4.21.2009

Warm weather is not conducive to blogging, turns out

But here's my feeble attempt.

Over the weekend we had a little reunion of people who were in certain editing trenches together at the Lord's University back in the day. It was fun to see people I'd lost touch with and it made me reminisce about the good ol' days and the things that made our office great and also insane.

Treat Days on Friday. We took Treat Days to new heights. Fondue Day and Soup Day were my favorites. Everyone else got to smell our food and suffer. We even created a cookbook in Adobe FrameMaker, which I own to this day.

Promotional Fridays, wherein we were blessed to wear awful, hideous shirts every Friday but no jeans. Year 1 (in what was clearly a post-9/11 move) was a long-sleeved navy blue polo top with American flag patches on the sleeves. Year 2: The Safari Shirt. I spent every Friday for a year looking like I was about to vomit. Oatmeal is just not my color. Year 3: The light denim button-up--they finally asked for estrogen input. These tops were all so massive that there was no way to wear them without looking a) pregnant, or b) like you just raided a fat man's closet.

Office Cleanliness Raids. Every now and then The Power That Was took it into his head to mandate an office clean-up which usually involved removing absolutely everything from our desks, including the various tools we used to perform our jobs. We usually played along, with the exception of my Last Act of Defiance before leaving for England.

The Chicago Manual of Style. Oh, how I miss that lovely thing.

That One Time I Was Told to Send Cicada Home to Change. Apparently her skirt was too short. Because she's trashy like that. Arguing with the Power that Was was getting me nowhere, so I told her not to clock out. And to walk slowly.

Working with Word Nerds. Because we are the best.

The Sock Rule. Women and men absolutely could not wear shoes without socks or nylons of some kind--it was part of the office dress code. Which led to me wearing things like striped toe-socks with open-toed sandals. While conducting job interviews. I imagine this may have kept people from taking me seriously, but I was more interested in proving my point, which was that the Socks Do Not Necessarily = Professional. (Note: I do hold my efforts at least partially responsible for the repeal of said rule. You are welcome.)

Making BFFs like Daltongirl, Cicada, Sakhmet, Jonboy, and many, many others.

Getting picked to be in promotional materials. Except for when they stopped picking me because they had enough blond-haired whiteys. If you happened to be a black student employee you were pretty much chum in the water, though.

That one time the girls convinced Jon Boy to grow out his hair, and it turned out that he was a curly-haired stone fox.

BYU Creamery runs. Nothing like getting an ice cream cone every single day in the summer if you want one. Also jalapeno poppers, which are the nectar of the gods.

Delivering calendars. Every year our department produced a calendar that was delivered to every office on campus. We few, we happy few, got to spend a day or two delivering them. Which was kind of fun because it wasn't actual work. Except one time when the then-BYU football coach Gary Crowton thought I was following him. Which, hi, like I'd follow any football coach around, much less one who was about to get the sack. And then the other time when some old person who clearly had clout complained about how a woman on the calendar was wearing open-toed shoes and that he found her toe-cleavage offensive. So they Photoshopped over her feet and then reprinted all the calendars and made us redeliver them--this time without the toe porn. And we weren't supposed to tell anyone the real reason behind the change. Woops!

Wacky things aside, I probably had the best campus job ever, and it's because I worked with the best group of people.

23 comments:

Cicada said... [reply]

There were so many good things about that job. And so many crazy things. But it's responsible for where I am today so you will never hear my complain.

daltongirl said... [reply]

Thanks for reminding me of the super-crazy things. Because I had just taken the last eight years off work in order to convince myself that that job was awesome.

My favorite crazy moment was when we were sitting in a marketing meeting, and looking at ideas for the new promotion aimed at PDA users. And one of the photos was of a man's hand, only it had hair growing all over the palm. They didn't use it. I was just relieved I didn't have to be the one to explain why.

Also, you could devote an entire post to the stuff we ate at the Creamery. Really. You left out two of the best things.

Nemesis said... [reply]

Potato wedges and . . . mini corn dogs? I'm blanking.

FoxyJ said... [reply]

Now you're making me want to blog about my years working in the same building for the EFY office. Ugly shirts that are too big. Free food. Weird policies. So much fun.

My favorite thing was when people would forget that the building was actually made of windows, not mirrors. Probably not a good idea to make out in front of the building when everyone on the first floor can watch you. I also used to get baked potatoes from the creamery for lunch all the time. That and oreo milkshakes, plus the free leftovers from EFY lunches made me get nice and plump.

Janssen said... [reply]

I so miss working in the HCEB with a work-provided meal card. I was a daily visitor to the creamery.

Nemesis said... [reply]

FoxyJ, I KNOW! Cannot tell you how many times we hooted at couples making out in the middle of that huge field, on display to hundreds of people. One time someon from my office actually went down, walked out on the field, and pointed out the windows to the reclining couple, informing them that everyone in that building could see them. They got up and scurried away after that.

Unknown said... [reply]

I think that growing my hair out was pretty much directly responsible for my getting married the next year. Thanks for that, guys.

Then there was the whole Surbrider contest, in which the lovely ladies of the office competed to win a date with me. And when I chose Nem, one of the other girls got really jealous, even though she insisted that she wasn't interested in me. Weirdo.

Nem: You forgot biscuits and gravy, soups of the day, brownies and donuts, and of course ice cream.

