Fesh 'n Chips

Over the years I have had many enemies. aku however is my archnemesis, he dwells in his den of evil in Manchester (a.k.a Mancuria) plotting his evil plans against me. Over the years he has built his empire: The wZt empire out of his headquarters in Mancuria. Great as it is the wZt empire, it is nothing compared to the empire I have built back at the Frozen Wastelands: The eZt empire. Over the years I managed to contain the influence of the wZt empire and keep it off the continent. But recently the tides have turned and wZt empire seemed to be growing stronger and stronger, taking advantage of the internal power struggle (between me and the voice in my head) that has torn the eZt empire.

For long I have sat there and did nothing, but those days are over. Today @ 10.05 CET I landed in Mancuria to put an end to this. I am on a 5-day vacation here in the wZt empire where I shall be consuming inhumane amounts of al-ke-hole and I'd be sighted in various clubs bouncing like a cheap ho. If you are in Mancuria, you have to see this.

Fesh Factor 2.0

After my successful pitch for a column at our internal newsletter, I decided to explore if the world was ready for some of my sick sick articles. The victim was: The Warsaw Insider. A monthly life-style magazine, that's targeted at expat and foreigners living in Warsaw. I approached the editor and she asked me to draft something that is around 600 words! Now, this is longer than my average post, but I went thru my old work and pieced together something ..........and wasn't expecting much. Got a call-back, it will run in November edition!

I give you a sneak peek of the upcoming Fesh Factor article in the Warsaw Insider magazine:

The Fesh Factor

Busytoids

In my 5 years with the Evil Corporation, I’ve seen busy. You know, those weeks when your world is falling apart and you wonder who mysteriously left half of yesterday’s pizza on the porch and you discover the dog in the microwave. But recently I’ve noticed that everyone at the office is busy all the time. And I mean everyone, be it the Global Operations Director or that new hire working on that amazingly-stupid-and-dangerously-brain-cell-reducing project. According to a recent survey, 9 out of 10 corporate employees have answered ‘Yes’ when they were asked: Do you consider yourself busy? Okay, so I made that bit about the survey up. I needed to add some creditability to my article and I was too lazy to look it up online, you got me.

I guess it’s another one of those corporate stereotypes. Overtime, this stereotype got associated with young hot-shots who make it big and skip the ladder and jump on the corporate elevator, they were always busy, right? So more and more of us Homo Corporatuses (Man The Corporate Offices Dweller) are aspiring to that level of busyiness. We consider it a measure of how successful we are, if we are more busy, chances are we are more successful. We chose to be busy, even subconsciously. More importantly we chose to let other people know that we are busy. It’s become a status symbol, like driving a Beemer or wearing a Bottega Veneta.

So at that point you can more or less classify yourself as a busyitoid or a non-busytoid. If you’re a busytoids then excellent, keep up the good work. If you are unfortunate enough to discover that you’re a non-busytoids, now is the right time to panic. Chances are, your boss is thinking to fire you at this very same moment because you’re not acting busy enough at work. But fear no more, I’m here to help transform you into a high performance busyitoid. Here’s my quick 5-point rough guide:

1. Whenever someone is passing you in the corridor and says: Hey, how's everything? always answer: Busy, busy!
2. Don't answer mails on time, and when someone asks you about the mail they sent you, complain for 5 mins about the 700 mails you get daily. They don't know you get 10 messages half of which from people you don’t know offering you different ‘miracle products’ to enlarge your penis.
3. Don't get back to voice mails, you will sound very needy if you answer back, and what are you going to say: I'm returning your call! That's just a reputation killer.
4. Always block your calendar even if you don't have meaningful stuff to do. For example: 9:00-10:00 stare at the screen mindlessly; 10:00-11:00 think about my happy place ...etc. Makes you seem very busy for people wanting to book you.
5. Most importantly, always, always show up late for meetings. Come in with a pill of papers and spend the first 5 mins explaining how today is a "crazy day".

You follow this guide for 4-6 weeks and I promise you that your chances of promotion will at least double!

You should probably also know that a few of us busytoids have realized how much of a joke all of this is, after living this lie for so long. We searched and found our ‘blue pill’ out of this lie. We live in secrecy in the corporate offices, hiding, waiting. It’s easy to spot us though, we’re one of the few remaining people in the corporate offices who when asked: How is everything? We still answer, with a smile: Fine, how about you?

