Every year we get a new calendar to put up in the office so we can write vacations and such in a single easily visible place. Why does a software company not use a centralized electronic system? Mostly because my boss is comfortable and doesn’t want to upgrade his email system to Outlook or something with a calendar. So, in spite of technical advances, this calendar hangs on the wall behind my boss’s desk.
One year my boss’s wife brought in a girly calendar; Mary Engelbreit or something similarly icky. I protested such a thing in the office. It was completely out of place. If we were going to look at a picture for thirty days it was going to be something interesting. On my next trip to the store I picked up an awesome Harley-Davidson calendar. For the next twelve months we enjoyed shiny chrome and dreamed of loud pipes and the open road.
This year I picked up a swimsuit calendar. It's an unspoken "rule" that we're not allowed to look ahead and at the beginning of the new month we comment on whether or not the girl is hot. I’m pretty sure Miss December 2010 is still sitting in first.
Go into any corporation and you can usually tell where the boss sits based on the size of the office AND the size of the desk. My boss’s desk is huge. It takes up a 1/3 of the office. In addition, since we mostly work on our computers, his electronic “desk” is also huge. He has a 30” monitor with an untold number of pixels. Believe me, he could rattle it off in a moment, but I really don’t pay attention to such things. He recently got a second one and set it up right next to the first. It’s a gigantic display. He can easily have three or four programs open full scale simultaneously. It’s probably a gamer’s wet dream.
Although it is rare for men, my boss sometimes suffers from migraines that affect his vision making it difficult to focus. Little floaties and bursts of light make it nearly impossible to focus on the computer screen. I’ve experienced this myself and it’s very trippy; like seeing stars after hitting your head but more intense.
Yesterday was one of those rare times when he was experiencing a migraine. After leaving the office for a short time, he returned and told me, “I have to stand up to see my calendar now.”
My immediate thought was, “Say what? Why are you trying to scope out the calendar girls when you have a migraine?”
What he meant was, “My big ass monitors are now blocking the calendar and I can’t see it from my chair.”
We all got a good laugh out of it. Just so you know, I’m an equal opportunity ogler…next year we get Seattle Firemen!
