*naughty cross post alert
Today one of my teams - the abominable one I generally fantasise about pushing under a train - started their usual drama. It really shouldn't annoy me, it happens every time we have a major client meeting with this team, but each time, even as I watch it barrel towards me with the subtlety of a steam train, I still want to kill people.
"We have a huge client meeting at ten, can you get us ten copies of these eight, 70 page documents by then?" they bleat, pleadingly. (this is at 9:30).
No. No I fucking can not. I am doing other things for other people. You couldn't do this last night maybe? Then no, screw you all.
The Guv is a little grumpy today.
All this while trying to answer phones and arrange emergency flights for my other boss and other last minute craziness.
Then, after I grouchily drop off the two color documents of the bunch at our print center, to be copied, this same revolting team thrust a Gold Amex in my sweaty palm and ask me to go to "Sports Authority" to buy "five sets of boxing gloves" for a noon meeting.
WTF?
I didn't ask. But that sounds like the sort of meeting I want to be in! In fact, I demand a pair of those gloves so I can use them tomorrow when they start with their shit again. Ten copies, you say? *PUNCH* When do you need those? *PUNCH* "Never?" *PUNCH* "Good." *PUNCH*
I resisted the temptation to take that Amex card, pick up a man-whore and fly to Hawaii and instead scooped up the gloves. The woman at Sports Authority looked at me like I was mildly insane. It's five sets of boxing gloves, lady, get over it.
Oh, oh! Then? Noon arrived. I had ordered full lunch and beverages for eight as per their email request of the previous day. I have had this order verified, authorized and confirmed. However, they called me at noon from the meeting and whined, "We want twelve more of everything, there isn't enough for 20 people."
Well of course there isn't enough, you blathering crotchmonkeys, you ordered lunch for eight. And of course catering yelled at you when you called them to demand twelve more of everything (I noticed you called me first to do it but I cleverly diverted your call straight to voice mail when I saw you on my caller ID) because a) it's giving the catering department zero notice, b) there's no one here to authorize the order, c) HELLO it's LUNCH TIME and they're all in the cafeteria working, and d) the guy who deals with the orders is out today. Oops.
Amazingly, after a delightful lunch out of the office, I came back to find zero voice mails whining about anything. This made me a touch suspicious that the world was off its axis or something, but it seems to be genuine.
Still, bring on those boxing gloves.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Papa and the Floozy
Papa Smurf, who I mentioned in the previous entry, was a strange little fellow. This in itself isn't particularly unusual for someone at my ex place of employment - hell they'd prefer if you had something signifying your many anti-social quirks on your resume when you applied for a job there, just to speed things up - but his sort of strange was a particularly virulent strain.
He was also short and squirrelly with a white beard that gave him a falsely serene appearance, like a kindly uncle, or a particularly short and less portly Santa Claus. He was, at that point, in the process of flushing his second marriage down the toilet and had five kids ranging in age from early teens to mid thirties but he couldn't seem to relate to any of them. That was ok though - he couldn't relate to his colleagues either, so at least he was an equal opportunities incompetent.
He was bizarre in lots of different ways. He had no social skills but he spoke fluent Mandarin, something he'd picked up from his Army days. He couldn't make a simple cup of coffee but he would sink into indignant furies over grammar mistakes in newspaper articles or people who couldn't spell. He could be kind and generous and then five minutes later turn into the biggest asshole on the planet. He would never use a one syllable word when there was one with several syllables which would do equally well, a skill which resulted in him firing off elaborate, long, poetic emails to the entire office where people would scratch their heads in wonder and reach for their thesaurus before figuring out what the hell it was he was saying and the fact it could have been said in about three lines.
For all this, his handwriting looked like someone had taped a pen to a skittish chicken. For someone who was high on the correctness of the English language, his penmanship looked like that of a particularly active hospital chart when someone is having a heart attack.
Papa also had a thing for the ladies. After one particularly flamboyant office Christmas party, where he forcefully dragged our receptionist around the dance floor against her will, finally carouselling her into a group of tables and then slow dancing with another ball-breaking, dragonesque, very drunk female executive who kept licking his ear, rumors were flying around the water cooler about his love of the ladies and the liquor.
Also, as everyone knew, he did in fact have a fancy woman. She was in her late 30s, blonde, skinny as a pole and had the sort of high-pitched, irritating giggle that made you want to karate chop her to the floor then pummel her to a bloody pulp. She worked as an EVP within our company and she had Papa wrapped around her manipulative little finger. She would show up numerous times a day, twisting her perfectly blonde hair around her fingers while laughing that laugh and giggling coyly and they'd lock themselves in his office and flirt. At least, she'd flirt and he'd turn a dark shade of scarlet and do really uncharacteristic things like grinning for no apparent reason.
Everyone on the damn block knew about Papa and his manipulative blonde. No one said anything about them out loud but people's glances and knowing nods said it all. She was young, fairly attractive and eager to climb the corporate ladder and she didn't want to wait till she was gray and wrinkly to be powerful and influential. She had Papa hook, line and sinker. She also made sure to send timely gifts to Cruella when an occasion presented itself. PR was really the perfect job for her, since promoting her image was her specialty.
One thing she couldn't seem to do, however, was any real client work. She had a team of lower titled account executives for that sort of thing so she would delegate one of them to scope out a project then she'd go to her yoga class for a couple of hours. People never asked if she was in the office, they asked if she might be expected to come in.
When she became pregnant with her second child, jokes were flying around the place that the baby would pop out of the womb with a beard and an attitude, probably clutching a Cuban cigar and a bottle of anti-depressants.
Which would've been unfortunate seeing as how she gave birth to a girl.
The Manipulator finally left the company around the same time I did. She started her own firm and took a few clients with her when she went, leaving a bitter taste in Papa's mouth and a scowl on his face whenever her name came up.
I guess that was the end of that liaison.
He was also short and squirrelly with a white beard that gave him a falsely serene appearance, like a kindly uncle, or a particularly short and less portly Santa Claus. He was, at that point, in the process of flushing his second marriage down the toilet and had five kids ranging in age from early teens to mid thirties but he couldn't seem to relate to any of them. That was ok though - he couldn't relate to his colleagues either, so at least he was an equal opportunities incompetent.
He was bizarre in lots of different ways. He had no social skills but he spoke fluent Mandarin, something he'd picked up from his Army days. He couldn't make a simple cup of coffee but he would sink into indignant furies over grammar mistakes in newspaper articles or people who couldn't spell. He could be kind and generous and then five minutes later turn into the biggest asshole on the planet. He would never use a one syllable word when there was one with several syllables which would do equally well, a skill which resulted in him firing off elaborate, long, poetic emails to the entire office where people would scratch their heads in wonder and reach for their thesaurus before figuring out what the hell it was he was saying and the fact it could have been said in about three lines.
For all this, his handwriting looked like someone had taped a pen to a skittish chicken. For someone who was high on the correctness of the English language, his penmanship looked like that of a particularly active hospital chart when someone is having a heart attack.
Papa also had a thing for the ladies. After one particularly flamboyant office Christmas party, where he forcefully dragged our receptionist around the dance floor against her will, finally carouselling her into a group of tables and then slow dancing with another ball-breaking, dragonesque, very drunk female executive who kept licking his ear, rumors were flying around the water cooler about his love of the ladies and the liquor.
Also, as everyone knew, he did in fact have a fancy woman. She was in her late 30s, blonde, skinny as a pole and had the sort of high-pitched, irritating giggle that made you want to karate chop her to the floor then pummel her to a bloody pulp. She worked as an EVP within our company and she had Papa wrapped around her manipulative little finger. She would show up numerous times a day, twisting her perfectly blonde hair around her fingers while laughing that laugh and giggling coyly and they'd lock themselves in his office and flirt. At least, she'd flirt and he'd turn a dark shade of scarlet and do really uncharacteristic things like grinning for no apparent reason.
Everyone on the damn block knew about Papa and his manipulative blonde. No one said anything about them out loud but people's glances and knowing nods said it all. She was young, fairly attractive and eager to climb the corporate ladder and she didn't want to wait till she was gray and wrinkly to be powerful and influential. She had Papa hook, line and sinker. She also made sure to send timely gifts to Cruella when an occasion presented itself. PR was really the perfect job for her, since promoting her image was her specialty.
One thing she couldn't seem to do, however, was any real client work. She had a team of lower titled account executives for that sort of thing so she would delegate one of them to scope out a project then she'd go to her yoga class for a couple of hours. People never asked if she was in the office, they asked if she might be expected to come in.
When she became pregnant with her second child, jokes were flying around the place that the baby would pop out of the womb with a beard and an attitude, probably clutching a Cuban cigar and a bottle of anti-depressants.
Which would've been unfortunate seeing as how she gave birth to a girl.
The Manipulator finally left the company around the same time I did. She started her own firm and took a few clients with her when she went, leaving a bitter taste in Papa's mouth and a scowl on his face whenever her name came up.
I guess that was the end of that liaison.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Real Psychotic Secretary
Back around 2000, while working as a “floating assistant” at a PR firm, right before Cruella came into the picture, I used to occasionally cover for the assistant to one of the other partners, a strange, quiet, demonically-possessed little man who looked like a cross between Imus and a Smurf, if you can conceive of such a being. In fact, we called him ‘Papa Smurf’, although not to his face or anything, we didn’t have a death wish.
Papa was quite the oddity. He was an ex-military man - small, bearded and fierce with a softer side which came out only occasionally on those days we had wine in the office.
He also had zero people skills, which for a man whose whole business is public relations and being a “spokesperson” is a little bizarre to begin with. He was known for an explosive temper, for smoking illicit cigars after hours in his office, for his love of long, multi-syllable, obscure words and for not being able to keep an assistant for more than three months.
Inevitably an excited assistant would start work, get weary fast and end up frazzled to the extent where she would either go bat-shit insane, quit or be fired for some capital offense like rescheduling a meeting on a day Papa Smurf had planned to go have a meltdown on the golf course.
One assistant was fired for amusingly sending him in a car to JFK to leave for an important client trip, when the flight actually was leaving from Newark. Oops! These things sometimes happen when you are multi-tasking. They are cringingly stupid even though they are somewhat important, but Papa wasn’t one for second chances, so she was out.
I heard stories of previous assistants who’d wound up crying in the bathrooms over his brutal treatment and others who’d ended up with therapist bills up the wazoo. I witnessed one fiery-tempered ex-assistant having a full-blown, screaming fight with him in his office – actually the entire block witnessed that argument – which resulted in her throwing a box of file folders clean across the room and stomping out. The last words I heard from her were, “you’re a despicable, bitter, filthy little man!” and then she was gone.
So anyway, on these occasions, I, as floating assistant, would be drafted in to cover the position until they found him a new permanent slave.
Now to be honest, he was always nice to me when I sat over there. It was only his actual assistants he treated like crap and as I was doing him a favor, he generally was agreeable.
He was also a man distrustful of computers so he hand-wrote everything and gave it all to me to type up. Pages and pages of what looked like Apache code but which was actually just his crazy handwriting. A million times a day I would say, “What is this word here? Is it ‘pigeon’?” and he’d sigh as though it were obvious and say, “It says ‘Volkswagen’.”
When he finally got his act together and advertised for a new assistant, we had two applicants that HR called in to interview. The first was a very smart, pretty, impeccably dressed black girl, with a friendly manner, extremely polite and very qualified. She just exuded confidence, but not in an egotistical, insufferable way, she just seemed perfectly capable and suited to the job and was organized and together, which is what Papa needed most. Most of his assistants up to that point, apart from the fiery-tempered file thrower, had been timid, soccer mom types who spend countless hours talking about daycare and groceries and who would cry if he raised his voice. This girl was a definite step up. So he interviewed her and seemed impressed by her abilities and her cheerful personality. A second candidate was coming in a half hour later and he’d practically decided this first girl was “the one” but out of courtesy decided he should still meet with the second.
This was a fatal mistake.
The second girl showed up and before she even said a word I knew exactly where she was from - 1985 New Jersey. She was a tall, thin, white girl, mid-thirties, wearing a black and white checkered suit with pencil skirt, heels, short, blonde-frosted tipped hair held in place by so much hairspray she was probably a legal fire hazard and wearing possibly the most severe facial cosmetics ever witnessed on a human being not of the transvestite persuasion. Thick pancake make-up, lashings of ultra white powder, enough eye make-up to frighten Marilyn Manson and thick pale purple lipstick. Her blush arced to a peak on her cheekbones. It was like someone had written down every offensive trend from the ‘80s and applied it to one person.
In the ten minutes she had to wait for Papa Smurf to be ready to see her, she sat and chatted with me. In that five minutes I learned:
She was married for ten years but was now divorced.
Her ex-husband was her best friend.
He still wanted to be with her and was holding out hope she’d reconsider.
She just wanted him around for the ego boost.
She had just started dating her neighbor who lived across the street.
Her ex had no idea about this and she was never going to tell him.
She and the new boyfriend fought all the time.
He was sexy as hell but had quite the temper.
When they had a fight she would bring some other guy home and make out with him in her car in the car port with the car port lights on so her neighbor could see and get jealous.
He had a 14 year old daughter who she got along with just great.