FeshFesh

Are you a busytoid? Write me @

Consider THIS!

Those nifty envicons (à la emoticons), like the one above, are spreading like wild fire in the dry corporate mails nowadays. First I didn't mind them, but seeing how they are spreading now at an amazing speed, made me wonder why are we not seeing more of those envicons?

Maybe one that reads:
Please consider the environment by turning off the lights as you finish this meeting.
[icon of a cute little green lamp here]

Or we can turn up the intrusiveness a bit:
Please consider the environment by reusing this plastic cup you’re having your green tea in (yes, I can see you) for your next drink.
[icon of a green arrow pointing to where the cup is]

Or being a little bit more assertive, like:
Please consider the environment by recycling …you pig.
[icon of cute little piggie]

I’m down with the whole let’s be environmentally friendly and all, it’s just the method I'm questioning. Is that really an effective way? Picture this, you get a 15-page-long email (font 8) and procced to print it to be able to review it. Suddenly you see the envicon starting back at you, you realize this one is ‘marked’ and you can’t print it. This can only mean one thing: you need to get your printing-fix from one of the unmarked ones. File>Print, 100 copies. OK. aaaahhhhh the sweeeet sweeeet smell of freshly printed email. What, you don't do this regularly?

But if the person really cares about the environment and wants to help raise the awareness of others by doing something, aren't there more appropriate ways? For example, picking a worth cause, joining or donating to an NGO that actually does something about the environment instead of only preaching to others? I once had a meeting with one of them enviconics and she actually brought a print-out of her email (which had the super kool envicon at the end of it) instead of, like, I don't know, maybe bring her laptop to the meeting, like we all do?

Bottom line is, if you picked the environment as your cause and you are taking personal actions to help the environment and you live by those principles and this envicon is part of your cause, then respect. Otherwise please spare me this hypocritical, egoistic, feel-good, space-consuming piece of garbage... and please please don't print your own mails, that's just stupid.

21st Century Colosseum

I was watching a documentary about the Colosseum on National Geographic today and the dude was explaining how it was originally designed for gladiatorial fights. Over the centuries it became a popular sport, until it was outlawed in the 4th century. Yeah, it's beyond me how it took them couple of centuries to figure out that maybe killing other humans is not a bright idea. The weird thing is that later today I saw this show ' Robotica' which basically have two teams design two competing robots and then fight them to death, you're seeing where I am going right? Do you think that this robotic gladiatorial fights will be outlawed in the future? Say 25th century?

I agree that initially it sounds like one of the many stupid ideas I blurp regularly BUT I am sure stopping fights in the Colosseum 17 centuries ago wasn't a popular idea too! And if you're thinking this doesn't apply because we can't compare humans being killed with robots, then how do you justify the current international pressure to stop the Spanish bullfighting for example?

Think about it, it's the 25th century, cyborgs roam the earth serving us in every possible aspect. They have become an integral part of our civilization. Will bot fighting be outlawed? I would argue that it would, because as our civilization progresses we develop more compassion towards others, be it man, animal or cyborg.

it begins...

So I survived the last winter in the Northward Frozen Wastelands, worst I've witnessed was -16C and I must say it wasn't that bad. Few weeks ago a friend tells me that last winter (yes the one with the -16C) was on of the warmest winters in last 200 years. So statistically, this winter is bound to be worse than last one, now that's a spirit booster? ughhhh... BRING IT ON BIATCH!!!!

*You have to imagine me as this crazy Vietnam War solider who lost his legs (and mind) in Forest Gump and he was battling with the storm on the shrimp fishing boat.

My 'Professional' Nickname

I don't think I am a pleasant person to work with. I'm a perfectionist who does not tolerate failure. You know all those motivational quotes and management styles that explain how you learn from your mistakes? yeah, I don't buy this bullshit. Mistakes ARE mistakes, you shouldn't do them. Comprende?

