Well problem solved! Introducing, for the first time ever, The Alt-Tab's 7 Levels of Office Misery, a completely accurate arbitrary way to chart just how bad your day's going. Enjoy (Read the rest of the guidelines and blog after the picture, I promise it'll be worth it).
There's really only one rule to follow when applying the 7 Levels of Misery to your work day: You do not qualify if your misery is of your own doing. If you fucked up a V-Lookup while analyzing stocks in Excel and caused a regime overthrow in a bloody coup in the third world country you were investing in, that's your own problem. If you arrived at work so hungover that you're seeking out the isolated bathroom on the abandoned floor to puke your brains out in privacy, you don't count. If you're a hooker and you just got the results of your pap-smear back, you do not count. The misery of your day has to be completely out of your hands, it's the only rule.
Level 1 - You Were Called into Work Early - Just throws your whole day off. Your sleep schedule? Ruined. Eating Schedule? Shot. Getting weird cravings for after lunch snacks at 10 AM because you've been up since 5 is just a weird place to be. And forget about your bowel movements. My private, 8:00 AM shit at home just became a public 10:30 shit in the middle stall with two co-workers playing Battleshits to my left and right.
Level 2 - Skipping Lunch to Eat at Your Desk - The one civil liberty held over from the days of Elementary school right up through College, The Lunch Break, gone. Even prisons have lunch breaks, think about that. Working your way through lunch is the surest sign that your day, only 3-4 hours old, is not going well, and is an ominous sign of things to come.
Level 3 - Badgered to the Point of Actively Scouring Monster.com in Your Cube - Everyone hits this once in a while, your boss has been riding you, your clients have been calling you with questions on everything from the meaning of life to the most efficient way to use a 3 hole puncher, and you just give up. You day dream for a couple hours of hire salary and a bigger cube on Monster (I was going to say The Ladders, but lets be realistic, no one reading this blog is a Ladders quality employee).
Level 4 - Taking Relaxation Tips from Will Smith - Watch out, shit's starting to get weird. You've hit that point where you just do not give a damn about those around you. Sure maybe the first time you let out a "WOOOOSSSAAAA," but maybe the next time you just let out a "What the Fuck," and the next thing you know you're muttering under the breath when your phone rings for the 20th time in the last 3 hours, and then who knows, maybe you attempt to put the phone on mute so you can swear up and down that the person on the other end is the dumbest fuck alive, only to realize you didn't quite hit the mute button hard enough...This is the stage where your fellow cube workers pop over to say things like "Rough day huh," and "been there," or my least favorite of all time, "could be worse." Just know that at that precise moment, I hate you. We may be friends, but I don't need your words of encouragement at this point in time, what I need is for you to GET THE HELL OUT OF MY FACE!
Level 5 - Piss Nirvana- It's that moment when you realize you've been holding it since 10:30 AM, it's now 5:00 PM and for the first time today you're not pouring over a spreadsheet or on some pointless conference call. You're finally free. You hit that bathroom and you'd swear up and down to anyone that there was a faint, halo like glow around that urinal. It feels good...actually it feels great. Of course a standard piss is like 45 seconds at most. You'll be back to work in no time, and this holy, out of body piss break that you're taking? Well you're really just spilling urine into a porcelain receptacle and standing in other people's pee splatter. It's sad, the things you find yourself grateful for when your will to live has been broken.
Level 6 - Playing the Lottery as Your Last Hope - You've moved right on past looking for new jobs and are just grasping at straws. Your day was so bad that you've come to the conclusion that no job, no matter what the pay, no matter what the perks, is worth having. You're playing birthdays, childhood addresses, and Tim Tebow's passing stats from last Sunday. Just throwing up hallelujahs...Side note, this can't be a "hey just throw in a quick pick" while you're already at the store, type thing. This has to be a, screw it, I'm going to White Hen specifically for a quick pick for tonight's Powerball Drawing (I did this tonight). Only free, no strings attached money is saving you now.
