The Dish: Russ Rage

My morning wake-up call, thanks to Russ.

By Roman Loyola
March 8, 2001

After working for years and years in a veal-fattening pen, I've conditioned myself to treat the conversations around me as background noise. Anybody who works in a cubicle knows about the false sense of privacy. It's kind of my way of giving people the privacy they really want.

I'm pretty good at ignoring what's going on around me, unless something dramatic happens, like what happened today.

I sit in a cubicle next to Kim, one of the show's segment producers. This morning, Kim was talking with Patrick and Russ about tonight's Microsoft Bob segment.

I was minding my own business, paying no attention to Kim, Patrick, and Russ. All of a sudden -- WHAM! Someone was pounding the heck out of my cubicle wall. It was enough to startle me and get my attention.

The next thing I heard was, "I think I broke my hand." I look up, and there's Russ, examining his fist. Patrick's talking to him, like a cop trying to calm down a man on a ledge. Apparently, they had a disagreement about how to do the Microsoft Bob segment.

Eventually, everyone calmed down and came to an agreement. Russ was his normal self for the rest of the day. In fact, I asked him for his permission before I wrote about this morning's incident. He laughed and said it would be great to read all about it in The Dish.

So if anyone out there thinks we don't take this show seriously, we do. We're all passionate about this show, and sometimes our passion gets the best of us. I advised Russ to take a chill pill every so often.

By the way, Russ' hand is fine. So is the cubicle.

--I'm Roman

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