This man would spend every other night with her then creep home before dawn so his daughter would think he spent the night at home.
He gave her killer orgasms.
These orgasms were so “killer” she had a belly ache afterwards for the whole day.
She still used the same cornsilk powder on her face she used when she was 13.
She was a very efficient executive assistant and there was no job she couldn’t handle.
She had to pee every half hour because her bladder was “compromised”.
By the time she went into that room to meet Papa, my head was swirling and I was looking forward to the horrified look on Papa Smurf’s face when she left, because if there’s one thing he couldn’t stand, it was a chatty woman, especially an inappropriate chatty woman.
She was in there for probably 45 minutes. The other girl had been maybe 15 at the most. When she came out she was laughing and he was grinning ear-to-ear and making jokes, which made me think she spiked his coffee or something.
“So…” Papa Smurf said, after she left. “What did you think of the candidates?”
“Well,” I replied. “I liked the first girl a lot. She was really smart and organized and professional. I wasn’t so sure about the second girl.”
“Really?” he said. “I liked her. I think she’s the one.”
And so, to my utter amazement, Miss New Jersey 1985 was hired. And so the famous saga of “the worst assistant ever” began.
I have so many stories about this woman your head is going to spin.
Papa was quite the oddity. He was an ex-military man - small, bearded and fierce with a softer side which came out only occasionally on those days we had wine in the office.
He also had zero people skills, which for a man whose whole business is public relations and being a “spokesperson” is a little bizarre to begin with. He was known for an explosive temper, for smoking illicit cigars after hours in his office, for his love of long, multi-syllable, obscure words and for not being able to keep an assistant for more than three months.
Inevitably an excited assistant would start work, get weary fast and end up frazzled to the extent where she would either go bat-shit insane, quit or be fired for some capital offense like rescheduling a meeting on a day Papa Smurf had planned to go have a meltdown on the golf course.
One assistant was fired for amusingly sending him in a car to JFK to leave for an important client trip, when the flight actually was leaving from Newark. Oops! These things sometimes happen when you are multi-tasking. They are cringingly stupid even though they are somewhat important, but Papa wasn’t one for second chances, so she was out.
I heard stories of previous assistants who’d wound up crying in the bathrooms over his brutal treatment and others who’d ended up with therapist bills up the wazoo. I witnessed one fiery-tempered ex-assistant having a full-blown, screaming fight with him in his office – actually the entire block witnessed that argument – which resulted in her throwing a box of file folders clean across the room and stomping out. The last words I heard from her were, “you’re a despicable, bitter, filthy little man!” and then she was gone.
So anyway, on these occasions, I, as floating assistant, would be drafted in to cover the position until they found him a new permanent slave.
Now to be honest, he was always nice to me when I sat over there. It was only his actual assistants he treated like crap and as I was doing him a favor, he generally was agreeable.
He was also a man distrustful of computers so he hand-wrote everything and gave it all to me to type up. Pages and pages of what looked like Apache code but which was actually just his crazy handwriting. A million times a day I would say, “What is this word here? Is it ‘pigeon’?” and he’d sigh as though it were obvious and say, “It says ‘Volkswagen’.”
When he finally got his act together and advertised for a new assistant, we had two applicants that HR called in to interview. The first was a very smart, pretty, impeccably dressed black girl, with a friendly manner, extremely polite and very qualified. She just exuded confidence, but not in an egotistical, insufferable way, she just seemed perfectly capable and suited to the job and was organized and together, which is what Papa needed most. Most of his assistants up to that point, apart from the fiery-tempered file thrower, had been timid, soccer mom types who spend countless hours talking about daycare and groceries and who would cry if he raised his voice. This girl was a definite step up. So he interviewed her and seemed impressed by her abilities and her cheerful personality. A second candidate was coming in a half hour later and he’d practically decided this first girl was “the one” but out of courtesy decided he should still meet with the second.
This was a fatal mistake.
The second girl showed up and before she even said a word I knew exactly where she was from - 1985 New Jersey. She was a tall, thin, white girl, mid-thirties, wearing a black and white checkered suit with pencil skirt, heels, short, blonde-frosted tipped hair held in place by so much hairspray she was probably a legal fire hazard and wearing possibly the most severe facial cosmetics ever witnessed on a human being not of the transvestite persuasion. Thick pancake make-up, lashings of ultra white powder, enough eye make-up to frighten Marilyn Manson and thick pale purple lipstick. Her blush arced to a peak on her cheekbones. It was like someone had written down every offensive trend from the ‘80s and applied it to one person.
In the ten minutes she had to wait for Papa Smurf to be ready to see her, she sat and chatted with me. In that five minutes I learned:
She was married for ten years but was now divorced.
Her ex-husband was her best friend.
He still wanted to be with her and was holding out hope she’d reconsider.
She just wanted him around for the ego boost.
She had just started dating her neighbor who lived across the street.
Her ex had no idea about this and she was never going to tell him.
She and the new boyfriend fought all the time.
He was sexy as hell but had quite the temper.
When they had a fight she would bring some other guy home and make out with him in her car in the car port with the car port lights on so her neighbor could see and get jealous.
He had a 14 year old daughter who she got along with just great.
This man would spend every other night with her then creep home before dawn so his daughter would think he spent the night at home.
He gave her killer orgasms.
These orgasms were so “killer” she had a belly ache afterwards for the whole day.
She still used the same cornsilk powder on her face she used when she was 13.
She was a very efficient executive assistant and there was no job she couldn’t handle.
She had to pee every half hour because her bladder was “compromised”.
By the time she went into that room to meet Papa, my head was swirling and I was looking forward to the horrified look on Papa Smurf’s face when she left, because if there’s one thing he couldn’t stand, it was a chatty woman, especially an inappropriate chatty woman.
She was in there for probably 45 minutes. The other girl had been maybe 15 at the most. When she came out she was laughing and he was grinning ear-to-ear and making jokes, which made me think she spiked his coffee or something.
“So…” Papa Smurf said, after she left. “What did you think of the candidates?”
“Well,” I replied. “I liked the first girl a lot. She was really smart and organized and professional. I wasn’t so sure about the second girl.”
“Really?” he said. “I liked her. I think she’s the one.”
And so, to my utter amazement, Miss New Jersey 1985 was hired. And so the famous saga of “the worst assistant ever” began.
I have so many stories about this woman your head is going to spin.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
People And Machines
When I started working at my current job we were on a different floor of the building to where I am situated now, known as "the dungeon" despite its altitude. It was an executive floor, very corporate and quiet and somewhat drab. This floor housed the CEO and other top brass and their armies of ultra-serious, driven assistants and helpers having constant heart palpitations over minor details.
It also hosted, for the rest of us minions, only one Xerox machine, to share between the entire corporate finance department and the little group of eleven or so people in my two teams, who were stranded on the “undesirable” side of the floor, so war was obviously slated to break out at any second over dibs.
This normally wouldn’t be a terrible hardship; The CEO’s army had their own machine which they guarded like a kidnapped child, so we didn’t have to compete with them, however, the communal copier was a problem of military proportions. We were the new kids on the block; a floor jammed full of veterans who’d been there since Noah docked the Ark. These fine folks were just thrilled to have more people use their precious Xerox and eat up their paper supplies. Delighted they were. OK, maybe furious was more like it. The machine was situated in their territory, at the end of a corridor in a tiny room/closet.
They would monitor our every move. How much paper we used, or toner. If a paperclip was out of place it was our fault. They would tell us off for copying decks with more than ten pages, they would sigh with frustration if they came in to copy an invoice to find one of us Xeroxing an expense report. It was enemy territory and we knew it.
One woman in particular was the main culprit. She was the Copier Nazi, a multi-chinned, scowling, older lady who was built like a brick shit house and had the personality of steel wool. “Do you work on this floor?” she would always yell, with a scowl that says “YOU BETTER!”.
She would literally ask me (and the rest of my team) this question every time we went near their side of the office. “Do you work on this floor? Because if not you cannot use our Xerox machine or be on this floor!”
“No!” I said one day. “I actually work on the ninth floor, I just came all the way up here because I like to touch your stuff!”
She worked at the opposite end of the corridor and she had ears like a wild cat. If you so much as touched the linoleum covered floor with a foam flip flop, she would hear and come charging down the corridor, like an angry bull in Pamplona, to make sure we weren’t doing anything amiss with her precious machine. Every day she’d question us; what were we copying, how long would we be, did we know that the machine belonged to her department and we shouldn’t really be using it at all because they were important and needed it much more, blah blah blah.
We learned to be super-sneaky, slipping in and out of there and closing the door so as not to alert the Copier Nazi to our whereabouts, thus risking the third degree. We would take a look-out with us to the copier and we had elaborate signals should she suddenly appear – things like shrieking, “Oh my God, she’s coming, run for the hills!”
To make matters worse I broke that copier. This is nothing new, I break machines daily. I broke it so badly they had to buy a new one. In my defense, it was old, rickety, and I only kicked it after it had swallowed most of my incredibly interesting Powerpoint presentation on Tampons, validating my actions since it started it.
I went to the only other copier on the floor which is closer, but guarded by even fiercer Copier Nazis – the Copier Nazis who work for the CEO! One must be really stealth when trying to evade the Executive Copier Nazis else they will chew you out like a five year old who’s been naughty, despite a very clear sign in there that states we can use their copier if the other copier is busted and none of the CEO’s army of administrative help are using it to copy their many schedules, party plans or suicide notes. Since I’d newly busted the other machine, I felt I was entitled to work in the lion’s den.
On one occasion I went in there to make ten copies of a short presentation and of course after about 5, it decided to eat the remainder of my copies and caused the grandmammy of all paper jams. Normally, I’m expert with paper jams, because I’ve caused so many in my time, I know just how to take the thing apart to get at the rogue paper. Not this one however. This one was the Alcatraz of paper jams. This one came with a miniature Jean-Claude Van Damme inside, guarding its innards jealously.
So I busted the executive copier. I had to hide under my desk the rest of the day because I was convinced they were all out there with their flaming torches, trying to smoke me out…
It was all so comical. It's a PHOTOCOPIER, people, deal with it.
It also hosted, for the rest of us minions, only one Xerox machine, to share between the entire corporate finance department and the little group of eleven or so people in my two teams, who were stranded on the “undesirable” side of the floor, so war was obviously slated to break out at any second over dibs.
This normally wouldn’t be a terrible hardship; The CEO’s army had their own machine which they guarded like a kidnapped child, so we didn’t have to compete with them, however, the communal copier was a problem of military proportions. We were the new kids on the block; a floor jammed full of veterans who’d been there since Noah docked the Ark. These fine folks were just thrilled to have more people use their precious Xerox and eat up their paper supplies. Delighted they were. OK, maybe furious was more like it. The machine was situated in their territory, at the end of a corridor in a tiny room/closet.
They would monitor our every move. How much paper we used, or toner. If a paperclip was out of place it was our fault. They would tell us off for copying decks with more than ten pages, they would sigh with frustration if they came in to copy an invoice to find one of us Xeroxing an expense report. It was enemy territory and we knew it.
One woman in particular was the main culprit. She was the Copier Nazi, a multi-chinned, scowling, older lady who was built like a brick shit house and had the personality of steel wool. “Do you work on this floor?” she would always yell, with a scowl that says “YOU BETTER!”.
She would literally ask me (and the rest of my team) this question every time we went near their side of the office. “Do you work on this floor? Because if not you cannot use our Xerox machine or be on this floor!”
“No!” I said one day. “I actually work on the ninth floor, I just came all the way up here because I like to touch your stuff!”
She worked at the opposite end of the corridor and she had ears like a wild cat. If you so much as touched the linoleum covered floor with a foam flip flop, she would hear and come charging down the corridor, like an angry bull in Pamplona, to make sure we weren’t doing anything amiss with her precious machine. Every day she’d question us; what were we copying, how long would we be, did we know that the machine belonged to her department and we shouldn’t really be using it at all because they were important and needed it much more, blah blah blah.
We learned to be super-sneaky, slipping in and out of there and closing the door so as not to alert the Copier Nazi to our whereabouts, thus risking the third degree. We would take a look-out with us to the copier and we had elaborate signals should she suddenly appear – things like shrieking, “Oh my God, she’s coming, run for the hills!”
To make matters worse I broke that copier. This is nothing new, I break machines daily. I broke it so badly they had to buy a new one. In my defense, it was old, rickety, and I only kicked it after it had swallowed most of my incredibly interesting Powerpoint presentation on Tampons, validating my actions since it started it.
I went to the only other copier on the floor which is closer, but guarded by even fiercer Copier Nazis – the Copier Nazis who work for the CEO! One must be really stealth when trying to evade the Executive Copier Nazis else they will chew you out like a five year old who’s been naughty, despite a very clear sign in there that states we can use their copier if the other copier is busted and none of the CEO’s army of administrative help are using it to copy their many schedules, party plans or suicide notes. Since I’d newly busted the other machine, I felt I was entitled to work in the lion’s den.
