If y'all become disorientated you lose your accuretzy.

Just one of the gems found at my worthless day of orientation for my office job at Albany Med. It was a waste of time. I will be working on the computer hid away in some office not even in the hospital, I do not need to know a lick about latex allergies or disposing of syringes or how to be culturally sensitive to my patients. The only patience I'll need is enough to sit through another few days of boring computer training.

I know that I jokingly mentioned team-building exercises in my last post, but it turned out to be more than a joke. My "team" and I had to create a product, a jingle, a sloga, and a celebrity spokesperson. Then we had to present and sing our jingle in front of everyone. I usually don't mind making a fool of myself, but my group lacked an interesting sense of humor. They laughed when, after the obligatory loud, piercing, fuzzy BEEEEEEEEEEEEP that accompanies all professional audio/visual presentations, the speaker said, "Heh, everyone awake now?!"

On a side note, is it a rule that any kind of video presentation given in a professional setting can never run smoothly? It seemed like it was every single presenter's first day giving their ungodly speeches. They stared at the DVD player controls and light switches like they were Neandertals delivered to our confusing world of flashing lights and shiny knobs.

This is what my group came up with:
- Product: Zippy Clean Self-Cleaning Bed Pan
- Jingle: "Twinkle, twinkle, little John..."
- slogan: "You don't have to touch to flush!"
- Celebrity spokesperson: Mr. Clean

They didn't like my ideas for Wilford Brimley being our spokesperson. They didn't even know who Wilford Brimley is. I even tried the more mainstream Hugh Hefner. No dice. What the hell!

This is what I would've gone with, keeping the same self-cleaning bedpan idea:
- Product Name: Waste-Away
- Celebrity Spokesperson: Aaron Neville
- Slogan: Look at me, I'm so hands-free, when I pee!
- Jingle: (to the tune of the famous Neville song) "I don't kno-ow much, but I know I don't have to touch my poooooooo. . ."

The other groups would've been dead in the water.

Then we had to watch a fantastic safety video, which I've luckily found on YouTube to spare myself the grand efforts of describing its gloriousness:


The snarky comments were the hosts of the "Found Film Festival" and, unfortunately, were not on the recording I saw today. My favorite is the person who leans over non-chalantly and BAM! gets a face full of acid. The guy who gave us the safety talk was very much like my Health teacher, Mr. Novak. Only a bit more Scared-Straight. The kind of guy like in that movie Mean Girls who said everything will make you pregnant. Only in this case, everything will make your eyes and hair fall out. Another highlight was the head security guy. His presentation consisted of a slideshow of pictures of the security officers posing in their different seasonal uniforms. They looked like the cliche vacation photos you always see in the talking picture shows nowadays.

I don't mean to be Negative Nancy or Debbie Downer or Molly Malcontent, but... well... it's funnier that way. Comedy wasn't made out of puppy dogs and ice cream.

More to come some day soon, as usual.

P.S. I've been obsessed with a musician named Mike Doughty lately.



Check him out. He does a cover of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" on the guitar. Got his first cd for free in some Sony BMG package and became entranced, then saw him at Barnes and Noble this past semester and was very impressed by his cadence. He has something called his "Dude Theory" - what's not to love?

P.P.S. I've got tickets to Wilco at Tanglewood in August, and am looking to go see The Police w/ Elvis Costello and perhaps even Bob Dylan when they all come to Saratoga at various times this summer. Only problem: I need someone to go with. Contact me if you're interested! The only requirement is that you don't absolutely hate the music. And you have to be ready for a kick-ass time.