The atmosphere of one’s office can really affect how well his or her day will go. My old office in Baltimore was a bit more quirky than my office here. It meant for some more interesting stories, but at the same time a few more annoying days.

The office kitchen is one of the few areas that really defines an organization’s culture. For example, my old office’s kitchen was a bit larger and was constantly filled during the lunch time hours, and in turn would get quite noisy. People loved to socialize there. Here, eh not so much. There is one group who frequents the lunch room each day but everyone else either goes out for lunch or eats at their desk. I do a little bit of both- leave to get food and come back and stuff my face in my cubicle.

The combination of on-the-edge-of-crazy people plus a popular office kitchen can get interesting. Those are the offices that contribute to the passive aggressive notes website. If I had known about that website in my earlier days, I most definitely could have contributed a few post-its from the office hater. “Office Hater’s Food- It would be appreciated if you don’t touch!” “Let’s have a clean kitchen- wash your dishes!” “Don’t leave paper in the printer!- help keep this area clean!!” Goodness gracious. So many times I wanted to post-it her face with “You’re such a hard worker, so much so that we all talk about you behind your back and named you after a swamp animal!”

Luckily, everything here is pretty mellow. I’m diggin’ it. However there is always the inevitable issue of wandering office smells that you have to deal with. The alright that guy just did a cube dusting smell, the that girl just put on lotion smell, that lunch smells good smell, that lunch smells disgusting smell, the really? You chose that perfume today? smell, the that guy has halitosis smell (old office), etc. Today I was walking through the hallway and smelled vomit. And then later I walked through the same hallway and smelled something like blueberry waffles.

I don’t know what else to say about that. This post kind of sucks.