Also, when we were delivering the posters with the open-toed porn™, some guy complained about the picture on them, asking if we could use something more "alive" (because we'd always had nature pictures in the past, and that year it just had people on it). I looked at the poster, looked back at him, and said, "More alive than people?" Yeah, that shut him up.

Ah, good times.

Debbie Barr said... [reply]

Aw, I wish my on-campus job was that cool. I just clean other people's poop off of things.

Love the early morning custodial stuff.

We do have food Fridays, though, which are awesome. Last time I carried my humongous crock-pot up the (Southern side of campus) Hill of Death whilst it was full of breakfast casserole. Good times.

Word Verification: sinsoph. I like that it has "sins" in it. Perhaps referring to weird making out couples on campus? ;)

Christina said... [reply]

So jealous! I still have the cookbook, too. But seriously, how could you leave out the travesty that was the rise of soup prices? Chicken and Wild Rice just wasn't the same after you had to start paying what it was worth. Also, the focaccia bread.

Nemesis said... [reply]

I didn't want to brag, Jonboy, but I'm going to take your comment as permission. I TOTALLY won the Surbrider contest! Yesss!

I also forgot the movie events--like when you had us over to watch the Star Wars Christmas Special, and when a bunch of us girls went over to Cicada's during several lunch break to watch P&P. Good times.

Sakhmet said... [reply]

Aww...such memories. Every good thing in my life since 1996 I can trace back to IS. Which maybe is kind of sad. But there have been a lot of good things.

I believe one of the forgotten treats Daltongirl is referring to is sour cream & cheddar ruffles and cottage cheese. Or maybe the drum set in SHH's pants.

Unknown said... [reply]

I can remember visiting you there during what used to be Seminary Symposium and Education Week and those events that I now understand probably made the poor people who worked there hate life. I did get you a couple of free salads, though. As if they didn't give you the leftovers anyway, being that you were right there and they needed to be eaten in about 15 mins otherwise they melted. I met some of those wonderful people who have been so nice to you in the absence of family, since yours lives on another planet, almost.

Giggles said... [reply]

I will now look at toe cleavage in a whole new light.

erin said... [reply]

Yes, I'm glad Jon mentioned biscuits & gravy. So awesome.

And I forgot about Fridays. Thanks for documenting IS history here!

John said... [reply]

So that is where all my denim shirts went.

Nothing quite like censoring toe-cleavage. That honestly sounds Python-esque.

Lola said... [reply]

We still have the Chicago Manual of Style. Right here. In our office. So If you miss the good old times, then come on over and you can just read the heck out of that thing.

We aren't doing anything with it.


My favorite part was playing with my mom's snow globes, and having the lights get turned off on me and my mom in the bathroom late at night.

Oh the memories.

Nemesis said... [reply]

Hee. I remember when Lola was a cute little 5-year-old, wandering around the office being cute. Aaaaand this makes me old.

I told Cicada that I wasn't so sure my jobs there were responsible for where I am today. Only THEN I remembered that it was this employer who sent me to the national education conference in Milwaukee, where I saw the British Council USA booth and first learned about the possibility of getting my masters degree in England. Which then got me to England, when then got me to L**** where I could play mind-games with GH before realizing what was what.

So, yep, same here.

Science Teacher Mommy said... [reply]

Warm weather = brain Jell-o.

"The Lord's University." I had no idea you went to Utah State!

About three years ago my mum wanted a big family picture. To the inevitable, what-do-I-wear question she said, "I love those pictures where the whole family is in denim shirts and khakis."

There was a very long pause. Then I said, "You realize that it is 2005, correct?" I had to explain that it had been nigh on to a decade since you could actually purchase a denim shirt in a store that did not also sell plumbing supplies or office-wear.

When we drove past Happy Valley on our trip in Utah next week, Plantboy said "Provo isn't bad."

I choked on my fruit snacks. I told him that he'd have to be offered at least 200K for me to even consider a move to Utah Valley. I had a hard time putting a finger on an exact reason: your toe-porn story has now given a voice to my revulsion. Thank you.

Mrs. Clark said... [reply]

Oh boy. I just came from Gurrbonzo's blog about the parking police on campus. Toe cleavage? Reprinted the ENTIRE calendar? Makes me reconsider whether or not to send my donation this year...

Megan said... [reply]

Sounds great :) I want an awesome job like that!!!

And way to go with the socks and sandals combo. I detest it but would totally do it if it was necessary to prove a point :)

I hate nylons

Snow Whiteley said... [reply]

I miss that job so much sometimes. It was awesome. The people were great and I have a lot of great memories from there.

I loved the biscuits and gravy. Mmmm. I forgot about the sock rule.

Thanks for the reminder about JonBoy's awesome hair. Did we call him Squirrelboy before or after the longer hair?

I think my favorite moment was when I moved into my apartment right after I getting hired (by you) and then finding out you were going to be my roommate.

DP said... [reply]

Oh man oh man. Thanks for the walk down memory lane—even for someone who was there during a slightly later era.

Ever since they tore down DT and closed the Creamery, I have regretted not having eaten more jalapeƱo poppers first.

Do you have that cookbook in PDF form, or is just a hard copy?

Sarah said... [reply]

I still think that was the best group of people I've ever worked with. And I think you got me that job, Nemesis.
I still tell the photoshopped open-toed shoes story. I forgot about the weird sock rule...

I first heard about the 9-11 attacks from Dwight. I didn't believe him initially since he was always popping in to the cubical to say random things that I didn't quite understand.

But treat days...those were the best.

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