Raise Your Hand If You Work With These People

After a hellishly busy workweek, which included going into work on the weekend, I found it hard to tear my mind away from anything but my place of employment when I finally got a chance to write a post.

I've worked in many places, and I’ve met many different types of people, but there are always those few personalities that appear no matter where you spend your days:

Egregious Employee: The Golden Child

This person can do no wrong. The Golden Child has climbed the corporate ladder so fast their feet barely touched the rungs. Chances are, they’ve stepped on and pissed off people along the way. They’re more artificial than the plants in the boardroom…don’t trust them for a minute.

Can Often Be Found: Kissing Senior Management’s Ass


Egregious Employee: The Gossiper

The Gossiper puts Perez Hilton to shame. Her eyes and ears are always open, hoping for new dirt for the rumor mill. She feigns friendliness in an effort to get the inside scoop on fellow coworkers. Oftentimes you’ll find out new juicy tidbits about YOURSELF from her.

Can Often Be Found: Whispering in the hallways


Egregious Employee: The Mood Swinger

Hot? Cold? Grouchy? Accommodating? It’s hard to gauge the mood you’re going to get from The Mood Swinger. One day, this person is your best friend, the next day, they start a week-long hiatus from acknowledging your existence.

Can Often Be Found: Flying off the handle


Egregious Employee: The Workhorse

The Workhorse works around the clock. And without saying a word, they almost make you feel guilty that you take a weekend off to enjoy yourself. It’s very possible they sleep with their computer.

Can Often Be Found: Sending emails at 3am.


Egregious Employee: The Cheerleader

This annoying person epitomizes the term “team player”. The first to volunteer for group activities, The Cheerleader will shove their “rah rah” attitude down your throat. Company outing? After-work happy hour? Department layoffs? The Cheerleader will be there, decked out in the company’s colors, boosting morale.

Can Often Be Found: Memorizing the company handbook.

You're really in trouble when your workplace encompasses all five of these people at once!

The Great Toilet Paper Depression Of 2008

The economic crisis has hit my company, apparently.

We ran out of toilet paper yesterday afternoon at 3:30.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Ack! I’ve been SO busy I haven’t had time to post ANYTHING.

And I want to. I really, really want to.

But until I can crawl out from under my workload, here are the Top 10 Things That Have Been Going On In My Life:

1. I watched the TV coverage of the town meeting I attended, and sure enough, I was on TV. They didn’t get me sneaking out, but they did get me rocking back and forth (I can’t stand still! I can’t help it!), which my family found hilarious.
2. My back is aching. We are watching my in-laws’ pupper Dino, and I’ve been sleeping like a pretzel around two dogs every night.
3. My new least-favorite work term is “out of pocket”. If I hear, “I’ll be with the client so I’ll be out-of-pocket all day” one more time, I might scream. You are UNAVAILABLE people. Stop trying to make it sound more important than it is.
4. Today is my parents’ 38th wedding anniversary! Happy Ann, Mom and Dad!
5. This weather? Is the BEST. It’s a good hair day every day!
6. I attended my friend’s baby’s baptism last weekend. The deacon, who was reveling in the absence of the priest, took full advantage of having the floor. He turned the ceremony into some sort of crazy game show about baptism. He’d point at someone and ask, “You! Who baptized Jesus?”
7. I went shopping for fall clothes and I was not impressed with how things were fitting me (read: they WEREN’T fitting me). So instead I bought shoes. Lots of shoes.
8. I’m such a goober who is addicted to TV that I printed a cheat sheet of all the TV shows for the Fall with the dates of when they are premiering. It’s also on the fridge. Highlighted.
9. I went to the dermatologist for my post-summer full-body check for oddities. The doctor’s last words to me were, “You are completely unimpressive. Come back when you have something to show me.” (Is it just me, or doesn’t it seem like she wanted something to be wrong with me???)
10. I am so busy that it took me seven hours to write this list.

The weekend can’t come soon enough!

Leave Something For The Rest Of Us

So it's not enough to be rich, on TV and have a clothing line.

NOW you must impose upon the sacred ground where so many of us non-celebrity everyday peeps wish we could trod?


Okay fine. I'm jealous.

(insert whining tone): I want to ink a book deal!

Waaa.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

The other night, I went to a town meeting.

I felt like I was on an episode of The Gilmore Girls, sitting in the town meeting with Luke and Lorelai. I half expected Suki to come in with a basket of freshly-baked scones.

Now, I’ve never been to a town meeting before. This sort of stuff is really my husband’s bag, but he was traveling for work, and it was an important issue, so Yours Truly took one for the team and joined the masses in the Activity Room at the Senior Center. (You think we’d actually be in the Town Hall for a town meeting?)

The issue at hand: the town is thinking about making the street next to ours a one way street. We’re against this because it would increase the traffic on our street. We specifically picked our street when we moved to the neighborhood because it wasn’t a cut-through street with lots of traffic, blah blah blah.

