Dog-friendly policies that allow employees to bring well-behaved pets to work are popping up in many offices and, by all accounts, the downsides are minimal.

“We always say around here that dogs have never broken anything. People have, but dogs, never,” says Jeanine Falcon of Replacements Ltd., the Greensboro, N.C., company that warehouses more than 13 million pieces of china, crystal and silver and ships out thousands of items every day.

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Dogs allowed - Creature comforts at the workplace

Picture a petit woodland glen on your coffee table with moss, ferns and ivy nestled around a pine cone. Or a tiny beach retreat in your office cubicle featuring sand, shells, a sliver of driftwood and an air plant. For those who don’t have the time or space for a garden outdoors, a terrarium is a way to enjoy nature with minimal work.

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Terrariums - indoor gardening on a small scale - Baltimore Sun

I’ve been told I’m paranoid, but only by those determined to destroy me. Still, I tend to notice and catalogue incidents of aggression in the office workplace, and there are three basic degrees: passive aggression, naked aggression, and scantily clad aggression. To illustrate my point, let’s go over some typical scenarios.

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Frank Mulligan: An office guide to anger mismanagement - Enterprise

We all complain from time to time about work and the people we have to work with, no doubt. But it’s another thing altogether to feel threatened with unemployment. Although it’s no laughing matter, your boss may be acting funny for a reason. Take a look at some of the following humorous, yet scary signs that may indicate that the ride is nearing an end.

Creation of More Social Events at Work

These are those awkward gathering we’ve all come to know as “office mixers.” A sad attempt at a non-alcoholic cocktail party, trying to boost morale with cookies and punch just isn’t gonna cut it.

Increasingly More Casual Environment

You’ve been asking for it for years — and now everyone can wear flip flops to work. Hey — what just happened? If you find yourself looking like a fourteen year old skater punk at the office, you should wonder what’s going on.

More Contests

You know them, you love to hate them — contests! Yes, this week it’s who’s going to call in sick the most or cash out their vacation pay. When you start having arbitrary contests all the time, start working on your resume.

Your Boss Listens to your Crazy Ideas

Again, he or she used to say no for a valid reason. Try throwing out the most random thing and pitch it to your boss as an idea. If they smile and are looking like they’ll consider it, you know something’s up.

They’re Overly Nice to You

Hey, what’s going on here? The boss just remembered your name, patted you on the back, and tried to get to know you better. What are they up to anyway? Unless this is a commonplace occurrence, which it likely isn’t, this is a sign of the apocalypse. Go straight to your cubicle and start searching craigslist for your future’s sake.

New Faces

Unless you are living in a vacuum and work for the best company ever, you know that new faces asking questions is usually a bad sign. For more examples, watch Office Space. Consultant is Latin for “the guy who wants to lay you off today.”

This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of the job search. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com.

This year we are planning a remodel for our living room. Basically demo the whole thing and start over. Our inspiration for the room is a new 52 inch Sony Bravia flat screen TV. Ahhh, so exciting. Can’t wait until the room is finished so we can get it! Except my husband decided to buy it early. Like at Christmas. Well, there were some amazing sales, so it was a smart buy, but now where do we put it?

He started asking where we should set it up until the living room is done and I suggested that we just leave it in the box. Of course that was a ridiculous recommendation. The only logical location was the office, so I agreed.

I was at work when it arrived and I had kind of forgotten how big it was. When I stepped into the doorway of the office, where my husband was happily “working” while watching TV, I almost died. The thing was bigger than the desk! Not to mention that the couch was only about three feet from the screen.

I had to train my eyes to handle the enormous HD images by allowing only brief viewings for the first few days until I worked up enough optic strength for a feature length blu-ray.

For now we are camping out in the office, watching movies and munching on popcorn while we wait for our finished living room. Until then, we have our own little movie theater. It’s a little cramped with the two of us, the dog, and all the furniture, but it’s pretty fun.

