Revenge of the Cubicle Pirates of the Gulf Coast!


Yarrr.

Aye, mateys, 'tis that time of year again. A time when all of us here in cubicle land rejoice in the freedom that comes from looting the cubicles of departed cow-orkers. That and trying to steal cubicles in better locations which have been vacated.

It's a long-standing tradition in every work-place to mooch office supplies, but this is, you know, sort of like stealing. (In fact, it's so much like stealing that it actually is. Sort of.) And this is just like that, but since whatever refuse has been left in the abandoned cubes is the property of someone who's clearly abandoned it, it's free game! Oo, look, new stapler...

The trick, of course, is to mooch this choice kipple before the cubicle is filled by a relocating cow-orker, or a new hire (and, in this industry, there are always new hires). There's always room for more kipple. Ooo, look, issue after issue of 'Oracle Developer' magazine...

One might call this pathetic, or even the example of a deranged and neurotic mind, driven mad by the stress of working in the technology industry. And, perhaps, they might be right. But hey, at least it pays well. Ooo, look, pencils...

It's not like the last office move, though.

That time, we mooched a mini-fridge...


In our 'Amusing Usenet Posts' of the day, here's a business-related anecdote from the pile that meander in every day...

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: Mark Atwood 
Date: 12 Sep 2000 18:05:16 -0700

David Allsopp writes:
} Unusual ObSf: E.E. Smith's "Subspace Explorers", where the unions and
} management continually monitor the company's performance and work out
} the optimum point between "excessive wages" and "excessive profits".

ObRL: When GM tried to do the same thing, some decades back. They
tried a novel approach when the contract was up. Rather that taking an
excessively promanagement view, they tried to compute exactly that,
laid out the books to the union, and said, "from the trends of past
negotiations over the last years, this is about where we would have
ended up. Rather than waste time and energy starting at the extremes
and arguing to the center, here is the center."

The union went nuts, and now that tactic is illegal.

(Apparently, after being reasonable blew up in their face, the company
went back to starting at the edge, and arguing to the center, and at
the end of the discussion, they and the UAW ended up pretty much
exactly where GM proposed in the first place.)

From: jsbassior@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: 13 Sep 2000 04:44:56 GMT

Mark Atwood said:
}The union went nuts, and now that tactic is illegal.

The Congress outright outlawed attempting to optimize wages and thus avoid long
labor disputes? Why?

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: Mark Atwood 
Date: 12 Sep 2000 22:03:45 -0700

jsbassior@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior) writes:
} Mark Atwood said:
} }The union went nuts, and now that tactic is illegal.
} 
} The Congress outright outlawed attempting to optimize wages and thus
} avoid long labor disputes? Why?

They called it "negotiating in bad faith", because GM decided to be
"fair" and reveal their "hard line" and their negotiating goals in
advance, and thus had no concessions at all to make.

All in a vain hope to not waste time.

This directly violates the psychology of negotiation.

The event was described in detail in _How To Outnegotiate Anyone_, by
Leo Reilly, as a cautionary tale against trying to short circuit
negotiations via excessive honesty.

Be it ever so dark, it's nonetheless humorous.


And in the "Read This, My Children" department today, we have Elf Life, a wild and crazy story of surly and adventurous elves, done in comic form. What more could you want out of life than surly elves?


Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.

THIS SPACE FOR RENT