Matthew Scissorhands

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yes! At last! If you could see me right now, I'm doing a very happy dance in my cubicle, though if you can't it's probably for the best because my dance leaves a lot to be desired.

I finally was able to respond to my Phantom Noter in terms that he can understand: Eat shit and die! This is war and the tide is finally turning in my direction!

Also, my comedy stylings are way funnier than Gallagher, even with the extra fruit.

My Box Runneth Over

Complain and you shall receive! People were queuing up down the hall yesterday when they finally realized I had a comment box that they could explicitly tell me what they thought and as you can see, I instantly told them what they could do with their opinions.  It turns out though that everyone was going out of their way to write nice things like "you're so sweet," "keep doing an awesome job," "we need to hang out more, you're fun" and not writing me hate mail as expected.  So now just about the entire office is mad and not talking to me.  Maybe that's a good thing though; I hate everyone here too and the last thing I want to do is sit with one of them through lunch.

Wednesday the 29th

My cat is a she and she's far too much of a lady to come after me like that. Yes, she's a holy terror, but she's my holy terror.

Leave it to this guy to not follow instructions and use my fancy new comment box. Yes, a big part of me putting it there was to limit the area that people passing by could leave half-drunk cups of cold coffee, chewed pens, and their morning bagel remnants. But I also wanted to let my Phantom Noter know exactly what I think of him and his comments the moment he puts one inside the box.

You'd think figuring out his identity would be easy considering his complete lack of literacy, but then that covers so many people I work with.

Comment Box

To combat the summer onslaught of various love letters and/or death threats I've been receiving, I decided to build a receptacle to receive all manner of complaints.  It is truly amazing.

And yes, that's my bike in the photo. I'm that green. Eat it.

Fold This!

My "friend" keeps spending more and more time on these things. You'd think he'd have better things to do at work than coming up with annoying artwork. Facebook doesn't update itself.

Instead I get this stupid reverse Fold-Out. I would rather die than puke, I have never been fired (though I frequently quit), I don't wear pants at work (and my legs are much shapelier), and I don't drink beer (it makes me feel fat). C'mon, you can insult me better than that!

Also, it turns out my leaving the Post-Its in the I.T. guy's office wasn't his undoing; he was reselling computers he'd purchase on the company's dime for a nifty profit. I might still continue to take credit for his firing though, because I'm that kind of guy. History is written by the winners, or at least the person who gets to their blog first.

Guilt-Free

Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!

I may have fingered the wrong man for the crime, but I agree with the Phantom Noter, there is no love lost among any of the staff here at our computer tech's departure. In fact, everyone with me on the second floor celebrated his demise over margaritas at lunch!

If you're wagging your finger in shame at me, I should point out that this Post-It is misleading.  The I.T. guy does not have any children. I can guarantee that no woman on earth would desire to procreate with that skinny-jeaned freak. Hell, I'm not even sure he knows how.

Post-I.T.

(to read the full letter, right-click and open in a new window or tab to zoom in)

Talk about resounding success! That asshole in I.T. got fired!! Game, set, and match! Now everyone has something to gossip about around here other than me for a good solid week. They should be kissing my feet for the service I selflessly performed on their behalf. No one around here liked that guy. Now I finally get a Post-It-free environment and I can go back to doing what I do best: being awesome and surfing the Internet.

I shall miss his near-daily suggestions for my death (both accidental and intentional) and somewhat entertainingly childish drawings of my cat and piles of poop, but not enough to care about his employment status. I certainly won't miss his surly attitude, greasy haircut, nonstop monologues about the latest superhero movies and why I should care about "The Hobbit", ironic soul patch, and inability to update my computer past Windows XP.  I could go on, but I won't.

You're welcome, co-workers!

