office

Amber Protocol: Tri-folds and Tribulations

| Viciously Sweet

We all have our protocol quirks in my office.

-Proper phone etiquette is a biggie. (I always tell people to have a nice day when I say my professional tidings.)

-Being more streamlined. (this is all the Professional.)

-Getting our deadlines done. (I think most people want this.)

-Not having a break-room full of ants (sane people.)

-Refilling the water for the Keurig (People who don’t want the world to end. My boss wants coffee.)

-Getting prints at a good quality (the printer is my nemesis )

-Using the tri-pod to take project photos (Ahem, Professional)

-Not having enough bullet points (it seems like enough, now :) )

And well now I know one of my new desk mates big professional gripes… incorrectly folding invoices:

She’s going to judge you and your whole company if it has that weird extra bit folded over the rest of it.

So remember when you send us stuff, and you want Amber to not be mad… tri-fold it like you mean it.

Does anybody else have a serious office procedural quirk? Or just how you think things should be done? Are we just crazy in this office?

The world may never know.

♥Lauren

Whitest Sneakers

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This doodle is more like a fan shout out than a personal thing.

Everyone who watches TV knows the Office is ending after 9 season’s of being on the air. And well I think I may have mentioned it before on this site I’m a fan of the crazy antics of Dunder-Mifflin all the characters are so zany yet grounded that we can relate and feel like we know them.

Personally, I work with a girl like Kelly,

I won’t name names.

a guy like Ryan,

I get this face every time I walk into our annex.

an Andy/Dwight,

He may be the most professional of us all… still not naming names.

and even a Pete.

Just because he’s new doesn’t mean he’s any less important.

I have always related to early season’s Pam and well now that Pam is grown up and has it together, I can relate more to Erin. I have always loved to draw, and I’m a little bit on the kooky side, and I am awful at Scrabble. And I love to assist in pranking  our Andy/Dwight as much as humanly possible, and he CANNOT take a joke.

I have sounded like this on many an occasion,… this is probably why I’m not let around a lot of clients…

So in this Office nostalgic post… I share with the lovely internet, a Pam Beesly drawing that I made very ironically, while at work:

Thanks for the giggles Pam!

Also I wonder who could guess which coworkers are which :)

♥Lauren

A little something for Thursday

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I haven’t much to write today I’m kind of brain dead at work. The only thing I’m useful for today is singing WHAM! songs to people on the phone:

Me at work right now. (Image Courtesy of: http://fyeahmindyproject.tumblr.com/)

And I have no context for the following doodle except that it is very true:

I want this dress so bad… unfortunately I don’t have Salma Hayek-like connections.

I really wish I was dressed up more right now… except I thought it was going to rain so I wore pants instead of a really cute dress. I was told by someone who went outside that it did rain, and not to feel sad about my pants wearing day. But somehow I feel like I missed an opportunity to wear a dress big-time today.

I hope someone out there is living the dream for me.

Also this dress is hyper real and I would like it to wear to the grocery store and such.

And one more thing this silly little drawing is for people who thought yesterday’s post got a little too serious :)

♥Lauren

Hair Room

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Today’s post is going to be really brief:

Basically, it’s like the only private moment I get in my day…

I know that it is really childish to hide in your hair to avoid things.. but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. Also my hair smells like coconuts so it’s like a little tropical vacation.

On a “I may be crazy” side note: My sister says when I get to the point where I want to hide in my hair, I should really take some time off of work or whatever I am doing… but sadly, I cannot… So I’m going to book a conference for one in Hair Room, ahoy!

♥Lauren

Happy Hour

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So I’m not the biggest drinker. But I am a fan of happy hour. And not just because that is when drinks are most affordable, but because of the name. Happy Hour. I think more hours should be dedicated to  happy, and not just because I like to have a drink or two… but because we need an hour where the world is not driving us mad and an hour to pretend like we have never heard of cell phones or the internet. You know, time to just be.

Also if I had a happy hour it would have alcohol and desserts. Because I don’t know if there are two things that could make people happier.

 

True story: I’m not the biggest drinker. And  I never quite know what to drink… and well I know alcohol is not the tastiest thing… so I’m not that picky. And a lot of the time when I order drinks I sound like this:

I’m going to get my happy hour on now.

♥Lauren

The Oh Oh Overload

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You know this time of the year is a magical time. The leaves turn, the nights get longer, people are a little nicer (to your face)… and the Lauren is always stuck in the office missing these previously mentioned things.

I have been so busy these last few weeks that I actually have dreaded taking the days off I had previously planned. This Friday I plan on not going to work and I plan to celebrate my birthday, so I need to figure out how to make a whole new day somewhere in between that can be filled with work. I think if anyone can do it… it could be me. I would like to call it Blergsday. I am in need of a Blergsday miracle.

I have work up to my eyeballs, no one wants to Wang Chung with me, and some people at my work are even gossiping about me (for real). This basically means, I’m too awesome for them to handle. And their lives are really really boring. Trying to deal with all of this while simultaneously trying to figure out if I found the lid to my pot.. is really stressful!

