The OCp: The Premiere

As promised, I’ve come up with a replacement for Annexed. At least, I hope it’s suitable. I’m back to working out of the West Office and although it’s not a mall, it still has it’s own quirks to report on.

So, what does “The OCp” mean? It’s short for One Corporate Place, which is what we call the West Office. It could also stand for “Only Cute People” or “Office Compatibility Pack” or ‘”Oracle Certified Professional” or “Odin’s Cunning Practice”. But it doesn’t. It stands for One Corporate Place so deal with it.

This was my full week back at OCP and it wasn’t even a full week! Monday was a holiday for the company. But, since I don’t work for that company, it wasn’t a holiday for me. Sorry MLK. Luckily I got to work from home so it was all good.

On Tuesday we returned to find all kinds of company propaganda and paraphernalia set up in the lobby. I’d show you pics but the stuff has the company name and logo smattered all over it so I can’t. Trust me, it was epic. There was a large rectangular thing that glowed green from the inside. There were big green blocks that had company tenants on them. And there were curtains added to the main conference room. Why you ask? Because the big head honcho was in town to deliver his “state of the union” speech to the associates. And it was taped. But when they tape something, it’s not Joe Schmoe standing in the back with a handheld camera. Puh-lease. No, they go all out and hire a company to come in and film. So for 2 days there was a professional camera crew down there setting up all their equipment and lighting. It was pretty impressive I have to admit. I did sneak a picture of the sound and film guys setting things up.

See what I mean? And if you look close, at the bottom you can see the glowing green rectangular thing. Ooooh….aaahhh….

Anyway, I didn’t get to attend the actual meeting because, well, I wasn’t invited, but I’m sure it was something to behold. I heard a lot of clapping and stuff so I can only assume it was quite entertaining. Perhaps there was an opening act, like a magician, to get everyone all fired up. Or perhaps a comedian?

Knock knock
Who’s there?
Ding dong
Ding dong who?
Ding dong the witch is dead!

On Wednesday, I found a lovely surprise in the bathroom. And I’m not even being sarcastic! See, at the Annex, if I would have said I’d found something in the bathroom, you’d assume it was actually something gross, like a piece of fudge.

But at OCP, it really is something nice (most of the time).

After I had done my business, I came out of the stall and approached the sink to wash my hands. When I did, I was greeted by this:

And this:

Yes, that’s right – a weather forecast for the week and fresh flowers! Well shiver me timbers, what a nice way to brighten up my hand washing experience! I could glance one way and see whether I should add on a thick sweater when getting dressed the next day or look the other way to escape into a sea of Springtime.

Yes, I took a picture of myself in the bathroom at work and the whole time I was terrified someone would walk in on me and I’d have to explain that I was shooting pictures for my blog. At which time I’d have to further explain that no, my blog is not about bathrooms but about quirky goings on at the office. And then it would get awkward and I’d run away in shame. But thankfully no one walked in so I dodged a bullet.

Also, isn’t this a much nicer bathroom than at The Annex? Well, I guess I never took any photos of the full bathroom there, but you get the idea from some of the other pics.

I mean, the OCP bathroom is warm and inviting. You actually want to go pee there. You make up excuses just to go in the bathroom and get a warm fuzzy hug from the snakeskin wallpaper. Plus someone brings in Mary Kay products to use, like their Satin Hands collection. I don’t know who brings it in but I think they’re awesome! One time, someone stole the Mary Kay stuff and the next day there was a nasty note left telling the thief that they had better bring them back or else. The products were returned the next day.

Anyway, I hear that the men’s bathroom did not have fresh flowers but instead had a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the mammalian, purely animalistic, estrogen-filled, She-Hulk side of me is shouting “WHERE’S MY CHOCOLATE? SARAH NEEDS CHOCOLATE NOW! WITHOUT CHOCOLATE, SARAH GET ANGRY AND BREAK THINGS!” But then the OCD, germ-a-phobe side of me thinks, “Bathroom chocolates with fecal dust on them? Um, ew.”

Late Wednesday afternoon I got an email from the Annexed facilities management apologizing for the random fire alarms that were going off. OMG. Can you imagine sitting at your desk, trying to get work done and the fire alarm goes off. Over and over and over and over again. I think that would drive me flippin’ mad. They happened to be going off at the same time the company CEO was doing his song-and-dance at OCP. Can you imagine if he had chosen the mall location to make his appearance and they went through all the trouble to set up the cameras and other stuff and then the fire alarms go off in the middle of it? HA!

Finally, we come to an Indians update. Almost all of them are gone now. The one I’ve been working the most closely with leaves tomorrow so today he came over to say good-bye. We chatted for about half an hour. He really is a sweet guy but was sometimes frustrating to work with. See, he’s not only on a project with me but also on 15 other projects back home. So when he’s trying to sleep here, the guys back in India are up working and they call him for help. So he literally got an average of 3 hours sleep every night he was here. No wonder he was falling asleep in meetings and asking the same questions over and over!

Anyway, he showed me all the pictures he’s taken during his time here. I kid you not, half of the pictures were taken randomly out the window of the cab. There were photos of houses, gas stations, malls, buildings, a Walgreens, lamp posts…I think they’re just so fascinated with America, that they photograph absolutely everything they see. He had pictures of his desk too. I mean, who takes pictures of their desk at work? Of course there were pics of the snow since he’d never seen that before. He even had one of me and our team, which includes Barry and the Bostonian (who I don’t talk about much because he may or may not have ties with the Mob. But he can possibly get me Super Bowl tickets so I better be nice to him). In the pics, there is a reflection over my head that looks like a halo. Fitting, right? And then there’s a blip above Barry’s head that looks like horns. Um, no comment.

Well, that’s about it for The OCp. I hope you will find it as entertaining as Annexed. It won’t have Scooter or John or any of the other “charming” aspects of the Mall, but I’m sure you’ll grow to love it just as much. After all, you don’t love one child more than the other, you just love them in different ways.

If you liked this, you might also like:

Annexed: The Finale

Annexed: Head to Head

$#*! My British Friend Says