3-Legged Bitches

I can't believe the women in Legal won AGAIN. It's infuriating enough losing to one lesbian, but two?  I can't even tell you. And I recruited some real talent this time; I was able to convince my work-friend Mr. Black to do it. (He's not actually black--that's just a codename for the Internet--though he is quite lithe and athletic.) It looked like we might win when I suddenly found myself eating a dirt sandwich, which I can tell you did not impress my superiors. I've spent so much time trying to figure out the identity the Phantom Noter that I wasn't practicing my three-legged exercises or coming up with ways to cheat like I should have been doing. Next year, ladies. Next year.

A Bone to Pick

I have been losing weight; I am not anorexic as my Phantom Noter insists on depicting me.

I like that the ants have eaten everything but my hair and that they find me more delicious than the giant basket of food next to me. I am pretty damn tasty though, if I do say so myself.

And I'm planning on winning the three-legged race at this company picnic. The ladies in Legal win it every year and I'm determined to wipe those overly-lipsticked, snaggletoothed smiles right off their faces. Those bitches better look out.  As soon as I find a partner.

01000110 01001101 01001100

I had to plug this into the Internet to figure out what it means:

S-H-I-T-H-E-A-D

I can only conclude that this is the work of that douche bag in I.T. because why on earth would anyone else go to such lengthy trouble to send me a binary-coded message? It's probably second nature to him and we haven't gotten the new Post-Its in yet, so this could only be from the stash I actually hid in his office.  I know for a fact Legal doesn't have any because I stole theirs myself.  It also explains the marginally tech-savvy DVD the other day and the steno pad he's been using this week is as outdated as the computers this place makes us use.

I don't know why this guy hates my guts so much. I've never done anything to him, and I mean literally nothing; I don't even say "Hello".

Special Features

A DVD! New Post-its still haven't arrived nor have they found the hidden ones in the I.T. guy's office, so the Phantom Noter has made do with a DVD.  I put it in my computer and was promptly greeted with the full screen message "SHUT THE FUCK UP". Classy. I always like this guy when he uses his words. It's invigorating.

Apparently this person doesn't work on my floor because if he did, he'd know that we're already out of toilet paper.  That's because of the long procession of "gentlemen" who use the facilities 20 feet from my desk like it's Hiroshima and they leave the door wide open for the fallout to knock out everyone in my area. I've complained to management about the noxious smell you can taste and custodial about getting the door to automatically close itself, but to no avail. My next move is to accost the staff in the office commissary and strongly urge them to provide healthier meals with less red meat and bacon.

Also, I've been wanting to put a bullet through Bart Simpson's head for years. He's just not that funny anymore.

Post-it Partum

(to read the full letter, right-click and open in a new window or tab to zoom in)

Oh my god. This has made my day! What better way to smoke out the Phantom Noter than an inter-office witch hunt?! The last time we had one of these here, it was a cross between the McCarthy hearings and the Nuremberg trials.  Largely over e-mail and all about a missing stapler. (It was eventually returned anonymously, but reeked of the homeless.)

Last week, fearing some kind of reprisal for getting caught hiding all of the Post-its in the office, I decided to stash them in a plastic grocery bag behind the potted plant in the I.T. guy's office. They're very eco-friendly here, so that would be doubly damning.  Plus, he's a dick, so it might even make me a folk hero among my co-workers when we look back on this at the Christmas party. I've asked him seven times to fix my computer and he keeps brushing me off, so he can burn in Hell. (But after the company picnic, because he makes the best ambrosia salad.)

Highway to Hello

It's not my death this time, just my cat's. And of course, there's the obligatory pile of poo again. These sketches of doom are getting mighty epic now that he's switched to the wide screen format of a steno pad. Who even uses those anymore?  It should help me in my search to discover the identity of my secret admirer, though the quality of the artwork might suggest it's just some over-educated five-year-old and not one of my co-workers at all, in which case I might be the one arrested when all of this is said and done.

What I don't understand is, why am I eating in such a low-rent restaurant with a view of the freeway and vermin?  Yes, I may work in a cubicle in a bullpen with no corner office in sight, but I still treat myself right when I go out.  And I never dine alone, even if I have to pay for it.

