Guest Blogger

As promised, today's blog is another rant from my co-worker, M. This one has to do with his cube wall. The "Wall of Shame". Return tomorrow for another post from me.

While I was writing the Coffee Drinkers at Work bit this morning, I paused for a moment to take a brief look at my "Wall of Shame" in my cubicle, and thought I would share this with you. To put things into perspective, and set the atmosphere for this little tale (or more of a rant), I think I should let you know a little about where I work, and what I do. I work for a large banking institution in their IT department as a programmer/software developer. I spend most of my day surfing the Internet in between brief periods where I actually write/debug some code, or attend some inane meeting that serves no purpose. This is, of course, in between going out for lunch, reading the comics, or taking a s**t. So, what is my "Wall of Shame" you may ask?

Well, it all started out when everyone in the company was required to attend a mandatory customer service seminar, which focused on...you guessed it...offering good customer service. Now I think it is important to remind you, I am a coder who spends most of his time in front of a computer, and not dealing with the general public in any way. Why this was ever deemed an important global endeavor by the company is still beyond me.

The wall of shame started shortly after this debacle when I received my first Certificate of Completion for successfully completing the customer service course. Herein lies the shame:

Our company is always trying to cut operating costs, and crying about how it cannot meet budgets and so forth because spending is too high. I take one look at this piece of s**t certificate, think about how many thousands of employees are in this company, and how much each one of these must have cost to produce. My mind went numb. These weren't some cheap certificates either...I'm talking multiple colors of ink, intricate patterning on the borders, company logo...the works. These things probably didn't come cheap. Now to compound it, I look, and some District VP or some high-up s**t manager has his signature on this thing, and I get to thinking "Did this a-hole sign every one of these?" - The answer, he must have. How many man hours do you think it took this guy to sign every single one of these certificates for every single employee? And what is this tool's salary? - Now think about how much money in all these s**tty certificates cost. I had to put it up on my wall as a reminder to myself of the wastefulness I see all the time at work. And so my "Wall of Shame" was born. Since then, I have added two more "Certificates of completion" for other various bulls**t mandatory corporate courses, and one customer service checklist that I was forced to sign and given a copy of. Just once, I would love to take down these certificates, carry them into a board meeting and say "You people want to cut costs? Stop f**king making these useless pieces of s**t."

I suppose some people actually treasure these things, and think of them as accomplishments, but seriously...If you need some piece of paper to make you feel better about yourself, you have some serious f**kin issues. I find it funny they spend a bunch of cash on some certificate when a simple email would suffice.

The irony of all of this though is what is most precious to me. When managers come by my desk, they see the certificates and actually think I'm proud of my customer service certificates. I can't help but giggle some sarcastic and sadistic inner laugh when they stop by. Those who know me though, know differently, and know that my "Wall of Shame" serves as a testament to how literally, and thoroughly f**ked up Corporate America is. I suppose I should probably be fired.