Animals and Jesus

28 March 2006 | Email

Ross,

As we’ve quickly figured out over the short history of our bureau, the nature by which we except interrution requests makes it entirely possible for people to request interruptions for people other than themselves, which opens us up to some fairly serious embarassment, a moderate amount of annoyance from unsuspecting recipients, and a lot of potentially wasted interruptive material. There’s no way to be exactly sure if a request is self-sponsored, but I guess that’s the main liability of the Interweb. Forty-year old balding men can masquerade as hot teen sluts, and people can request workplace interruptions for e-mail address that aren’t their own.

I am slightly concerned in this regard about your interruption, mainly because the way you spell your first name on our files and the first name in your e-mail address are spelled differently, and also because at the bottom of your request you include the line “I really like animals and Jesus.” Most legitimate requests don’t reference Christ.

So, with all that said, if you have no idea what the heck is going on here, if you’ve even bothered to read this far, someone went to our website and requested a distraction for you during your hectic work day. If that wasn’t you, that’s our bad. If it was you, though, then let’s get down to business.

As a sales consultant for a research firm, I imagine you sharecrop in a cubicle farm, much like I did when I used to intern for the Department of Energy. If that’s the case, then I comletely empathize with your situation. My vision of hell is lots of fire, lots of brimstone, and six by six cubes for everybody.

When I was interning, one thing that me and my partner in crime would do to kill some time and break the monotony of doing nothing all day was to see how much water we could drink and, consequently, how much time we could spend in the bathroom. It’s a great game, actually, because drinking loads of ice cold water is good for you anyway, as it flushes your system and keeps your body’s digestive system working round the clock, but it’s also great at distracting you from work, because there is no more interruptive force on the planet than the urge to go wee. Plus, you can take like a five minute break every hour to go potty and refill your water bottle, and no one can say a dern thing to you, because that’s one heck of a nasty lawsuit should they chastise you for urinating too frequently.

The other intern always did “The Deuce” at work too, right after lunch, but that’s not really my style. I’m an at home pooper, but you do what you have to do based on personal preference.

So, get yourself a big glass and head to the water cooler. You’re doing an excellent job today, so down some of the good stuff and hit the head.

Have a good one, chief.

Agent Zach(ary)