Public Food

Back in the days of working at The Benz, management would pretty often show appreciation for their employees. Sometimes it was a big event like Truck Day or the Tiki Party. And other times it was smaller things like rewarding middle-of-the-week Casual Days, Employee of the Month, or just bringing in food for everyone. The Benz was my first "real" job and looking back on it, it occurs to me that I've never since worked at a place that did so much to make it known that we were respected and appreciated. I miss that job a lot. But back to my main topic...

On a particularly hot summer day, the bosses got together and decided to buy ice cream for everyone. Now, there were at least a few hundred people in our office, so it wasn't like a few pints of Ben & Jerry's was gonna cut it. They bought giant vats of ice cream. Like when you go to Baskin Robbins and they are scooping your ice cream out of a 20 gallon container. It was like those.

An announcement was made over the P.A. system, and most people were jumping out of their chairs, running for the break room to be first in line for some ice cream. I however, remained calmly seated and kept working. My friends in the desks surrounding me all got up and said, "Come on Lauren. Let's go get our ice cream!"

Me: No thanks.

Friends: You don't want any?

Me: No. I'm not interested.

Friends (confused): But...you love ice cream.

Me: Yeah. But...that's public ice cream.

Friends: Public?

Me: Yeah. Like, it's out in the open. People are breathing and sneezing and coughing all over it. And it's probably melting which is just a haven for bacteria.

Friends: I think you're exaggerating...

Me: Well, you guys go enjoy it then. I'm fine.

So my "phobia" was out in the open and, kind of surprisingly, it's something that lots of people don't seem to understand. I'm not sure what's difficult about the concept of not wanting to eat germ-ridden food, but most people seem to think that I'm overexagerating. Maybe I can more clearly explain my worries to you:

1. Buffets: Although it didn't occur to me during my recent Chattanooga trip that I was voluntarily eating at the Indian lunch buffet until my husband pointed it out to me that night...and I ate at the hotel restaurant breakfast buffet twice...it's usually not my practice to eat at buffets. I'm not at all confident in a sneeze-guard's ability to do a successful job 100% of the time.

One time some friends dragged me to Old Country Buffet, and I paid to get in but didn't eat a thing. I just sat there watching everyone else eat, while being made fun of by my friends for not eating. But while one of my buddies was eating ribs, he kept licking the BBQ sauce off his fingers after every bite. He then went to get seconds, came back to the table and started his finger-licking again. He stopped mid-lick, looked at me, and asked, "It's things like this that make you not eat at buffets, isn't it?" Yes, that is correct.

2. Communal food: When people bring in food to work, there are so many hands in the cookie jar, and I've seen quite a number of people walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands, or just running them under the water for 2 seconds for my benefit. So I'm really not interested in eating things that other people's dirty hands have been touching.

There was an incident that a coworker told me about, when a tray of salad had been left in the breakroom. My buddy was taking some, and then he stood there and ate it while the next guy in line was taking some salad and talking to my friend. Turns out this other guy was a spitter. My buddy told me that the entire time they were talking, there was spatter coming out of this guy's mouth and landing right on that salad. Inadvertently...yes, but regardless, that salad was now dressed in spit. Gross.

And I just witnessed another such event a few minutes ago...

Our building management brought in a giant tub of popcorn for everyone on our floor to share, and put it on a table in the break room. I just went in there to microwave my lunch and there was a guy in there scooping popcorn up onto a small paper plate. He stood there while he ate it, fingers touching his lips to get the snack into his mouth, and then those now-moist fingertips going back to his plate for more. After a few minutes of cramming his face, he decided he was full, but there was still popcorn on his plate. He dumped the leftovers back into the tin, shut the lid, put that paper plate on top of the lid, and walked away. I looked at the plate that he'd left behind; it turns out someone had written on the plate "Scooper," which in itself seems unsanitary to write on a food scooping device, but then I was way more horrified to see that he'd been eating off of the communal scoop.WTF?!

Let me clarify that I'm not totally ignorant. I'm very aware that I have no clue what's happening to my food in the kitchen of a restaurant when I place an order, or in a food manufacturing plant while it's being processed and packaged. There is clearly no way to get around the fact that all food is touched by people at some point in it's making. But at least in a kitchen or manufacturing plant, there are handling standards in place. Not that those standards are always upheld, but it's at least a better gamble than the communal scooper.

So instead of thinking that I'm a crazy, next time you're about to eat some public food, just think about all the people who may have double-dipped those chips.

Homeownership Kind of Sucks

So back in September, I mentioned that my Weekend Warrior project of attempting to paint our guest bedroom turned into a water-heater-leaking nightmare. We are still in the process of that aftermath. Here's a rundown of what's been going on:

1. The leaky water heater was replaced
2. We tore up the bedroom baseboard, carpet, padding, tack strips, and some drywall
3. We went carpet shopping at Home Depot and were overwhelmed by the quantity of their selection, but underwhelmed by the quality of it
4. We bought enough plywood to replace the entire subfloor, since most of it had mold and water stains on it
5. We attempted to replace the subfloor ourselves, but after cutting a decent sized hole in the floor, realized we were in way over our heads
6. A contractor was hired to fix the subfloor and drywall, plus pull up all the peel-and-stick tile in the utility room that got water under it, and replace that tile
7. The contractor didn't show up
8. We went carpet shopping at Yonan Carpet One based on cheesy television commercials I'd seen and they turned out to have really great carpet, but I was about to go out of town so we didn't want to make any commitments in which my husband would have been the only person home to look at color samples and make the final selection when they came to our house to measure the room. And considering that our bedroom was in no shape for new carpet at that moment anyway, it didn't really matter to put off the purchase
9. Our furnace broke
10. The contractor said he was going to wait to do our repairs until the furnace was replaced, since the footprint of the new furnace would be different and therefore, make a difference in the new tile layout
11. A few furnace guys came over to give a quote and we hired one
12. The furnace guy showed up a week later on a Saturday at 11am. He wasn't finished until 9pm.
13. We woke up the next morning to a freezing cold house. The furnace wasn't working
14. My father-in-law thought the problem might have been the breaker, so he came out to look at it, but realized this would be better off in the hands of a professional
15. An electrician came out the next day, but said the breaker was fine. The problem seemed to be the new furnace after all
16. The furnace guy came back later that night and was able to fix it
17. The contractor finally showed up and made all our repairs
18. I went back to the carpet store to make the purchase, but our salesman wasn't in that day. I left my number for him to call me 4 days later when he'd be back at work, to set up a measure/color sample appointment
19. The carpet guy came over with samples and a tape measure and we placed our order
20. I could finally paint the bedroom now that the floor and walls had been fixed, which had been my original intention 3 months earlier. I painted one wall a green accent color and the rest of the walls, a light grey
21. The carpet was installed
22. My father-in-law began installing our new baseboard
23. I decided I didn't like the grey paint color I'd chosen, but I did like the green enough to paint all the walls that color. I just didn't have enough paint
24. I painstakingly taped a plastic drop cloth around the room to protect the new carpet and baseboards
25. I went back to Ace Hardware to get more of that same exact green mixed up. It looked okay when he put a dab on the top of the can, but when I got it home and started painting, it looked significantly more red
26. I was too frustrated and lazy to go back to Ace for another try at mixing the color correctly. My husband and I agreed that the more-red version of the green wasn't terrible, so I continued with it
27. The baseboard installation was finished
28. It took forever to remove all the painters tape, which doesn't come off nearly as easily as the commercials indicate that it should
29. We finally started moving furniture back in yesterday, but were so exhausted from dealing with the rest of this mess that we didn't get very far with the furniture, so we are still living amongst piles of crap everywhere...hopefully for just a few more days

We are planning to be done with everything by the end of this coming weekend, but the way things have been going so far, I wouldn't be surprised if something else goes wrong first.

Maintenance Issues

It's been pretty quiet here at work today. I don't know if everyone is still half-asleep after a lazy weekend, or if everyone is just really hard at work...or at least most people.

Because the silence was broken mid-morning by the sound of fingernail clippers hard at work. Three desks down the line from me is a guy who takes about five minutes every week to clip his fingernails. And what really gets me, is that he's not the only one. I can think of three other guys I've sat near who have consistently engaged in this habit. And I just don't understand what would make these offenders think this behavior was acceptable.

1. You are at work, therefore, you are here to work...not to take care of body maintenance. If I came to work tomorrow and started painting my toenails or waxing my eyebrows, I'm pretty sure someone would say something to me about it. Fingernail clipping is no different.
2. Why can't this be done at home? Are you that busy cooking and cleaning, taking care of your kids and your pets and maintaining your home every available minute of every single day that you can't take a five minute break once in awhile to clip your fingernails?
3. If you absolutely MUST do this at work, at least have the courtesy to do it in the bathroom. Not that I'm encouraging that approach either, but at least it's a compromise.

I briefly thought about typing an anonymous note and leaving it on this guy's desk. Something like, "FYI: It is disgusting to clip your fingernails at work. Please take that shit home." And that got me thinking about lots of other notes that I could leave for lots of other people like, "FYI: It's very rude of you to ask me a question and then start talking over me as I'm answering you," or "Please don't talk with your mouth full. No one wants to hear that."

In reality, I don't have the balls to do something that mean. I would be pretty embarrassed and feel really bad about myself if someone left me a note saying something like, "Your girly hand lotion smell is really bothersome."

So for now I will just keep my mouth shut. And what I can hope for with the fingernail cutter is that he 1.) doesn't progress to toenail clipping, and 2.) that a fingernail clipping will fly into my eye, blinding me incapable of doing my job, and I can retire on workman's comp for life.

Garbage Doughnuts

If you are the Seinfeld fanatic that I am, you might have read the title of this post and think that I'm going to talk about the episode where George's girlfriend's mother catches him eating a doughnut out of the trash. Or maybe the episode where Elaine is having an affair with the Green Lantern and they eat a bear claw in the alley behind the bakery. That is not really where this post is going though. This is about an actual incident of me eating doughnuts out of a trash can...sort of.

It was back in the wonderfully fun days of working at The Benz. It might have been someones birthday, or maybe a random Friday, or maybe someone was just selfishly providing breakfast for everyone. But in any case, someone had brought in Dunkin Donuts Munchkins one particular morning for my team. Everyone grabbed a few to have with their morning coffee, but after that, there didn't seem to be much interest in finishing the leftovers. So A threw the rest of them away.

Later that afternoon I started dragging. Usually around 2:00 I find myself struggling to keep my eyes open. Usually this can be solved with a can of Coke to get enough of a caffeine fix to get me through the rest of the day. But on this day, that wasn't doing the trick. Perhaps my weariness was caused by the sugar high from that morning's Munchkins wearing off. Or maybe I just hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. But it became pretty clear to me that in addition to some afternoon caffeine, some sugar was going to be in order.

I went to see my friend C, who sometimes had mini Reese's PB cups at her desk. But she hadn't made a candy-run to Walmart in awhile and was out of Reese's, or anything else that might have boosted my energy level. But she remembered that there had been some doughnuts left over from that morning. I told her they had been thrown away. Shocked at the silly thought of someone throwing away perfectly good Munchkins, C went to investigate the situation herself. She asked A what had been done with the leftovers, and A pointed to the trash can in the empty cubicle next to her.