I am ready to provide an almost complete debrief on Horrorfest 2009. Aside from one poorly scheduled showtime, I viewed seven of the eight films and am happy to report the best year thus far. The films this year, for the most part, seemed to be bigger budget than previous years and it certainly paid off.

Now remember, this is like an independent film festival for horror, so you can’t go in expecting the equivalent of a blockbuster. My disclaimer for the following reviews is based on appreciating them for what they are and considering things like lack of budget, known actors, and extravagant special effects. If you go in expecting mainstream, you will be disappointed. But if you love film, dig horror, and appreciate indie films, you might want to give one a try.

Read on for a list of the films and my personal review for each.

Dying Breed - Standard plot; not so standard approach. Upon reading the synopsis for this film, I had prepared myself for another gory inbred movie full of senseless killing and ridiculous story lines. But at throughout the movie, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Rather than revolving around a group of drunken college kids stranded in the backwoods of some southern state, the plot stemmed from a smart, quiet girl whose sister went missing while attempting to prove the existence of a supposedly extinct tiger in Tasmania. With the exception of one obnoxious guy, the group had none of the stereotypical characteristics that make us happy when they die. Plot and character development consume over half of the movie and the bloody murder scenes seem to be placed only where truly needed. A horror flick with a bit more depth was a pleasant surprise.

From Within - My favorite of the festival, this movie had a very original plot with an oh so subtle tone of mockery towards overly organized religion (gotta love it). A curse placed on a small, rural, highly-religious town drives resident to commit suicide, one after the other. But they aren’t really killing themselves; their doppelgangers are stalking and murdering them. The imagery used for the ‘me versus me’ effect was endlessly creepy. My one complaint being that it was a little light on character and plot development. Look for Rumor Willis and the twins from America’s Next Top Model (2 or 3 cycles ago).

Butterfly Effect 3 - Okay so this movie was not very good. But I guess if you didn’t see the first one and didn’t know it was a sequel, it wasn’t too bad for this kind of event. Enough said.

Slaughter - Another one for the typical plot, not so typical approach. Who’s murdering the random guys brought home the little farm girl who likes to party? Is it the weird Dad? The perverted brother? The new roommates psycho ex? Good character development. Some nice sub-plots. Interesting twists. Highly unexpected ending - which probably led to the inability to release it to the general public. You know how the main-streamers can’t handle an unhappy ending… There were of course some kind of silly situations that led to more close calls rather then just getting the hell out of there, but overall a good effort.

The Broken - Lena Headey stars in this truly original and well done film. Another eerie mystery revolving around doppelgangers but a completely different take than From Within. It’s one of those where you leave a bit confused but the more you think about it, the less random it seems. Will probably have to give this one another viewing to pick up clues. I still can’t tell you what the ending means - not that you would want to know before you watch it.

Voices - Highly disappointing for a (so I thought) Japanese film (which are typically great)! But it was actually made in South Korea - maybe that’s why it sucked. Don’t bother.

Autopsy - I still can’t figure out if they meant this to be a true horror film and it went horribly wrong or if it was meant to be a campy spoof and went horribly wrong… some laughs, mostly dumb, too much gore, no plot, no character development, don’t bother.

Perkins 14 - This is the one I missed. I will report later.

Nothing signals New Years in a cubicle like your jeans getting really snug. In my greater flights of fancy I am being prepared as veal in my office pen by some alien species, but in reality I am just eating too much. The endless supply of Christmas Oreos is slowing down, though, and talk is turning to entertaining forms of exercise (forget taking a walk, I need to spend $400 on a device with Blu-ray and an exercise game). Most of the cubes are empty today, and those that are here are trying vainly to do things they don’t want to do. It’s been a great year for Cubunga and we want to thank everyone who has pointed their browser in our direction. Happy New Years from Leonard and Veronica!

As we speak, I sit at home trying in vein to coax my work-issue laptop into receiving an RSS feed so I can view some online training videos. This is after an attempt at the office to stream the tutorials. Of course that resulted in a bright read Access Denied message. Next I tried downloading the files to which each replied ‘Download Failed’. Finally, I gave up and headed home and have now found that my laptop just refuses to respond. I have since reached the conclusion that it’s just too slow. So now I resort to using my personal laptop to complete this function. All this for some work-related training?

