KFC,
The cube chronicles are the most bitter sweet piece of literature a cube dweller can read. I read. I laugh. I check my surroundings (promptly sinks into “ergonomic” computer chair).
I’m fairly new to the cube habitat but I have already been exposed to one of its most forced awkward situations it has to offer: the “going away” happy hour dinner. It’s the most diabolical way an attention starved 40 something can leverage her way into free drinks and a couple hours of “I’m still important” self entitlement.
Oh it’s on a Thursday evening and you want to go to “a fun bar downtown”? Perfect! Definitely won’t see any of my buddies there! Oh hey guys don’t mind me just chillin with my “work friends”! For sure. Because if you think that if raising your bottle for a toast to an over the hill receptionist at the bar doesn’t make all the smokes wanna tear their clothes off and swarm you then you are completely correct.
Don’t even get me started on protocol at these things either. I’ll just ignore the reason they call it happy hour and decline the two for one and order a full priced draft like everyone else at the table. Way to take advantage of the whole reason we call it happy hour, you guys.
Swapping funny little stories about the bell of the ball that’s leaving us? Sure- remember that time you processed my employment papers when I started a month ago? What a riot! I’m gonna go slam my dick in the cash register real quick!
Maybe it’s a little extreme to bitch about giving up one Thursday after work happy hour during the course of a year but at the same time that shit is lifeblood to a 24 year old less than stellar career type so fuck it I’m bitching.
I feel a little better now,
Brandon
In my 4 years as a Cube Monkey there was a grand total of 1 dude I can say I genuinely liked in my office. And after he moved on to bigger and better things and left me in my cube to peddle smut and ALT E+S+V, I looked him in the eye, told him good luck and good bye, and that was it. I didn’t need to go to a going away happy hour and he didn’t need one. You know why? Because neither of us were fucking assholes. Both of us realized we were both just trapped in hell together and the moment one of us escaped would be the end of it. He sent his obligatory farewell email that begins “As many of you may have heard, today is my last day at the firm,” and ends with “Here’s my personal email, keep in touch!” and I promptly deleted that shit. Its like that scene in Good Will Hunting where Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon he hopes every day he just doesn’t show up outside his house. “No goodbye, no see you later, no nothin.” The mere fact that one of us stopped showing up to that hell hole every day was celebration enough for both of us. No need to acknowledge it and certainly no need to organize a grand happy hour with the very people we’ve been fucking hating each and every day for years on end.
I mean, when you think about it, this person has made a conscious decision to leave this office. Whether its for money or titles or whatever, bottom line is they are saying “My life here with you people is not good enough. I’m choosing to leave you all behind.” And yet these cubicle assholes all want a phony happy hour which is nothing but an extension of the work day with alcohol to pretend we’re all actually close. Did the Chilean Miners organize a happy hour after they were all rescued because after being stuck in the depths of hell together they became “work friends?” For sure not. When inmates get out of jail do they promise to keep in touch with all their prison buddies and remind each other about all the shanking and raping they endured together? Fuck no. When the nightmare is over you cut your losses and move on with your life. Back to your real friends and real life
PS – Swapping funny little stories about the bell of the ball that’s leaving us? Sure- remember that time you processed my employment papers when I started a month ago? What a riot! I’m gonna go slam my dick in the cash register real quick! Killed it.
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