C walked over to the trash can, pulled it out from under the desk, and peered inside. Indeed, there were quite a few Munchkins still in the box. She took the box out of the garbage can, picked up a doughnut hole, gave it a little squeeze to confirm that it hadn't hardened or staled since the open box had been tossed earlier that morning, and took a bite.

I was horrified! "Those were in the GARBAGE can!!"

C: They were still in the box, in a can at an empty desk, with no other garbage in the can. What do you think could be wrong with these?

Me: They were in the GARBAGE can!!

C: But they taste fine.

She ate another one, as if to prove to me that they were indeed fine. And she was either really convincing, or I was really just so cheap, lazy and tired that I'd rather eat garbage doughnuts instead of going down one floor to the break room where the vending machine was located.

As it turned out, C was right. They did taste fine. They were so good in fact, that she and I ended up finishing the rest of the box by the end of the day. And it was just what I needed to get me through the workday without falling asleep at my desk.

And in my further defense, Jerry tells George that "adjacent to refuse, is refuse." But my garbage doughnuts were not adjacent to anything. So I guess it really doesn't even count as garbage :)

I don't do Halloween

About a decade ago I worked for a vehicle finance company that every year for Halloween encouraged each department to come up with a theme, decorate their area, and dress in costume to be judged by upper management for a prize that I think was five "Denim Day" passes, allowing you to wear jeans any day of the week.

I worked in the Records Administration Department (a.k.a. the File Room) my first Halloween with the company. Records Admin was one of four smaller departments, which along with Titles, Call Center and Document Services, made up the Customer Service Division. It was our choice to decide if Customer Service as a whole wanted to compete as one large team, or if the four smaller departments wanted to do their own thing. We in the Records division decided to do our own thing that year...The Wizzard of Oz. We had just the right number of people to make up all the main characters, and as far as anyone could remember, it wasn't something that any other department had done in years past, so it was perfect for us.

A few days after we had started making our plans, the Call Center manager approached me and asked if we would like to join her team for the contest. I told her about our plans, and that we wouldn't be interested in joining her group. But she loved our "Wizzard of Oz" idea so much more that what her department had been brainstorming about. She said, "That's such a great idea! Can we be a part of it too?" I explained that we had already been working hard on our plans and had all the main characters assigned. I said that if her group wanted to participate with us, they would end up being munchkins, Emerald City residents or flying monkeys. She said, "We don't care! We just want to participate!"

So she asked me to send an email to everyone in the Customer Service Division assigning everyone their parts. And it was just minutes after I hit that "Send" button that I started getting angry emails back. People saying things like, "Who the hell do you think you are, telling me that I'm going to be a flying monkey?!" I guess when the Call Center manager had told me that no one would care what they were dressed as...she hadn't actually confirmed that information with everyone.

So in response to the vicious emails I was getting, I went to talk it over with the Call Center manager, to let her know that her people were NOT happy about the decision that she'd made for them. Her response to me was, "Well your email was pretty blunt. I don't think that was really the best way to go about it. You probably should have asked people if they wanted to participate and if they were willing to be extra characters."

That was SO not what she had said before! WTF?! So now I look like an asshole and everyone hates me.

It probably goes without saying that we called the whole thing off. I was getting dirty looks and the cold shoulder from quite a few customer service members for the next couple of weeks. My Records department had talked about whether or not we still wanted to go through with our original plan of just us main characters, but we decided that would probably just piss people off even more.

I was so irritated about the whole situation that I took Halloween as a vacation day that year, and every year after that. I never found out what my department, or what the rest of Customer Service ended up doing that day...if anything at all. And ever since then, my standard answer to any Halloween related question is, "I don't do Halloween."

Creepy

I am back home in Chicago now after two weeks of working in our Chattanooga office. I am so glad to be home. Not only did I miss my husband, but my coworkers in Tennessee were not too eager to hang out with me outside of the office, which left me as my only friend there. Eating meals alone in a restaurant is pretty sad, so I was thrilled to finally be home where there are people who like spending time with me and are happily interested in joining me for a meal.

So today I went to lunch with a friend. Bakers Square is usually our restaurant of choice so that we can indulge in pie, and today was no different. We were seated at our table by the hostess and almost instantly we were approached by our waiter. He looked like a 40-something nerd to the core...the kind of guy who probably spends most of his free time LARPing. We even heard him talking to the neighboring table about his halloween costume that sounded like something he already had in his closet from a previous Ren Faire outing.

He asked how we were, we replied that we were good, and out of courtesy we asked him how he was. He said, "I get to serve two beautiful ladies. I'm doing great!" He also seemed to be feeling pretty great about getting to look at my chest. I was wearing a sweater that covered everything, so it's not like it could have been misconstrued that I was looking for male attention either. The waiter was just plain creepy.

He opened my menu to point out some of their newer items, and while I was busy looking at my choices, my friend later explained to me that the waiter had only been vaguely pointing to the menu because he was focusing his gaze on me, not on the food selections. He walked away to give us a few minutes to look things over and when he came back, I had made sure to have my left hand very prominently displayed. It worked....kind of. In between writing down our order, I saw him glance down at my hand a few times. And then, just to make things extra awkward, he actually said, "Oh shoot. I'm really bummed now cause I just noticed that gorgeous ring on your finger." My friend replied that I was a happy newlywed and that she'd been with her husband for almost 10 years, making sure to point that out so that he didn't switch his gaze to her boobs instead. That didn't, however, prevent him from continuing to be creepy.