On one occasion I went in there to make ten copies of a short presentation and of course after about 5, it decided to eat the remainder of my copies and caused the grandmammy of all paper jams. Normally, I’m expert with paper jams, because I’ve caused so many in my time, I know just how to take the thing apart to get at the rogue paper. Not this one however. This one was the Alcatraz of paper jams. This one came with a miniature Jean-Claude Van Damme inside, guarding its innards jealously.
So I busted the executive copier. I had to hide under my desk the rest of the day because I was convinced they were all out there with their flaming torches, trying to smoke me out…
It was all so comical. It's a PHOTOCOPIER, people, deal with it.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Where Bitter Begins
If you wonder why the Guv'ner - in real life a fun-loving, silly sort - is a cynical, bitter shell of a human being in journal form, this earlier glimpse into my early job history should clue you in on what got the ball rolling. It basically comes down to this: People are asses, the Guv'ner is God.
After college and before my days wiping the asses of the rich and corporate, I did a stint working in a greetings card store. It wasn’t a planned vocation, it just sort of happened. I had just returned from traveling nomadically in Europe (20 countries in four months - 21 if you count the UK, which really, who does?) and needed to find a fast way to make the rent while looking for a “real” job.
Anyway, I was walking past the store in question and they had a badly spelled sign in the window that announced that they were seeking “candydates” for a store assistant. "Really?" I thought. "That sounds like a hellova good time since I like candy and I like dates and…"
Well anyway. I had rent to pay and no job so I went inside to inquire about application forms and such and they decided to go ahead and interview me on the spot as either they were “desperate” or I was just a fine specimen of humanity they couldn’t allow to slip through the net of top notch “candydates”.
Actually, it must have been desperation since there were no knees in my jeans and I hadn’t washed my hair in about a week although I was hosting a quite spectacular (for me) European tan. So my sun addled brain obviously got confused and I accepted this job paying 3.25 UK pounds an hour (bear in mind this was the mid-nineties, not the stone ages so even then this was slave labor). Even the kids in the Virgin store down the road made at least two pounds an hour more than me, I later learned.
I’m digressing…
So I got this job. At the greetings card store, working for a boss about four years younger than myself, although seriously, she might have looked twenty, but I will swear that goddamn woman was born forty-five years old and mean. She thought she was hot shit. She was married to some sucker who’d lost most of his faculties (clearly) and who was pussy whipped to such a miraculous degree that it was amazing he had the fortitude to leave the house unassisted. She talked about him all day long. Good and bad. I never met the guy but honestly, I plotted his demise the entire time she worked there.
We also had a district manager who was based 40 miles away and came to the store twice a week to check we’d restocked and had the latest deliveries and to chastise us for just about everything. Quite frankly, her main reason for gracing us with her evil presence was to criticize everything we did, anywhere, ever. She was little, blonde, mean, bitchy and would stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Probably literally too. I always hid the scissors just in case.
She baffled me totally because she was pure, unharnassed evil yet she had this live-in boyfriend who would come in to the store sometimes to see her and he was the polar opposite of her in every way. He was a huge, six feet two black guy, built like a brick shit house and the sweetest guy you will ever meet. What he saw in a tiny, frizzy blonde, dwarf witch totally escaped me. Later she let him impregnate her with Satan's spawn and then kicked him out.
The owner of the store and its four sister stores she “district managed”, was a sleazy, obnoxious, money-grabbing little prick who looked uncannily like a younger Tony Blair if Tony Blair bathed in canola oil, wore pistachio colored suits and talked out of his nose (as opposed to out of his ass). Every now and then he’d show up and complain loudly about everything in a pompous manner that just said to me, “Someone key the sides of my car immediately!”
After a few months, the annoying harpy and her pussy husband got pregnant and she quit. My fellow slave laborer and I debated opening all the tins of silly string in the store in celebration and decorating the place with all the candy colored rubber.
The downside to all this? They made me manager.
Most people with an ounce of sense would realize that making me manager would be an idea as stupendously moronic as having a cat baby-sit a school full of mice. The only thing I liked about the job was bullshitting with customers and playing pranks and making fun of management, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t want to be responsible for cashing up at the end of the night, working holidays, carrying large sums of money to the bank and working long hours and other annoying tasks for zero money or reward. I didn’t want to deal with Miss District Manager (‘Bitch-trick manager’ we called her) and Mr. Oilypants or the older lady who worked part time and had halitosis so bad it was like a garlic-eating dragon was breathing on you.
I ended up spending two years in that job (I call it my “lost period”) hating everyone and everything. I hated the whiny customers, I hated the senior management, I hated the photocopier that never worked, I hated the cards and the paper cuts they gave me, I hated the schmaltzy cards with their saccharine verse, I hated the goddamn, nasty pop tapes we had to play of session artists covering real artists songs, I hated the stupid card reps, I hated the counting and recounting of the money every night, I hated the fact our basement was part of a system of underground caves that the whole city was built on, that smelled as damp as a whore’s drawers and I hated that we kept all our stock down there, and that these caves, completely unknown to city inspectors, who frown quite heavily on such things, were full of giant, not-at-all-afraid rats.
Most of all I hated myself for putting up with it all.
Shortly after I left that job, filled with the joy of knowing I was never going back, I did find out that city inspectors are quite happy to act upon such information should that information happen to cross their paths.
So, really I did learn one valuable thing from that job. Revenge is indeed “sweet”.
After college and before my days wiping the asses of the rich and corporate, I did a stint working in a greetings card store. It wasn’t a planned vocation, it just sort of happened. I had just returned from traveling nomadically in Europe (20 countries in four months - 21 if you count the UK, which really, who does?) and needed to find a fast way to make the rent while looking for a “real” job.
Anyway, I was walking past the store in question and they had a badly spelled sign in the window that announced that they were seeking “candydates” for a store assistant. "Really?" I thought. "That sounds like a hellova good time since I like candy and I like dates and…"
Well anyway. I had rent to pay and no job so I went inside to inquire about application forms and such and they decided to go ahead and interview me on the spot as either they were “desperate” or I was just a fine specimen of humanity they couldn’t allow to slip through the net of top notch “candydates”.
Actually, it must have been desperation since there were no knees in my jeans and I hadn’t washed my hair in about a week although I was hosting a quite spectacular (for me) European tan. So my sun addled brain obviously got confused and I accepted this job paying 3.25 UK pounds an hour (bear in mind this was the mid-nineties, not the stone ages so even then this was slave labor). Even the kids in the Virgin store down the road made at least two pounds an hour more than me, I later learned.
I’m digressing…
So I got this job. At the greetings card store, working for a boss about four years younger than myself, although seriously, she might have looked twenty, but I will swear that goddamn woman was born forty-five years old and mean. She thought she was hot shit. She was married to some sucker who’d lost most of his faculties (clearly) and who was pussy whipped to such a miraculous degree that it was amazing he had the fortitude to leave the house unassisted. She talked about him all day long. Good and bad. I never met the guy but honestly, I plotted his demise the entire time she worked there.
We also had a district manager who was based 40 miles away and came to the store twice a week to check we’d restocked and had the latest deliveries and to chastise us for just about everything. Quite frankly, her main reason for gracing us with her evil presence was to criticize everything we did, anywhere, ever. She was little, blonde, mean, bitchy and would stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Probably literally too. I always hid the scissors just in case.
She baffled me totally because she was pure, unharnassed evil yet she had this live-in boyfriend who would come in to the store sometimes to see her and he was the polar opposite of her in every way. He was a huge, six feet two black guy, built like a brick shit house and the sweetest guy you will ever meet. What he saw in a tiny, frizzy blonde, dwarf witch totally escaped me. Later she let him impregnate her with Satan's spawn and then kicked him out.
The owner of the store and its four sister stores she “district managed”, was a sleazy, obnoxious, money-grabbing little prick who looked uncannily like a younger Tony Blair if Tony Blair bathed in canola oil, wore pistachio colored suits and talked out of his nose (as opposed to out of his ass). Every now and then he’d show up and complain loudly about everything in a pompous manner that just said to me, “Someone key the sides of my car immediately!”
After a few months, the annoying harpy and her pussy husband got pregnant and she quit. My fellow slave laborer and I debated opening all the tins of silly string in the store in celebration and decorating the place with all the candy colored rubber.
The downside to all this? They made me manager.
Most people with an ounce of sense would realize that making me manager would be an idea as stupendously moronic as having a cat baby-sit a school full of mice. The only thing I liked about the job was bullshitting with customers and playing pranks and making fun of management, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t want to be responsible for cashing up at the end of the night, working holidays, carrying large sums of money to the bank and working long hours and other annoying tasks for zero money or reward. I didn’t want to deal with Miss District Manager (‘Bitch-trick manager’ we called her) and Mr. Oilypants or the older lady who worked part time and had halitosis so bad it was like a garlic-eating dragon was breathing on you.
I ended up spending two years in that job (I call it my “lost period”) hating everyone and everything. I hated the whiny customers, I hated the senior management, I hated the photocopier that never worked, I hated the cards and the paper cuts they gave me, I hated the schmaltzy cards with their saccharine verse, I hated the goddamn, nasty pop tapes we had to play of session artists covering real artists songs, I hated the stupid card reps, I hated the counting and recounting of the money every night, I hated the fact our basement was part of a system of underground caves that the whole city was built on, that smelled as damp as a whore’s drawers and I hated that we kept all our stock down there, and that these caves, completely unknown to city inspectors, who frown quite heavily on such things, were full of giant, not-at-all-afraid rats.
Most of all I hated myself for putting up with it all.
Shortly after I left that job, filled with the joy of knowing I was never going back, I did find out that city inspectors are quite happy to act upon such information should that information happen to cross their paths.
So, really I did learn one valuable thing from that job. Revenge is indeed “sweet”.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
How To Disappear Up Your Own Ass
Another Cruella entry briefly. It's not a funny one but it gives you some perspective about the level of evil we are talking about.
On September 11, 2001 some serious crapola went down here in Manhattan. You might remember it? Big, tall towers, planes crashing, stuff asploding, people jumping?
That morning I was on the subway when it all started. I got to work just a few minutes after the first plane hit the WTC and a few minutes before the second. We (Cruella's four other assistants and myself) were all huddled round the TV in her office watching the news unfold, while Cruella herself, was still home in her luxury Park Avenue apartment uptown - she never graced us with her presence until at least 11 a.m.
Now a lot was going on. Chaos reigning. Everyone in the company was trying to reach family or friends who worked in the financial district and the WTC in particular. I was trying to reach The Boy who worked at the WTC site. No one was getting through to anyone. Our phones would work but we couldn't get a line to anywhere. Cell phones were down because just guess where the transmitters were? People were understandably a wee bit stressed.
In the midst of this chaos, Cruella calls, furious because she'd checked her voice mail and had three new messages and Cruella rule number one is: you never let the phone go to voice mail, it must be answered. This crime is akin to murdering your own mother after first sodomizing her with Erik Estrada.
One of the other assistants took her call (it figures that most of NYC can't get a line in or out yet the Devil manages to connect).
"Have you seen the news this morning?" this assistant asks Cruella. "Have you seen what's going on?"
"Oh that World Trade thing..." Cruella said dismissively, "Yes, I heard about that. But this phone business is not going to be tolerated. I have important clients that have to be attended to!"
We finally got rid of her and all sat down on her designer velvet sofa and watched the news come in about the plane hitting the Pentagon then the Pennsylvania plane. Most people had already left to try to get home. Cruella had called again around 10:30, right as the first tower at the Trade Center was falling.
"There's a man I need you to call..." Cruella says. "He's a jewelry designer. He has an ad in Cosmopolitan. He makes this sapphire ring in a platinum setting. I want one."
At this stage only three of us assistants are left, the others having gone to rescue their kids from daycare. One of the assistants has been IMing her friend who worked on one of the higher floors at the World Trade and the connection just went dead. We're all freaking the hell out. So, we're all a little speechless at her request.
Her personal assistant, who was still there with me and the other girl took the phone and said, "Look. Everyone has gone home. We are about to leave. There is no public transport. There are no cell phones working. All the bridges and tunnels are shut down. Everything below 14th Street is an emergency zone. The ARMY are in the street with guns. People are throwing themselves off a 110 story building rather than burn to death and you want us to buy you jewelry?"
There was that silence you get when everything stops at once.
"But...who will answer my phones?" Cruella whined, clearly unhappy.
"Voice mail." said her PA and hung up.
When work resumed the following Monday after a six day hiatus, Cruella was hyper and irritated because we were "out of the loop". One of my fellow assistants' best friend was a fire fighter who went in to the WTC and never came out. She was at work but understandably freaked. Cruella berated her all day about all the things she was messing up because her mind was elsewhere.
The part that really got me was all day long she had us write thank you notes to "important" clients who'd been calling her on her cell to make sure she was ok.
I guess they had no idea she was four miles away, uptown when this stuff happened and as soon as it got serious she got her family in her SUV and made her driver, who had to eventually find a way back to Brooklyn, take them to her Connecticut farmhouse. Of course she was fucking "ok". If that woman ever went below 42nd Street she'd die from the cooties.
This is who Cruella is. Completely free of reality or scruples of any sort.
On September 11, 2001 some serious crapola went down here in Manhattan. You might remember it? Big, tall towers, planes crashing, stuff asploding, people jumping?
