No highsticking, just rants and scatology

I used to work on the loud side of the office. Which was great there was always a commotion and a diversion when you needed one.

Taking a new position, I moved to a new desk on the quiet side.
There's plenty of keyboard tappling but beyond that everyone is fiercely concentrating on things of great importance or careful to not disturb or disrupt.

I am the dorky new girl who talks too loud. I am not shouting ... my voice seems to carry at inopportune moments.

The other day I said to CK while on the phone "The vultures are circling, ready to pick at my carcass." An entire section looked up and shot strange glances at me. What? A girl can't engage in a little hyperbole and melodrama with her friends?

Today, I declared to JS, "If one more person calls me by my last name thinking it is my first name I am going to bitchslap someone. I'm starting to feel like a member of a field hockey team not an assistant." I didn't need to look around, I heard the muffled chuckles.

I know that the RM does not approve but I am considering taking my social interactions into the bathroom, like back in Junior High if only to reduce the number of co-workers subjected to my overwrought and ridiculous ramblings.

The open office layout looks very airy and pretty, so interactive. Do not be deceived. The open office environment is a fishbowl where you are simultaneously fish and (what's the word?) fishkeepers? Glass tappers?
"I always feel like somebody's watching me."-Rockwell

Sometimes they are. Most times they probably aren't.

The office takes up the whole floor and that means that when you go to the bathroom you are going to run into someone you know. I miss the anonymity of truly public public restrooms.

While we all know that everyone poops, it's still stressful to sit in a stall within earshot of your colleagues when you really need to drop the deuce or even just fart. Well, stressful to me.

Not everyone is as squeamish about it as evidenced by the Battle Shits scene from "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle."

I ran across fascinating section on farts in The Pocket Encyclopedia of Aggravation by Laura Lee: Apparently everyone farts about the same amount of gas. (With the exception of the girls who apparently don't fart at all) The difference between those how release in a few mightly blast (the young) and a series of toots throughout the day (the old) is a matter of ... um the tone of elements of your butt anatomy. Flabbier = more frequent tootin'. A good portion of a fart comes from the air that you swallow when drinking and eating, the rest from other bodily processes. A greater part of the volume of your farts in a day are not stinky. Researchers found people willing to wear airtight mylar pants in which they could collect farts and siphon the gas off to figure out it's chemical composition. As you might imagine, the stinky components are sulfur based. RBe suffered through my recital of the entire section lookin' mildly appalled. Me, I feel that a greater understanding helps me round out my education. And I am on the look out for people wearing puffy mylar pants.