I try to mange this sadistic-side of my personality as much as possible, but the moment I start to see someone slacking off, it's showtime. A few weeks back, I locked on such a target. It was one of the vendors I work with, my ' global vendor'. They were slacking off and the service they were offering me was becoming worse by the day. So it began, I invested so much energy in tracking everything to the utter most detail. I then kicked-off the shock and awe campaign, where I waged war on all fronts, picking up all the issues and scrutinizing them. It didn't take long until the weakest links broke. Two engineers broke under my pressure and basically did some seriously wrong actions. Two managers then followed suite in two fully documented cases. My work was almost complete, I had to go for the knock-out. All of this was escalated in a cunningly evil communication plan, that targeted all the major decision makers. It was so beautiful. Major restructures are now happening, major interventions, people changing jobs ...etc.

I'm not a bad guy, I just don't tolerate failure. But if someone needs to be the bad guy to expose a certain failure, I'd gladly do it. Sources inside my 'global vendor' tell me that they gave me an internal nickname, it's: The Bloodhound.

I think I like it.

*EFPoC(tm) Moments

*EFPoC(tm) moments are all around us. We live thru them everyday, you just don't realize it. Think about the moments when you felt the whole world is conspiring to help your cunningly evil plan. This is usually when you imagine yourself laughing a hysteric, diabolic, loud laugh, in your secluded castle, thunder in the background and all. Off course, if you have your own secluded castle already where you regularly do that, then WOW, you're beyond help! But for the rest of us, who only imagine this, *EFPoC(tm) is the way to go. For fellow Simpsonians out there, simply said this is a classic Mr. Burns ' Exxxxxxxxcellent' moment. See life is a lot easier if you relate it to Simpsons, after all, whatever it is, the Simspons already did it.

So, here's two of my favorite *EFPoC(tm) moments:

• Boyfriend of Hot-girl-who-works-with-you-and-you-have-a-massive-crush-on dumps her. Now the coast is clear for you, she's weak and vulnerable. *EFPoC(tm).
  
• Your potential customers, whom you have been begging for the last year to consider using your service of a secure hosting facility for their sensitive data, just got hacked. Now they'll come crawling to you. *EFPoC(tm).

*EFPoC(tm) off course being: Evil Finger Pyramid of Contemplation. The (tm) is for FeshFesh Inc.

So tell me, what are your *EFPoC(tm) moments?

Feshtoid # 7982

How many mails does a healthy male African Fesh send at work per month?

A. Between 50 and 300
B. Between 301 and 700
C. More than 701

Bounce Fesh, Bounce Bounce

It's easy to taunt me, I mean with my nerdiness, pervyiness or my unfantabulous physique it shouldn't be a problem. But that on the side, my dancing skelz have been (and still are) an easy topic for taunting me. It's either that I'm THAT bad or simply my dancing is so ultimate, so uber that basically folks are intimated by it and they choose to mock or else it will control them. I like to think it's the latter, helps me sleep at night.

I don't think my dancing routine fits with any of the universally accepted definitions of dancing. I do little movements, keep my hands in my pockets and I occasionally nod while I sip my Żubrówka with apple. But don't get me wrong, I'm not that boring. Given the right level (read: 1.5 gallons) of alcohol in my blood and just the right hip-hop song and BAM! The Fesh bounces. During the few times I've been sighted bouncing, I couldn't help but wonder how I would look to the casual onlooker? With all the bad bouncing, the awkward moves, the jittery-hand movements and not to mention my massive behind; I must look like a cheep ho bouncing in a cheap New York club on New Year's Eve, 1999. Don't ask how I know this.

С Днем Рождения Спутник

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'Published' Fesh

As of today, I am a 'published' author.

*cheers* *cheers*

Thank you, thank you. I must say I couldn't have done it without your support. After the two successful rounds (Famous Fesh and Famous Fesh - Phase II) of trying to name my column to-be, we agreed that the column should be called: The Fesh Factor.

Today I came out from a meeting to find the uber newsletter sitting on my desk, I eagerly picked it up and searched all of it's pages, all 5 of them, and there it was:

The Fesh Factor: Homo Corparatus

You could literally see the angelic golden glow around the newsletter and clearly hear in the background: 'haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalelouya'. My first column was actually an 'edited' version of two of my posts (Behold, a New Species and Pyramids & Quadrants). Yeah they removed all the juicy parts :S But still I'm happy man, Now I'm a published author.

Next Stop: Nobel Prize.