Becoming a Yuppie

Here I am, blogging on my lunch break. Whoo-ee boy, is yuppie life ever exciting! I haven’t plugged in to the narrative structure of the workplace quite yet (data entry and spreadsheet manipulation is not conducive to well-structured texts with subtle interleaving themes & symbolism) so I’ll make use of Ye Olde Ordyrred Lyste.

  1. There is an electric pencil sharpener immediately next to my monitor, which makes the screen go wurble wurble zoop whenever it sharpens a pencil. I’ve taken to sharpening pencils far more often than necessary. Wurble, wubble, whee!
  2. English units are the most hurtful, soul-gouging thing I have experienced at work thus far. Everyone uses them in business-and-government-land, apparently; I think it’s the same collective delusion that created neck-ties. My mind is very boggled indeed, but not too boggled to know how many gallons are in an acre-foot.
  3. No one here wears neck-ties on a regular basis, which is good because my supply of professional gear is plenty low without requiring that it button down and coordinate with pantyhose.
  4. Top perks: there’s a florist in the office park who often leaves nice things in the dumpster, and I get free steel toed boots.

Right, that’s it, back to work.

Comments

  1. yami wrote:

    Original comment by des · July 24, 2020 02:01 AM

    I was going to ask what “English units” were, but then I realised you meant Imperial units of measurement and quantity.
    The Engleesh do not use these, you will be relieved or possibly jealous to hear, and when an engineer at $OLD_COMPANY tried to get us to check a calculation he had done in Ye Olde Voodoo we converted everything to le metric, calculated, and converted back (which procedure I vigourously recommend). It turned out, of course, that he had punned on pounds mass and pounds force and come out wrong by a slug’s worth of footsies per second per second.
    Bonus points are available, though, if you manage to get a flow-rate of cubic furlongs per fortnight into an official report.

    Posted 18 Aug 2020 at 9:29 pm

  2. yami wrote:

    Original comment by ester · July 24, 2020 07:46 AM

    i think free steel toed boots should become a de rigeur initiation gift to any job, especially a yuppie one. anyway, congratulations!

    Posted 18 Aug 2020 at 9:31 pm

  3. yami wrote:

    Original comment by Rana · July 25, 2020 06:47 PM

    Heh. Try working in a field where most of one’s sources are giving lengths and widths in chains. Chains, fer gad’s sake! (But I’m a historian, so it’s not that much of a surprise. )

    Posted 18 Aug 2020 at 9:32 pm

  4. yami wrote:

    Original comment by Simon · July 29, 2020 04:49 AM

    With steel toed boots, you know you have a real job. As opposed to ballet dancers, say. (Although ballet dancers in training probably have them. No, wait, they probably weed them out by not giving them protective boots…)
    I’ve gone downhill. In the military they gave me steel toed boots. When I was a summer intern, they gave me anti-static slippers. Now - nothing. This trend indicates that my dream of becoming a P-funk bass player won’t come true anytime soon.

    Posted 18 Aug 2020 at 9:33 pm

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