Blame it on the Office Equipment

Remember that scene in Office Space where they take the copy machine and smash it to pieces with a baseball bat while gangsta music plays in the background? That scene was hilarious because, while most of us don’t relate to beating the crap out of an actual person in the middle of a vacant field and leaving them for dead, most of us can identify with the desire to take, let’s say, a shredder out back and shooting it between it’s crooked little teeth. (If you actually are in the mafia and do relate to baseball bat beatings and fitting people with cement shoes or whatever, know that I was really sad when James Caan got all shot up in that one movie)



Reaching my fingers into the machine (without unplugging it first cuz I like to live on the wild-side) and prying out, piece by stupid piece, all the little zig-zag strips of paper that keep clogging the dang thing - not my favorite job. Especially when I’m stooped over at an awkward angle, my not so insubstantial butt in the air, trying to suppress a stream of expletives when a man comes up behind me who has to clear his throat to get my attention (after standing there for who knows how long!) and I have to pull myself together and act like I’m not embarrassed so I can say, “Oh. Hello. How can I help you?” It’s moments like this when I think, “Huh, I have not come quite as far as I thought I would at age 25. I was so certain I would have an army of minions to do these menial tasks for me by now.” Turns out I am a minion. I don’t even know what that means.

Google Dictionary definition of a minion:

min•ion (mĭn'yən)
n.
1. An obsequious follower or dependent; a sycophant.

Ahem. I’m not proud of this next part but it was necessary as my vocabulary isn’t what it never was.

obsequious [uh b-see-kwee-uh s]
–adjective
1. characterized by or showing servile complaisance or deference.

sycophant [sik-uh-fuh nt, -fant, sahy-kuh-]
–noun
1. a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite.

A fawning parasite? That can’t be right.

No, no. I simply have yet to reach my full potential. I blame the shredder.