Category: Doodling

Last week, there was a big celebration for work. Part of that was having a team of two from each branch compete in “Minute to Win it” challenges. Somehow I managed to convince everyone from my branch that naming our team “Team Ryan” was a good idea. It was that or “Team Jacob.”

We have a whiteboard at work, which we use to promote stuff. It gets changed occasionally, and since I was complaining about not having an outlet for my creativity at work (that’s not really how it happened) I was put in charge of doodling something on it for this month. This is the result:

I wasn’t struggling so much to create something that would draw people’s attention, but rather, to create something that was legible. My handwriting is awful to begin with, and using whiteboard markers only amplifies the problem.

I also had to take some creative liberties with The Unfee. Mostly due to the whiteboard markers not being my weapon of choice, but also because I don’t really care for the canon design. If you haven’t seen the Unfee for yourself, here’s the image straight from our website:

I don’t think it’s a terrible design or anything, but if you’ve seen the commercial (which, admittedly, is visually atrocious), or any of our more recent Unfee ads, you’ll notice that his design doesn’t work too well with many poses besides that one there. I have a great deal of respect for Cambrian (and I’m not just saying that so I don’t get fired for picking on the marketing department’s baby), and I think it’s a great promotion for a great service, but he’s just too awkward, and not in a fun way that works. I’ve spent a lot of time doodling Unfee, and I can never create something that looks good without betraying the original design.

So yeah. I’m pretty pleased with my whiteboard, and so are my co-workers. Also, if you don’t bank at Cambrian, you should go open an account there. And tell them Ryan referred you. I really need some referrals.

I work in a new building. It was built across the parking lot from a Superstore, which is always busy. We have comparatively little traffic, though things have picked up a little recently. The branch is close to the southernmost point of the city, and it’s a bit out of the way, which doesn’t help make us more accessible. However, it seems like the driveway to our parking lot is the real thing keeping people away. Take a look at the diagram below.

The blue arrow shows the way I come on on my drive to work. The gold arrows show the flow of traffic, and the purple arrow is the only way to access our parking lot. It should also be noted that this map is technically upside down (North is at the bottom).

So if you can navigate my clumsy map, you can see that when you journey to my building, you must make a u-turn when approaching from the main street. You could always make life easier and come in from the Superstore parking lot, but that’s just silly. Generally, you’re doing a u-turn.

And people bitch about this.

We’ve all heard people complain about stupid stuff before, but they get so riled up about this, you’d think that they’re taking the poor driveway planning as a personal attack on them. One guy came in yesterday and actually yelled at us about it. He’s not the first to do so, but the location has been open for seven months now, so at this point we’re a little taken aback when someone reacts so violently about it. I thought that people were realizing that it’s a tiny inconvenience and moved on with their lives. Stupid me.

Not that I care that people are too useless at driving to make a u-turn (“I had to make a three-point turn to get in here!”), but they take it out on us humble employees, who have nothing at all to do with it.

There are architects who designed the building and parking lot. There is Superstore, whose head office in Ontario is too apathetic to give us the okay to have the median cut out a little at the end (that part of the lot is on their property, not ours). There are the people at head office who are in charge of enacting some kind of solution. But no, the complaints and verbal assaults are all directed at the branch employees. Of course I’m not surprised, because when something goes wrong it’s clearly the next closest person’s fault.

I’m just sick of people thinking we have any say in this business at all. Yes, it’s a minor inconvenience. Suck it up, and then go dust the sand out of your vaginas. We have to do that u-turn every day. No, old man, I’m not going to rent a jackhammer and tear it up myself. You go do that. And enjoy it as much as you can before you get arrested for destruction of property, and probably a handful of other laws I’m sure that would break.

I’m sorry that the driveway is that way, but there’s nothing anyone who works in this building can do about it, so leave me alone. It’s a u-turn. I really don’t care. I’m a fairly competent driver, so it’s literally no problem at all for me.

If there’s a silver lining here, recently construction started to the South and East of our building. People think it’s the construction of a new entry/exit for the parking lot. I just love to watch the hope in their eyes vanish when I tell them that it’s actually just apartment buildings going up. Oh, the sweet taste of shattered dreams…