Thursday, March 08, 2007

My New Best Friend

I have been busy with interviews and such lately. It comes in waves sometimes. So it has meant that I've had to disappear from the office for hours at a time a lot more than usual. In return I have a lot less blog time as I make myself more visible when I am at the office to cover for the fact that I've been disappearing a lot.

Anyway, yesterday I was called to an office of a prospective employer to take a test. I can't remember the last time I had to test for an employer so I didn't really know what to expect. Was it going to be an intelligence test (e.g. the Wonderlic) or a job knowledge test (on HR laws)? No, it was a test on prioritizing and use of Microsoft Office Apps. I was given a list of tasks to perform. Memos to send out. Spreadsheets to generate. And PowerPoint presentations to create. Ok, I use Microsoft Office daily. So no problem right? Well.......not exactly. Sure I work with Excel, but I have never had cause to use formulas before. I've delivered PowerPoint presentations, but I never actually had to make one before.

As I sat in the room looking at the computer like it had turned against me, I pondered what to do. I thought about standing up and walking out, but Dagromm's aren't quitters. Whiners yes, but quitters no. I thought about just letting them know that I would have my assistant or intern do all of this work for me and asking them when they wanted me to start. I also thought about using the work of the person that had used the computer before me, but I thought that might sniffed out pretty easily and it appeared that whoever it was that had the computer before me was less computer literate than I. I say this because I found his note of apology saved in the documents section. It said that he had tried and that if they hired him he would learn how to do these things. It was really kind of sad. I think he was one step away from suicide.

I finally decided to give it a shot and see what I could come up with. Luckily Clippy, my new bestest friend, came to my aid. Hell, Clippy practically created everything for me. Whenever I didn't know what to do next I just turned to Clippy and he took care of it. Clippy made my PowerPoint pretty and colorful. It wasn't the best I'd ever seen, but it looked about as good as most PowerPoints I've had to sit through. Clippy then helped me create a memo and other generic office offal. Thanks Clippy. You were there for me when no one else was.

Clippy says hi!

10 comments:

mist1 said...

I overheard a conversation about whether or not Clippy is gay. I'm not kidding.

Q said...

I have heard the same thing that Mist has.

Consequently, just know Clippy will be behind you every step of the way. Then one day someone will overhear you talking to him and tell some of your coworkers and then rumors will get started and then you might be having a beer at the local vfw and have to defend your friendship with Clippy as extremely normal and not gay at all and then Clippy will get stabbed and you will ride with him to the Hospital in the ambulance but it is the last ride you and Clippy will ever get to take together. Unless you count the one for old times sake after you are left alone with his lifeless body in the morgue after he was pronounced dead and you are waiting to retrieve his valuables...

Dagromm said...

I'm ok with Clippy being gay. Really I am. Really. We're just good friends, and good friends can get over things like that. So it's cool. I mean I'm cool with it. I won't turn away from Clippy over this. Not that I'm afraid to turn away from Clippy. I mean I'm not afraid to turn my back, because he's gay. Just that I won't...because we're friends.

Q said...

I was talking about you and Clippy with some of the people here in my office and they are happy that you two have finally found each other...

Cyber D said...

Just watch out that you don't go on a road trip with Clippy and Q. Because if you innocently yet accidently refer to something as "gay" in the context of that thing being odd or weird, ol' Q will hang you out to dry and ask you to repeat what you just said as opposed to trying to cover your ass and smooth over the ackwardness with a nice change in subject. F-ing Q!

Q said...

CyberD I said I was sorry, you just shocked me with your comment. I didn't know what to do so I panicked and asked you to repeat yourself. The fact that you said it again the next four times I asked, well that my friend is on you. And you know my love of the 'hang you out to dry' game, so why would you have expected anything else...

Nate said...

This is the first positive thing about Clippy I've ever read on the internet.

Man, I probably would have sucked out on that test. Its been almost a year since I've touched Microsoft Word or Excel.

But on the good note, your ability to use the help file instead of flailing around makes you a better computer user than 95% of the people who pay me by the hour to answer their questions.

Q said...

Gyuss what does "sucked out" mean? My assumption is that you would ace that interview...

Cyber D said...

Yeah, but I didn't appreciate the silent high-fives behind clippy's back while hanging me out to dry. That's just two-faced on your part!

Q said...

Who was I silent high fiving? If you will recall you and I left to go get a drink right after that and you berated me the whole way to our destination. I just figured we were all square at that point cause I just sat there and took it, and then later that night I did the same thing again so that I could be assures that we would be even. And honestly it was just a natural reaction to a comment that was a little, lets just say queer.