S.O.P.s (Standard Operating Procedures or Secret Operation Primate?)

By now most of us have had a job where a Standard Operating Procedure was used for something or other. For the lucky few of you who have never been subjected to an S.O.P., please forward my resume to your human resource department, I want in. I will bring morning donuts with me. As for the rest of us, we have to follow a specific set of guidelines that dictate our every move and bodily function throughout every single workday, including the office holiday party. Lets begin with the first S.O.P. of the day, the notification we successfully made it in for another action packed workday. In the pre-s.o.p. era we would punch a time card or simply show up in the morning with a cup of coffee and some questions for Bob about his weekend. Maybe even start the day off by high-fiving the boss, like a wrestling tag-in, while yelling "I'm in. Let's get it on!!" followed by a chest bump and some shadow boxing moves. Enter the S.O.P.. Now we start the morning with 1.) Place time card vertically, north facing, into the slot face down and apply pressure to the clicking lever or 1.) Log into your computer terminal within 8 minutes of the scheduled start time but no earlier than 15 minutes nor less than 5 minutes prior to the start of your scheduled shift. Or even 1.) Place your left eye onto the retinal scanner, while simultaneously placing your index finger onto the fingerprint scanner (note: if you are either missing an eye our index finger please see appendix 5.1 for acceptable eye finger combinations).  Step 1 complete, however you are not 'In' yet. You must first touch your desk. Although you may have a meeting first thing in the morning, you must still touch your desk. It's in the sop. A glancing touch or a jacket drop on the chair is acceptable but some sort of contact must be made. Now you spend the majority of the day working on the 'How to Hammer the Square Peg into the Round Hole' sop. Occasionally, as most humans do, nature will call (or text depending on what apps you have installed on your smartphone) and you will once again have to quickly review the 'Guidelines to Bathroom Behavior' sop. Although legally your employer cannot monitor your bathroom activity directly, length of stay and number of occupants may tip them off.  We end the day by being directed, per sop, not to yell "Wooohooo I'm outta this hell hole! Let's get some drinks!" What fun is that? So, in the interest of keeping my readers informed, I questioned the need for so many of these step by step, inch by inch, instructions to everyday activities. My initial inquiries were answered via the faq section of the "How to question a Standard Operating Procedure" sop. Mostly simple self explanatory answers like 'Because we said so' and 'Please bring these questions up to your immediate supervisor prior to cleaning out your desk.' Not good enough. So I dug deeper. I wandered deep into the reasoning of the Secret Society if CEOs and Upper Management for the answers even your boss and supervisors lack the authority and classification level to answer. You would imagine the reasoning of these sops would be the need to control every aspect of their employees work lives. A way for the high ups to have a tight grip on your every move or even something to brag and laugh about at the country club luncheon. "Ha ha, that's a side splitter Godfrey. But I wrote one last week that spells out how many squares of toilet paper an employee may use. L.o.l. I'm laughing out loud right now. Get it?"  Yeah we get it. However, if your thinking they do it for their own personal sick enjoyment you would be wrong. After some covert investigation this is what I found: 'Secret Operation Primate' (Yes, the true definition of S.O.P.) was put in place in the late 70's. It is the global initiative to turn all of the worlds most efficient and creative workers into, well, monkeys. Trained monkeys that is. Nobody wants you flinging shit on the walls. For in the 70's a group of scientists and statisticians realized that the workers of the world were becoming so efficient when allowed to think for themselves that all the work in the entire world would be completed by 2023. Global retirement. It sounds like heaven, but the reality of this would cause the untimely demise of planet earth. The rational is as follows: 6 billion people retire, each if which purchase a plastic pink flamingo for their lawn. The migration pattern of the entire Canadian geese population shifts. It's obvious what happens next. Mass floods, tornados, hurricanes, volcano eruptions. Yes armageddon. I know what your thinking right now. "I saw the movie Planet of the Apes. What's to prevent that from happening and the world being taken over by gorillas?" Well the answer is simple. Mark Wahlberg folks. He is a real person. He has had practice with the whole ape takeover thing and can handle it for us if all goes awry. Option b was to actually physically tie up everyone's hands with red tape. There was a backorder on this but it seems the tape makers were caught in a catch 22. An sop they needed to follow about making red tape. That my friends is an eternal loop I can't even wrap my head around. It's like trying to eat your own head or touch your elbows with your nose. So until we can figure out a way to get things done without getting anything done, we will need the sops. Hmmmmmm..... Congress might be onto something.... Sorry, I'm staying a mile away from that one.

LifeLube™ for those who get stuck in time

Have you ever run into an old high school friend out at the mall and wondered to yourself, "Wow, that dude looks exactly the same as he did ten/fifteen/twenty years ago"? Although your not thinking "Wow he looks great for his age". It's more like "Damn that dude looks like my old high school janitor would have if he dressed like us in 1987". Yes sir, what I'm talking about is the poor unfortunate people who get 'stuck in time'. It is an unfortunate phenomenon that afflicts many of our friends  sometime during high school. The exact time they are afflicted is very hard to determine since they may have been cool for a number of years in school. But research has proven that it only happens to the cool kids. Nerdy kids usually keep a few of their nerdy quips but go on to amazing places as they grow older. Some founding giant computer corporations, some becoming mega superstars who perform in tuna fish mini skirts and command legions of followers.You can see them driving by in cars who's names you can't pronounce. But for the unfortunate cool kid who has been afflicted with 'Stuck in Timeness', the cars they drive have usually been taken off the market due to safety recall issues.  There is hope though. An underground product known as 'LifeLube™'. It is rumored to have been around since the late Seventies. It's use is pretty simple. When you detect that your life or image has been stuck in some sort of time pot hole, just apply a thin coat to your entire body and walla, your moving again. Sliding effortlessly through life's anus like your doctor's finger in the dreaded prostate exam. Your fringed leather jacket slides right off. The feathered or teased hair?...gone. You are now moving along with the rest of us. Some of the most popular rumored cases of it's use include John 'Vini Barbarino' Trevolta, who rose from obscurity when Quinton Terentino got his hands on a can of it, Charlie Sheen, although he may have become dependant on it and overdosed, and Mario Lopez/Justin Timberlake who can be grouped together because they seem to have it's use down to an exact science. If you have ever watched 'What Not to Wear' on tv you'll notice that every single person on that show is adamantly reluctant to take off their tube top, Rick Springfield tshirt or the still never been washed in any way leather pants, until they walk out of the legendary mirror room. What happens next is never shown on camera. The 'Stuck in Timers' are baited through a fine spray mist of 'LifeLube™' with a copy of Tiger Beat being dragged by a string. It has to be true. Have you ever been successful getting your family or friends to actually drop thier AOL account? While Clinton and Stacy have a 100% success rate for turning a Bon Jovi groupie into a Fortune 500 CEO. Think about it. So when you make that wish to be frozen in time, make sure that the genie at least wraps you in a ziplock freezer bag, because it really sucks when you pull out that New York strip steak you've been storing for the right occasion to find out it's all freezer burned and gross.  And that Delorean you've been saving up for, although I want one too, may be best as a second car.