Yak in the office

For the past two years, my wife and I have shared a home office, and I’m pretty sure she’s heard enough.

I’ve always been something of a blabbermouth, but I spent much of the previous decade working in solitude and silence. Well, not exactly silence. I’d talk all day long, even though there was no one home but me and the dog. Mostly, this steady spiel consisted of cussing at the computer and the various vicissitudes of daily life.

I didn’t recognize that I’d fallen into this habit because there were no humans around to clear their throats and give me disapproving looks. The dog didn’t mind because he was asleep the whole time.

Since my wife started working at home, I've had to tone down the chatter. She kept thinking something was wrong because of all the cussing and muttering, when in fact it was just the usual stuff. (She has the same problem with my reaction to traffic, which is why we often arrive in separate vehicles.)

I’d forgotten what it’s like to have co-workers. People who are trying to get some work done don’t want you nattering at them all the time, even if they are your beloved spouse of 25 years. No, they’d really rather that you shut up and let them concentrate.

In our home office, we sit facing opposite directions. This is the perfect position for tossing wisecracks over one’s shoulder like spilled salt, but it’s not the best position for listening to the other person. Much of our conversation goes like this:

He: Wisecrack.
She: What?
He: Repeated wisecrack.
She: I still can’t hear you.
He turns all the way around, repeats the phrase again, but now it’s lost its verve.
She: Oh. Ha-ha.
He: Never mind.
She: Now what’s wrong?
He: Mumble.
She: What?

It goes on like that until one of us decides it’s time to go to the far end of the house for more coffee or something.

It’s also been more than a decade since I’ve had a boss looking over my shoulder. My wife assures me she doesn’t wish to play that role, yet I feel compelled to report my whereabouts at all times. I tell her when I’m going to the kitchen/shower/garage/yard/store/out to lunch/to take a nap. She keeps saying she doesn’t need to know, but I tell her anyway. This information could come in handy if she found herself in sudden need of a mumbled wisecrack.

Sometimes, my wife leaves our home office to give her ears a rest. She takes her laptop computer to the dining room. That doesn’t deter me, of course. I yell things the length of the house, so she can say “what?” some more.

With the mobility afforded by the laptop, she can leave the house altogether and still get her work done. Sometimes, she even tells me that she’s leaving so I don’t sit around like an idiot, yakking and expecting answers.

You might see her around town, sitting at a coffee shop, pounding away on her tiny keyboard. If you do, please send her home. I’ve got some things I need to tell her.

Cussing at computers

My wife and I are in the home office we share and she says, “Sure is a lot of muttering in here.”

She was right, though I hadn’t noticed until she mentioned it. We weren’t muttering at each other or even talking to ourselves. We both were grumbling at our computers.

Like many people who work at home, we spend all day every day sitting at computers. Much of that time is spent in one-sided conversations with the machines.

The computers rarely talk back, so we don’t get into that creepy “2001: A Space Odyssey” thing: “Sorry, but I can’t do that. Dave.” In fact, I keep the volume on my computer turned off, so it says nothing at all. I find those cheery “You’ve got mail!” announcements unnerving.

But my wife and I have lots to say to our computers, mostly along the lines of “Hurry up, you dirty $*@&#!”

Computers never go fast enough. Get the most powerful machine available, hook it up to the fastest DSL line, operate it expertly, and still the whole process seems too slow. Oh, it might seem fast at first, but as soon as you get accustomed to the new speed, you’re back to, “Come on! I haven’t got all MINUTE!”

Our impatience with computers is particularly acute when we’re roaming the Internet.

I click on a Web address and it starts to open on my screen. The little color bar creeps from left to right, showing that the computer is working on calling up the site. I start getting itchy. I watch that color bar so closely, you’d think it was my electrocardiogram. After, oh, 15 seconds, I give up.

“Never mind,” I mutter. “I didn’t want to look at it that bad.”

As if another 10 seconds would make a difference. As if my time is so valuable that I can’t wait.

(On the other hand, how many of us will say on our deathbeds, “I wish I’d spent more time waiting for YouTube nonsense to buffer.”)

Not all the mumbling and grumbling is impatience. Some centers on rhetorical questions -- “Why won’t the computer let me do this?” “Where did my file go?” “Why did I ever choose to work with machines?” These are philosophical ponderings for which there are no answers.

Sometimes, our computer carping is aimed at particular aggravations, such as pop-up ads or spam or unwanted “updates” or our own typos. These verbalizations involve words that we’d never inflict on other humans, especially if children are present, but we feel free to bleat at our computers.

Some of the muttering is actual communication. Pleas for help, usually, and therein lies a certain danger. If your officemate asks for assistance and you ignore her because you think she’s just griping at her screen again -- well, let’s say misunderstandings can occur.

At times like these, the best answer might be: "Sorry, but I can't do that. Dave."

Taxed by life's spills

To: Commissioner B. Gordon Hufshutz
Internal Revenue Service
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

I write seeking an extension on the filing deadline on my family’s personal income taxes. I had every intention of getting our tax return done on time, but Life interfered, and I’m afraid meeting the deadline is now impossible.

