Friday five.

Top five excerpts from my 2007 "The Office" daily calendar (no, not that Office, or that Office, or even that Office, calendar but now I want all of those), which I ripped through to December 31st tonight because I just couldn't stand the suspense, or I needed the desk space, whatever, in no particular order:

• Murphy's Work Law - You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.
• Useful Phrases for Coworkers - I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
• Job Performance Terminology - "Approaches difficult problems with logic": Finds someone else to do the job.
• The Stages of an Employee - Executive: Despite having vast riches and grown children, chooses to come to work because it's fun. Says things like, "We need more market penetration in Liberia" and, over the next few months, it happens. If it doesn't, the executive must do even more work by saying, "Why don't we have market penetration in Liberia?" Magically, it happens and executive is called a visionary. Life is great!*
• From The Official Rules at Work: The principal function of an advanced design department nowadays is to keep up with the public relations department.
  

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* I once had a high-up boss who would breeze through the office making obscure requests. At first we would scramble to achieve these obscure requests, only to find that by the time we presented her with our results, she'd forgotten about her request. We eventually took the stance of ignoring them until they were repeated at least three times, at which point we would scramble to achieve the obscure request. It saved us hours, upon hours, upon hours. Seriously.