When he came back with our food, he made an attempt to compliment me. He said, "I figured out who you remind me of....Donna from "That 70's Show." I reacted with a WTF face, since I look nothing like Donna from "That 70's Show." I'm sure he thought I might be flattered being compared to an actress, but Laura Prepon is a redhead with a body similar to that of a 12-year-old boy. I am a curvy brunette. We look nothing alike.

The rest of the meal, I guess he seemed to realize that he should step back a little with the flirting, or whatever it was that he thought he was doing. And when he brought the check he said, "I hope I didn't scare you too much." Right.

So guys...lesson be learned, as soon as you are made aware of a women's relationship status, please stop your pathetic attempt at trying to "impress" me or whatever. It's just plain creepy.

Will Eat Curry for Companionship

I am a really picky eater--if I'm being honest with myself about it--which I'm usually not when it comes to this topic. Maybe it seems silly, but I'm afraid that when someone asks me where I want to go out to eat, if I suggest something someone will respond, "Yuck! How can you eat that crap?! That place is so gross! I can't believe you would suggest that! What is wrong with you??" So instead, when someone asks me where I want to eat my typical response is, "I don't care. I'm not picky."

Which as previously mentioned is so not true. Unless its macaroni and cheese, pizza or PB&J, I'm usually not interested. But I figure that at the very least, pretty much anyplace will have a basic salad that I can tolerate. Even if I'm not in the mood for salad, or even if it won't be filling enough to satisfy my current hunger level, it doesn't really matter. It will be good enough for the time being and I can always have a snack later if necessary. To me, that still seems like a better option than making a suggestion that someone else might not be interested in. So for the official record, when it comes to going out to eat, I'm "not picky."

Last week I was in Chattanooga on business. Some of my Chicago coworkers had already been down there for 2 or 3 or 4 weeks and were familiar with the area. But for me as the newbie, I had no idea what places were available for lunch and even if I had known, I wouldn't have made a suggestion anyway.

So my first day there, noon comes around and my Chicago buddy says to me:

B: What are you doing for lunch?

Me: Tagging along with you and N if that's okay?

B: Yeah, that's what I figured.

Me: Thanks. I just don't know what's around here and I don't really want to eat by myself anyway.

B: That's cool. We're going to an Indian buffet. Are you okay with that?

Me: *slight hesitant pause* then enthusiastically, "Sure! That's fine with me!"

I've never had Indian food before. And maybe it's really super delicious. But it's not peanut butter and jelly, so I was really not too excited about it. And my basic fall-back option of the garden salad was certainly not going to be available at an Indian buffet, right? For a second I considered that I might be better off eating alone at Panera or even better, ordering a sandwich to go and bringing it back to my desk. But I didn't want B and N to think I didn't like them, and I wanted them to still like me (as if they would certainly stop being my friend if I said that I didn't like Indian food). So I went along with them.

I can't say that I ended up enjoying the Indian food. I suppose that in order for me to be able to say that, it would have required me actually trying the Indian food, which I did not. Instead, to my great surprise, the buffet did indeed include a garden salad. Iceberg, cucumbers and tomatoes. The dressing off to the side was some strange mint thing that was much too foreign for me to try, but plain lettuce was better than nothing. I also enjoyed the pita bread, which I think was supposed to be used to sop up the curry sauce that the meats were cooked in, but that pita was delicious on its own. And plain white rice has never tasted so good!

N looked at my plate and asked:

"You're not going to try any of the Indian food? This chicken is really good!"

Me: No, I'm good with plain rice.

N: Don't you like Indian food? You should have said something. We could have gone someplace else.

Me: Oh, it's fine. I'm not picky.

Going Cosgrove

The last job I had before my current position was working for an architect. My duties there were designing and drafting residential additions and remodels, and drafting new residential and commercial spaces. I loved that job and was really sad to have to leave, due to the shitty economy making it difficult for the general population to spend money on custom homes. I had been given a heads-up by my boss that because of our drastic decrease in clients, he might have to lay me off within a few months, so that's how I ended up switching gears from architecture to engineering where I landed my current job. But while I was working at that architectural firm, I was forced to work with a real douchebag of a contractor, Mr. Cosgrove.

Our architectural firm had formed relationships with about 40 local contractors. It was the kind of thing where if a client came to us first and needed a contractor, we would make referrals from our list of builders, and if a client found one of those contractors first and was in need of an architect, that builder would refer the client to our company. So every once in awhile, we would do a project with Mr. Cosgrove as our client's builder.

This guy hated me from the start. I don't want to blame it all on the fact that I'm a girl (that only seemed to be part of the problem). It was also based on the fact that I was hired in an entry level position, with my knowledge mostly as an AutoCAD operator. I didn't really know too much about how a house was actually built. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my Interior Design education rewarded an "A" for being able to point to a furnace. My boss didn't see that as an issue though. He knew that everyone at the company had their own specialties and when you put all our individual skills together we made a great team. But Mr. Cosgrove expected everyone that he had to deal with to be as knowledgeable as he was. And with his 20-something years of building experience, there was just no possible way that I could ever live up to his high expectations.

In my first encounter with him, he popped into our office and asked who had been assigned to his project. I said that I was and he said he had some things to go over with me from our preliminary plans. He unrolled his set of drawings, and it looked like he had used an entire box of red pencils marking up comments, questions and changes, which he immediately began nailing me with. At one point, he questioned why I had called out a 32" door for the laundry room. I replied that was our company standard. The conversation continued:

Mr. C: "I've got a client with an oversized washer and dryer picked out. How the hell do you think I'm going to get those into a room with a 32" door opening?!"

