College-ruled or Legal-ruled?

See?  I told you that's what this episode would be about! I don't lie, people, Honest Deb, that's me.

Although both my father and grandfather ran a stationery store, I am embarrassed to say I don't know the difference between the two.  However, I am proud to say I don't give a fuck.  What possible difference can it make?  Although I do imagine that the legal-ruled pads have perfectly-straight, light blue lines spaced in exact proportions, while the college-ruled lines are all different colors, totally crooked and smell a little like weed.  Now you know why I didn't go into the family business.

But I actually think that pompous names for sheets of paper are pretty indicative of the state of the business world today.  Most of it is pure BS that doesn't matter.  Take my firm's dress code.  We are not allowed to wear any sort of denim or sleeveless garment.  Evidently the sight of a sleeveless denim dress is considered the Height of Erotica in the Wacky World of Accounting.  While a sleeveless denim dress might make me nauseous, I sincerely doubt it would affect my productivity level (which is pretty damn low already, as you can tell from my typing this at work). What would affect my productivity level (maybe, I'm not promising anything) is if I could wear jammies to work.  And drink beer.   And have my friends come hang out with me.  Okay, that sounds a little too much like all my evenings, so maybe it wouldn't increase my productivity.  But I'd appreciate it.

Because evidently my boss thinks that "appreciation" is legal tender.  "We can't give you a raise this year, but we really appreciate you, okay?"  Sure, no problem.  The first of next month I'll pay my rent with "appreciation" and see how that goes.

Another example:  I was asked to FedEx something to a client.  I had to look up the client's address.  It wasn't in any of the first three places I tried to find it and when I went to the fourth I couldn't open the program because Outlook was running 3 other programs at the same time.  Except that it wasn't.  I have now lost interest in the whole project.  If the client wants his financial statements he can bloody well send someone from wherever he is and pick them up.  My time is valuable.  I have blogs to write and Words with Friends to play, I can't be wasting my valuable time looking up your damn address just so I can send you some pieces of paper that tell you you're fucking rich, while I have to pay my rent with "appreciation".  Sorry.  I'll calm down now.

But my point is, unless you're one of the 39 people in the world who actually enjoys their job (and, if you are one of those people, please don't tell me about it, I'll probably hit you), work sucks.  So why not make it as easy as possible.  Wear what you want.  More money, less appreciation.  And make day-to-day information you need to do your job readily accessible.  And rainbows and unicorns in every cubicle.  And beer flowing like spreadsheets.  And college-ruled legal pads.  Oh, yeah. . . . .