The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘work’

Work Word Problems

Remember the simple joys of dreading and hating word problems? And then cursing yourself for not getting how simple that mother flipping problem was? Take this for example …

Jane spent $42 for shoes.  This was $14 less than twice what she spent for a blouse.  How much was the blouse?

Confusing as flip, right? Wrong! The answer is 0, Jane is a thief.

Now, try these on for size.

 

Question: If a coworker wants to talk to you about returning meaningful error codes in a program, and he sits in a special cube where no lights can be turned on nearby (seriously) because everything with him is sort of crazy, how long will it take?

Answer: Time has no meaning.

 

 

Question: Joe, a slow talker who never jokes around, says he has a funny story. Joe then says a couple sentences about going to the mall with his wife and they couldn’t find where they parked. How many seconds after each sentence do you wait before starting your fake laugh? Bonus: On a scale of one to ten, how fake will your fake laughter sound?

Answer: Trick question, it won’t be fake laughter, it’ll be nervous, confused laughter, and it will happen as soon as Joe says he has a “funny story.”

 

 

Question: Tony swears, on average, six times an hour. If Brad laughs every time he hears this, but sometimes is surrounded by adults and likes to pretend he is an adult so he stifles his laughter, what is Brad’s actual age?

Answer: If a dinosaur had diarrhea it would be called a poopasaurus.

 

 

Question: Burt has terrible breath, but is unpredictable. How many times in a 30 minute conversation with Burt can you raise your notebook as though you are deep in thought, but actually it’s to breathe in the smell of paper because dear Lord anything is better than that man’s breath, without raising suspicion?

Answer: Who cares! That breath is rank, my friends.

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Du Jour of the Week

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Self Assessment

Recently I completed writing my “self-assessment” for work. For this I have to give examples of how I met particular goals that I wrote for myself for the year. Some of the goals are really vague and pushed down from … yes it’s cliche, corporate.

Here are some items I wrote that I ended up deciding not to use, because they may not positively impact my performance rating.

1

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Integrity.

2

I am a self-motivated worker, who takes the time to help others to also become more self-motivated. How do I do this? I walk around in their shoes for a mile. Literally. For this reason, my best working relationships are with guys who wear shoes that are my size or bigger.

3

Work is often about trying innovative ideas and seeing what sticks. In the past year, I have tried a number of great ideas that didn’t pan out, but I think they planted seeds that will grow into trees. One example of an idea was to have everyone provide instant feedback in the form of saying, “upvote,” “downvote,” or “mute.” Some great things came out of that, like the very well-written memos talking about a culture of respect.

4

Am I doing well at my job? Yes. Do I ask myself questions just to answer them? Absolutely. Is this what led to my being on a “self-directed team of one”? That can’t be determined. Will I ever get an audience to present what I have been working on? Seriously, will I?

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Du Jour of the Week

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My Tribute to Dave

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Radio Star Killer

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