Mad About the Boy

I think we all know where all the Post-Its have gone: the Internet! Yes, I have locked them in my desk but my friend has persisted, just as I knew he would.  It's like he's the Marquis de Sade at the end of "Quills", determined to write, despite his lack of parchment and quill, on the wall in his own feces (without all the savagery, of course). Or it's like I'm being pestered by a Mad Magazine writer with a moderately entertaining fold-in.

It's something I find quite admirable about him and he's definitely grown as an artist. Just look at the perspective work on the lower doodle. I might frame it. Or use it as toilet paper, because we've also run out of that.

Who Shot HR?

(to read the full letter, right-click and open in a new window or tab to zoom in)

Human Resources speaks!  I have never gotten a response from them so quickly before. I once contacted them about a suspicious smell coming through the vents last year and they only just sent someone to inspect the first floor offices last Thursday.  I was convinced it was Legionnaire's and this was Management's not-so-subtle way of getting rid of some of the higher paid staff, but the workmen insisted it was just a rotting, half-eaten burrito the janitors missed (or more likely left behind).

I don't know what I was expecting. And the letter's not even spell-checked!  Statuettes instead of statutes? Must-fire instead of must-hire?  I'm not even sure "untowardity" is an actual word.  And leave it to them to put the blame of all of this on me! I'm not the one wasting company stationery to antagonize.  What did I do to deserve any of this unwarranted attention from a co-worker? I mean, I get it: I am--let's face it--amazing at my job. So what if it looks like I spend my day lounging around and chatting with my fellow man? Should I be penalized for a devil-may-care attitude, winning smile, and need for a generous inseam?  That just means my work is done and with style. If I'm running around screaming unnecessarily like the other morons around here, that's the real time to panic.

As for the pittance I can roll-over into my even smaller 401K, I'm going to use that to buy a churro with which I can bribe the security guard to let me into HR and leave a few choice Post-Its of my own.

Summer Vacation

If only I could take a vacation.  It's obviously not one of my bosses with the Post-Its because they don't like it when I so much as get up to go to the bathroom, let alone have one measly day off.  I suspect one morning I will come in to work and find shackles and chains in my cubicle.

I am most certainly owed the money from my unclaimed vacation days and I will promptly issue a memo to HR demanding both my hard-earned cash and some kind of action taken against the Phantom Noter, though if they gave me a raise or an office with walls, I would gladly shut my mouth.

Concentration

No flowery language like last time, just an incredibly simple pictographic message. Of course this person couldn't even make an easy statement like "I hate your guts" without messing it up. In a classic rebus one wouldn't use an Uncle Sam-style finger point to represent "your"; I would have used a Euro sign followed by a minus "O". Clearly this person has never watched a game show before.  And I am losing weight, still.  Why do people have to be so jealous?

Out on a Limerick

You know what? At least he knows how to properly pronounce Bangor. And rhyming "his desk" with "grotesque" is actually quite impressive.  And there's my adorable cat again.  Could this be Stockholm Syndrome?  Am I falling in love with my tormentor?  No, the rhythm and structure of his limerick is complete shit.  Also, he's making fun of Dark Shadows.  It would never work between us. I have standards.

Pig Latin

Okay, I admit, I had to look this one up on the Internet.  But my education was not about studying dead languages nor was it anything I'd call "fancy pants".  In fact, there was decidedly a lack of pants while I was in school.  Hey-ho! It seems to me this fool is just jealous that I can conjugate better than anyone.  So I'm narrowing my search parameters to someone around here with far too much time on their hands and a decent Internet connection.

Here's what I say to you, Phantom Noter: Podex perfectus es! 

Spoil Sport

No, I have not seen the latest and ridiculously long cinematic entry in the Batman franchise, but yes, I did go around the office telling everyone that Bane was Bruce Wayne's father and Catwoman runs off with Alfred.  The real spoiler is that they're all assholes who can't take a joke.  It's not like I shot someone!