Month: April 2011

Sadie Fudd*

OMG, Easter 2012 is cancelled and it’s my dog’s fault.

So, this morning I was running late due to a early morning headache (fixed by Aleve because I don’t have time for a migraine on a work day) that resulted in sleeping late. I had to rush around to get lunch made (mmm, leftover ham!) and get my stuff together.

“C’mon, Sadie! Let’s tell Daddy bye bye before I go to work!” Sadie and I turned to go to Gene’s home office when

ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK

Dead bunny in my living room.

(No pictures were taken)

(You’re welcome)

It was Gene’s turn to remove the …. ummm… departed and I walked it to the garbage can outside. Which fortunately had been emptied perhaps 30 minutes prior. Here’s to an entire week of grossness in my garbage can.

*Well, OK, it could have been Sadie or it could have been Betty. Was Betty trying to teach Sadie to hunt? Regardless, Scooby’s a big cowardly innocent.

Stupid things I did this week…

But first, breaking news: I desperately want a donut. Am considering getting up tomorrow AM specifically to go to the grocery story and buy Krispy Kremes (oh, for the luxury of a Krispy Kreme shop nearby!) but am also terrified the grocery story will be closed or out of Krispy Kremes. May have to go tonight.

(Seriously? Everything is closed on Easter but open on Thanksgiving. What the hell? This is one of those things that, as an atheist, I just don’t ‘get’, isn’t it?)

Anyway, at the moment I can only think of one stupid thing I did this week, which I will sum up by saying “Just because it’s your colleague on the phone, don’t answer the phone ‘Hellllooooo!’ because it could be a ‘cold’ transfer and then BOY won’t the client be impressed by THAT!”

Dear clients…

If your check date is tomorrow, don’t call us at 4:45 and expect me to take down your payroll, key your payroll and process your payroll by 5 PM. I don’t care that the other team was able to do that. (OK, fine, I pulled it off but they are getting an email that says “yeahhh, don’t do that again!”)

And then, if you do call, don’t spend three minutes trying to get me to chat with you about the changes at my employer. Dude, it’s not MY employees who almost didn’t get paid. Nimrod.

And then, have your shit together. Perhaps consider arranging your information alphabetically. And also consider having all of your information ready. Now is NOT the time to do complex payroll calculations. Dude, it’s not MY company that’s the subject of an intense labor board investigation for committing a Sin of Payroll.

And finally, DUDE, I am NOT your dedicated rep. Next time you call, I am specifically handing you over to someone else on my team because you are gross and you run a less than savory business. I could literally be in the middle of napping or reading an article on CNN.com and I will STILL say I am “right in the middle of a huge report, let me transfer you to…”

Pffffhhhhht.

The risotto that wasn’t…

So, about once a week we make dinner in the crock pot. This week, it was crock pot risotto.

Well, okay, it ended up being more like crock pot mush. You know how when you stir something all the smaller pieces kind of whirl around and get mixed up? Somehow, stirring this was more like moving a Hot Wheel car around a track. And the taste was more like oatmeal. I wish I could accurately tell you what the sound the entire crock’s worth made when it hit the garbage, except that it started with a massive sucking noise and ended with the sound a bowling ball makes when it hits the floor.

I didn’t cook it so I know it’s not my fault, although when I came home the crock pot was making a suspicious hissing noise so of course I took the lid off to peek. My first thought was, “Gee, that’s….beige.” (And yes I know you’re not supposed to take the lid off, but it only had a few more minutes to cook so I did not ruin dinner!)

Yes indeedy, back to risotto made on the stove top for us!

(And lest you think we starved, I picked up Panda Express for us that night).

Hey, stupid

Point #1: Just enjoy the fact that you do not desperately NEED any appliances and stop window shopping for them. You’ll need a new fridge, dishwasher and dryer soon enough but probably not all at the same time (Sears 20% off 3 appliances sale be damned). Click away from the Slickdeals.net threads about great sales on front loading washer/dryer sets as you bought a washer less than a year ago and also do not like front loading washer/dryers.

Point #2: Unless you really enjoy feeling bad about yourself, stop volunteering too much information to your clients at work. When they say “Can your company….?”, the answer should be “Let me check and get back to you”, NOT “Yes of course we can!” The end result is taking so much grief from your boss that you kinda wish you’d applied to fold tshirts at the Gap instead of taking a real professional job.

Point #3: Take your damned lunch hour daily. Yes, abandon your teammates for 60 minutes a day, unless you really enjoy getting the evil eye for having overtime (which is currently banned). Ugh. Tuesday and Wednesday I completely skipped lunch and Thursday I took a 27 minute lunch (where I was nearly murdered in a head on collision as I returned with my bag o’ McDonalds)*. I kept thinking “Today I will ask to leave at 5” but it never happened so hence, overtime. (Don’t think I didn’t want those lunch hours…I would have gladly had another root canal if I could have avoided the stinky work I was doing instead)

* So was driving down the road and some complete moron was driving down the road as well…towards me, in my lane. The road is 4 lanes (two in each direction) with a divider in the middle that you can’t drive over (Unless you’re in a tank). Luckily, the stupid person (her, not me) got to a break in the divider so she could get in her own damned lane, but I still honked at her. The next thing I see is Broomhilda, who saw the entire thing. We exchanged “What the fuck??” looks (well, I also mouthed “What the fuck?”) and proceeded to giggle about it later that day.