That morning I was on the subway when it all started. I got to work just a few minutes after the first plane hit the WTC and a few minutes before the second. We (Cruella's four other assistants and myself) were all huddled round the TV in her office watching the news unfold, while Cruella herself, was still home in her luxury Park Avenue apartment uptown - she never graced us with her presence until at least 11 a.m.
Now a lot was going on. Chaos reigning. Everyone in the company was trying to reach family or friends who worked in the financial district and the WTC in particular. I was trying to reach The Boy who worked at the WTC site. No one was getting through to anyone. Our phones would work but we couldn't get a line to anywhere. Cell phones were down because just guess where the transmitters were? People were understandably a wee bit stressed.
In the midst of this chaos, Cruella calls, furious because she'd checked her voice mail and had three new messages and Cruella rule number one is: you never let the phone go to voice mail, it must be answered. This crime is akin to murdering your own mother after first sodomizing her with Erik Estrada.
One of the other assistants took her call (it figures that most of NYC can't get a line in or out yet the Devil manages to connect).
"Have you seen the news this morning?" this assistant asks Cruella. "Have you seen what's going on?"
"Oh that World Trade thing..." Cruella said dismissively, "Yes, I heard about that. But this phone business is not going to be tolerated. I have important clients that have to be attended to!"
We finally got rid of her and all sat down on her designer velvet sofa and watched the news come in about the plane hitting the Pentagon then the Pennsylvania plane. Most people had already left to try to get home. Cruella had called again around 10:30, right as the first tower at the Trade Center was falling.
"There's a man I need you to call..." Cruella says. "He's a jewelry designer. He has an ad in Cosmopolitan. He makes this sapphire ring in a platinum setting. I want one."
At this stage only three of us assistants are left, the others having gone to rescue their kids from daycare. One of the assistants has been IMing her friend who worked on one of the higher floors at the World Trade and the connection just went dead. We're all freaking the hell out. So, we're all a little speechless at her request.
Her personal assistant, who was still there with me and the other girl took the phone and said, "Look. Everyone has gone home. We are about to leave. There is no public transport. There are no cell phones working. All the bridges and tunnels are shut down. Everything below 14th Street is an emergency zone. The ARMY are in the street with guns. People are throwing themselves off a 110 story building rather than burn to death and you want us to buy you jewelry?"
There was that silence you get when everything stops at once.
"But...who will answer my phones?" Cruella whined, clearly unhappy.
"Voice mail." said her PA and hung up.
When work resumed the following Monday after a six day hiatus, Cruella was hyper and irritated because we were "out of the loop". One of my fellow assistants' best friend was a fire fighter who went in to the WTC and never came out. She was at work but understandably freaked. Cruella berated her all day about all the things she was messing up because her mind was elsewhere.
The part that really got me was all day long she had us write thank you notes to "important" clients who'd been calling her on her cell to make sure she was ok.
I guess they had no idea she was four miles away, uptown when this stuff happened and as soon as it got serious she got her family in her SUV and made her driver, who had to eventually find a way back to Brooklyn, take them to her Connecticut farmhouse. Of course she was fucking "ok". If that woman ever went below 42nd Street she'd die from the cooties.
This is who Cruella is. Completely free of reality or scruples of any sort.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A Cruella Fate
Back in medieval times (well...2001), when I was working for Cruella de Ville, she received a summons for jury duty.
As expected, she took this about as well as a person who had been told their baby was sold to a Mexican drug cartel to pay for crack so obviously she tried her utmost to wriggle out of it. She had deferred over and over again and this was her final summons.
Being Cruella, however, she was under the impression that a different set of rules applied for beings of a “higher stature” such as herself, so she dutifully had our CFO and her personal butt-boy, The Cobra, call to try and convince them that really, Cruella was not at all necessary for any of their little trials as she was busy doing important things (like visiting a small Korean lady for a pedicure).
Naturally, the courts had heard it all before. In fact, if I was the person who worked for the jury selection department I would personally make it my life’s work to write a book about the most inventive excuses people give for excusing themselves from performing their civic duty. This court was having none of it. It was really sort of beautiful. You can pay thousands to a lady to carry a baby in her womb for you for nine months, you can buy shares in a private jet and spend summers on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a spoiled billionaire to sun your wrinkled old frame, but lady, when Uncle Sam wants YOU, no amount of cajoling or bullying will prevent you from hauling your spoiled carcass downtown, pronto.
This being Cruella, a woman physically incapable of doing anything for herself, she had to take The Cobra along with her for moral support, to explain the big words and to basically have someone to take the whole miserable ordeal out on. If it had been anyone else, I would have felt such overwhelming pity for the person's having to spend such long periods of time in close proximity to her that my heart would ache with the volume of it. However, since it was the Cobra I just prayed she was assigned to a case the approximate length of the OJ trial.
Anyway, a few days after the jury duty episode, Cruella had to go to the DMV to renew her driver’s license which had already expired. I wasn’t aware she even had a license as she has people drive her everywhere. The mere thought of her in control of a moving vehicle is only slightly less scary than the thought of a buzz-cutted Britney Spears, naked, swinging by her knees from a chandelier with a baby in one hand and an Uzi in the other. (on reflection, I realize this sounds like a plausible scene - set in slo-mo - in a Robert Rodriquez/Quentin Tarantino movie).
So, she did what she always does; she took The Cobra with her to the DMV then sat out in the car with her driver, while Cobra went in, stood in line for 20 minutes and finally is told that in the United States, people have to come and renew their license themselves. So Cobra tells the guy that his boss is “a very important person” and can’t possibly come in to a government facility where there are nasty germs, fluorescent lights and people of dubious national origins. The DMV guy, presumably of dubious national origin himself, completely unfazed, replied “I don’t care if she’s the Queen of England, if she wants a license, she better get her ass in here, now!”
So a glowering Cruella had to haul her stupid, pampered, fur-coat clad ego inside and do all the necessaries herself, including having a photo taken that made her look like someone was ramming a Swiffer up her back passage.
Isn’t that a beautiful story? I love it. In moments I’m feeling a little fragile emotionally, I imagine this scenario and immediately I’m full of the joys of life.
As expected, she took this about as well as a person who had been told their baby was sold to a Mexican drug cartel to pay for crack so obviously she tried her utmost to wriggle out of it. She had deferred over and over again and this was her final summons.
Being Cruella, however, she was under the impression that a different set of rules applied for beings of a “higher stature” such as herself, so she dutifully had our CFO and her personal butt-boy, The Cobra, call to try and convince them that really, Cruella was not at all necessary for any of their little trials as she was busy doing important things (like visiting a small Korean lady for a pedicure).
Naturally, the courts had heard it all before. In fact, if I was the person who worked for the jury selection department I would personally make it my life’s work to write a book about the most inventive excuses people give for excusing themselves from performing their civic duty. This court was having none of it. It was really sort of beautiful. You can pay thousands to a lady to carry a baby in her womb for you for nine months, you can buy shares in a private jet and spend summers on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a spoiled billionaire to sun your wrinkled old frame, but lady, when Uncle Sam wants YOU, no amount of cajoling or bullying will prevent you from hauling your spoiled carcass downtown, pronto.
This being Cruella, a woman physically incapable of doing anything for herself, she had to take The Cobra along with her for moral support, to explain the big words and to basically have someone to take the whole miserable ordeal out on. If it had been anyone else, I would have felt such overwhelming pity for the person's having to spend such long periods of time in close proximity to her that my heart would ache with the volume of it. However, since it was the Cobra I just prayed she was assigned to a case the approximate length of the OJ trial.
Anyway, a few days after the jury duty episode, Cruella had to go to the DMV to renew her driver’s license which had already expired. I wasn’t aware she even had a license as she has people drive her everywhere. The mere thought of her in control of a moving vehicle is only slightly less scary than the thought of a buzz-cutted Britney Spears, naked, swinging by her knees from a chandelier with a baby in one hand and an Uzi in the other. (on reflection, I realize this sounds like a plausible scene - set in slo-mo - in a Robert Rodriquez/Quentin Tarantino movie).
So, she did what she always does; she took The Cobra with her to the DMV then sat out in the car with her driver, while Cobra went in, stood in line for 20 minutes and finally is told that in the United States, people have to come and renew their license themselves. So Cobra tells the guy that his boss is “a very important person” and can’t possibly come in to a government facility where there are nasty germs, fluorescent lights and people of dubious national origins. The DMV guy, presumably of dubious national origin himself, completely unfazed, replied “I don’t care if she’s the Queen of England, if she wants a license, she better get her ass in here, now!”
So a glowering Cruella had to haul her stupid, pampered, fur-coat clad ego inside and do all the necessaries herself, including having a photo taken that made her look like someone was ramming a Swiffer up her back passage.
Isn’t that a beautiful story? I love it. In moments I’m feeling a little fragile emotionally, I imagine this scenario and immediately I’m full of the joys of life.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A Heart Warming Memory
Sometimes, in your work life, all the frustrations and hair pulling become worthwhile and a little karma is dealt out.
A few years ago, my ex-boss, that whiny old assbandit, Mr. Panty-Waist, had been driving me steadily bonkers for about a month with some vague project we were supposed to present our client with. A very “important” project that was so important he never seemed to actually get anything done except procrastinating and complaining a lot about the project that we hadn’t even started, due to his inability to pull his finger out of his ass.
Naturally, this period of ridiculousness involved much foot tapping, muttering under my breath and going into the ladies’ room and shrieking with frustration when after one more day of procrastinating and whining and sulking, we’d be no further forward than the day before or the one before that.
Thursday arrived and Mr. Panty Waist told us he was going out to the Hamptons, where he kept a summer home, for a long weekend, to “think about things”. By “things” we were under no impression he meant “the project” since he couldn’t manage that in his office on a weekday, let alone on a beachfront with a highball glass in his hand and half naked 19 year old blondes running around playing volleyball. Actually, scratch that. Mr. PW is definitely asexual. Those blondes might as well be squirrels. Apparently his wife and kids weren’t going with him, he just needed some “private creative time”.
Frankly, we didn’t care if he went to the Moon so long as he was out of our hair.
We didn’t hear from him until the following Tuesday when he called to say he wouldn’t be coming into the office because he’d had "a little accident" and broken his leg.
We all made sympathetic noises, then had a party after he hung up. I believe cake was involved. And maybe a Panty Waist pinata.
We found out later that the reason for Mr. Panty Waist’s broken limb was that he had sipped one too many Scotch on the rocks and fallen into his pool. Which is funny enough in itself, if you know his mannerisms and great, big, clumsy body, but doubles in hilarity when you find out there was no water in the pool at the time. Hee!!!! How it is even possible to fall into an empty pool is beyond me but I didn’t care. It made my whole week.
This amused us even more than the time someone dredged up some old print ad from the seventies which showed an alarmingly hilarious photo of a grinning Mr. Panty Waist, boasting huge lapels you could house a small Hispanic nation on and sporting a startling, partial mullet, as a TV weatherman in North Carolina along with a caption about Mr. PW bringing sunshine and smiles to your morning. Clearly this TV station's marketing was top notch and they'd obviously downed a few vodkas before coming up with the type. The mere idea of that horse’s ass being on TV talking about sunshine and hurricanes was just unfathomable, yet strangely irresistible.
Anyway, he had to lie in that empty pool for about 2 hours until a neighbor found him and called for help. I wished I’d been the one to find him. I would have paced around the top of that pool very slowly, sipping one of his vintage cellar wines, looking down at him clutching his limb, asking things like, “Does it hurt? Do you want me to get help? If I get help can I have a raise? Where do you keep the top shelf tequila?”
Damn, my fantasies are always so much better than my reality.
A few years ago, my ex-boss, that whiny old assbandit, Mr. Panty-Waist, had been driving me steadily bonkers for about a month with some vague project we were supposed to present our client with. A very “important” project that was so important he never seemed to actually get anything done except procrastinating and complaining a lot about the project that we hadn’t even started, due to his inability to pull his finger out of his ass.
Naturally, this period of ridiculousness involved much foot tapping, muttering under my breath and going into the ladies’ room and shrieking with frustration when after one more day of procrastinating and whining and sulking, we’d be no further forward than the day before or the one before that.
Thursday arrived and Mr. Panty Waist told us he was going out to the Hamptons, where he kept a summer home, for a long weekend, to “think about things”. By “things” we were under no impression he meant “the project” since he couldn’t manage that in his office on a weekday, let alone on a beachfront with a highball glass in his hand and half naked 19 year old blondes running around playing volleyball. Actually, scratch that. Mr. PW is definitely asexual. Those blondes might as well be squirrels. Apparently his wife and kids weren’t going with him, he just needed some “private creative time”.
Frankly, we didn’t care if he went to the Moon so long as he was out of our hair.
We didn’t hear from him until the following Tuesday when he called to say he wouldn’t be coming into the office because he’d had "a little accident" and broken his leg.
We all made sympathetic noises, then had a party after he hung up. I believe cake was involved. And maybe a Panty Waist pinata.
We found out later that the reason for Mr. Panty Waist’s broken limb was that he had sipped one too many Scotch on the rocks and fallen into his pool. Which is funny enough in itself, if you know his mannerisms and great, big, clumsy body, but doubles in hilarity when you find out there was no water in the pool at the time. Hee!!!! How it is even possible to fall into an empty pool is beyond me but I didn’t care. It made my whole week.