Me: "Oh. Well we weren't aware of the client's appliance choices. It's no problem to make that a larger door to accommodate the washer and dryer size though, that now that we know about it."

Mr. C: .....*sigh*....."You clearly haven't been doing this very long, have you?"

Me: (a little stunned) "....No, not too long."

Mr. C: "What were you doing before this?"

Me: "I was in Interior Design school."

Mr. C: "Well I can pick out my own paint colors. What I need from my architect is someone who thinks through the details of how I'm actually going to be able to build what you draw on these plans. Is the boss around? I'm going to go talk to him about this."

He walked himself back to the boss's office and shut the door. They were in there for at least a half hour, after which the boss walked Mr. Cosgrove to the front door, shook his hand, and walked back to his office. He never said anything to me about the incident. Like I mentioned earlier, my boss was smart enough to know that not everyone in the office brought the same skills to the table. I was never assigned to another one of Mr. Cosgrove's projects after that, but I still had to finish what I started with that current job.

The second time I had to deal with Mr. Cosgrove was over the phone. He called and asked for me. I picked up the phone:

Mr. C: "I don't have my plans with me, but I need to know the dimension of the largest wall in the kitchen?"

Me: "I don't know that off the top of my head. Let me put you on hold a second while I grab your prints and look that up for you."

Mr. C: "Oh, forget it! Let me talk to O."

O got on the phone and Mr. Cosgrove said:

"I don't have my plans with me, but I need to know the dimension of the largest wall in the kitchen?"

O: "I don't know that off the top of my head. Let me put you on hold a second while I grab your prints and look that up for you."

Mr. C: "No problem. I appreciate your help. I can wait while you look it up."

O gave him the answer, hung up the phone, and said to me, "Why didn't he just ask you that?"

Me: "Because he's an asshole!"

O: "Yeah, apparently."

Me: "I hate that guy so much. I just want to smash his testicles into the ground!"

O: "Wow. I better not get on your bad side."

Later that week I was telling that story to one of my buddies and he said that I should make that my signature move (like if I was in GLOW)...smashing testicles into the ground...and that I should call the move "Going Cosgrove."

It's no Alabama Slammer, but it's still pretty awesome. So guys...don't get on my bad side :)

Fanatic by Association

I couldn't care less about sports. My parents aren't sports fans so it was never something that I grew up around, and I'm not athletic so I never had any interest in playing sports. My lack of love for the game however, puts me in such a minority that I've discovered it makes things somewhat easier to just pretend that I do have an interest in sports.

Plus, my husband is the biggest sports fanatic that I've ever met. Ever. He's most likely the biggest sports fan that you've ever met too. His knowledge of sports trivia blows my mind. You could ask him a totally obscure question like, "Who was the MVP of the Kansas State Junior Women's Volleyball team in 1972?" and my husband would effing know the answer (if that is something that even exists, since I know zero about sports...).

So for the record, during baseball season I root for the Yankees (because my husband is a Yankees fan), during hockey season I root for the Blackhawks (because everyone in Chicago roots for the Blackhawks), during basketball season I root for the Lakers (because Anthony Kiedis is from L.A.), and during football season I'm a "fan" of U of M and the Indianapolis Colts.

My choice to cheer for Michigan was an easy one. I was born in Ann Arbor and when it comes to sports, most people seem to cheer for their home team. I only lived there until I was about 9 months old, but my parents had been there for quite a few years and they were Blue fans even after we moved to another state, so it seemed reasonable enough for me to like the team too.

And Michigan was coincidentally a team that my husband has been a fan of since childhood, so when I mentioned something about liking the team he got all excited that we had something sports-related in common. For his 30th birthday I took him to his first game at The Big House and we both had a really great time. I however, enjoy going to games for a different reason. I don't understand the rules of football, and everything happens so fast. I feel like when a flag is thrown, I seem to be the only person in the stands who didn't see the false start, or the guy who grabbed someone's face mask, or the guy who's pinky toe went out of bounds. So in my constant confusion, I find that for me going to a game is really all about singing along with the marching band or participating in The Wave.

It's gotten to be that time of year again where I can pull out my Michigan fleece from the coat closet and put on my Colts winter knit cap and wear them around like I care about the team's stats. It got awkward enough when someone at the train station asked me if Michigan had won that past weekend and I didn't know the answer, so I downloaded a Michigan app and an NFL app on my phone so that I can check the scores without actually having to bother watching the games. And I pay attention to things my husband mentions or things that I read on Facebook about my teams so that I can participate in sports conversations at work, chiming in things like, "Where was their defense?" or "Eli Manning is such an asshole!"

And my liking of the Colts has absolutely nothing to do with sports at all. And I'm really just a Peyton Manning fan, not actually a Colts fan. And my liking of Peyton Manning is not at all because he's an excellent QB. It's because I saw him host SNL and he was really funny. So yes, I root for the Colts because Peyton Manning is funny. If he ever left the Colts, I would start rooting for whatever team he went to. And if he has to quit playing due to his neck problems, I guess I will just have to wait for another pro football player to host SNL and make me laugh.

Magneto

I think I've briefly explained my job to you before; that I take half-legible scribbles of electrical layouts and make them look pretty in AutoCAD. One of the guys who has always provided me with such scribbles is a guy that one of my buddies very accurately nicknamed Magneto. As in, the character in the X-Men comics and movies who can manipulate metal with his magnetic super powers. The nickname was given to him (behind his back) because he wears a bangle bracelet everyday that is constantly clinking against his desk. Constantly. And although I'm pretty sure that the actual Magneto character doesn't use a bracelet to activate his power (I think he just creepily reaches towards the metal and thinks real hard), it was just so funny when my buddy came up with that nickname that logistics aside, the name stuck.

