Eleven years is a long time. Some days we joked around – he especially liked to squeeze in the words “viagra” and “KY gel” somewhere. Some days we had nothing to say to each other than greetings. Some days we argued the mainframe or the Unix server was to blame for printing problem – I was usually right. Some days we talked about current events. Some days we showed each other the pictures of pets and talked about them. He didn’t know how many cats he had. Some days we had screaming matches, in one of which the sentences like “Fuck you” and “Go fuck yourself” flew at each other, and as a consequence, we ignored each other for months afterward. Some days he tried to convince me that I should incorporate myself as a nonprofit organization to deduct expense for my dogs. Some days he tried to sell me vitamins. Some days he tried to convince me I should get an expensive hobby and get a tax deduction. Some days he tried to convince me I should get cash for my clunker. Some days he tried to convince me that I should stop eating red meat and more veggies. Yeah, he usually tried to convince me, come to think of it. Not very successfully, I might add.

Several months ago, he tried to get rid of his pennies by leaving them out on top of a long  file cabinet next to his desk. He thought some people would take them. To his dismay, people started leaving their own unwanted pennies there and the number of pennies quickly grew. With so many pennies, some people started creating “penny art,” making images of things or just some abstract patterns with those pennies. Of course some others enjoyed destroying the “art.” He couldn’t understand why nobody wanted to take those pennies even after I repeatedly asked him why didn’t HE?

When I came back to work this Monday after a week’s absence, I was told he had been in ICU for 10 days already. He had called in sick the entire week before the week I missed work, so I hadn’t seen him for two weeks. I was told that he had initially gone to the hospital for throwing up blood and it turned out he had been bleeding internally. It had something to do with his liver, and he had liver cancer removed a few years ago – it must have been around the time we were ignoring each other because I had no idea he had liver cancer until two days ago. The doctors at the hospital wanted to transfer him to another hospital for liver transplant but before they could do that, his condition worsened.

He was a friendly enough person. With all his eccentricities and idiosyncracies, after more than twenty years of working at the same place, a lot of people at work maintained a love-hate relationship with him and he had become like an endearing family member. Some people  went to the hospital to visit. I had planned to visit him with two other coworkers today during lunch, even though he was not conscious, because we were told that he didn’t have much time left. His kidney was shutting down.

On top of his desk next to a bunch of scattered pennies, now sits a small leafy plant with a yellow ribbon with a card saying “In loving memory of Ben.” He died around eight o’clock this morning at the young age of sixty-five.

Rest in peace, Ben.

I don’t know if you heard about the Montana No Speed Limit Safety Paradox:

The desired safety effect from posting speed limits was achieved by removing them.

This paradox came from the results of the study done by Montana DOT, which revealed some very interesting facts  such as:

• The fatality rate in highway accidents decreased during the time there was no speed limit.
• More people used seat belts.
• Posted speed limits had either zero or negative effect on traffic safety.

Well, not so paradoxical to me. I think it’s because of those drivers I mentioned above. We all know fast moving vehicles on the left and slow moving vehicles on the right. With a speed limit, people drive as slow as they like on the leftmost lane, and think it’s their right, no matter how other people want to go past them. And I can just hear them say, hey, I’m driving already at a legal speed, you go around if YOU want, but I’m not fucking budging from my RIGHTFUL place. I have the right to drive in this lane! But withOUT a speed limit, these selfish people have to get out of the way since they don’t have the right to drive spitefully in the left lane. So with these these people out of the way and not blocking the flow of the traffic, less people try stupid reckless things with mounting frustration, tailgating, maneuvering to get in and out of lanes literally pushing cars off the lanes, trying to drive as fast as possible to close that gap and squeeze in, towards that promised wide open space a mile ahead of that moving wall. And then if and when they finally clear that wall, they take off dangerously fast to make up the lost time and to shake that frustration off and behind with that spiteful fuck.  No wonder the fatality rate decreases and people drive at more leisurely paces that suit them under no speed limit.

I don’t care how fast you are driving. If you’re driving in the leftmost lane at the same exact speed or slower than the other lane(s), you not only create traffic behind you, but also increase fatality rate. People need to change lanes. People need to get on the highway or get off the highway. People need to merge. So a half of  mile behind you, people have to drive 40mph on a highway because you are so fucking callous. Get the fuck out of the left lane if you are blocking the traffic flow for fuck’s sake.

That it is highly unlikely that the driver of that black SUV would read this is an understatement. But in the event that any one of the friends and family of those three-hundred forty-three who gave their lives that day happens to read this, I want to assure you. They will not be forgotten.

