12:13 a.m. | 2004-08-07 There Are A Lot Of Gods In The World. Just For The Record, I Paid Homage To The Office Machine God Today. Uh, I Mean Everyday. I�m Fricking Building An Alter, Already Okay? See, I�m old. And, I�m �Old School�. That�s not �hip� of course, but with age comes wisdom� god dammit. I know better. Respect the office equipment. Really. Let me back up a bit. I work with �youngsters�� twenty-somethings. Which is great. However, there is truly a gap. Anyway, pretty much everyone at work said that I had to see the movie Office Space because it�s �hilarious�. I�ve never seen it because it looked, well, stupid to me but what do I know? So I recently saw it. On my TV. I didn�t rent it because � well reread the sentence above. Yeah. The only part that made me laugh was the traffic scene in the opening credits. And, more to the point, I actually cringed when they beat up the office equipment. I might have found that funny way back in the day, but I know better. The office equipment always wins. ALWAYS. Plus, they up the ante, you know? So the twenty-somethings were very disappointed that I didn�t find the movie funny and didn�t find that particular scene cathartic. But, I know better. Fast forward to a recent meeting where NewBoss reprimanded all of us for not noticing when the fax machine blinks a red light and immediately fixing the problem. Basically, we were scolded for not �servicing� the fax on the demand of the flashing red light. See, what you don�t know is that the fax machine is defective by nature and many, many non-fax-professional-people have messed around with it. I mean that in a completely machine appropriate way. Just to be clear. However, people have taken parts out and added parts and whatnot. The fax machine is fickle. Very fickle. Well, and a little psychotic. Heh. I sometimes pose as a business machine psychologist. The �armchair� kind. At best. Anyway, at the meeting we all tried to explain how futile the situation is and expressed our sincere and absolute desire to have a new fax machine. In other words, we begged. NB was not moved by our pleas. Until today. I was expecting a fax � a really important one � and it was all working until the red light started flashing which indicated that I should check the display. The display? Yeah, nothing. My internal dialogue? Here�s that. (CI:) What�s wrong? (FaxMachine:) Nothing. (CI:) Look, I�m a chick� you�re flashing red� that�s not �nothing�. What? (FaxMachine:) Oh, like you don�t know. If you can�t figure it out, I�m not telling ya. Then, of course, I had to start the babying. Seriously. I opened it up, returned a random floating piece to its proper place, begged, pleaded and then� I stood there holding the fricking front cover closed so it could continue sending me the 63-page fax I was expecting. It was on page 5 at the time. Then, my phone rang. I ran off to deal with that. By the time I came back, NB was wondering why no one �fixed� the fax. Here�s that. (CI:) Sorry, my phone rang. The fax will only work if I stand here and hold the front cover closed. It�s fickle, you know? (NB:) Are you kidding me? (CI:) Um, no. I�m not. It�s fucked up. But hell, I only have 58 more pages to go. (NB:) What? Are you kidding me? (CI:) NO. N.O. NO. NO. NO. N.O. He propped up the front cover using other office equipment � which I wouldn�t recommend since they conspire and all � and I went back to work. With satisfaction since I heard him ordering up a new fax machine. Of course, he also stopped my faxed thereby erasing the memory. Ironically, I�m missing 5 pages which kinda puts me back to where I started numbers wise, but I decided that I didn�t really need those last 5 pages. See, office machines? They always win. your thoughts? seed flower