I had the best of intentions. I set aside a day, well ahead of April 15, to do the IRS paperwork for my home-based business. I woke early that day, put on my workout togs and prepared to get pumped up for a day of tax preparation. I paused in the kitchen for coffee, and was stricken by a series of calamitous events that distracted me from my taxpayer duties and ruined my whole morning.

It went like this:

I filled my giant thermal cup with coffee, then lifted the sleek Art Deco sugar canister to bring it closer so I could dump in my usual embarrassing amount of sugar. Some idiot (me, I think, after my previous cup) had left the screw-on lid loose, and the glass canister slipped from my hand. I tried to catch it, but the lid had come off in my hand, so my hand was full. Instead of catching the sugar canister, I clubbed it through the air. A plume of sugar flew across the room before the clear canister hit the tile floor and shattered into an estimated 4,703 shards of sugar-frosted glass.

Meanwhile, my elbow was busy knocking over my giant thermal mug.

Coffee cascaded along the countertop and off into the floor, where it mingled with the spilled sugar and instantly formed a slick glaze studded with broken glass.

I am ashamed to say that I screamed curse words at this point in the sequence of events, but a man can only take so much.

My wife came to my rescue. We moved electrical appliances out of harm’s way and began to clean up the coffee and the sugar and the glass. It was a big job. Getting sugar-glaze wet simply spreads it around. The floor gets stickier and stickier, until it’s like flypaper. It took half a roll of paper towels, two sweepings, several swabbings, one domestic dispute and 14 moppings, but after a mere four hours, the extremely clean floor was no longer hazardous to bare feet. Also, you could walk across it without squeaking.

After such a harrowing event, there was no way I could concentrate on tax paperwork. I’d already lost half a workday, and I spent the other half on the sofa, recovering from the trauma with doses of chocolate and Sportscenter.

My work schedule never recovered, and I remain behind on my business and household paperwork to this day. A six-month extension should give me time to locate all my receipts and file my tax return, assuming there isn’t another major spill around here.

Coffee and sugar and broken glass, all at the same time. Surely, Mr. Commissioner, such a “perfect storm” of spillage qualifies as an Act of God and should excuse my family from the April 15 deadline for tax filing.

I blame the sugar canister, which was destroyed in the incident and thereby duly punished. But please do not penalize us.

Thank you for understanding.

Sincerely,
Steve

Up your rhubarb

(Editor’s note: To stay within the confines of language permissible in a family newspaper -- and spam filters -- all profanities in the column below were replaced with the word “rhubarb.”)

Profanity has become as common as rhubarb in workplaces and throughout society, and I’ve recently been informed that it proliferates in the home office as well.

For a decade, I worked alone at home, my only coworker our dog Elvis (who didn’t give a good rhubarb what people said as long as he regularly got scratched behind the ears). In the past two years, however, my wife has worked at home with me, and I now have an audience for my bad habits.

Turns out that I mutter curses all day long. Who knew?

Apparently, I cuss like a rhubarb when things go wrong, which, as any writer will tell you, is most of the rhubarbing time. I swear after hanging up the phone. I curse my computer. I say “rhubarb” when the words don’t fit together right. And I bray “rhubarb” in amazement when things go well.

I recognize this is a bad habit. Many people, especially those in the older generations, feel that profanity is only for rhubarbs who don’t know any better. I rarely use such language in public, if you don’t count the time I spend behind the wheel of a car. But at home, at my desk, I spew rhubarbs all day long.

(Driving time doesn’t count. I feel it is my duty to advise those rhubarbing motorists who don’t know how to drive any better than rhubarb. Plus, it contains my road rage to the spoken word, which is better than ramming every rhubarbing one of them with my minivan.)

A new study has found swearing in the workplace can actually boost morale. I know, I know. It sounded like rhubarb to me, too, at first, but the researchers found bad language creates a sort of solidarity among coworkers.

The study, reported in the British publication “Leadership and Organizational Development Journal” and at Marketwatch.com, found that men used cursing to jokingly insult each other, while women used it to assert themselves. But overdoing it can create an unpleasant work environment, the study warned. You know what a bunch of priggish rhubarbs those Brits can be.

Here in the United States, 44 percent of those polled reported hearing profanity “often” in daily life, according to a 2002 study by the research group Public Agenda. No doubt it’s only gotten worse in the past five years. Television taboos have been loosened, so we now hear words on TV that would’ve made earlier generations rhubarb all over themselves. Today’s youth seems unable to communicate without sprinkling every sentence with rhubarbs. And rap music? Holy rhubarb.

I, personally, am trying to clean up my act. My wife (who’s been known to unleash the occasional rhubarb herself) doesn’t buy the whole “coworker solidarity” rhubarb.

She’s sick of listening to me mutter rhubarbs all day. When she gets like that, you’d better cover your rhubarb, if you know what’s good for you.

I’m sure I will be a better, happier person if I eliminate profanity from my home workplace. And if you don’t believe me, you can go rhubarb yourself.

Whoops, there I go again. Sorry. I get so rhubarbing mad at myself when I slip. Whoops. Aw, rhubarb.

This may be more difficult that I anticipated. I may need help. Anyone know the address of a Rhubarbers Anonymous meeting?