This amused us even more than the time someone dredged up some old print ad from the seventies which showed an alarmingly hilarious photo of a grinning Mr. Panty Waist, boasting huge lapels you could house a small Hispanic nation on and sporting a startling, partial mullet, as a TV weatherman in North Carolina along with a caption about Mr. PW bringing sunshine and smiles to your morning. Clearly this TV station's marketing was top notch and they'd obviously downed a few vodkas before coming up with the type. The mere idea of that horse’s ass being on TV talking about sunshine and hurricanes was just unfathomable, yet strangely irresistible.
Anyway, he had to lie in that empty pool for about 2 hours until a neighbor found him and called for help. I wished I’d been the one to find him. I would have paced around the top of that pool very slowly, sipping one of his vintage cellar wines, looking down at him clutching his limb, asking things like, “Does it hurt? Do you want me to get help? If I get help can I have a raise? Where do you keep the top shelf tequila?”
Damn, my fantasies are always so much better than my reality.
Monday, August 20, 2007
People Are Also Stupid
The Guv'ner is puzzled by a chain of emails between herself and a coworker, that took place today. It went a little like this:
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
Are you free on September 28th for meeting with blah-di-blah?
REPLY:
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
Sorry, no, I'm out Friday and all of next week!
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
Oh. Well I guess it's lucky we're talking about SEPTEMBER 28th then, huh!
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
No, sorry can't do it. As I said I'm out all of next week.
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
But...next week is only August. I'm talking about the end of September. It's five weeks away.
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
I won't be back in the office until September 3rd.
At this point I decided to just stab myself in the heart with my left-handed scissors.
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
Are you free on September 28th for meeting with blah-di-blah?
REPLY:
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
Sorry, no, I'm out Friday and all of next week!
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
Oh. Well I guess it's lucky we're talking about SEPTEMBER 28th then, huh!
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
No, sorry can't do it. As I said I'm out all of next week.
From: The Guv'ner
To: Retard
But...next week is only August. I'm talking about the end of September. It's five weeks away.
From: Retard
To: The Guv'ner
I won't be back in the office until September 3rd.
At this point I decided to just stab myself in the heart with my left-handed scissors.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
People Are Strange
Sometimes the smallest task can be a touch surreal. This morning I had to order a car service for four separate trips to and from the airport for my younger boss. Normally, the routine goes, you dial the number, some dullard who hates people, therefore is ripe for the customer service industry, drones, “*sigh* Hellothisiskeishahowcanihelpyew?” sounding like they would much rather push a fork through their eyeball than give a flying crap about helping your ass. Then when you suggest you might like to reserve more than one car they sigh even louder like, “You’ve got some freaking nerve asking me to do my job when I have my nails to polish!”
So imagine my surprise when this morning, instead of a member of the plankton family, I got an awesome, drawling, laid back, Jamaican chick named Tiffany, who not only was agreeable to my four car demand but was so laid back and pleasant about it, I thought she must be dangling a giant doobie from her lips as we spoke. You can take the girl out of Jamaica but you can never take the Jamaica out of the girl.
Truly, I want some of what she was having. Nothing was too much trouble. She sounded vaguely miffed I only wanted to spend twenty minutes on the phone with her when I could so easily have booked a year’s worth of cars and she wouldn’t have broken a sweat. I swear to God I am not embellishing this conversation. Much.
Me: Hi Tiffany, I’d actually like to make four reservations, if that’s ok.
Tiff: Why sure, Sugar. That is never a problem. That is why I am here! Who is the first one for?
Me: Well, they’re all going to be for [boss’s name]
Tiff: OK…I see his number comes up as [boss’s number] and his address is [boss’s address]. Will he be using that address and number?
*this in itself is impressive because normally I have to spell the guy's name fifteen times and they still get it hopelessly wrong
Me: Yes, he would indeed. That’s great you have that, it saves me so much time!
Tiff: Well I’m happy if you’re happy. That’s fantastic! That’s super.
Me: He needs to be picked up at five a.m. on the 27th.
Tiff: Five huh? That’s pretty early! That’s wonderful! I just love early mornings. It’s so peaceful. Mmmm hmmm. Beautiful!
Me: Not for me. I’m not a morning person. I’m a night owl.
Tiff: I love mornings. I’m up at five every day. It’s just fabulous! The start of a new day!
Me: Um…ok.
Tiff: Now, he’s going to the airport? That’s great.. You know, I love the airport...
Me: Yes, the airport, thanks.
We then went through the other three reservations in much the same manner, where Tiffany pronounced her love of everything from “complete addresses” to “fabulous customers”. Honestly, I really do want what she’s on.
I hung up slightly terrified that I might just have made contact with an actual alien.
And the thing is, none of what she said was said in an even remotely sarcastic or condescending way. She really just loved everything!
This has thrown my whole day off. My brain’s having trouble comprehending.
So imagine my surprise when this morning, instead of a member of the plankton family, I got an awesome, drawling, laid back, Jamaican chick named Tiffany, who not only was agreeable to my four car demand but was so laid back and pleasant about it, I thought she must be dangling a giant doobie from her lips as we spoke. You can take the girl out of Jamaica but you can never take the Jamaica out of the girl.
Truly, I want some of what she was having. Nothing was too much trouble. She sounded vaguely miffed I only wanted to spend twenty minutes on the phone with her when I could so easily have booked a year’s worth of cars and she wouldn’t have broken a sweat. I swear to God I am not embellishing this conversation. Much.
Me: Hi Tiffany, I’d actually like to make four reservations, if that’s ok.
Tiff: Why sure, Sugar. That is never a problem. That is why I am here! Who is the first one for?
Me: Well, they’re all going to be for [boss’s name]
Tiff: OK…I see his number comes up as [boss’s number] and his address is [boss’s address]. Will he be using that address and number?
*this in itself is impressive because normally I have to spell the guy's name fifteen times and they still get it hopelessly wrong
Me: Yes, he would indeed. That’s great you have that, it saves me so much time!
Tiff: Well I’m happy if you’re happy. That’s fantastic! That’s super.
Me: He needs to be picked up at five a.m. on the 27th.
Tiff: Five huh? That’s pretty early! That’s wonderful! I just love early mornings. It’s so peaceful. Mmmm hmmm. Beautiful!
Me: Not for me. I’m not a morning person. I’m a night owl.
Tiff: I love mornings. I’m up at five every day. It’s just fabulous! The start of a new day!
Me: Um…ok.
Tiff: Now, he’s going to the airport? That’s great.. You know, I love the airport...
Me: Yes, the airport, thanks.
We then went through the other three reservations in much the same manner, where Tiffany pronounced her love of everything from “complete addresses” to “fabulous customers”. Honestly, I really do want what she’s on.
I hung up slightly terrified that I might just have made contact with an actual alien.
And the thing is, none of what she said was said in an even remotely sarcastic or condescending way. She really just loved everything!
This has thrown my whole day off. My brain’s having trouble comprehending.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
How Not To Start A Morning
This morning I had to pick up a document from finance which included information I needed to amend, take the document to The Most Boring Woman Who Ever Lived so that she could, in turn, present it to her boss for signature.
Now even though TMBWWEL’s office is just at the opposite end of the corridor from my own, if the matter hadn’t been extremely time sensitive, I would have sent that sucker via inter office mail, rather than have to go into the monster’s lair in person.
As I’ve pointed out before, she’s not a mean lady, or even an unpleasant one in the true sense of the word, it’s just that she really is the most boring woman who ever lived. There is no human being who is still living, who is more boring. I challenge you to find anyone else with the personality of Ambien.
Firstly, she scrutinized the form I gave her and pointed out the following:
“Where [boss’s] name is printed, that’s a ten point font. We usually use a twelve point font. You see, ten point font is hard to read if your eyes aren’t great. Unless you use ten point Courier which is a larger font. However, most people don’t use Courier as it’s old fashioned. But this is Arial. Ten point Arial is a little narrow and therefore smaller to read. Twelve point Arial however….”
At this point I picked up one of those electronic pencil sharpeners with the weighted bottoms and I smashed her head in.
Anyway, to get her off the subject of fonts and their comparative sizes, I noticed she’d had a big, metallic bulletin board installed on the wall on the back of her usually, personality-less office. It was covered in photos. It was then it happened.
Not having ingested any caffeine yet, or indeed, woken up properly, I made a fatal mistake. An error of judgment, which, at any other time of day I would have been alert enough to prevent. I pointed at one of the pictures on the board – a man with a stupendous and quite alarming mustache that curled up at the ends (obviously a circus performer or child molester) – and I said, “Who is that guy?”
I might as well have said, “Hey, how about picking up that phone directory and reading it to me?”
I then was treated to a run down of EVERY. SINGLE. GODDAMN. PERSON. ON. THAT. BOARD. (the child molesting trapeze artist was her grandfather)
“This is my mom and me. That’s my mom and dad in 1945, I think they were at a party. This is my ex and I in Vegas. That was a fun trip. [aside: for YOU maybe, bub, but the guy must've been like 'kill me now'] This is my ex-husband’s nephew and his twins, they’re five. When they were born they had problems with blah de blah de blah…”
Twenty fucking minutes I endured this and at the end of the tour my brain was dead as Phil Rizzuto. Holy cow!
I wasn’t back in my seat five minutes when her name appeared on my caller ID. I made that noise Marge Simpson makes when Homer’s sold the baby to gypsies again.
“It’s ok!” she said cheerfully. “[Boss] didn’t even mention the ten point font!”
“No shit!” I didn’t say, wondering if I could lure her into the fire escape and push her down the steps. I mean accidents happen all the time on stairs, am I wrong? All the time...
Now even though TMBWWEL’s office is just at the opposite end of the corridor from my own, if the matter hadn’t been extremely time sensitive, I would have sent that sucker via inter office mail, rather than have to go into the monster’s lair in person.
As I’ve pointed out before, she’s not a mean lady, or even an unpleasant one in the true sense of the word, it’s just that she really is the most boring woman who ever lived. There is no human being who is still living, who is more boring. I challenge you to find anyone else with the personality of Ambien.
Firstly, she scrutinized the form I gave her and pointed out the following:
“Where [boss’s] name is printed, that’s a ten point font. We usually use a twelve point font. You see, ten point font is hard to read if your eyes aren’t great. Unless you use ten point Courier which is a larger font. However, most people don’t use Courier as it’s old fashioned. But this is Arial. Ten point Arial is a little narrow and therefore smaller to read. Twelve point Arial however….”
At this point I picked up one of those electronic pencil sharpeners with the weighted bottoms and I smashed her head in.
Anyway, to get her off the subject of fonts and their comparative sizes, I noticed she’d had a big, metallic bulletin board installed on the wall on the back of her usually, personality-less office. It was covered in photos. It was then it happened.
Not having ingested any caffeine yet, or indeed, woken up properly, I made a fatal mistake. An error of judgment, which, at any other time of day I would have been alert enough to prevent. I pointed at one of the pictures on the board – a man with a stupendous and quite alarming mustache that curled up at the ends (obviously a circus performer or child molester) – and I said, “Who is that guy?”
I might as well have said, “Hey, how about picking up that phone directory and reading it to me?”
I then was treated to a run down of EVERY. SINGLE. GODDAMN. PERSON. ON. THAT. BOARD. (the child molesting trapeze artist was her grandfather)
“This is my mom and me. That’s my mom and dad in 1945, I think they were at a party. This is my ex and I in Vegas. That was a fun trip. [aside: for YOU maybe, bub, but the guy must've been like 'kill me now'] This is my ex-husband’s nephew and his twins, they’re five. When they were born they had problems with blah de blah de blah…”
Twenty fucking minutes I endured this and at the end of the tour my brain was dead as Phil Rizzuto. Holy cow!
I wasn’t back in my seat five minutes when her name appeared on my caller ID. I made that noise Marge Simpson makes when Homer’s sold the baby to gypsies again.
“It’s ok!” she said cheerfully. “[Boss] didn’t even mention the ten point font!”
“No shit!” I didn’t say, wondering if I could lure her into the fire escape and push her down the steps. I mean accidents happen all the time on stairs, am I wrong? All the time...
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
When Violence is the Only Answer
Our company owns a fleet of cars. Well - about four cars to be exact – maybe more of a “fleetito”. A mini fleet. Three of those cars are owned by one enormous ad team for their exclusive use and the fourth is generic, to be signed out by any employee who needs to use it for company business.
One of my teams use it a lot. We have a very big client out on Long Island so the car is useful and saves on things like car services that cost the same as a weekend in Cabo. All we have to do to reserve the car is call a guy down in the finance department who is in charge of such matters, pick up the keys and he logs it in a spreadsheet. You then go to the parking garage downstairs, which, given this is Manhattan, we pay as much to park the damn car per month as it costs for my entire rent and bills, and you drive the car away.
Or not as the case may be.
Today, one of my team needed the car to go to a client presentation. It was her first time using the car so she went down to the garage with the keys, checked in with the management down there and was told, “No you can not have the car. Not without a signed permission note from Lisa!”