There have been times where I've said I hate this guy. There have been times where I've wanted to punch him in the face. Hard. There have been times when I've wished that he'd be hit by a bus. Hard. Not killed by a bus, but injured to the point where he'd be put on permanent disability.

However, please don't think I'm such a horrible person yet. My super strong dislike of Magneto is totally justified:

First of all, I work in a very male-dominant environment. There are 143 people in my department. 14 of us are women. There was a day that I was feeling sick and I had been working on Magneto's project. He could see and hear that I wasn't feeling well, so he came over to me and said, "If you need to go home, don't feel bad about it. I know that I never talk to you -- because you're a girl -- but I talk to the guys all the time and I tell them that it's more important to take care of yourself so that you can be feeling your best at work and be able to focus on the job."

So #1, he's got an issue with my gender.

Secondly, every time he gives me work to do, he takes forever to explain every single little mark-up to me. And he'd start off by saying, "All of these changes are self-explanatory, but I'll explain them to you anyway." And his explanations would be like, "Okay, see this here, I added the letter "L" to the end of this word. It was misspelled P-A-N-E, but the word is supposed to be P-A-N-E-L actually. Panel. So I've added this letter "L" to the end of the word to make it correctly say "Panel" and then you'll circle the "L" to show people that you've corrected the spelling mistake." I'm not exaggerating. All that, just for an "L." And he had really nice handwriting too, so it's not as if he just wanted to make sure I could read his comments. He apparently just thought that I wouldn't be able to figure out what he meant.

So #2, he thinks I'm really stupid. Probably cause I'm a girl.

Thirdly, there was a particular incident where another guy had given me mark-ups to draft and that guy is the type who knows what he means in his head, but has trouble putting it down on paper. So he gives me half-done mark-ups. Sometimes it's obvious that information is missing and I can ask him for clarification. But other times it's not obvious. So I'd draft per his mark-ups and move on. Magneto was the independent reviewer on this particular project and noticed during his review that some things were missing. He called me into a meeting, along with the guy who gave me the half-missing work, and Magneto started lecturing me about how I shouldn't be afraid to ask questions. I tried to explain that the reason I didn't ask questions was because I thought everything was fine. It wasn't that I was afraid to ask, it's that I didn't know there was a question to be asked. As if he didn't hear a thing I said, he continued with his lecture about how important it is to ask questions so that we don't have to waste time doing things twice. There was no lecture given to the other guy about making sure his mark-ups were complete.

So #3, he's an asshole.

There was another time when I was working on one of Magneto's projects and I didn't quite understand his mark-up, so I asked him to clarify it. He answered the question, and then went on to lecture me about how I shouldn't hesitate to ask him any questions because it's better to ask, rather than make a wrong guess and have to do things twice. WTF am I getting lectured for now?!? Obviously I'm not afraid to ask questions, because I just asked a fucking question!! WTF is wrong with this guy?!?

So #4, he's a fucking idiot douchbag asshole.

But this past Thursday was his last day! He pretty much got forced into retirement. He's in his mid-60's and has been with the company for 27 years. He's talked before about retiring, but the boss has always been able to talk him into sticking around for a couple more years. But after all the shit that went on with our work being taken to the Chattanooga office, the boss gave Magneto an ultimatum. He basically told Magneto he had two choices. 1) Go to Chattanooga for the entire three months, or 2) Take his retirement. Magneto's got some health issues and, therefore, didn't want to be far from home in case something happened and he ended up in the hospital, or worse. So he said he couldn't go to Tennessee. Not even for a few weeks. Which forced him to take option #2.

He announced his retirement to our small group of 11 on August 30, making September 15 his last day. And as much as I dislike him, and as much as I was counting down the days along with him, I still felt a little bit sad for him. Even though he'd talked about retirement in the past, he clearly was not excited about it anymore. And as if our supervisor was unaware that Magneto didn't actually want to retire, J kept making comments like, "Did you see the stock market dropped again today? I sure wouldn't want to be without a steady paycheck in this economy." Like J thought he could scare Magneto into keeping his job and going to Chattanooga or something? It was pretty awkward.

So I came into work Thursday and J was telling me that I'd be working on Magneto's project and I said, "Oh wow, today is his last day. Yeah, gotta get his project done before he leaves." And J said, "Shit. I forgot." So without a cake, a card, or anything else to acknowledge Magneto's last day, J put me and C on a project to create an 18" x 24" poster that everyone Magneto works with in the company could sign. Since I sit in the same quad as Magneto, we decided it would work best if C made the poster on his computer, and since I've been at the company longer than C and had a better idea of who Magneto's friends and coworkers were, it was my job to go around the building asking people to sign it.

C had come up with a really nice sentiment to go in the center of the poster. Something like "You are one of a kind and will truly be missed. Your knowledge and dedication to the job has been a great help to us all and we will never forget you." So poster in hand, I was off to get people to sign it. J and the boss took Magneto out to lunch which made a great time for me to not have to sneak around whispering to everyone about it. However, most people were unaware that Magneto was retiring. Since he hadn't been excited about it, he hadn't been mentioning it to anyone. And unlike myself, it turns out that most people liked Magneto. So I had become the bearer of bad news letting people know that it was his last day. And I certainly didn't want to be spreading the word that he was forced into it, so I tried to play it off like he was excited about it. That was uncomfortable.

So the end of the day had arrived and the boss brought down two wrapped gifts from the company. Magneto took the packages, put them into the box of his personal stuff, and went right back to packing. Shocked, the boss said, "You can open them now," but Magneto replied that he'd rather just open them later. Maybe Magneto thought it would be something that would make him emotional.