So why is it that we are asked to plan our professional development and cut corners to save the budget but aren’t provided with sufficient tools to succeed at these tasks? As you may have guessed, I do not work for a technology company and it is clear that technology is not the priority here. We are the last to adopt the latest and most efficient technological advances. But we deal. That is, until pure frustration from watching the little hour glass hover endlessly while the load bar reads Done. I wonder how many hours are spent each year waiting for systems to process. I’m sure someone has researched that. Well I feel much better having vented my frustrations at you. So back to the task at hand… only two more days before vacation…

I have three nephews that bring many tears and much joy to their parents (5, 3, and 1) - I am sure all Cubies with kids can relate. This week I was over when the 5 year old ran inside and announced it was Big Airplane Day. I suppose a good size jet had flown over and that was enough to christen the day. He ran back out and returned again noting one big airplane looked like Santa’s sleigh. Now things were really picking up.

I went out in the cold and lined up the patio chairs so I could look at the sky. Indeed there were many airplanes around. My nephew noted that one propeller plane was circling the house. Its wing seemed dipped right at us as it went around and around. We counted at least a half dozen airplanes and birds and he asked me when he could drive an airplane, not theoretically but expecting a date and time. A silly but most enjoyable moment that reminded me of school and the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (slightly altered below):

For oft, when in my cube I sigh
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure strains,
And dances with the gliding planes.

I just have to say, that one of my favorite places is the cheese section of Whole Foods (or any specialty market really). I should know by now that every time I head to the counter to pick up a little wedge and some bread to accompany my dinner that I will inevitably be detoured for at least 15 minutes as I browse the selection, examining the many varieties and origins. And of course I cannot part with just one. So I add one or two new explorations to an old favorite. I rarely leave without a wedge of Brillat or Camembert (Nancy’s, I prefer Tom’s but they no longer carry that one). I usually pick up a hard cheese like Gruyere to balance it out. And anything with truffles, I can’t pass up. Thus tonight’s new selection Truffle Tremor. It’s goat cheese infused with black truffles. Can you imagine a better union? Now I recently tried the Brillat with truffles, but the richness of both seemed a bit too heavy. The tangy flavor of the goat cheese completely compliments the truffles. So yummy!

Now that I have pulled myself (and checkbook) away from the cheese counter, I am faced with a whole new challenge - choosing something for dinner. Oh did I not mention that I started at the cheeses? This is where I really run into problems. I mean it’s like they have everything and nothing at the same time. It’s impossible but absolutely true. I wander around the prepared food section at least three times looking for the perfect combination of items. I usually end up with some random selections that totally do not go together. Like tonight for example, I couldn’t decide what I wanted from the case and of course was not ready when he asked me so I ummed and uhhhhed a few times and finally decided on some roasted winter vegetables with sage and spaghetti squash with hazelnuts - and of course the cheese.

Good! Dinner? done. Grab a french baguette on the way out and ohhhhhh the dessert section. Right. Gets me every time. I try not to do desserts during the week but since it’s December and I had five cookies for lunch - yes that’s right, just like last year - I figure what the hell. So now I begin to inspect each prepackaged dessert - almond crumb cake, tiramisu cake, chocolate explosion, egg nog cheese cake (oh that one’s good), pecan pie, and the list goes on, all in single servings. But as usual I end up at the case of mini delights! What could be better than choosing three or four little temptations so you don’t have to decide on just one? I’m not good at choosing just one thing. I never want to pick the wrong one and then be disappointed. One mini key lime tart, pecan tart, two eclairs (for the husband), a cookie cream sandwich, and a fruit tart. Sadly there were no mini pumpkin pies or cannoli, but I guess I got enough for us to fight over.

So 45 minutes and a small fortune later I finally make it back to my car with the perfect dinner to accompany the perfect night of prime time TV. You know it’s Tuesday!