Small Places : Nick L Belardes [23 of 128]

• I'll think up copy for an ad, sure. This industry is so C3PO. We help protocols speak to each other. He was a protocol droid.
• We translate. We can buildicon that gizmo. We can help protocols speak to one another.
• Only, like C3PO, I can't help but feel impending doom when I think.
• Eight.
• The day I saw boxes filled with pink sponge packaging I stared in wonder at the little rectangles. Here was my temporary answer to fun.
• Most corporate folk consider 'fun' a ludicrous non-serious detrimental work behavior.
• Creative marketing people are freaks who live for fun. Fun: more than just ball-game beer. Sorry to offend you simpletons.
• Fun is a complex process often meaning hyperfocusing on the mundane. There is something inherently appealing in a block of pink sponge.
• In and of itself it has no real value other than as a packaging product. You stuff them into empty spaces in boxes.
• They fill voids. Yet I see living shapes. I decide the sponge rectangles will make nice puppets.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [22 of 128]

• I don't make as much as my cab-driving father did back in the 1970s. He didn't have a degree. So where's the money? At Buildicon?
• Not in this job where ant killer Milt Butterlink gets 110,000 clamshells per year. Now I think I need to explain my take on advertising...
• Advertising. It's what fills sports stadiums, magazines, computer games, TV shows about nothing. It's a numbing new take on dish soap.
• Can you feel orgasmic about advertising? Sure you can. It gets ladies and gents to wash in adorable new ways and makes you coo and googoo.
• It's about interactive thinking. We need subliminal Buildicon messages that spin heads like soap bubble carousels in mindless playability.
• Ad creation takes enlightenment about the corporate world. A true mystery, yes. I work in a corporate world where everyone thinks
• I'm weird. No mystery there. Though I don't think my dead ants thought I was weird. Milt wants me to think up an ad concept for
• Buildicon's wireless recordable transmitter devices. It's for industrial data, like evil robots.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [21 of 128]

• I buy an ant farm and name all the ants inside after me. I call them my collective consciousness.
• They're all named Willie. I talk to them. I take the ant farm to a coffeehouse.
• I get a mocha, smile at the ants, read the paper and feel like God spinning planets on his fingertips.
• What else can I do but bring the ant farm to work? Workers come, stare into the little cubicles of sand. They wander off. I feel giantish.
• Soon I come to work and the ant farm is filled with water. The ants float hopelessly, lifeless. Milt walks by, winks.
• I stop bringing salsa. Milt is in his Benetton sweater attire, probably bought at the Cusack Movie Collection auction from High Fidelity.
• He oozes seedy Hollywood. He declares himself a big fan of Japanese samurai movies. He currently reads,
• "Samurai Stories and Other Decapitation Romances." I hate him.
• Seven.
• Most jobs are about nothing. The corporate world is no savior from that. I mean, what are we but a slowly drowning ant farm, anyway?
• I have a college degree, a marketing background that you can't laugh too hard at. But I make a mere 34K per year. I don't even have a car.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [20 of 128]

• Back to number two.
• Early on at Buildicon, Mike said: "You've only worked a week and you're already stinking up the office with that salsa!"
• It's such moments where I'm most calm. I stood next to a big bowl of my salsa. I calmly handed Mike a tortilla chip. He raised an eyebrow.
• Mulani then stepped from her office. Two eyebrows went up as Mike dipped. He took a bite. He chewed. He double-dipped and that was that.
• Mulani smiled as she tasted the salsa. Soon afterward I couldn't keep middle management fingers from greedily grabbing food from my desk.
• Everyone stopped by but the corporate prez. He's kind of like one of those weird beasts in Star Wars than can't be swayed by the Force.
• This Force was a salsa I swore, "I will never share such a guarded secret with others."
• Ten days later I posted the recipe on willieboy.com.
• By the way, in regards to the fourth workplace axiom, after three weeks of exceptional behavior, slack to your heart's content.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [19 of 128]

• The idea is nothing is serious. So statements become flirty, bombastic, sexy, overly offensive, sexually humorous, odd-gestured signals.
• Mulani pretends to be a victim, though really she is just as strange as Mike and I when it comes to increasing sexual tension at work.
• Example: Mulani walks up to Mike's desk: "Can I see the report?" Mike: "Not sure I wanna share unless you're blindfolded." Mulani: "OK."
• And then she rolls her eyes right after licking her lipsticky red lips and walks back to her office. It's an hourly routine. So we cope.
• Example: Mike: "Got the plotter to work. Says it needed less suckage." I reply: "Who would have thought anything would need less suckage?"
• Mulani and Joan both roll their eyes and tell us we're sick. Truth? They would be bored if it weren't for our sexual tension statements.
• Same phrase by Doug in shipping? Forget it. Mulani prefers jokes from non-creepy guys. Besides, these are matter-of-fact axioms to live by.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [18 of 128]

• Six.
• I've been here six months. I do nothing. It comes down to setting the mood. Ask yourself: "What can I do my first three weeks on the job?"
• I brought four axioms for a better work environment and for better all-around 'inefficiency' when I first arrived at Buildicon.
• Write these down, but not necessarily in this order. No sticky notes please. 1) How to increase sexual tension in the workplace.
• 2) How to woo the corporate crowd with a tasty salsa 3) How to have fun at work and not feel guilty about it 4) The 'Three Week' rule.
• Number four: Fake incredible work ethic. Act busy even if paying bills online.
• Company prez should see you stay five minutes extra each day. Number three: Laugh. It makes people think twice about your state of mind.
• Believe me, work laughter is impossible to achieve for most. I'll get back to number two.
• Number one occurs with relative ease and is contrary to every corporate code ever written in the post "me" age.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [17 of 128]

• Five.
• Mike stares into an outdated MAC G3. He downloads a Prince tune because we think a boyish secretary looks
• like she starred in "Purple Rain." Our desks share opposite cubicle walls. We see each other working.
• This is the part of the ant colony where mandibles are made out of Nerf. Mike's got a contract the rest of us don't have,
• making him immune from the daily grind. Truth? He never has to attend marketing meetings.
• Jealousy: Mike's strange anti-meeting immunity idol that he wears around his neck. It's a secret "Survivor" clause he can't talk about.
• That doesn't stop me from harassing him each day. And it doesn't keep him from showing off his imaginary idol and thumbing his nose at me.
• He pretends to take it off and wave it at me. I think hateful thoughts. He grins. Would he eat rat poop on "Survivor"? Of course he would.