You know, the real millennium occurred a couple months ago, when it became 2001. So, since Not My Desk began in the year 2000, you could say this website spans two millennia! Or, twelve months, if you want to get technical.
It's been a wild ride! Let's take a look back!
March 3rd, 2000: Not My Desk is launched! After months of careful preparation, intensive marketing studies, hundreds of focus groups, and scads of beta testing, it is determined that internet viewers aren't interested in pornography at all, but instead seek mildly humorous essays about temping. We ran with it.
March 21, 2000: Not My Desk goes to work on its competition, strong-arming other temping-related websites off the internet. The popular site "This Desk Isn't Mine" is shut down after its webmaster sustains adhesive poisoning from thousands of Post-It Notes stuck all over his body by hired ruffians. The staff of "I Sit At A Desk, And it Doesn't Belong to Me" is faxed hundreds of sheets of black paper, depleting their toner supply and forcing them out of business. The German site "Nicht Mein Schreibtisch!" is hacked into, and an animated "Under Construction" gif is placed on its main page. It vanishes from the net two weeks later.
April 14, 2000: Perhaps overreaching itself in its attempts to win community approval, Not My Desk sponsors both a Toys for Tots program and an inner-city Cash for Guns initiative. A clerical error results in a Guns for Tots program, putting thousands of high powered sidearms into the hands of small children. This results in a mishap involving Barney the Purple Dinosaur, who is shot sixteen times during the "I Love You" song. Tragically, he recovers. In a related story, a convenience store clerk in Oakland is bludgeoned to death with a Squirtle plush toy.
April 18, 2000: A Not My Desk craze sweeps the nation! Spirits are high as lucrative contracts and stock deals are signed with priceline.com and pets.com, and Robert Downey Jr. becomes NMD's official celebrity spokesperson. What could go wrong?
May 6, 2000: Temp stocks take a hit after NMD CEO Wilbur Frassel is caught on camera smoking crack and trading classified CIA information with the Russians while engaging in lewd acts with underage illegal immigrant prostitutes who are burning leaves within city limits. He is eventually convicted of tax evasion.
May 22, 2000: A nervous Oprah Winfrey recommends Not My Desk to her television audience. Off camera, a gun can be heard being cocked and a gruff voice says "Tell them it's about angels."
June 11, 2000: In the interest of attracting more readers, Not My Desk issues a nationwide poll. The poll shows that readers would like to see more entertainment news, restaurant reviews, cartoons, advice columns, sports information, and weather reports. Not My Desk responds to these readers by posting an essay about a fax machine that just won't send the fax, darn it!
June 20, 2000: With the dot.com implosion, Not My Desk is forced to present pink slips to a third of its staff members. Another third receive white slips, due to pink paper simply being too expensive, and the final third are simply strangled to death with shoelaces. Their own shoelaces.
July 1, 2000: Not My Desk founder Christopher Livingston appears on the Tonight Show. Before the show, he eats too many Lunchables and appears sluggish and confused during the interview, telling a long, drawn out joke about "King John" that contains no actual punchline, and referring to Jay as "white boy". Later, he makes a clumsy pass at Julia Roberts, and his segment is ultimately cut. To fill in the space left by the missing segment, Tonight Show producers insert eleven straight minutes of Kevin Eubanks laughing.
July 30, 2000: Yahoo! bans all auctions involving Not My Desk memorabilia, drawing outraged protests from one homeless man, David Strick, who issues the statement: "Boooorg! Meef gotcha gotcha gotcha dem baffrooms got no... uh?"
August 10, 2000: Some pens are ordered for the office, but they're fine point, and we wanted medium point. Chad, the mailroom guy, is reminded again to please reconcile the items coming in with the order sheet.
August 15, 2000: NMD announces its first contest: A $25 dollar gift certificate to Best Buy for the reader who manages to kill Spencer Johnson, M.D. The contest is deemed a fraud after it is revealed on CNN that the gift certificate is simply a UPC symbol from the back of a box of Corn Pops. Spencer Johnson escapes several attempts on his life, and writes a small book about them called "Who Tried to Garrote Me? -- This Isn't A Rhetorical Question, I Really Want to Know." (retail price $19.95, 29 weeks on the NYT bestseller list)
September 4, 2000: NMD stocks again tumble after Alan Greenspan scratches his eyebrow during a televised segment with Larry King. NMD shareholders leap from windows they cut in the side of their cardboard boxes.
October 1, 2000: NMD staff writers, overworked and underpaid, enjoy a hiatus. A hiatus... SIX FEET UNDER! HA HA HA! Er. Oops.
October 31, 2000: NMD office secretary Janet Ladd dresses up like Xena, Warrior Princess for Halloween! I swear, all the fella's eyes popped out of their heads when they saw her walk in wearing that breastplate and short skirt! Yowza! I mean, Ken over in finance must have dropped by twenty times to see if he had any messages! I'm not even kidding! And Karen Plumby in Standards & Practices, who, like, usually gets all the attention? She was just shooting daggers at Janet all day, no lie.
November 16, 2000: Not My Desk attempts to cash in on the cigar fad, which, unfortunately, ended about three years ago. Efforts are quickly redirected towards the catchphrase: "Show me the money!"
December 12, 2000: Lawsuits begin pouring in from readers who have attempted to perform Office Yoga maneuvers posted on the site and subsequently injured themselves and others. After careful consideration and consultation with the California State Attorney's office, newly appointed NMD corporate lawyer David Strick responds to each complaint: "Boooooooorg! Gotcha gotchem gotchem!"
December 24, 2000: Readers are outraged when a Christmas Eve update includes several references to "That huge, disgusting, jelly-bellied, reindeer molesting, elf-spanking bastard." An apology is immediately issued to Rush Limbaugh.
January 1, 2001: The Not My Desk technology department poo-poohs Y2K compliance upgrades in favor of smoking and drinking Jack Daniels. As a result, they get buzzed and have a really good time.
January 23, 2001: Someone points out that temping sucks. Everyone kind of nods, and gets real quiet.
February 24, 2001: This update is hurriedly written after a day spent surfing the net for pictures of Christina Ricci showing a little skin.