“I need a signed permission slip from Lisa…” yelled Amy, my team member, into the phone, when she called me in a panic.
“Just who the fuck is Lisa?” I replied, bemused, “And how come we’ve never needed a permission slip the other 500 times we’ve used the car?”
“The guy won’t let me have it!” she yelled back frantically. “He says, no permission, no car.”
I put her on hold and called one of our heads of finance, Carlos, whose department deals with the use of the car.
“Who the fuck is Lisa?” he said, when I explained the situation. “You don’t need permission to take the car, just the fucking keys!”
Carlos swears a lot. It’s why we get along so well. “Tell her to tell them to give her the fucking car or have the fucker call me and I’ll fucking give them permission!” he snarled. I had the distinct feeling the permission Carlos would give might involve a baseball bat and a lot of anger.
I switched back to Amy and conveyed this delicate message. Some mumbling. Lots of arguing. “He still won’t let me have the car” she said feebly. “I’m already so late I’m going to be in real trouble. He still wants a note from Lisa.”
At this point my other line rings and I see Carlos' name on the caller ID. I put Amy on hold and pick up. “I found out who the fuck Lisa is!” he says. “She’s an admin on the other account! (the account who own the other three cars) She doesn’t have anything to do with our car so that fucker doesn’t need any fucking permission whatsofuckingever and certainly not from fucking Lisa.”
I tell Amy this and the douche still refuses to let her take the car. So I call this “Lisa” who is horrified and offers to go straight down there and beat someone’s ass. Or talk to them rationally, I don’t know which. I just know which I’d do.
Eventually, 45 minutes later, after a lot of cajoling and threats, Amy gets her car and Carlos is promising to go down there and “talk to people” probably in the same way the mob like to "talk" to people.
Me, I am ordering some popcorn, sitting back and watching the entertainment.
One of my teams use it a lot. We have a very big client out on Long Island so the car is useful and saves on things like car services that cost the same as a weekend in Cabo. All we have to do to reserve the car is call a guy down in the finance department who is in charge of such matters, pick up the keys and he logs it in a spreadsheet. You then go to the parking garage downstairs, which, given this is Manhattan, we pay as much to park the damn car per month as it costs for my entire rent and bills, and you drive the car away.
Or not as the case may be.
Today, one of my team needed the car to go to a client presentation. It was her first time using the car so she went down to the garage with the keys, checked in with the management down there and was told, “No you can not have the car. Not without a signed permission note from Lisa!”
“I need a signed permission slip from Lisa…” yelled Amy, my team member, into the phone, when she called me in a panic.
“Just who the fuck is Lisa?” I replied, bemused, “And how come we’ve never needed a permission slip the other 500 times we’ve used the car?”
“The guy won’t let me have it!” she yelled back frantically. “He says, no permission, no car.”
I put her on hold and called one of our heads of finance, Carlos, whose department deals with the use of the car.
“Who the fuck is Lisa?” he said, when I explained the situation. “You don’t need permission to take the car, just the fucking keys!”
Carlos swears a lot. It’s why we get along so well. “Tell her to tell them to give her the fucking car or have the fucker call me and I’ll fucking give them permission!” he snarled. I had the distinct feeling the permission Carlos would give might involve a baseball bat and a lot of anger.
I switched back to Amy and conveyed this delicate message. Some mumbling. Lots of arguing. “He still won’t let me have the car” she said feebly. “I’m already so late I’m going to be in real trouble. He still wants a note from Lisa.”
At this point my other line rings and I see Carlos' name on the caller ID. I put Amy on hold and pick up. “I found out who the fuck Lisa is!” he says. “She’s an admin on the other account! (the account who own the other three cars) She doesn’t have anything to do with our car so that fucker doesn’t need any fucking permission whatsofuckingever and certainly not from fucking Lisa.”
I tell Amy this and the douche still refuses to let her take the car. So I call this “Lisa” who is horrified and offers to go straight down there and beat someone’s ass. Or talk to them rationally, I don’t know which. I just know which I’d do.
Eventually, 45 minutes later, after a lot of cajoling and threats, Amy gets her car and Carlos is promising to go down there and “talk to people” probably in the same way the mob like to "talk" to people.
Me, I am ordering some popcorn, sitting back and watching the entertainment.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Do Not Feed The Admins
If there’s one thing the Guv’ner hates about a work day (actually there are many, but let’s focus here), it’s when the cafeteria promises one sort of nourishment for lunch and when you go to collect, provides something entirely different.
Like, for example, you’ve had a hard morning, typing, running around, calculating things (like best murder instrument in your desk drawer) and sticking push pins in a voodoo doll of an ex boss you still want dead, you want some comfort food. You know, some sustenance with a calorific value that would make Jenny Craig faint. So when your new spanky phone leaves you a computer generated voice mail with today’s cafeteria specials (this phone should be on the Enterprise, who else has a phone that tells them menu specials and emails them voice messages, huh!) and boasts “Macaroni Cheese” as the special main meal of the day, causing one to bounce up and down with cheerful anticipation, and drool on one’s clean shirt, it is not acceptable to provide this poor, hard-working individual with a green bean casserole instead. People in less civilized nations (like England) have been hung, drawn and quartered for less.
This switch does not make for a happy Guv’ner who had an egg salad sandwich with a dressing of spite just to make a protest.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, when has anything ever made for a happy Guv’ner? Well there was that one time at my last job where the mailroom guys arranged for a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge of the executive kitchen to be uh…how can I put it…enhanced with a much more alcoholically potent substance, providing many happy menial employees, one step closer to telling their boss where they could put their “monthly report”. Good times.
Like, for example, you’ve had a hard morning, typing, running around, calculating things (like best murder instrument in your desk drawer) and sticking push pins in a voodoo doll of an ex boss you still want dead, you want some comfort food. You know, some sustenance with a calorific value that would make Jenny Craig faint. So when your new spanky phone leaves you a computer generated voice mail with today’s cafeteria specials (this phone should be on the Enterprise, who else has a phone that tells them menu specials and emails them voice messages, huh!) and boasts “Macaroni Cheese” as the special main meal of the day, causing one to bounce up and down with cheerful anticipation, and drool on one’s clean shirt, it is not acceptable to provide this poor, hard-working individual with a green bean casserole instead. People in less civilized nations (like England) have been hung, drawn and quartered for less.
This switch does not make for a happy Guv’ner who had an egg salad sandwich with a dressing of spite just to make a protest.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, when has anything ever made for a happy Guv’ner? Well there was that one time at my last job where the mailroom guys arranged for a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge of the executive kitchen to be uh…how can I put it…enhanced with a much more alcoholically potent substance, providing many happy menial employees, one step closer to telling their boss where they could put their “monthly report”. Good times.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Guv'ner Phone Home
I had Friday off work due to our stellar Summer Friday program where we each get six Fridays during June, July and August off work, paid. Like extra vacation. Six extra long weekends. As you can imagine, the Guv'ner is very agreeable to such policies and equally enthusiastic about the week between Christmas and New Year where we also close down and it doesn't count as vacation time. I prefer to call these days off "Necessary Homicide Prevention Days" because it does somewhat allow me time to pop Xanax like candy in order to sleep for twelve hour periods at a time and in between fill my veins with Captain Morgan's Spiced rum and cheese (not at the same time, although really it depends on the amount of rum we're talking about here).
Today I arrived in my office to find that things were not as I left them on Thursday, despite the fact my office is kept locked. Hmmm. The reason I knew this? Well stuff had moved around my desk as though some invisible force were trying to find something. Then I turned around to dump my bag and I saw it. The. New. Phone.
Now you may be thinking, "Geez Guv, so effing what, it's a phone!" but you see, you clearly don't understand. My previous phone had the numbers etched in stone. It had a horn that you held up to your ear while you yelled and a lever you had to crank to get an operator who sounds like one of those ladies from a Pathé News reel. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad but let's just say it probably was really, really cool in 1976. When you picked up the receiver, instead of a dial tone you got 1970s' "Starsky & Hutch" theme-type, funky porn music. Bow chica bow bow.
The new phone though. It made me recoil in horror, my back against the wall, while I watched it cautiously in case it decided to evaporate me or give me orders. There are buttons and options up the wazoo. I'm still pretty sure there's an option for making coffee on there someplace... It's on a stand which makes it stand upright and it has a glowing, full color, TV-like screen display that can tell you exactly who is calling, their number and probably even what color underpants they're wearing, what they plan on ordering for lunch and maybe those dirty, nasty thoughts they're having about that new girl in planning. It also tracks calls rather blatantly, so no more calling "Boys Butts R Us" or 1-800-GUN-PLEASE during my lunch hour anymore. Shame.
Naturally, I have as much idea how to use this beast as I do the cockpit of an airplane so today should be interesting.
It sure looks purty though.
Today I arrived in my office to find that things were not as I left them on Thursday, despite the fact my office is kept locked. Hmmm. The reason I knew this? Well stuff had moved around my desk as though some invisible force were trying to find something. Then I turned around to dump my bag and I saw it. The. New. Phone.
Now you may be thinking, "Geez Guv, so effing what, it's a phone!" but you see, you clearly don't understand. My previous phone had the numbers etched in stone. It had a horn that you held up to your ear while you yelled and a lever you had to crank to get an operator who sounds like one of those ladies from a Pathé News reel. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad but let's just say it probably was really, really cool in 1976. When you picked up the receiver, instead of a dial tone you got 1970s' "Starsky & Hutch" theme-type, funky porn music. Bow chica bow bow.
The new phone though. It made me recoil in horror, my back against the wall, while I watched it cautiously in case it decided to evaporate me or give me orders. There are buttons and options up the wazoo. I'm still pretty sure there's an option for making coffee on there someplace... It's on a stand which makes it stand upright and it has a glowing, full color, TV-like screen display that can tell you exactly who is calling, their number and probably even what color underpants they're wearing, what they plan on ordering for lunch and maybe those dirty, nasty thoughts they're having about that new girl in planning. It also tracks calls rather blatantly, so no more calling "Boys Butts R Us" or 1-800-GUN-PLEASE during my lunch hour anymore. Shame.
Naturally, I have as much idea how to use this beast as I do the cockpit of an airplane so today should be interesting.
It sure looks purty though.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Topical and Tropical
When it’s hectic and there’s paper strewn everywhere; when you can’t see my desk for pens and calculators and magazines and finance reports; when there are three half empty Diet Pepsi bottles littering my desktop and the occasional Kit Kat wrapper; when there are twelve things that need to be done now and all have priority... At moments like these I like to look at the wall by my monitor which is completely covered with a poster of a perfect blue tropical ocean beach with palm trees and I like to think that if I focus really hard, I can pretend that I’m there, on that beach, hearing the waves lap against the white sand and the palm fronds swooshing slightly in the breeze to the faraway lilt of steel drum melodies and the pleasing, wafting aroma of Malibu and pineapple...
And then the sound of frantic gurgling (because in this daydream I am also drowning my boss in the tide while screaming, “What do you mean can I stay late to prepare some binders for an early morning meeting, you sniveling shitmeister????”)
Every day I feel a little more of my sanity slipping away. Possibly to that beach. Possibly to eek out a 2 liter bottle of tequila to hide under my desk. Possibly to the nearest gun store to buy an AK47. It’s hard to tell.
All I know is my mood today is as fragile as a Minnesota bridge in rush hour.
And every bit as dangerous.
And then the sound of frantic gurgling (because in this daydream I am also drowning my boss in the tide while screaming, “What do you mean can I stay late to prepare some binders for an early morning meeting, you sniveling shitmeister????”)
Every day I feel a little more of my sanity slipping away. Possibly to that beach. Possibly to eek out a 2 liter bottle of tequila to hide under my desk. Possibly to the nearest gun store to buy an AK47. It’s hard to tell.
All I know is my mood today is as fragile as a Minnesota bridge in rush hour.
And every bit as dangerous.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The Case Against Machines
Remember that scene in “Office Space” where the three geeks steal the fax machine (printer?) and smash it to smithereens with a baseball bat, in the middle of a field? That’s like every day in my office. My fantasies consist of moments where I lasso the photocopier on our floor, forklift it to the nearest window and launch it eleven floors down to the street with a primal scream. Of course there are obvious reasons why I’d never actually do this…I mean come on people, I am human. I mean, how am I ever going to get a forklift in the elevator?
I’m not overly concerned with any passers by down below or anything, I think worse things fall on them in NYC every day and since there are approximately seven billion ways to die in New York City at any given moment, Xerox machines falling from the sky are just one of many unforeseen circumstances we put up with every day. If that were to happen, tourists would shriek and cover their horrified faces in terror at the vision of a giant, mangled copier with limbs splaying out from underneath, whereas New Yorkers would be like, “Can you please f*cking move, you’re getting your blood all over my shoe, asshole!”
Calm down, I’m kidding. New Yorkers would never say “please”.
Today one of my coworkers – one of the ones I like, fortunately, was photocopying a stack of materials, which, if placed out on the Avenue, one on top of the other, would rival the height of the building itself. This was practically a seamless job as far as our evil Copier from Hades is concerned. Or it just likes my lovely coworker so much better than I. I guess she doesn’t kick it and say, “You like that don’t you, you little whore!” like I do.