We found out about the meeting because our loony neighbor is part of the civic association. She accosted us one afternoon to tell us all about it and how we HAD to go to the meeting.
(FYI, she didn’t even go to the meeting. But her bat-shit crazy mother did. More on that later.)

I don’t want to bore you with the details (unless you are having trouble sleeping, in which case, just call me and I’ll start talking).

So, here are the highlights:

• Everyone on the board was at least 87

• The place was packed. Standing room only.

• Channel 8 News was there. The meeting was going to be on TV! (Hi, Mom!)

• The chairman brought the meeting to order with a gavel. He actually banged it on the desk three times. (He then used it later when discussions got heated; he even shouted the words, “Order! Order!”)

• The meeting was recorded. On this:

(Do you remember this radio??? I watched the secretary push down the RECORD and PLAY buttons together. I had this radio. When I was TEN. I live in a high-tech town, obviously.)

• You got 5 minutes to speak if you were first on a topic, 2 minutes if you were a subsequent speaker. And they timed you with an egg timer. That was shaped like an egg.

People spoke, things got heated, there was yelling and lots of people talking under their breath.

And then, my neighbor’s mother stood up to speak.

Now, let me reiterate: she is CRAZY.

As usual, she was dressed in over-sized clothing with a hat, big bushy hair and clown makeup.

People are at this meeting speaking about preventing accidents, reducing speeds of cars, protecting children. Neighbors have cut down trees to make visibility better.

The two main reasons this institution-bound grandmother doesn’t want a one-way street?

1. She would use too much extra gas to get to her house

2. She’d have to change the way she gives people directions to her house.

I almost laughed out loud at her. Was she serious?

On that ridiculous note, I had to leave. Plus, I was starving. These people had all night to stay here and talk. I had pizza waiting for me.

So I’m sure if I get my big break and I am actually on the news coverage, it will most likely be of me sneaking out of my very first (and last! fingers crossed!) town meeting.

Feeling Old, Creeped Out and Just Plain Lazy

Now that the kiddies are back in school, my commute to work has returned to being much longer (we’re talking close to an hour and a half). I don’t get it. The kids take buses to school, right? Are there THAT many teachers in Connecticut? Are they ALL driving south on the Merritt Parkway?

So, needless to say, I’ve been stuck in traffic ever since I got back from Vegas (Talk about a buzz kill. What a way to come back after a relaxing trip – hours of traffic! Woo hoo!).

And the radio? Has not been my friend.

Ever notice how you can never find anything to listen to on any of the 27 pre-set stations or the why-am-I-paying-for-this Sirius radio channels? And when you DO finally find something, there's also 5 other songs you love on other stations at the very same time. So you flip back and forth trying to decide which one to listen to ("wait, this is the remix version!" and "it's at the part I like when she starts talking!") until you've wasted so much time all of the songs are over?

But, I digress.

This morning I was doing my usual surfing through the stations when I stopped on the Oldies station. Back in high school I worked at an apothecary and the pharmacist would ONLY play the Oldies station. So, by default, I know just about every Oldies song there is out there (it’s not like they can come out with new ones!). Plus, whenever I drive anywhere with my Dad, that’s all he listens to. The music has sort of grown on me (Remember the Dirty Dancing soundtrack? Classic!) So when I’m looking for mindless radio, I sometimes stop there.

This morning, on the Oldies station, was none other than Huey Lewis!

Yes! Huey Lewis! Singing “Stuck With You”!

Since when are Huey Lewis songs considered Oldies???

And, more importantly, does this mean that I am old???

That song came out in 1986. Yes, it was 22 years ago (gulp!), but still – an Oldie???

Just when I was sitting in traffic, marveling at Huey and feeling old, this blue kidnapping van pulls up next to me.
(I call all beat-up vans with no or tinted windows and out-of-state plates kidnapping vans. Um, did you see Silence Of The Lambs???)

The driver is a scrawny, greasy young guy, toothpick dangling from his lip, cell phone attached to his ear. He is staring at me. (Insert retching noise here).

Now I can’t go anywhere because we are in traffic. I can feel his eyes boring a hole into the side of my head, and I am doing everything I can to not look his way.

But then, he beeps his horn. And as a natural reaction, I turn my head. He gives me a lascivious smile and winks at me, then blows me a kiss.

Ew. Gross.

Upon arriving at work I get an email from a friend in Boston, with pictures of her recent participation in a triathlon.

A triathlon!

She’s the mother of two little boys and a Vice President of her company, yet she still found the time to train for this crazy race.

Me? I can’t find the time to open my mail.

And I’m lucky I have the energy to drive home after work, let alone go biking for 10 miles.

But I HAVE instituted a new exercise regime (read: I’ve walked around the neighborhood the last two mornings). No, I don't have a number inked on my leg, but I DO get up at 5:45am.

Hey, it’s something.

They Grow Up So Fast

This past weekend I was at my cousin's baby's second birthday party.
(Not quite sure what that makes me and the baby...second cousins, maybe?)

