so glad to be working

It's the time between the holidays, when no one wants to be at work.  Anyway, it's been an exciting time here at the office this week. People are inordinately busy for this time of year.  Very busy scheduling doctors appointments, filing fingernails,  making travel arangements for vacations, holding meetings to discuss where they are going for lunch, performing customer service by bringing babies with them to work because they somehow missed the fact that the daycare is closed until after the new year, updating and downloading apps and software for their Christmas presents such as ipads, updating their resumes, sharing holiday drama stories, checking lottery tickets, and yes, maybe in between all these very important things a little work might be getting done. 

living in the south

I followed a group of beautiful middle aged women into the grocery store last night, one of them was loudly lamenting "It was horrible, I didn't even get to see John Cena or anyone. I missed the entire thing. I cried and cried".   I went home and googled John Cena, it took me a while to figure out how to spell his name - you know you live in the south when a grown woman, with makeup on, dressed up, looking good is all upset because she missed out on seeing a WWF  or WWE or whatever it is wrestler. 

Went to the doctor today. Parked my car in the parking garage as I exited my vehicle I realized there were not one, not two, not three but four pairs of shoes hanging off the power line right outside the parking garage where I parked.

As I drove back to my office, I passed several groups of homeless people.  I noticed one man wearing an expensive Sean John jacket as he pushed his grocery cart of goods down the street. Another woman in her Skittles jacket pushing her cart and a group of men walking around in their very expensive tennis shoes, jackets and hats waiting outside the mission for the next mealtime to arrive.  

Awww.... life in the south

and then the house burns down

2011 was determined to go out with a bang.  I didn't know how determined she was.  It's been a rough year for just about everyone I know.  We've done ok if you don't count our finances.  We've been healthy pretty much and I'm so grateful for that but my bank acount? well that sucks.  2011 was the year of completely unpaid child support, completely unreimbursed medical bills, totaled car, plumbing problem after plumbing problem and broken furnaces etc.  I thought we were done with money problems pretty much until last night when I found out my house burned down.  It burned to the ground.  I apparently bought a live tree, I've never had a live tree before (never mind that I was raised with only live tree's) and I didn't know I needed to water the tree and it got too dry and caught fire and burned my house to the ground and I lost everything. E V E R Y T H I N G!    E V E R Y T H I N G   Y'all - Just want to make sure you understand because I was more than a little confused as I was sitting in my kitched when the news reached my ears. 
Some insane apparently well meaning soul decided my children and I deserved an awesome Christmas this year.  Thankfully the insane well meaning soul came by to let me know how awesome our Christmas was going to be, - cause when they told me they had "fudged the details a little bit" and told the store owners and managers that my house burned down and I had lost everything. I flipped out!   Are you kidding me?

We didn't lose anything! we went through a bad divorce, we lost things. We didn't lose everything.  We have each other.  This person apparently lost their marbles.  Thankfully, they mentioned the names of the places they had notified of my tragedy so I called the stores this morning and let them  know my home had NOT burned down and I had NOT lost everything. 

Can you imagine my confusion if Channel 3 had shown up on the doorstep of my non burned home?

can you say FRAUD?

I know they meant well, but I can see this leading to the loss of my job and my children.

Thanks but no thanks.

Please let 2012 be better.

I'm awesome....

Yesterday I did it... I finished my annual review AND I gave it to my boss.  Shouldn't be a big deal, but it is.  It's only 117 days late.  I always complete my self reviews early and they are always the same.   They ask the same questions every year. 
1. Describe the specific examples blah blah blah
2. Describe anything you would like to improve,blah blah
3. What do you think are the strengths blah blah?
4. What gives you the most satisfaction blah blah blah ?
5. Describe how well you achieved the performance goals blah blah bleh blah

I answer them the same way every year. Not this year.   I've set goals for myself this year in my personal life and those goals are rolling into my professional life.  I don't draw lines in the sand anymore and people don't push me around anymore.  It works pretty well when I draw a line in the concrete so I drew some concrete lines in my annual review. I listed all the work I do, the work my boss has no idea I actually do. Work that other people are supposed to be doing.  Work they claim, work other people put their name on. 
I listed my accomplishments and when we meet next week I am telling him that HR recommends a re-evaluation of my position because my role has changed so much over the past 9 years and thinks I need a new job description be written.   I hope he will listen.  Drawing lines in concrete and speaking up for myself professionally is new for me.  I don't want this to backfire



i know you couldn't wait

Important Memorandum

I know you couldn't wait for an update on my so very important interoffice memorandum about the carpet cleaning yesterday. So I decided to move all the crap off my floor so they could shampoo the four square inches of carpet that are visible to the outside world when they decide to visit my shoebox of an office.  I picked up boxes, rearranged furniture and moved recycle bins and trash cans - yes, I really did do all that flippin work.   My carpet it turns out was filthy! Gross and disgusting.  I was so ready to see the new and improved carpet this morning.  I arrived bright and early eager to see the new office.... what did I see?

ummm....

yeah....

well...

it....

is...

not....

so...

new...

or...

improved...

at....

all...

Paper clips,

Glitter,

crap,

dust bunnies,

dead bugs,

EVERYTHING,

all over my four square inches of carpet

They didn't touch my office

they didn't touch the conference room

they didn't touch the offices of sick woman

or several other people either

I don't know what we did wrong

we moved our stuff

left our signs on the door just like we were instruced

we did everything every one else did

our signs were removed just like everyone elses were

yet our carpets look like crap

and weren't shampooed

or vacuumed

or cleaned

they don't smell nice

I feel slighted

unloved

and picked on

On a brighter note... we put Candy Canes on the tree last night so you will get pictures of that tomorrow

Lord, she's ill

around the corner, about one, two, three, make that four offices down from me there's a woman who is hacking, choking, gaggingly ill (gaggingly is so a word).  Lord, she's ill.  She shouldn't be at work.  Maybe she feels ok but she doesn't sound ok.  She starts coughing and it turns into choking then hacking, then gagging and then you want to run in there and give her the heimlich manuever.  Two days We've all been listening to her. She's that sick.  She needs to go home.    Good thing I have these:

If this woman gets me sick I'm gonna sneeze and cough those germs right back on her, or or something!

Interoffice Memo

I had one of those Interoffice Memorandum's taped to my office door when I came in this morning. More accurately, I walked through a hallway widely decorated with interoffice memorandums (it looked like it snowed).  Must be something important I thought but since I hadn't had a cup of coffee yet, I couldn't quite comprehend what all the red and black print on the page was trying to tell me.  I opened my office door, grabbed my coffee mug and started my day.   A few minutes and a shot of caffeine later I looked at the oh so important memo

TO: Occupant of Room # ______
FROM: Environmental Services Department
SUBJECT: FLOOR REFINISHING or carpet cleaning schedule
We are in the process of blah blah blah to the floor this room has been scheduled to have the floor refinished blah blah blah blah.  we will give you 1 - 4 days notice.    This room has been scheduled DAY: TODAY between 5:00pm and 1:30am    remove everything off the floor   blah blah blah blah


I glance down at the carpet on my office floor, the precious few inches of carpet that are showing between the filing cabinets and my desk and the boxes of crap I am required to maintain in my office.  Glad they put that or carpet cleaning on the memo in such large bold print or I might have missed it.  What am I to do with all this crap?  How am I supposed to get everything off the floor? Is it really worth it to have them shampoo the 4 square inches of visible carpet?  I don't want my carpet to look worse than everyone else's carpet in the department, but will they even notice?  it's such a small amount of carpet and people ever only comment on how I live in a closet all day...    oh crap, it's a lot of work to get the stupid carpet cleaned.