rear-ended a cab full of Texas tourists. (Yes, their big Texas hair swiveled around to look at us). Of course accidents happen but Owfice Burn then decided to scream at the cabbie as if she were a) not at fault and b) suddenly possessed by the evil spirit of nasty old Lizzie Grubman, the mean publicist who ran over a bunch of people at a Long Island Nightclub.

With a little luck, this trip will be just as eventful. Oh, and since Office Tan is a democratic blog, you can feel free to request field trips for the Office Crew to go on. We'll post them for a vote and the one with the most votes wins. However, if you send us to the Post Office at lunch time or the prescription counter at Duane Reade, we're going to be really mad.

Field Trip

Owfice Burn and I thought we’d take a break from our daily routine of being foolish to head over to the Brooklyn Museum’s Annie Liebovitz exhibit. We believed that a little culture would help us overcome our ongoing severe cases of jack-ass-ness. We arrived at the museum, neatly dressed in our grown-up people clothes to blend in with the other museum visitors, and joined the long snaking lines to see Liebovitz’s legendary photos. Moments later, our mature museum demeanors were shattered when we passed a Ron Mueck sculpture of the man featured in the posted photo. C’mon! Owfice Burn and I were trying our best to be sophisticated viewers of art only to be visually accosted by an oversized sculpture of a creepy dude with a furry chest and a not-so-good haircut. I know, I know. Maybe he wasn’t just a furry dude but was instead the sculpted symbol of uncertainty, loneliness and vulnerability that pervades the human condition. I told this to Owfice Burn and she thought that sounded really smart.
Finally, we made it to the Liebovitz exhibit which features the jubilant, heart-wrenching or revealing images that are her signature. However, Owfice Burn and I were miffed that Susan Sontag, Liebovitz’s long-time partner, was described in the exhibit introduction as Liebovitz’s friend. What staff fool had a momentary lapse of 1980’s-sytle homophobia and labeled Liebovitz’s multi-decade partner as a “friend”? Anyway, the exhibit chronicles Liebovitz personal and professional photos from 1990-2005 including the illness and subsequent death of Sontag in 2005. If you haven’t seen it, we highly recommend it.

Special Report: Tax Deductions

Happy New Year! This time of year is my favorite because not only do you see lots of people at the gym that you've never seen before but it's also tax season! Now is the time to start looking forward to your tax refunds! Office Knight and I have a tax deduction guide book whose thickness rivals that of a phonebook. It is important to note, however, that you can pay some dude roughly $200.00 to do all this for you and do a better job. This is the route I take but before I try to write things off that could get my ass tossed into a white collar, minimum security joint, I peruse the pages of this book and along the way I found some really ridiculous things.

Here's the the thing about rules and policies...They're usually an outgrowth of actions or questions that need not be repeated. Please keep this in mind as we review some really awesome tax deduction guidelines.

5) Swimming Pools: It is often difficult to obtain a medical deduction for the installation of a swimming pool.

My important commentary: Who tried to write off their pool?! Did they try to write off their speedo and pina colada as medically necessary, as well? If there is a letter about this on file I want to see it RIGHT NOW!

4) Work Clothes and Uniforms: You can deduct the cost and upkeep of work clothes if the following two requirements are met.
1. You must wear them as a condition of your employment.
2. The clothes are not suitable (polite for really lame) for everyday wear.

CAUTION: Some outfits get made fun of here.

Examples of workers who may be able to deduct the cost and upkeep of work clothes are: delivery workers, firefighters, healthcare workers, law enforcement officers, letter carriers, professional athletes and transportation workers (air, rail, bus etc.).

My important commentary: For all y'all that wore your mail-man uniform out to the bar to look cool...even the IRS thinks you look like an idiot.

3) Kidnapped child: You may be eligible to claim the exemption for a child even if the child has been kidnapped.

My important commentary: Anyone else feel that a MAJOR POINT has been missed here. So your child goes missing for a whole tax year and your busy "double checking" to see if it's okay that you claim your child as a dependent despite the fact that the child has been "living" elsewhere...i.e some scary-ass, mildew-y basement.

2) Wristwatches: You cannot deduct the cost of a wristwatch, even if there is a job requirement they you know the correct time to properly perform your duties.

My important commentary: NICE TRY! And by the way, I'm not sure if I know of any job where not knowing the time doesn't really matter.

LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST...

The following may be included as medical expenses on a Schedule A

1) Wigs: A wig, if it is essential to your mental health and not just for enhancing your personal appearance.

My important commentary: Can anyone say SUBJECTIVE? Who got this one passed, Dolly Parton?

I hope this information was helpful. Tootles!

oh and these guidelines were compliments of The Earnst & Young Tax Guide 2006.

8 Wonder(ing)s of the World

As I sit here in the Office Home with Office Raider, we are pondering some really difficult questions. Do you know the answers to these?

1. Why is the bible printed on that cheapo tracing paper?

2. Why are universities so damn friendly after you graduate? Would it not behoove them to be a little sweeter while you were actually there?

3. How come people from the early 1900's and Madonna have that weird pseudo British accent?

4. What was with the Pilgrims and those stupid buckle shoes?

6. How did George Washington get so much action with that awful hairdo?

6. How come sprinkles always seem like a great idea but in real life they don't taste like anything?

7. Why does Gristedes grocery store appear to be operating from a business plan that emphasizes disgusting-ness?

8. Why are children's fairy tales so scary? Office Raider is still training to push her kidnapper in the oven like Gretel had to do.

If you are able to correctly answer any of these questions, you will win a really incredible prize. Actually, that's not true.

Some Firsts for 2007

First Confessions of 2007: I always hated Henry Warnimont...Punky Brewster's legal guardian. Also, there was an episode where Punky and Cherrie were playing hide-and-go-seek and Cherrie hid in a refrigerator and passed out. This made me really afraid of unplugged refrigerators.

First Catastrophe of 2007: Office Knight had a lapse in maturity and took my battery-powered, mini whisk (with which I use to make Cappucinos) and stuck it in my beautiful mane. This formed a small, but tightly coiled knot in my hair. This took several minutes to resolve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!