“The Office” vs. My Office

Everyone I know loves The Office.  Sure, there are factions that heavily favor either the British or American version. (I am camped out solidly on the American side of this divide because, I’ll be honest, I don’t get 100% of the British jokes or even understand 100% of what they’re saying.  Though I give them the benefit of the doubt that it’s very funny.)  And the reasons are pretty obvious – we all have to go to work and put up with weirdo-s, suck-ups, people who taken themselves way too seriously, those who refuse to take us seriously enough, the grossly incompetent, the inappropriately chatty.  My office is overwhelmingly full of kind, smart, charming folks, but inevitably someone steals the communal jar of M&Ms, sparking a week-long strike by the admin who replenishes the candy supply; someone comes into my office, looks me in the eye, and takes my chair without saying a word; or the (5^th floor!) office floods over the weekend, mysteriously leaving everything in the office waterlogged and smelling of mildew.  When these kind of events happen, I realize that The Office has also made me hyper-aware of the limitations of my work relationships.  I have work friends – we  go for coffee or lunch together; occasionally we all go out for drinks after work.  But when people around me start to behave ridiculously – like when, for example, a coworker notices that someone has thrown away the “delicious cheese treats” (my office is beside the break-room so I am privy to all manner of snack-related drama) and launches an investigation that would make the FBI proud – I do not have a best friend/suspenseful love interest at whom to roll my eyes.  Of course, I can laugh about these chair-stealing, snack-crazed antics with my officemate, but as lovely a person as she is, there is no deep pool of sexual tension and secret love between us.  And as much as I like my boss, we never get drunk and tell each other personal secrets. It seems unfair that every office in the world is full of Angelas, Dwights, Creeds, etc. but there are precious few Pams and Jims.  Now excuse me, I have to help investigate the reckless disposal of the cheese doodles.

Cool Mommy & Daddy Syndrome

I can only imagine how tough it must be to to turn 30, get married, have babies, and hang on your cool 20-something self.  Since I am 24, unmarried, and definitely babyless, this issue shouldn’t even be hanging around in my consciousness.  Unfortunately, my neighborhood is absolutely teeming with uber-hip parents and their far-out way-cool retro-stylin babies.  These fab young families force me to think about this every time I go to the grocery store, where a beautiful big-eyed baby gurgles up at me from within its SUV of a stroller as it listens to Sufyan Stevens on its tiny iPod.  If your baby loves the Ramones and is really sad about CBGB’s closing, the shops of Park Slope have the gear he/she needs to express himself.  Or rather, if you think that you can stay young forever by dressing your baby in miniature versions of the t-shirts you wore in college, Park Slope can help you with that. 

Every time I walk by a window displaying shirts for infants that are cooler and hipper than anything I own, or an ad for a Disco Baby event like this one, I get a little cranky.  I want to make pronouncements about Trying Too Hard.  That’s right, I went there.  Every junior high kid in America knows that nothing is more fatal to Cool than Trying Too Hard.  And dressing your baby in a t-shirt that says “Daddy is a Geek” in trendy san serif lettering inspired by the Studio 54 logo?  Trying.  Too.  Hard.

Do I feel a little sorry for the trendy offspring because their parents are using them as living accessories?  A little bit.  But mostly I’m just really jealous their fancy tees and swingin disco parties.  And I really really want an A-Team onesy.

So what if the children are grossly obese? They are excellent gamers!

 When I was a kid, cereal boxes had word scrambles and mazes and such on them.  I am still quite a spring chicken – the days when I ate cold cereal every morning before grade school were less than a decade ago.  And maybe those “What’s wrong with this picture” games on the Cheerio’s  (Ok, let’s be honest – Tastee-O’s - we were a generic cereal family) did have product placement in them, or strategic blended marketing, or whatever it’s called when the thing you’ve already bought has a sign on it telling you to buy something else.  But I don’t remember it.  What I remember is basically, “Oh - the dog is in the tree and the bird is in the dog-house! Circle it!”

Then the other day I was reading the side of a cereal box, and it was actually the most interesting piece of media I saw all week.  (Eat it, Report from the Baker Commission/Iraq Study Group!)  The thing basically went like this – now, please imagine this all in neon letters with lots of little graphics:

Hey Kids!  Work Out!  It is fun!  You can run like Botzo does! (picture of Botzo running) Jump like Moopie!  (picture of Moopie jumping) etc… 

EXERCISING WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER VIDEO-GAME-PLAYER!

  ALL THE SERIOUS GAMERS DO IT!

 Whaaaa?  First of all, sorry for the lame re-write.  I can’t remember the names and kiddy-speak verbatim, and “Moopie” and “Botzo” are hard examples of why I’m not in the children’s advertising biz.  More to the point though…. whhhaaattt?  Remember when people used to talk about the ways that video games were supposed to help kids in life?  Hand eye coordination, problem solving skills, spatial something or other, all of that?  Now apparently, the rest of life is supposed to make you a better gamer.  Also, could somebody please surgically remove the word “gamer” from the US vernacular.  I just threw up in my mouth a little bit as I typed it.

Not that kids do everything their cereal boxes tell them to, certainly not that they do those things for the reasons the cereal box tells them to, but seriously.  Can’t someone just put on the box ”Jumping around is fun!  Climbing trees is awesome!  Sitting around eating cheez-o-doodle-monster-puffs will make you hypertensive!  Watching too much tv and playing too many videogames will raise your lipid counts!” 

No?  Again, this is why I’m not in the biz.