Ever since I came back online from the depression-induced hiatus after my Grizzley’s death, I’ve been seeing the tweets from topsurf mentioning “personal kanban series by ourfounder” on twitter. Not knowing what this exotic word kanban meant and who ourfounder was, I first thought this kanban thing had to do with some personal growth or spiritual awakening or some shit like that because the combination of the words “personal” and “kanban” and “ourfounder” gave me the feeling that this ourfounder guy is the founder of this spiritual or personal growth “system” for lack of a better word.

OK, I lied. I said at the end of the first paragraph that I’d tell you why the impostor and yadi yadi yada, but I feel too lazy and this post has gotten already a little too long going on a tangent, and I haven’t even gotten to my point, which has to do with sex and money and something else, as the title suggests and what interested you guys in the first place. So I’m just not gonna tell you. If you’re one of those who wondered, you’re just gonna have to keep wonderin’.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so the last weekend, I finally asked topsurf what this kanban was. She gave me the link to the Personal Kanban Series, and suggested I read it because it helped her a lot. I started reading one article a day (what? You think my pea-sized brain can take more than THAT a day?) and found out  it’s not what I thought at all. It’s a tool to improve  productivity, and ourfounder guy is not  a spiritual leader or a cult founder, but a management consultant named Jim Benson. I’ve decided to try kanban  in my life at home rather than at work because home is where I suffer from lack of productivity in doing shit around the house – all four dogs, who refuse to help bring home the bacon by getting jobs and such, believe it or not, also refuse to help around the house with picking things up, vacuuming or dusting, etc.

Anyway. Crud… I’m so far away from what I wanted to blog about now I wonder if I should even try. Oh well. Whatever. So now I come to the point that has very little to do with most of what I have jabbered on about so far.

In one of his articles, Jim Benson states,

Human beings want three things in life: sex, money, and effective prioritization.

I, who I think is a human being, happen to want money, naps, and food. In that order. And lots of them. But I usually can’t pass for normal. So I kinda understand his statement and I even agree with the money part as you can see. And I can understand the sex part, too – psst, have you noticed Jim is a guy? But effective prioritization? Uh… hmmm… Methinks his profession clouded his mind right there. I think it should be “new and improved way to get sex and money fast without much effort” or “effective way to delegate” or “effective way to evade responsibility” or “better way to blame somebody else” or  something along those lines.

Drats. Now that I said it, I realize I don’t really have much of a point. I might have “subconsciously”  just put that title to pique your interest and make you read this meaningless blathering. Don’t you think it’s a very clever title anyways, eh?

I don’t know if I’ve blogged about it before, but since IT moved from the headquarters to this building occupying just one floor, we don’t have cubicles. The desks are placed right next to each other, and there is no barrier between my space and the next guy’s space. Herein lies the problem.

There is this auditor who has been coming in and sitting at the empty desk next to mine for the last several weeks to audit our  SOX compliance. Ever since I came back to work from my staycation, I’ve noticed that this guy has been expanding his space, which means he’s been encroaching upon my space.

I come to work in the morning, and his laptop case, not a portion of it but the WHOLE of it, is comfortably standing on the floor casually leaning against MY file cabinet of MY desk. His files are arranged on his desk and on about a foot of my desk. I don’t really care about the desk space because it’s the space I don’t get much use of, except that I don’t like him nonchalantly just claiming the space.

I have been just pushing his laptop case over to HIS side so that it  leans on the file cabinet of HIS desk. Every single morning. And during the course of a day, it gradually crawls towards my side again. The thing is this. He doesn’t have to open his cabinet cause there is nothing in there! And I DO use my file cabinet. Why the fuck is he doing this?

Today, I came in and I just opened my cabinet without moving his laptop case because I knew he could see me. It fell over. He tried to catch it, but he couldn’t. It was lying on MY side right next to my chair. He turned back and kept on doing what he had been doing before WITHOUT picking it up and moving it. I guess he thought since I knocked it over, so I’d pick it up? Maybe?

Uh… like I give a fuck? So I went around doing my thing, pushing my chair out when I had to get up, which, incidentally, might have trampled on his laptop case  more than once, and I  “accidentally” kicked the laptop case numerous times, and strangely enough, I “somehow” had to get up and go away from my desk quite frequently this morning. Finally when I came back from the lunch, he had moved his laptop case completely under his desk, out of reach of my chair and my oh so pretty little feet.

Oh, I’m SOOOOO giddy with anticipation for tomorrow morning. I SOOOO wanna see where his laptop case would be when I come in. People in the office will have something to talk about for a few days if I see that case grace my cabinet again tomorrow morning.