When she’d done and I was trying to copy my one measly expense report, the machine chewed it up and spat it out. Well half of it anyway. The other half was still wedged somewhere in its innards and well…following those little diagrams inside the door that tell you how to clear a jam? They’re worse than Ikea instructions. Trillions of green knobs and pulleys and stuff you yank out and things you press and little, hot, scaldy things you burn your digits on every time because there’s a law that says in order to have a paper jam inside the machine, rather than on the peripherals, the jammed paper must be next to a metal bar the exact temperature of an erupting volcano and since the copier doesn’t generally come with asbestos gloves you just have to agree to give up the skin on your hand.
It tells me the most useless crap too (a bit like this blog entry). It boasts “tray 1 is low on paper” even though I’m using tray 4 and could not give a shit about tray 1’s deficiencies. Shut up copier. Once you can make me an omelet and a margarita then you might be relevant.
I’m not overly concerned with any passers by down below or anything, I think worse things fall on them in NYC every day and since there are approximately seven billion ways to die in New York City at any given moment, Xerox machines falling from the sky are just one of many unforeseen circumstances we put up with every day. If that were to happen, tourists would shriek and cover their horrified faces in terror at the vision of a giant, mangled copier with limbs splaying out from underneath, whereas New Yorkers would be like, “Can you please f*cking move, you’re getting your blood all over my shoe, asshole!”
Calm down, I’m kidding. New Yorkers would never say “please”.
Today one of my coworkers – one of the ones I like, fortunately, was photocopying a stack of materials, which, if placed out on the Avenue, one on top of the other, would rival the height of the building itself. This was practically a seamless job as far as our evil Copier from Hades is concerned. Or it just likes my lovely coworker so much better than I. I guess she doesn’t kick it and say, “You like that don’t you, you little whore!” like I do.
When she’d done and I was trying to copy my one measly expense report, the machine chewed it up and spat it out. Well half of it anyway. The other half was still wedged somewhere in its innards and well…following those little diagrams inside the door that tell you how to clear a jam? They’re worse than Ikea instructions. Trillions of green knobs and pulleys and stuff you yank out and things you press and little, hot, scaldy things you burn your digits on every time because there’s a law that says in order to have a paper jam inside the machine, rather than on the peripherals, the jammed paper must be next to a metal bar the exact temperature of an erupting volcano and since the copier doesn’t generally come with asbestos gloves you just have to agree to give up the skin on your hand.
It tells me the most useless crap too (a bit like this blog entry). It boasts “tray 1 is low on paper” even though I’m using tray 4 and could not give a shit about tray 1’s deficiencies. Shut up copier. Once you can make me an omelet and a margarita then you might be relevant.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Opening the Old Oak Door To the Guv'ner's Brain Basement
The truly awesome Miss Katrocket Radio gave me this meme type of thingy to answer so I thought I'd deviate from the office for a moment to enlighten you on the Guv'ner's fascinating persona. I'm cross posting this to my Live Journal too because I'm a whore.
The rules: and here's the guidelines to include in your post:
If you care to participate, leave me a comment saying "Interview me." I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
The five:
1. You are given the opportunity to earn five million dollars for one year of work. The catch? You have to be a tour guide for the Precious Moments Museum, and you have to be NICE and say NICE and POSITIVE things about Precious Moments for that entire year. You may not utter a single negative thing (or write, record, blog anything negative), both on the job and after hours. Do you take the job or forfeit? Why or why not?
Well naturally only an imbecile of great standing would turn that job down. The key here is the five million bucks ensuring I never had to work for degenerate fucksticks ever again and quite frankly I'd stick my granny with a branding iron and sell her to an Arab for five million bucks. (It's ok, she'd be fine, she's not Jewish or anything.) However, given the job itself I would have a set of tactical plans in place because obviously the urge to lapse from the agreement would be intense. Plus I would have one of those insulin pens handy that people with The Diabeetus use when their blood sugar gets too high. I would have my friend C., who is an electronics genius, wire me up with a contraption that zapped me every time a swear word so much as formed in my brain or if it detected an oncoming bout of sarcasm. Secondly, I'd wire my jaws shut and not talk at all if things got really dire. I'd record a nice little ditty about the museum on tape, beforehand and hand it out to visitors so I didn't have to say a word. Thirdly, I would go home from work every night, in some sort of frightening zombie trance (as you'd imagine) and I'd drink Cuba Libres until I thought I was Dean Martin. Fourthly, I'd call in sick a lot. Fifthly (fifthly is a word?), at the end of my term I would unleash a sea of profanity so intense, entire continents would shake like Michael J. Fox at a Parkinson's convention. Then I might go pipebomb the museum. You know, after they paid me.
2. Your ‘24’ moment has arrived: There’s a bomb somewhere in your home that cannot be found or dismantled, and you have five minutes to pack up and leave before it explodes. What goes and what stays?
Hmmm...Well. My cats go that goes without saying. People are generally enormous shits but animals are good spirits, loyal and kind - even ones that routinely wake you up at 3am every night to feed them "breakfast" or else they trash the living room. Then I'm thinking my passport might be a decent idea and my green card because that fucker was harder to get than it is to persuade Jessica Simpson to grasp the basic concept of tuna. I would then immediately throw my Dalek cookie jar out on the fire escape ready for the escape (who wouldn't save the Dalek cookie jar, duh!?) and my photo albums. And that big bar of Cadbury's I have in the fridge. Let's get our priorities right immediately. Probably my iPod and laptop would come too, I mean all my friends live on my laptop after all. Oh yeah, then I might take my lovely boy El Codo. Depends on the mood I was in. I'm kidding, El C. I'd also escape butt naked therefore the thing I'd leave behind is my dignity. And my pants.
3. What’s your favourite scripture? Hahahahahahaha I’m totally kidding.
Thank the Lord. That gave me hives.
3. (for real this time) If your life is ever made into a made-for-TV movie, who would play you?
If my life was ever made into a made-for-TV movie I'd be played by Bruce Willis. Sure he's a ton older than me and there's that business of him having a penis (I guess, I haven't looked) and no hair, but he would kick ass and might manage to make my life exciting, adding a few explosions here, a few terrorists there. Although he mightn't be all that convincing in a dress and I'm not sure I'd like to find out. Hahaha, that suggested I ever wear a dress. Ha ha ha.
4. What has given you the most pleasure in this past year (July 2006-July 2007)?
In all honesty, this past year has sucked donkey balls. It's been a never ending stream of poverty, frustration and I've had a friend die. Positives? A wealth of Irn Bru, a nice little sunny vacation at The Evil Queen's house in Florida, the discovery of "On the Border" margarita mix and hanging out in "Vegas" with my Live Journal buddy Tony Spunk. And maybe that time some hobo pinched my ass on the train (I appreciated the attention).
5. You often write about your horrific work experiences a world of corporate incompetence – as a kid, what was your idea of a dream job?
When I was really little, I wanted to be a sky muffin. I mean an air hostess. Stewardess. Flight attendant??? WTF do they call themselves? Anyway. One of those. You see, I loved planes, everything about them, their huge size, their majesty, the roar the engines made, the fact they were going to exotic places...like Luton. And Detroit. I used to spend days at the airport with my dad watching planes take off and land. I guess he liked planes too. Either that or he had a thing for airports, I don't know. So yeah. Then I got over the sky muffin phase and decided, why not start at the top so I wanted to be a pilot. This was going well until I realized that a) I sucked at most things mathematical. b) I sucked at science and c) I hate flying and need to be sedated before stepping onto a plane. Apparently airlines don't like their pilots tranquilized. Well unless you want to work for Aeroflot. After that I think I just wanted to be a rock star and a writer. I still kind of have the aspiration for the latter. The former is a matter for me and the bedroom mirror only.
The rules: and here's the guidelines to include in your post:
If you care to participate, leave me a comment saying "Interview me." I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
The five:
1. You are given the opportunity to earn five million dollars for one year of work. The catch? You have to be a tour guide for the Precious Moments Museum, and you have to be NICE and say NICE and POSITIVE things about Precious Moments for that entire year. You may not utter a single negative thing (or write, record, blog anything negative), both on the job and after hours. Do you take the job or forfeit? Why or why not?
Well naturally only an imbecile of great standing would turn that job down. The key here is the five million bucks ensuring I never had to work for degenerate fucksticks ever again and quite frankly I'd stick my granny with a branding iron and sell her to an Arab for five million bucks. (It's ok, she'd be fine, she's not Jewish or anything.) However, given the job itself I would have a set of tactical plans in place because obviously the urge to lapse from the agreement would be intense. Plus I would have one of those insulin pens handy that people with The Diabeetus use when their blood sugar gets too high. I would have my friend C., who is an electronics genius, wire me up with a contraption that zapped me every time a swear word so much as formed in my brain or if it detected an oncoming bout of sarcasm. Secondly, I'd wire my jaws shut and not talk at all if things got really dire. I'd record a nice little ditty about the museum on tape, beforehand and hand it out to visitors so I didn't have to say a word. Thirdly, I would go home from work every night, in some sort of frightening zombie trance (as you'd imagine) and I'd drink Cuba Libres until I thought I was Dean Martin. Fourthly, I'd call in sick a lot. Fifthly (fifthly is a word?), at the end of my term I would unleash a sea of profanity so intense, entire continents would shake like Michael J. Fox at a Parkinson's convention. Then I might go pipebomb the museum. You know, after they paid me.
2. Your ‘24’ moment has arrived: There’s a bomb somewhere in your home that cannot be found or dismantled, and you have five minutes to pack up and leave before it explodes. What goes and what stays?
Hmmm...Well. My cats go that goes without saying. People are generally enormous shits but animals are good spirits, loyal and kind - even ones that routinely wake you up at 3am every night to feed them "breakfast" or else they trash the living room. Then I'm thinking my passport might be a decent idea and my green card because that fucker was harder to get than it is to persuade Jessica Simpson to grasp the basic concept of tuna. I would then immediately throw my Dalek cookie jar out on the fire escape ready for the escape (who wouldn't save the Dalek cookie jar, duh!?) and my photo albums. And that big bar of Cadbury's I have in the fridge. Let's get our priorities right immediately. Probably my iPod and laptop would come too, I mean all my friends live on my laptop after all. Oh yeah, then I might take my lovely boy El Codo. Depends on the mood I was in. I'm kidding, El C. I'd also escape butt naked therefore the thing I'd leave behind is my dignity. And my pants.
3. What’s your favourite scripture? Hahahahahahaha I’m totally kidding.
Thank the Lord. That gave me hives.
3. (for real this time) If your life is ever made into a made-for-TV movie, who would play you?
If my life was ever made into a made-for-TV movie I'd be played by Bruce Willis. Sure he's a ton older than me and there's that business of him having a penis (I guess, I haven't looked) and no hair, but he would kick ass and might manage to make my life exciting, adding a few explosions here, a few terrorists there. Although he mightn't be all that convincing in a dress and I'm not sure I'd like to find out. Hahaha, that suggested I ever wear a dress. Ha ha ha.
4. What has given you the most pleasure in this past year (July 2006-July 2007)?
In all honesty, this past year has sucked donkey balls. It's been a never ending stream of poverty, frustration and I've had a friend die. Positives? A wealth of Irn Bru, a nice little sunny vacation at The Evil Queen's house in Florida, the discovery of "On the Border" margarita mix and hanging out in "Vegas" with my Live Journal buddy Tony Spunk. And maybe that time some hobo pinched my ass on the train (I appreciated the attention).
5. You often write about your horrific work experiences a world of corporate incompetence – as a kid, what was your idea of a dream job?
When I was really little, I wanted to be a sky muffin. I mean an air hostess. Stewardess. Flight attendant??? WTF do they call themselves? Anyway. One of those. You see, I loved planes, everything about them, their huge size, their majesty, the roar the engines made, the fact they were going to exotic places...like Luton. And Detroit. I used to spend days at the airport with my dad watching planes take off and land. I guess he liked planes too. Either that or he had a thing for airports, I don't know. So yeah. Then I got over the sky muffin phase and decided, why not start at the top so I wanted to be a pilot. This was going well until I realized that a) I sucked at most things mathematical. b) I sucked at science and c) I hate flying and need to be sedated before stepping onto a plane. Apparently airlines don't like their pilots tranquilized. Well unless you want to work for Aeroflot. After that I think I just wanted to be a rock star and a writer. I still kind of have the aspiration for the latter. The former is a matter for me and the bedroom mirror only.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
I Like A Challenge
We “assistants” just adore having to do things at the last possible minute. It’s a sickness of ours. We thrive on it. Really. So what if you’ve known about that Defcon Red important creative presentation to the CEO and his team at the client for about ten weeks, the presentation is this afternoon so this morning we will do about three weeks necessary prep. in about two hours.
No, honestly, don’t apologize, there’s nothing we enjoy more than giving up our morning coffee, our entire lunch hour and what remains of our sanity so that you can have 50 color, bound copies of this 300 slide presentation that you need by 2 p.m. and that you’ve known about for all these weeks. Oh what’s that? You haven’t quite finished the presentation yet, you’re still making edits? No sweat. You’ll be done by around noon you say? Well that’s great, thank you so much. That gives me a whole hour to provide those 50 bound copies of 300 pages. Of course I can have it done. It’s not like there are 3,000 people in our company and anyone else is using the two color copiers we have on the premises.