Any who I also have to admit that I actually had to do something even more terrifying to make sure I don’t neglect my blog, my birthday,  my doodle time, the holiday I created about my friend Isabel, and my other responsibilities. I made a calendar with a drawing matrix and scheduled events. I this I just made making doodles a  professional commitment… how is this happening to me? How is it you can get so busy you have to schedule in fun? Is this real life?

 

 

♥Lauren
Also shout out to my brother and sister-in-law. I haven’t heard from either of you for what feels like forever. I hope your vacation was awesome. And I ♥ you all.

Where is my mind?

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I have been very scattered lately. I have all these ideas floating around on loose leaf paper, and post-it notes. I have accumulated so many of these scraps my desk at work and at home is beginning to look like I’m starring in a remake of “Memento.”

I actually even have physical post-it notes on my phone. and they are written on front and back. I am aware of them every time I pull my phone out… because as many people have told me they make apps that negate my use of actual post-its. But lets just be honest, if I have to click around on a screen to find this graphic post it note… I’m not going to remember it if I’m in a rush. And true story I have digital post-its on that program from May, and those things are still incomplete.

No problem in 3 months I’ll be wondering what I meant by “incandescent toboggan” and your digital reminder will be lost to the world…

You may be saying to yourself right now… why are you having a traffic jam of thoughts in your imagination? And I will tell you, I have let myself get busy. I tell myself that if I get it half done I can finish it later. And later just isn’t showing up. I’m so stressed at work my hair is graying, and I find myself nearly passing out from exhaustion at 7:30. Yes 7:30, I can barely make it past the time the elderly are watching Wheel of Fortune. Also trying to figure out the business end of all the projects I’m trying to start right now is also killing my brain. I realize the reason I didn’t go into business is because I frankly find it confusing. Numbers and marketing? No thanks, I just want to bust out some of my thoughts with the free crayons I got at lunch.

And they are freaking crayola’s… FOR FREE. I FEEL LIKE I JUST WON PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE OF CHILDISH ART SUPPLIES!!!! In my day they would just give you those knock off really waxy crayons… kids these days are all about the name brand.

The only thing that has been calming me the last few art-less days is listening to music. However now my imagination is mixing with the sweet sweet melodies and the next thing I know I am preoccupied with my ideas again, and then out comes another sheet of paper, another post-it. And the vicious cycle continues. You can’t comprehend how much I don’t want to be looking at these ceiling plans and renderings. They are trying to consume me with their evil stringent rules and budgets.

Anytime my coworkers have talked to me in the last few days they first have to break me from the spell of Joy Division, New Order or Of Monsters and Men to get in a word to my brain… and even then it’s questionable if I can soak in what they are telling me. My brain is lost in the music:

Tonight I vow that I will make time for my artistic needs. Hopefully this will clear up my brain so I can get more done for the big Friday rush. And seriously… does anyone have a post it? I have this great idea about a…

♥ Lauren

Crimes Against Professionalism

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Today I accidentally put the subject line as a CC:’d correspondent. This is a big problem, not just because the email would send me one of those undeliverable pings, and everyone would see my error… But because of the “Proclamation of Professionalism”

That means there is a “Professional” imposed  moratorium of my mischief at work while our new coworker acclimates to the environment, that means not mentioning the 3 Professional NoNo’s:

1. Oprah

2. Doodling/This website

3. No excess giggling, etc.

The lack of these 3 things totally activated the Lame-o-meter in my brain. So until I am released.. my next posts will be from professional prison. Where I spend my time whittling architectural scales, cleaning up the world’s filthiest kitchenette and of course singing rad 1980s/ early 90s songs (they can’t take those from me):

 Someday, I will be free again to doodle and cavort around… And then I shall sing “I wanna dance with somebody” for all the office to hear!

Until then… I will work on my underground doodles…

 ♥Lauren

Classy Pony Afternoons

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I’m working on a really important doodle right now, and *hint hint* it’s about my wonderful friend Isabel. While it is not done right now I feel sad neglecting the doodle-hood of the internet… So I drew a pony. A pony that wants to be shared with the world.

And in related news Isabel is trying to lure me into leaving the San Gabriel Valley for the lush oceany wonderland of San Diego. And it does sound promising. My Brother and Sister-in-law are luring me with Seattle. For some reason I’m eternally lured to Chicago. And somehow Christine and I ended up discussing Boston. Does anybody else have any ideas of where I should relocate? Maybe France? Australia? The Moon…. of Jupiter?

All I know is that I can’t stay where I am anymore. I just know I won’t make it. I don’t know whether to put a song in this place to describe how I feel about where I am at work and in life or a picture. But since my picture idea can have Jim from “the Office” I’m going to go with picture. And if you watch “the Office” even the context of this picture is right:

I need advice to figure out what I really want, I guess. Or a transfer to Stamford.

♥Lauren