So when Magneto left to bring a box down to his car, we hung our signed poster up very prominently on his overhead cabinets. But when he came back he didn't even notice. His head was sadly hanging down looking at the floor, and he just went back to packing up another box. When he came back from his second and final trip to load up his car, he thankfully noticed the poster, so we didn't have to awkwardly point it out to him. But he didn't bother to read the poster. He barely glanced at it before he took it down and rolled it up. Probably again so he wouldn't start crying or something. And I think we were all glad that he didn't see C's comment. After his sweet sentiment that he created for the poster, we were all shocked to read that his personal message was, "Don't worry. You only need a lot of money in retirement if you plan to live a long time." I guess he thought it would come across funny, but it really didn't. Magneto quietly shook the hands of anyone he walked past on his way out, and was gone for good.

But as sad as that day was for everyone to see, Friday was nice and quiet around the office and I was super happy to no longer have anyone talking down to me like I was a 4-year-old idiot and it was my first day on the job.

Weekend Warrior

Over the long Labor Day weekend, I decided that three days off work would be the perfect time to tackle some sort of project around the house. I am an Interior Design School drop-out, which means that I'm now an Interior Design Hobbyist, so I'm always looking around our 1986 townhouse for areas that I can implement some HGTV design tips. I considered my time frame, budget, and the fact that I had a sick husband at home for whom I felt like I should be available for, and decided that painting our guest room seemed like a doable project.

After a somewhat relaxing Saturday, I woke up Sunday morning ready to start the project. I looked through the paint sample books that I have and decided on some colors. Then I began to clear out the bedroom, which was looking like it was being used as a storage facility. There were boxes of stuff at the foot of the bed, on top of the bed, piles of clothes on the floor, and too many books to fit on the bookshelves. I cleared off the shelves first and then began the task of moving boxes from the foot of the bed into the living room. About halfway through the boxes, I picked one up and noticed the bottom of the box was wet. I looked inside and it was only linens...nothing that would have been leaking.

I pulled up the box next to it and found the same thing...wet on the bottom. That box was full of shoes; again nothing to leak. And box after box began coming up the same way. Once all the boxes had been cleared I discovered that the entire carpet along an entire wall was wet. Under the bed...also wet. WTF? There is a crawl space under our house so it didn't make sense that water could be coming up from under the house. And there were no visible signs of damage on the ceiling, so nothing was dripping into the room. And then I remembered that seemingly innocent little puddle of water that I'd noticed a few weeks earlier under our water heater...

I'm a stereotypical girl in the fact that I know nothing about appliances or home repair. Seeing that puddle under the water heater didn't bother me too much at the time. For as long as I've been with my husband I can remember dripping sounds always coming from the utility room and no one else seemed to notice it or to seem bothered by it. And we hadn't noticed any damage being done by it. I mentioned the puddle to my husband and he kind of shrugged it off too. I knew there was a floor drain in the area and just figured that the water would find it's way down the drain eventually.

But it seems now that the water had actually been finding it's way underneath the peel and stick tiles in the utility room, into the guest bedroom which shares the back wall of the utility room, and into the garage where upon moving more boxes of crap out of the way, I discovered a pretty massive growth of green, furry mold. Great.

So step number one was to go out and buy a new water heater. I suppose step number one should have been to follow my father-in-law's advice and turn off the water and gas line to the water heater, but Jim and I agreed that we didn't want to be without hot water for showers, and another day or two of water damage wouldn't make much more of a difference at this point. God only knows how long this leak had been happening, but considering the amount of wet bedroom carpet and the amount of garage mold that we found, I'd guess this has been going on for quite some time.

So anyway, on to step number one, I was off to Home Depot for a new water heater. I've been seeing lots of commercials for tankless water heaters, and they promote them as being really energy efficient, and the smaller size would make for a cleaner look in the utility room. So that was the plan. Except the guy working in Home Depot's water heater department told me that all their tankless heaters were special order only. He said that I could either order one in the store from the Customer Service desk, or order one online which would have more selection and the same delivery time regardless of ordering it online or from Customer Service. I said I'd check it out online (knowing that my actual plan was to find a competitor who had one in stock), and I was on my way.

I went to Ace Hardware (knowing it was a long-shot due to the tiny size of their store) and as expected, they didn't sell water heaters in-store or online. I did, however, get my guest bedroom paint. Not that painting was my top priority anymore, but as long as I was already there, I figured I could do at least one productive thing. So after making my paint purchase, I was off to Menards.

I don't know if this is true about all Menards

I picked out a laminate that I liked, but didn't purchase it yet since I knew that the more pressing issue was the water heater. Joel walked me over to that department and sought out the employee to help me. She said that before I could make the purchase, she'd have to know what size vent we currently had. I looked at the pipe coming out of the top of the model, pointed to it, and asked, "So I need to measure that?" And she said, "Yeah, and also the vent" (pointing to a pipe coming out of the wall at the bottom). Clearly, I have no clue about any of this. Thinking back to the class I took in Interior Design school about the basics of a home, we were pretty much given an "A" for being able to point to a furnace in a picture. The chick at Menards also mentioned that they didn't provide installation and/or haul-away services. They were simply a home-repair supplier.

I briefly thought on my drive home that perhaps my dad and Jim's dad would know how to install a water heater. But it didn't seem fair to make our dads give up their free time to do all this work, and Jim and I agreed that it was something important enough that we wanted a professional to do. I looked online to find some retailers who would also do installation and haul-away and discovered that apparently it's nearly impossible to find someone who has tankless water heaters in stock and will provide the necessary services as well. Looking at Home Depot's website again, I didn't want to schedule an installation since I had no idea when the water heater order would come in. So I figured it was best to just go back to the store where I could actually talk to someone instead of filling out an online request form for someone to call me.

