Bored Stiff Rebels
Scenario: My self-proclaimed techie officemate, the Queen of Pain and Tardiness (QPT), sent me (the Geoscience Hunk Wannabe or GHW) a couple of MS Excel files with gizmo listings that sell at discounted prices. Below is the e-mail transcript of our conversation. We’re simply two people who are, for the lack of a better adjective, bored stiff at work–
QPT (2:17 PM): Thought you might appreciate it, otherwise you’re a hopeless non techie doomed to create corny jokes.
GHW (2:34 PM): My birthday’s 2 ½ months away. Doesn’t this make gift-giving easier?
QPT (2:35 PM): Only that you’ll probably give it away anyway to some techie friend of yours who might appreciate it better.
GHW (2:36 PM): NOT! With my superior intellect, I can breeze through any gizmo in record time.
QPT (2:40 PM): I have no doubt about your unmatched mental skills. You just don’t appreciate these gizmos. Better yet, make it your belated happy birthday gift for your very pretty friend.
GHW (2:41 PM): Pretty friends, I have a lot. Unfortunately, none of them work in this office.
QPT (2:41 PM): Panget!
GHW (2:45 PM): It’s a good thing I’m quite mature now. If you told me the same thing fifteen years ago, I’ll be robbing convenience stores now.
QPT (2:46 PM): Huh? <clueless>
GHW (2:49 PM): Research has shown that children who suffered verbal abuse are more likely to become deviant characters in their adulthood. Most petty thieves endured abusive conditions during their formative years. Do you even know anything?
QPT (2:50 PM): So how come you’re deviant anyway? Somebody told you nasty things before? Aw… poor thing, you.
GHW (2:55 PM): I’m not deviant. I’m just bored most the time. Unlike you, you sissy conformist!
QPT (2:56 PM): You’re not bored; you’re a rebel without a cause. You eternally crowd your head with lousy issues. Ha!
GHW (2:59 PM): I do not! I represent all oppressed twenty somethings who suffer the injustice of having to live in a society where their full potential cannot be attained.
QPT (3:01 PM): Maybe because what they do is whine everyday without lifting a finger to improve their pitiable plight. On a different note, double slit experiment is the one that’s producing suspicious results right? Alternating light and dark bands right? So it’s more proper to talk of light as waves right, instead of particle photons?
GHW (3:03 PM): All I can say is that we whine for a valid reason. Light has both particle and wave properties. You’re much safer by specifying both. It’ll make you sound smarter. Balimbing ka nga lang!
QPT (3:04 PM): I know silly. I’m trying to cite experiments where light exhibits more as a wave, and experiments where light behaves more like a wave.
GHW (3:07 PM): And who says you’re allowed to waste time thinking of photons and waves? Admit it; you’re also a bored rebel like I am.
QPT (3:09 PM): I am so NOT! Unlike you, I transform my boredom into something sensible and fun like thinking of double-slit experiment to show light as a wave and Compton Effect to show light as particles. Bet you don’t know what Compton Effect is. You said it yourself, do you even know anything, you bored rebel, you?
GHW (3:16 PM): I make sensible blog entries during my free time, which in this case is most of the time. But that’s not the issue. You ALSO get bored and you tend to do things that are not in your job contract during office hours. That qualifies you as a rebel. And I know what Compton Effect is. What’s Google for, anyway?
May 16th, 2005 at 1:27 am
Of course you had to omit some lines that I’m so tempted to write here. And of course you ommitted the last email:
QPT: If we tend to do things that are not part of our job tasks, we become rebels in your definition. So everybody’s a rebel. is a rebel for sleeping during office hours. GH’s are rebels for chatting and laughting during office hours. What makes you think you’re so different? Come to think of it, you’re a sissy conformist and not the proud non-conformist that you claim yourself to be.