Location, Location, Location

Today I shall offer you a glimpse of my professional world... you should feel very lucky that this blog is not produced in smell-o-vision or printed on scratch'n'sniff paper, as my current location is not without odorific dangers. My "office" is a pretty typical 6.5' x 9' cubicle with a wraparound desk surface. I have a computer with a crappy monitor. I have a calendar and a periodic table of the Elements. I have few pictures of my exceptionally cute kid and puppy. Other decorations include my NCAA bracket (12 out of 16 so far, just slightly better than average but not quite as good as a sick monkey with a fistfull of darts), an early map of northern Europe that has lots of neat sea monsters on it, and an early Japanese map that has a cool dragon print as the map border. I was thinking that the dragon border might make a cool tattoo, but I'm still trying to figure out what should be in the middle, because the only thing more absurd than a fat white suburbanite with a dragon tattoo is a fat white suburbanite with a dragon tattoo that surrounds an ancient Japanese map showing tidal wave imacted areas of Japan.

Anyway, moving on, we see a print of MacArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World. MacArthur was an Australian cartographer that got tired of getting the geographic shaft (different than a geograophic or magnetic axis), so he reoriented the map with Australia at the top center. North up is an arbitrary society-enforced practice, not unlike Valentine's Day or the need to wear pants. All are total bullshit, says me. Speaking of things that don't quite make sense to most people is my Employee of the 3rd Quarter, 2007 plaque.

Here's where location becomes important... here's where life gets stinky. Moving further to the right, we se the entrance to my cubical. Thirty-six inches away (CT State Fire Code minimal hallway width) we see the entrance to the men's bathroom. It is a single seater, which means the door does not automatically shut.

Because I work at an engineering firm, I have some reasonably intelligent coworkers; a bunch of engineers, some surveyors, a few other scientists, all generally smart and technically adept (with a few notable exceptions). However, as a group, they seem to lack either the olfactory prowess or the common decency to understand that all which doth come from within is not always suitable for dispersion throughout the office, nor is it enjoyable to those within noseshot.

In other words, when these bastards unleash an unholy destructive explosion of such sheer bowel magnitude as to crack the floor tile, they rarely have the decency to keep the door shut and the light/fan on. The combination of door shut/fan on is essential for safe clearing of the airspace... I have learned the hard way that leaving the door shut without ventilative assistance is in fact far more dangerous than just leaving the door open. If you have ever seen Backdraft, you know what I'm talking about. The stench rolls and tumbles and gathers force as it sits behind closed door, waiting and gathering strength not unlike Voldemort in the magical book series "The Longest Fricking Movies Ever Made That Would Be Awesome If They Weren't Four Hours Long", now available on a three DVD set per movie. And as soon as that door opens and adds oxygen to the seething tumbling force, the ass-stench explodes with such force as to blow papers off my desk, smudge my glasses, and reduce my monitor resolution to 800x600. One time it even rebooted my computer, which then started up again in Safe Mode. It has definitely affected my eyesight, and I think I am probably sterile as a result as well.

Now at the risk of ruining your day and or maybe causing you to lose your lunch, I have to make one other comment: apparently these stinky bastards are incredibly environmentally conscious too, as the fear of wasting water must prevent them from considering the concept of a mid-explosion courtesy flush or a post-explosion auxilliary flush to finish the job. Well, it is back to work for me... I better get some things done before the post lunch series begins. I wish you all a pleasant day.