2) Work is fine. One of my coworkers is less than thrilled that I’m going out of town, but, oh well.

3) Not going home for Xmas this year. It wasn’t a choice between Indiana and Germany, BTW. In Big Payroll, no one goes anywhere in December and January. Maybe February. (It could be worse…at the company I interviewed with earlier this year, no one gets a full week off for many many years).

4) I forgot to send a present to my sister in law Michelle for her birthday (9/1) so I’m going to wish her a happy birthday here (and hopefully get her something super cool from Germany).

5) HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHELLE!!!!

(YES, I made dinner…and potatoes!! on a weeknight!)

and learned a very important life lesson (the kind that everyone but me knows already): Always, alllllwayyyyys remember to lock the bowl into the stand mixer. If you don’t, you end up trying to shut the mixer off while simultaneously trying to keep the bucking broncho of a bowl full of potatoes, milk, butter, etc from dispersing its contents all over your kitchen.

Glad I could help.

Here’s something funny…so, my department is comprised of 6 ladies (me and four others in my office and one in an office in the midwest). One day, one of the local ladies sits down and tells us she has a dilemma. Intrigued, I wheel my chair over to hear all about it. It turns out that she went home at lunch and left her purse there. “I’m on E,” she said, “really on E. What should I do?”

Another co-worker offers her a few bucks as a loan. All I can think is, “Did she just admit she took Ecstasy at lunch?”

So, of course, I am me, so I piped up (quietly) “You’re on Ecstasy?”

“No! I’m almost out of gas!”

Oh. She – her car – is on E(mpty).

Duhhhh. Fortunately, she thinks I’m hilarious so we all had a good laugh, especially when I said we should have a dance party anyway.

Here’s something I’m not used to: my old company had single stall restrooms, whereas the new company has a ladies room with six or eight stalls. Whenever I go to the ladies room with a coworker, she always continues the conversation. Is that weird? Maybe it’s just that one co-worker, who seems to like me (she’s nice, but not Almighty). Maybe at this job I’ll give all my coworkers nicknames instead of soap opera pseudonyms. If so, this one is Bathroom Talker.

Last night was my company’s “Summer Event”, which was bowling at the bowling alley down the street from my house. Gene couldn’t make it but nearly everyone else had their spouse with them. Bathroom Talker’s husband had to miss it as well, so she and I stuck together. Turns out, I’m a pretty decent bowler still. Sadly, I could not use my beloved Bowling Phrase, “You can pick that up, babe!” because, well, that would be weird.

Today, though, I am reminded that I should have stretched or something first…my right pinkie aches (but I think it’s been broken for awhile – unless one should be able to move the top half of a finger independently from the rest of it?), my back is patently unhappy and I feel all dehydrated (despite being stone cold sober the whole time).

Still, I love my job. Nice company!

Therefore, it sure was a pain in the ass the way today ended up going. Spent the morning waiting for answers from the middlemen, spent the afternoon waiting for the freakin’ fraking :::shakes fist::: I.T. people to fix my computer. (This is a computer, BTW, that has been employed at the new company exactly as long as I have).

Basically, I spent half the day staring at my monitor, wishing that Outlook would not require me to input my password 47 times and then that Windows would just let me log in, fer cryin’ out loud. I.T. finally called at 4 in the afternoon. The fix took about 2 minutes. Yay.

One of the emails I had was from a middleman (technically, a middlewoman). She sent an email at 1:30 full of a lot of “you’d BETTER NOT do blah blah blah” and “you’d BETTER do blah blah blah” and then another one at 3:30 that was full of “WHY HAVEN’T YOU RESPONDED YET??” (for the record, I am making up the “blah blah blah” part but not the capital letters part).

Here’s what’s really obnoxious: she was right. Grrrr. One teeny tiny incorrect thing in the setup of a new client can wreak a fuck-ton of havoc and end up with a woman yelling at you via email, in Jersey-ese.

I can’t decide if I’m passable at my new job and getting better or just hopelessly doomed to mediocrity. My fingers are crossed for passable. Either way, it beats the hell out of the old job

I am so fuckkkkkkking pissed off.

So I finally called Former Boss Gwen. We had a loooovely chat about my new job and how things are going at my former employer. Last payroll, the new payroll clerk had a hard time of it because of technical issues with the files.