Every day’s a new day…

So, I mentioned the other day that I have three post it notes tacked up on my cubicle wall. One of them reads “Every day’s a new day”. I added that one a few weeks ago after hanging up the phone following A Phone Call I’d Been Dreading and Therefore Avoided Making For Days, By Which I Mean Many Days, Nearly A Week. Huzzah.

(Briefly, a client had a tax notice from the Revenoors and I was really really scared and the client was Not Exactly Friendly but in the end it wasn’t my fault and the fault was neatly scraped over to the company who WAS at fault).

I got off the phone and realized…

…the sun was shining…

…the call was handled okay…

…I didn’t personally get yelled at…

…and I finally took Making That Call off my to-do list…

…and I was free…

Every day is a new day.

I hear voices…

So, you may or may not know this but one of the many ways Gene and I amuse ourselves is having two sided conversations with the dogs.*

By which I mean that we have specific voices that are the “Betty” voice and the “Scooby” voice. I haven’t dreamed up a third voice yet, so poor Sadie expresses herself only only with “Huh?”

One of my friends on Facebook sent me a question “Do you consider yourself a pet owner or a pet parent?” Would you believe I really had to think about that?

And then I remembered that we call ourselves Mommy and Daddy in relation to the dogs (“Scooby, go see Mommy!” etc).

Well, it’s something, right?

*Don’t knock it – amusing ourselves with the dogs is one of ways we have been able to save on the entertainment budget.

I’m sorry

So, I have a new boss, Belinda. One of the good parts about working closer with Belinda is that she is very good at explaining hard to explain things to our clients. I have already got her to help me with a conference call with a mildly ticked off client, and I must admit that she is a pro at it. Before all is said and done I will probably rely on her too much, causing a conversation about “Handle it yourself, Elaine!”

(Note: Still better at this shit than my archrival, Broomhilda, who typically doesn’t even try)

(Yee-haw)

So anyway, Belinda was kind enough to proofread and give her thoughts on an email I’d written to a mildly ticked client (actually, the same one from the phone call). I’d concluded the email with “I sincerely apologize for the error.” Her notes specifically removed that line from the final draft, and she told me I should remove that from all future correspondence.

So I’m not supposed to apologize? Whhaaaat? I wonder if I apologize too often – Gene has said that I do (usually when I call him from the car at 7:20 at night, when I should have been home an hour before – he is so cool with my crazy hours) but is it a bad thing to apologize? Especially if it’s because I fucked up? Or, because my employer fucked up?

Right now, I have three post it notes (or as I have started calling them, Posty Notes) on my wall at work “Be Nice” “Speak Up!” and “Every Day is a New Day” (which is a story in and of itself), but I wonder if I should add a new one, “Never apologize.”

Still learning lots at work. I still love my job, but if someone came to me and said “Ehh, don’t worry about it, why don’t you stay home instead and play Pogo all day and try to suntan your toes?” I would be totally cool with that.

(Sounds nice, to be honest!)

This week

Hey, check it out, it’s Saturday.

What I’ve been up to (in no particular order):

1) Badgered Amazon.com into refunding the shipping for Sweet Valley Confidential (yes! It’s the Sweet Valley Twins, all grown up. The book itself is medium awful but I’m loving it. Team Elizabeth!)

(ugh, just said Team Elizabeth…loser!)

2) Fooling around on Twitter. Not Tweeting anything myself, just adding hordes of Twitter feeds. Trying to get the Twitter feeds for all of the people from The State but it appears that not all of them are on Twitter. WTF? Anyway, I’m finding Twitter to be genuinely hilarious.

3) Leaving work on time-ish. I think it was Thursday that I left at 6:03. You all have no idea how huge that is. It was daylight! I was so happy that I picked Gene up and we went out for chocolate covered Rice Krispie Treats and other yummy stuff across the street.

4) Doggie Drama: Remember the psycho Jack Russell Terrier we housed for a night? We named him Charlie because he acted like a crackhead and would hump anything possible? And then we called Cheesecake Animal Services, who discovered he was microchipped so he was returned to his owner?

Charlie was in my front yard one morning this week. We called Cheesecake Animal Services, who called the owner, who told Animal Services “I know who keeps calling, he lives behind me”. I was so freaked out that I made Gene leave the dogs inside all day. Gene thinks that Charlie’s Asshole Owner thinks that someone else has called Animal Services and I hope he’s right.

(Not to go all White Trash LaineyD, but I hope that if Charlie’s Asshole Owner considers doing anything wrong to MY dogs he first notices the NRA sticker on our front door because I will hurt anyone who hurts my dogs. And I don’t mean I’ll shout “Gene! Shoot the man with the antifreeze and hot dogs in his hands!”; I mean that I will get the gun, I will shoot the gun and Charlie’s Asshole Owner had better hope I take long enough to remember how to take the safety off so he can scamper back to his house).

(Sorry, my infertility’s been acting up this week).

All is well, hope all is well with you.