Is there anything else I can do? Oh, there is? What a pleasant surprise! Can I make 20 CDs of the presentation as well? And you need them in a half hour? No problem at all. While I’m juggling the 50 copies of this novel I’m about to bind I’ll just use my special octopus extension arm to throw in a few CDs to burn. You know, I still have my feet free, do you need anything else?
Oh you need a car service to take you to the client? Of course I can do that. I can do that in my sleep, if need be. It has to be here in ten minutes? Lucky I am well rehearsed in pulling sedans out of my ass. Will that be all?
No, honestly, don’t apologize, there’s nothing we enjoy more than giving up our morning coffee, our entire lunch hour and what remains of our sanity so that you can have 50 color, bound copies of this 300 slide presentation that you need by 2 p.m. and that you’ve known about for all these weeks. Oh what’s that? You haven’t quite finished the presentation yet, you’re still making edits? No sweat. You’ll be done by around noon you say? Well that’s great, thank you so much. That gives me a whole hour to provide those 50 bound copies of 300 pages. Of course I can have it done. It’s not like there are 3,000 people in our company and anyone else is using the two color copiers we have on the premises.
Is there anything else I can do? Oh, there is? What a pleasant surprise! Can I make 20 CDs of the presentation as well? And you need them in a half hour? No problem at all. While I’m juggling the 50 copies of this novel I’m about to bind I’ll just use my special octopus extension arm to throw in a few CDs to burn. You know, I still have my feet free, do you need anything else?
Oh you need a car service to take you to the client? Of course I can do that. I can do that in my sleep, if need be. It has to be here in ten minutes? Lucky I am well rehearsed in pulling sedans out of my ass. Will that be all?
Monday, July 23, 2007
Do I Look Like a People Person?
While I’m in the midst of a whole plethora of posts about travel and travel cock-ups, I should point out a little something that happened this very day, in the midst of a busy work schedule that made me contemplate just super-gluing the phone receiver to my ear to save time.
There’s this crazy little chick who, while not part of one of my client teams, does work with this team on various projects, albeit in a different capacity. This little chick occasionally pops up to visit our neck of the woods to meet with our team, full of perky, loud opinions and a deafening chatter that sounds sort of like a million birds on amphetamines, magnified through a guitar pedal.
Today this same little chick calls me, on her cell phone, from San Diego, where she is on client business. The fact is, I have spoken to her maybe once ever, so why she is calling me is a mystery. Although, apparently it’s not going to be a mystery for long.
It seems that this Crazy Little Chick was about as confused as Anne Heche at a sexuality conference, because when she called she said, “I’m in San Diego airport but I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where the meeting is!”
Hmmm. Now it’s possible I’m being unfairly presumptuous here Little Chick, but, when partaking on a business trip, be it close to home or 3,000 miles away, one would assume that maybe taking vital information with you like, for example, where you are going once leaving the airport, might be a pretty useful idea.
As it happened I didn’t have that information either, since none of my team are involved in said trip. She was a touch annoyed at this, which bothered me about oh…not at all. She was going to go make some calls to get the information elsewhere.
Fast forward ten minutes. Phone rings and I see her cell number on my caller ID. I pick up with my utmost, polished professional corporate greeting of, “Yeeeeeeeesssssssssssss?”
“I got to the hotel!” Little Chick says, sounding a touch frantic. “But they won’t let me go to my room.”
“Are you wearing a jacket strapped with explosives?” I didn’t ask, although I wanted to.
“My reservation is there.” she said. “But apparently I need to pay for it in advance, with a credit card.”
“Yeeeeeessssssssss…” I said again, not quite sure what her point was. “They generally insist that you to pay for your stay.”
“And…I don’t have a credit card!” she said. “So they won’t let me in.”
“You don’t have a credit card.” I said flatly. “You don’t have a single credit card?”
“Well yes, I have a credit card.” She said, “But it’s in NY. I didn’t bring it with me. I didn’t think I’d need it.”
Who the hell travels anywhere without taking a credit card and stays in hotels without a means to pay for them? I mean we can book the rooms but someone still has to pay for the damn thing. Tinkerbell doesn't just fly in on the breeze and sprinkle her magic invisibility sparkles on the bill.
“Maybe you could do some sexual favors for the Concierge?” I also didn't suggest although again, I wanted to.
Little Chick wants to know if my boss will let her use his credit card, however, he is not only currently in another state but hello… the card is with him. Unless you have one of those little devices that Captain Kirk used to beam stuff all over the place, I fail to see how this plan could ever succeed.
“What you need…” I started to explain helpfully, “Is an ATM. Because all hotels take cash.”
She liked that suggestion even less than she liked anything else I’d said all day.
“But, I don’t have much in my account.” She said. “I can’t afford to pay for a $200 room in cash.”
“Hence why one requires a credit card!” I said. “Seeing any light bulbs go on yet?”
OK I didn’t say that. But you know I was thinking it.
The whole time this was going on I was thinking, “Why the hell is she calling me? She doesn’t even know me. I don’t work for or with her. She has a fucking assistant she can talk to!”
Finally, another company member attending the same conference paid for her room on his credit card. Meanwhile, I spent an hour of my life I’m never getting back, running around trying to figure out her problems. Joy.
There’s this crazy little chick who, while not part of one of my client teams, does work with this team on various projects, albeit in a different capacity. This little chick occasionally pops up to visit our neck of the woods to meet with our team, full of perky, loud opinions and a deafening chatter that sounds sort of like a million birds on amphetamines, magnified through a guitar pedal.
Today this same little chick calls me, on her cell phone, from San Diego, where she is on client business. The fact is, I have spoken to her maybe once ever, so why she is calling me is a mystery. Although, apparently it’s not going to be a mystery for long.
It seems that this Crazy Little Chick was about as confused as Anne Heche at a sexuality conference, because when she called she said, “I’m in San Diego airport but I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where the meeting is!”
Hmmm. Now it’s possible I’m being unfairly presumptuous here Little Chick, but, when partaking on a business trip, be it close to home or 3,000 miles away, one would assume that maybe taking vital information with you like, for example, where you are going once leaving the airport, might be a pretty useful idea.
As it happened I didn’t have that information either, since none of my team are involved in said trip. She was a touch annoyed at this, which bothered me about oh…not at all. She was going to go make some calls to get the information elsewhere.
Fast forward ten minutes. Phone rings and I see her cell number on my caller ID. I pick up with my utmost, polished professional corporate greeting of, “Yeeeeeeeesssssssssssss?”
“I got to the hotel!” Little Chick says, sounding a touch frantic. “But they won’t let me go to my room.”
“Are you wearing a jacket strapped with explosives?” I didn’t ask, although I wanted to.
“My reservation is there.” she said. “But apparently I need to pay for it in advance, with a credit card.”
“Yeeeeeessssssssss…” I said again, not quite sure what her point was. “They generally insist that you to pay for your stay.”
“And…I don’t have a credit card!” she said. “So they won’t let me in.”
“You don’t have a credit card.” I said flatly. “You don’t have a single credit card?”
“Well yes, I have a credit card.” She said, “But it’s in NY. I didn’t bring it with me. I didn’t think I’d need it.”
Who the hell travels anywhere without taking a credit card and stays in hotels without a means to pay for them? I mean we can book the rooms but someone still has to pay for the damn thing. Tinkerbell doesn't just fly in on the breeze and sprinkle her magic invisibility sparkles on the bill.
“Maybe you could do some sexual favors for the Concierge?” I also didn't suggest although again, I wanted to.
Little Chick wants to know if my boss will let her use his credit card, however, he is not only currently in another state but hello… the card is with him. Unless you have one of those little devices that Captain Kirk used to beam stuff all over the place, I fail to see how this plan could ever succeed.
“What you need…” I started to explain helpfully, “Is an ATM. Because all hotels take cash.”
She liked that suggestion even less than she liked anything else I’d said all day.
“But, I don’t have much in my account.” She said. “I can’t afford to pay for a $200 room in cash.”
“Hence why one requires a credit card!” I said. “Seeing any light bulbs go on yet?”
OK I didn’t say that. But you know I was thinking it.
The whole time this was going on I was thinking, “Why the hell is she calling me? She doesn’t even know me. I don’t work for or with her. She has a fucking assistant she can talk to!”
Finally, another company member attending the same conference paid for her room on his credit card. Meanwhile, I spent an hour of my life I’m never getting back, running around trying to figure out her problems. Joy.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Weekends Exist To Keep The Homicide Rate Down
My bosses are all traveling this week, which is nice in one way, due to the wealth of downtime and alien things like “lunch hours”, yet they are hell in another, because the second they are all incommunicado, that is when disasters happen and when disasters happen in corporations, there is not enough caffeine on the planet that will make you wired enough to solve the situation without weeping, losing three quarters of your hair and threatening people with a letter opener. Luckily, so far, all is quiet.
Too quiet…
One boss, who has been an enormous pain in the rear lately, is in Florida. She has changed her travel plans so many times that even the airlines are confused as to her intent. I envision her name soon being scrawled on a “no fly” list alongside “Osama Hussein-Mohammad” and that dickwad from Oasis. She now wants to come back today one hour earlier than planned (waiting in the airport bar for an hour, chatting up the bartender while sucking down Manhattans wasn’t an option apparently). She’s flying from Miami to New York but I’m seriously considering routing her through Salt Lake City. And Chicago. Where she will be delayed until Tuesday by tornados and by which time her head will have exploded and my life will be 50% more bearable.
Still on the subject of travel, we have our own travel department here and someday soon I will come to work with an axe and murder one of our reps. This particular lady is a very nice person, friendly, jovial and totally, inconceivably incompetent. Not much frightens the Guv’ner, but she frightens me to my core.
Take, for example, the time I booked boss number one on some flights that would take him to a four day conference in Las Vegas. I call the travel department and get crazy travel rep. to make sure that the hotel we discussed for this conference is confirmed and she assures me that yes, he is all set. He is good to go. Commence launch sequence. Then the automated itinerary arrived via email and I quickly glanced at it to make sure nothing was amiss and, yes, she was absolutely correct, the hotel is booked and confirmed, just like she told me.
It’s also in Houston, Texas.
Much swearing and scurrying and threatening and changing of things ensued, while I contemplated how hard I’d have to connect with the plate glass partition in my office to actually put my head through it.
She will routinely give me flight options that don’t exist or omit ones that do.
She will swear blind we didn’t discuss something when I have notes proving we did.
She will tell me there is no way to do something in a certain time frame that another rep will not bat an eyelid at.
She will give me options for all three NY airports when I ask for flights “only to and from La Guardia” and end up booking irate boss on some flight back to Newark, despite telling me it was to La Guardia and when his car is waiting for him, peacefully, at La Guardia. I will naturally only find this out at the last minute and be scurrying around like a gerbil in Richard Gere’s back yard, trying to rectify this monumental cock-up.
It’s exhausting. And rage inducing.
But it’s Friday.
Too quiet…
One boss, who has been an enormous pain in the rear lately, is in Florida. She has changed her travel plans so many times that even the airlines are confused as to her intent. I envision her name soon being scrawled on a “no fly” list alongside “Osama Hussein-Mohammad” and that dickwad from Oasis. She now wants to come back today one hour earlier than planned (waiting in the airport bar for an hour, chatting up the bartender while sucking down Manhattans wasn’t an option apparently). She’s flying from Miami to New York but I’m seriously considering routing her through Salt Lake City. And Chicago. Where she will be delayed until Tuesday by tornados and by which time her head will have exploded and my life will be 50% more bearable.
Still on the subject of travel, we have our own travel department here and someday soon I will come to work with an axe and murder one of our reps. This particular lady is a very nice person, friendly, jovial and totally, inconceivably incompetent. Not much frightens the Guv’ner, but she frightens me to my core.
Take, for example, the time I booked boss number one on some flights that would take him to a four day conference in Las Vegas. I call the travel department and get crazy travel rep. to make sure that the hotel we discussed for this conference is confirmed and she assures me that yes, he is all set. He is good to go. Commence launch sequence. Then the automated itinerary arrived via email and I quickly glanced at it to make sure nothing was amiss and, yes, she was absolutely correct, the hotel is booked and confirmed, just like she told me.
It’s also in Houston, Texas.
Much swearing and scurrying and threatening and changing of things ensued, while I contemplated how hard I’d have to connect with the plate glass partition in my office to actually put my head through it.
She will routinely give me flight options that don’t exist or omit ones that do.
She will swear blind we didn’t discuss something when I have notes proving we did.
She will tell me there is no way to do something in a certain time frame that another rep will not bat an eyelid at.
She will give me options for all three NY airports when I ask for flights “only to and from La Guardia” and end up booking irate boss on some flight back to Newark, despite telling me it was to La Guardia and when his car is waiting for him, peacefully, at La Guardia. I will naturally only find this out at the last minute and be scurrying around like a gerbil in Richard Gere’s back yard, trying to rectify this monumental cock-up.
It’s exhausting. And rage inducing.
But it’s Friday.
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