Anyway, I had left the deck to go down to the cooler for a frosty beverage when I saw this cutie standing next to the keg.

She couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 (I'm AWFUL at guessing children's ages. Let's just say she was shorter than I was and a little less articulate. Let's go with 4.)

She had big dark brown eyes and long curly dark hair and was dressed in pink from head to toe. This little munchkin bore a very similar resemblance to Yours Truly; she could have totally been my kid.

So I head over to the cooler and this little girl is standing at the keg, with the tap in her hand.

(Um, where are her parents???)

LITTLE GIRL: "Hi."

ME: "Hi."

LG: "What's in here?" she holds up the tap.

ME: "Beer."

LG: "Oh. I don't like beer."

I start laughing.

Okay, maybe I misjudged...perhaps she's really 17???

LG: "My dad doesn't want me to drink beer."

Oh, phew! She DOES have parents.

ME: "I think there are juice boxes in here. Would you like one of those?"

LG: "No. I already have one over there. 'Bye!"

And my little clone is off.

Observations And Open Letters

I’m back from Vegas!

In a word: It was frickin’ HOT.

(Okay, that’s 4 words. But I didn’t know how to describe the blazing sun, being drenched in sweat and scorching my feet on the sand at the pool in any fewer words.)

But it was AWESOME!

A few observations:

1. The only thing you leave in Vegas is MONEY.
(A Grey Goose and soda for $10? Kobe beef for $24/ounce? Really?)

2. There must have been some sort of luggage crisis at the airport where they lost lots of bags, because just about every girl I saw was barely wearing any clothing at all.
(And sunglasses don’t count as clothing. Neither do toe rings.)

3. SO many people STILL smoke. Even in 105 degree weather. I can’t even imagine sitting by the pool in that heat and putting FIRE next to my face.

4. I may be blind, because I didn’t see one celebrity. Okay, I saw one sort-of-not-really-semi celebrity, but I’m way too embarrassed to say who because then you’ll know I watch super cheesy TV.
(Apparently Perez Hilton was at Tao the night after me. How did I miss HIM walking around The Strip???)

5. I am the only person without a Crackberry. Apparently to be hip and cool, you not only need some sort of a PDA, but you must completely ignore the people with whom you are out, because you are talking to/texting/emailing someone WAY more important.


…and a few Open Letters:

To The Asshole With The iPhone Sitting Across From Me On My First Flight:
Hey, buddy, when they say, “Please turn off all electronic devices before take off”, that includes you and your silly iPhone. And? When you ignore them (and my dirty looks), and you force the nice flight attendant to announce to the plane, “We have asked for all electronic devices to be turned off and put away at this time. We are still getting signals that there are electronic devices in use”, you need to realize that she is talking to YOU. Or, you can ignore her completely (again) and wait until she taps you on the shoulder personally and asks you to put your stupid phone away.

To The People On The Dallas Flight Who Can’t Follow Directions:
Are your ears broken? Do you NOT see the little lighted seat belt sign informing you to keep yourself buckled in? Oh, you heard the flight attendant? Oh, and you see the sign? Then why, please tell me, are you standing up and walking all over the effing plane? Have you no regard for safety AT ALL? We’re not even four minutes into our flight yet. The airplane is still at a steep incline because we’re climbing into the sky. What part of that gave you the idea that RIGHT NOW would be the perfect time to walk up and down the aisle, go to the bathroom, and chat with your friend sitting three rows back? And shame on you for making that sweet flight attendant use her stern voice when she was yelling, “There are WAY too many people out of their seats! The captain has NOT turned off the seat belt sign. PLEASE SIT DOWN!” Losers.

To All The 25-Year Old Guys With Wads Of Cash:
Um, can I ask what you do? For work, I mean. What is it you do that enables you to have a stash of $100 bills that would make Donald Trump proud? Just look at you in your Dolce sunglasses, your Rock and Republic jeans with the rips in all the right places, your Christian Audigier T-shirts and icky hair grease. And do you drink beer like most twenty-something guys? Nope. Not you. You drink pricey scotches (no Dewar’s for you!) and little-known vodkas. And just when I thought you spent all of your money at the bar buying drinks for those hootchie girls, there you are playing Blackjack for $300 a hand. You? Make me sick.

To MTV:
Damn you, MTV! Hitting me when I’m down, when I’m watching TV away from home, unfamiliar with the channels. Shame on you for making me addicted to The Hills. Before Tuesday night, I had never even seen one minute of the show, poo-pooing it as something not worth my time. But there I was, flipping the channels and vulnerable, when I got distracted and put the remote down. The Hills was just starting. There’s just something about over-privileged twenty-somethings that gets me. (see previous Open Letter)
(Btw, I think the show is mis-titled and should be something along the lines of, “Uncomfortable Silences And Stares”, but we can chat about that at a later date.)

Hugs and kisses to all,
kk