Close your eyes. Now imagine riding on a crowded train to work. An obese woman’s butt is engulfing your hip. A presumably homeless man is standing in front of you muttering nonsense while you’re just trying to pretend to listen to music on your headphones even though they aren’t connected to your phone. Now, I ask you to descend deeper into the darkness and envision this desolate fellow sneezing directly onto your shoulder. No remorse. No “I’m sorry.” Just cold, uncomfortable silence layered on top of the Ebola-sneeze that is manifesting on your shoulders. Open your eyes. This was my nightmare/Monday before I even got into work.
Look, work’s trash. No surprise there. We bust our asses for 60 hours a week, earn less than what we’re worth, and receive zero praise in the process. What’s even trash-er is the fact that everything surrounding our actual work life is hazardous to our health. If it’s not homeless vagrants sneezing pathogens onto your collarbone, it’s something else. And by “something else,” I mean everything in your god damn office is a dangerous. Seriously, look around. Roughly 90% of the items around can kill you and the people around you. Let’s do a run through:
1. Staple Remover
YO. How did we allow staple removers to slip through life’s cracks? It’s almost impressive how we’ve had several technological renaissances without once considering a safer way to remove staples. Like, “Nah, we’re all set with a metal, piranha-like killing machine. No way that we can improve upon this”
Full disclosure: I don’t even know how to use these fucking things. Do you take the staple off in the front or the back? Actually, we’re all going to be dead before we can find out.
2. Scissors
Honestly, who needs to cut shit at work? Unless you’re a kindergarten teacher, I see no purpose for scissors in the workplace. I’m fairly convinced that we keep these around for anarchy purposes. Mainly for when Lenny in Tax decides to snap and gets a little too fed up at the speed his coffee is pouring out of the Keurig. Look at your desk? See those scissors? Just know deep down that the only reason you own those is to stab and slice your way out of your cube in the event all of your coworkers go crazy. But, man, that 9 to 5 — it’s the American Dream!
3. Rulers (with the metal on the side)
From the jump, I’ve exclusively used rulers as sword-like weapons and as a practical means to measure my penis. Other than that, I don’t find much use for them. Sure, we all have them on our desks, but why? A ruler isn’t going to help you with V-Lookups or running macros. They will, however, help you become the “threatening” coworker that no one wants to invite to lunch, though. Which, all things considering, is a win. A huge win.
Call me classy, but dick measuring is exclusively an at-home activity. Grow up, Count Chocula.
4. Hole Puncher
Probably the most terrifying item in the office. One false move and your entire life can be changed in an instant. Without fail, there is always some case on those TLC medical shows about some dude getting his finger and/or balls mangled by a hole punch. For some reason, dudes just love sticking their dick and balls into things they shouldn’t. Hole punchers are just another occupational hazard for your run-of-the-mill perma-horny office bro.
5. Copy Machine
Ever have to fix a paper jam in the copy machine? There are roughly 1000 symbols, warnings, and crude drawings telling you to not to touch anything or else you’ll die. Unfortunately that tiny paper jam in the deep back corner needs tending to and that Powerpoint ain’t going to present itself. So stick your arm in there, ignore the endless maze of skull & crossbone images and electrocution symbols, and pull that sliver of paper out of compartment A2 like the excellent worker bee you are. Don’t worry, you have a $25,000 life insurance plan. That’s enough to buy a Kia without a functioning radio, so that’s almost a net-gain.
6. Binders
The horrible cousin of the three-hole punch. Binder rings sit right below the NYPD on the list of things that I fear the most. Each attempt to fill a binder is a scenario where you’re putting your life on the line. At any given moment, one of those rings can become sentient and go rogue. Imagine that? You’re putting together documents for a meeting that you’re not allowed to speak at and all of a sudden the binder just decides it doesn’t like you and one of the rings clasps onto your finger with 100 megatons of force. Fate worse than death.
7. Stapler
If you’ve been around the cubicle long enough, you probably stapled your finger at some point. You know the dance — the stapler gets jammed, you start fiddling, and BAM. There’s a staple inside of your finger, swimming in your blood stream, and infecting your entire genetic makeup. Extreme? Maybe. But I’m pretty sure there are at least two unaccounted for staples that have been floating inside of me for years. And the result: zero staple-related superpowers, with all the perks of sickle cell anemia. Staplers = not lit.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, work is killing you from every angle possible. You’re contracting all sorts of germs riding dick-to-butt on the train, your chair is fucking up your posture, and Suzie, the girl with the annoying voice in HR, is driving you to seppuku yourself with a metal-edged ruler. Honestly, you should probably quit whatever you’re doing right now — it sounds like the sneezing homeless dude is leading a pretty charmed life when you really think about it.