The Water Cooler
Posted by sam at July 20th, 2005
Everyone at work found my blog. I’m not sure what their interest is in learning about my interest in robots and pissing people off, but this post is especially for them, my dear readers at work. Come to think of it, I don’t know why any of you freaks read this garbage.
Anywho … we got a new water cooler at work. In the coporate husssle and bussle environment, the water cooler is an integral part to office culture. Besides being the place of inappropriate conversation, gossip mining, and the place to find out about underground office cock fights, it is a place to … uhm … get water if you’re thirsty.
Our old water cooler consisted of not actually any water, except in its frozen form of ice. Yes, our last water cooler was actually an ice chest. The kind with the little shovel to dispense the ice to your cup. You had to get there in the morning or it was all gone. Also, in true Utah fashion, the ice tasted like dirt.
So I guess someone wasn’t happy with the dirt ice and talked the higher-ups into buying a new revolutionary X2000 oversized R2D2 ice fabricating automagical water dispensifier.
The X2000 oversized R2D2 ice fabricating automagical water dispensifier features dual motion sensing dispensifiers for ice an water. Actually, I guess you could say that it just dispenses water. Water and frozen water.
So the idea is that you simply put your cup underneath the water or frozen water dispenser and it will automagically know you’re there and dispense it’s sweet necter. But, like automagical sinks, automagical hand dryers, automagical doors, and Ford’s - the concept is nice but it just doesn’t work.
Instead of dispensing ice when you put your cup up, it sits there and does nothing. So you start wiggling the cup around to try to trip the sensor. As soon as you move your cup away, it starts dispensing forzen water, and continues to do so up until you put your cup underneath it again. So you start moving your cup some more and ice ends up everywhere. A bunch on the floor, and a few pieces in your cup.
Let me tell you about the frozen water. It’s the most technologically advanced non-dense ice I have ever seen. Room temperature water melts the “ice” in less then a few minutes, and doesn’t even cool down the drink.
And it still tastes like dirt.
The awesome thing about the X2000 oversized R2D2 ice fabricating automagical water dispensifier is that it looks like a rocket ship and could probably fly to the moon. Also, I think it has advanced AI and voice recognition so you can carry on about who in the office is sleeping with who, and who is gay, etc. with the ice maker itself, you don’t even need to get the co-workers involved.
You: Hey X2000 oversized R2D2 ice fabricating automagical water dispensifier
x2000: Good day sir, how may I be of service?
You: Did you hear that Susie Q is actually an alien from outer space?
x2000: oh, no she did-int!!
You: Yeah, she ate Bill McGorgins brains last night
x2000: that slut!
You get the idea…

G-Thang,
I don’t respond to blogs and am not “up” on the protocol of who to address so I will assign the moniker ‘g-thang’ and present these thoughts as if I were speaking directly to an ice/dirt-machine-obsessed-over-analyzing conspiracy theorist. Soooo….
First, the ice/dirt machine is actually not intended to cool your drink, it dispenses a combination of nutrient rich compounds and minerals (hence the dirt flavor) to enhance the productivity of this team of hard working web browsers. The only way management can get anyone to ingest these compounds is to mix them with water in some form and offer them as a service. The previous dispenser was faulty and leaked its contents through the floor to the company below, costing millions of dollars in lost productivity and mineral richness. Heads rolled let me assure you. Now the dispenser analyzes your hand as you hold a cup and registers your nutrient/mineral levels, if you are trying to OD on mineral goodness, it is programmed to respond accordingly. Stay tuned though I am currently working on a low level BIOS hack that will allow unlimited access to the dirt dispenser… let the good times roll.
Secondly, the new place to find “inappropriate conversation, gossip mining, and the place to find out about underground office cock fights” is over at a couple of desks manned by two fashion conscious ensemble analysts (affectionately called EA). EA is equally willing and able to talk about anything from fashion faux paux (spelling?) to feminine hygiene products and you may actually learn a little (something about absorbancy…). I highly recommend you update your place of inter-office-intelligence-gathering to include the EA twins.
Lastly, I thought I would mention the impending visit of the fire marshal to our location replete with obligatory fire drill and a dressing down for packing 500 people into a conference room meant to hold 50. It is a point of minutiae that almost matches the importance of the dirt dispenser… almost. More to come on that I am sure.
I hope this clarification will assist you in the future, by the way it would be more appropriate to address the dirt dispenser in the feminine as it most resembles… Oh never mind.
anonymous
uh…your gay. Has anyone seen this? http://images.acco.com/SWINGLINE/S7074740/S7074740-8282.jpg
anonymous
yes, the dispenser is like a Ford. It was a nice idea to try to resurrect the completely castrated mustang junk heap, but deep down below the chrome and stupid huge healights that blind elephants crossing the street it still has the mechanical genius of road workers! For those of you not familiar with road workers, they are neither mechanical nor geniuseses. Just like it was a good idea to let us have all the free ice we could ever chew on while on a conference call (without putting the phone on mute). Come to think of it, the ice/water/frozen water dispenser looks like a ford car - it looks like a good idea but once used your realize it was designed by spyder monkies living in the Tibetan zoo… or maybe my moron neighbors who work on their engine while the car is still running. In any case, we digress.
The real culprit for dirt water in Utah is Suzy Q. She is really an alien who is dumping saturian dirt into the water supply. This will effectively brain wash all of us into actually liking Ernest again so he can start making more good quality films. That slut.
anonymous
wait, when did we stop liking Ernest?
gthing