It wasn’t anything I did. I promise.

However…while she didn’t exactly say it, Former Boss Gwen seemed to think that I sabotaged the payroll files.

!!!!!!!!!

And on the way home from work, I called D who pretty much confirmed it. (and I’m not mad at D).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

really??? Ten years at that place, taking on new task after new task, taking a $4500 paycut, arranging 99% of my time off to not be during the crucial days of the payroll cycle and this is the first place that woman’s brain goes????

Ugh!

(PS: Still loving my new job. Love it even more now!!)

So, Gene and I watched some TV (courtesy of Hulu, XBox and the mysteries of technology), mostly stuff from USA Network (Burn Notice, Royal Pains).

Me: “So, do we have anything left in the queue?”

Gene: “No, I don’t think so.” ::checks queue:: “How do we have an episode of (dude reality show) Top Shot? We shouldn’t have that until tomorrow.”

Me: “Could we have slept through Saturday altogether?”

::Gene and I look at each other curiously::

Gene: “Well, maybe we did.”

Me: “Wait, no, White Dog’s clock says Saturday. Phew!”

See, this was a possibility because, after an unnaturally early 6 am wakeup (grrrr, cell phone/work) and Chik-Fil-A breakfast run, the humans at the house decided it was naptime and the next time I came to, it was almost noon.

Me: “Guess what time it is?”

Gene: “Noon?”

Me: “Almost!”

and then, we finally woke up for good at 1.

(Yes, I check my work email and my Gmail email, but not my “grownup” email. There’s an email from Former -!!- Boss Gwen waiting on me and I just can’t go there).

Had a dream last night that I went to my old workplace and automatically sat down at my old desk and checked my email (which was my reflex back when I worked there) and noticed there were over 100 emails there. I was horrified until I realized that a) they were probably getting forwarded to the new payroll clerk and b) I didn’t work there, so they weren’t my issue anyway. Next, in the dream, I gave hell to a former co-worker for something (D, it was the redheaded girl in training) and avoided talking to Former Boss Gwen.

Back in the awake world, work is crazy busy. Today I set up my first company (and started a second). Maybe Mondays are just super busy – there were 7 to set up – but otherwise I don’t know how these ladies keep up this pace. Quitting time comes really quickly. I just realized that I didn’t even miss websurfing in between tasks. (Weird).

Thursday is my first pay date at the new company. Tomorrow is my last pay date at the old company. (I was all pleased about having extra money in the budget until Gene had the audacity to point out the unexpected purchase of a washing machine. Damn).

Did I mention that the company buys all of us lunch on Fridays? I heard this and was pleased – my previous employer was a restaurant company so there was always food around. I was looking quite forward to whatever the company deigned to purchase for my consumption – pizza, perhaps a giant sub sandwich.

So imagine my shock when the menu that was passed around – that we got to choose our lunch from – was from Olive Garden.

(Olive Garden sidebar: the first time I went to Olive Garden, it was with my Grandma and Grandpa M and my brother and my mom. We went because Grandpa won big at poker. Ten or so years later, Gene and I had our first date at the Olive Garden in Muncie, Indiana).

So yay! Free Olive Garden. And free ice cream (not company sponsored, but the company who owns the building paid.)

I’m patiently waiting to hear what’s wrong with this company. Blow Job Tuesdays? Maybe we all take turns cleaning the bathroom?

Is it time for dinner yet?

How about bedtime?

I am so tired. Working is hard. On the bright side, I’m learning a lot about the software I’ll be using/supporting. My job is going to be setting up new client payroll data in the software. I’m not sure how much I’ll be communicating with the clients and I am pretty sure I won’t have to meet them (which means probably no business cards, drat…but who knows – I could end up surprised). I like my new employer because they have a ton of work for me to do and it’s all payroll. No HR, no benefits, no drug testing (heck, I wasn’t drug tested…finally, I can develop the coke addiction I’ve always dreamed of), no helping out A/P.

So far, the only bad things are the whole “no sneakers” rule (what is that about??? Was the CEO dumped on prom night by the CEO of Reebok?), the “no internet” rule (seriously, I may develop the coke addiction just to offset the shakes from no Internet) and most importantly, no D.

Actually! That reminds me….more later.