So I went back to Home Depot, where the guy at Customer Service told me that they did indeed have two tankless water heaters in stock. I told him that the guy in the heater department told me they didn't carry those. The CS guy said, "I don't know why he'd say that. He's been working here for years and we've always stocked them. They sell out fast so we don't always have them in stock, but we do stock them. Strange." Yeah. Quality is quality is quality is....

However, the CS guy told me that if we didn't already have a tankless model, we couldn't be sure that our house was compatible for tankless. So I had to set up an appointment for an analyst to come to our house on Tuesday and see if we met all the requirements. If we did, and if they had our model in stock, they could install it Wednesday. If they didn't have the model in stock, it might be three weeks to get it in. I scheduled the analysis and was on my way back home.

But after some more extensive Internet research, I discovered that on average, most people save about $70 a year due to the energy efficiency of a tankless water heater. Only $70 a year! That means that it would take about 10 years for the cost difference to be made up in energy savings. Who even knows if we'll still be living here in 10 years? And knowing that they'd for sure have the tank models in stock, I called first thing Tuesday morning and turned our analysis appointment into an installation appointment.

So the leakage problem has been fixed, but now there is the aftermath of cleaning up all the moldy, water damaged areas. In the utility room, the peel and stick tile has to be replaced and most likely the subfloor underneath it. In the guest bedroom the carpet, padding, and subfloor were all ruined, as well as some of the baseboards and drywall, and probably the insulation in that wall too. And in the garage, some drywall and insulation will also need to be replaced.

This is turning into a huge nightmare...

Quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality...Part 2

Well it's been one hell of a week, stewing with anticipation to find out if I would be one of the chosen few to spend three months working in our Chattanooga office. As I mentioned last time my supervisor, J, looked confused when I asked him when a decision would be made since I hadn't volunteered, but that ultimately the decision was up to my not-so-sensitive boss.

Over the weekend, I tried to not let it bother me too much, but I found it getting in the way of even the simplest things like, how many days worth of food should I get at the grocery store or should I be more diligent about getting my laundry done so that I'd have clean clothes to pack.

Monday arrived and I was certain that we would be given an answer. But there was no mention of anything about it. Then on Tuesday, we got an email from J informing us that the client would need "another day or two" to come to a decision about whether or not they trusted our company to complete the work. So that meant Wednesday or Thursday we'd have an answer, which would leave us only Friday and Saturday to prepare for the trip. I was so worked up about it, so stressed out about it, so upset about it...I felt like I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt like saying "F it" and walking out.

But after a few deep breathes and minimal tears shed, I made it through the rest of the day and just before leaving on Tuesday, asked J if I could have Wednesday off. After my mild breakdown, I felt like I really just needed a day to myself away from all the drama, to not think about it, and to not be hearing all the gossip and rumors. I didn't need to stress myself out even more straining to hear bits and pieces of J's conversations, trying to put things together. I had some comp time built up and our workload had been slow ever since most of our stuff had been taken to Tennessee. So after making sure that my more critical work was already complete, J said, "See you Thursday."

Wednesday I spent the day doing errands, laundry and cleaning up some of my crap around the house so that my husband wouldn't have to look at my mess for three months (certain in my mind that I'd be sent to Chattanooga). It was a great day off and I was able to clear my head a little.

And finally, this morning was indeed the big day. I was the first one into work at 7:00. I immediately checked my email to see if any news had been passed along, either officially from J, or just a gossip email from a coworker. Neither. When one of my friends arrived a few minutes later I sprinted over to her desk and asked if I had missed anything. No news yet. J came in around 7:15 and made his usual first-thing-in-the-morning call to the boss to check in. And that's when I heard him say that "most of the five who are going are in the office by 8:00," so they'd have an 8:30 meeting to inform those people all the specifics of their travel.

Before long, I noticed it was already 8:40. I spun around and saw that J was not at his desk. I frantically sent a message to a coworker asking if he could see J, the boss, and five other people in a meeting room anywhere near his desk. Yes, my buddy confirmed that a meeting was taking place. And I was NOT in that meeting!!!!

A huge smile, a huge sigh of relief, a bit of shock that I was actually not chosen! "Who is the drafter in the meeting?" I asked my buddy. It was D...the guy who's wife is seven months pregnant, but who might have been responsible for the initiating error. I knew that he had guiltily volunteered to go for two weeks. So I thought maybe the client had decided to let us take the two or three weeks necessary to finish the project we were already in the middle of, but maybe that was all we would be authorized to do.

But when J came back about an hour later he asked me into a conference room. He said the decision they'd made was to send D for three weeks, then J was hoping I could go for two weeks, at which point another drafter would take over for me for two weeks, etc. He said they may need me to go back and forth more than once since I was the most qualified, but that it shouldn't be more than two or three weeks at any time.

He made it seem like a decent enough compromise, although after initially being told that it would be a three month assignment, I suppose anything less than three months would seem like a great deal at that point. And it really sucks that I'm getting punished for something that I had no part in And although two weeks doesn't seem too horrible right now, I'm sure I'll feel much differently about it that first night that I'm alone in a hotel.

But I'm trying to look on the bright side of a lousy situation...at least I'll have Waffle House to drown my sorrows in syrupy goodness for a couple weeks.

Quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality....

Not to be confused with my "Quality" post of a similar title, this is indeed a new story that demonstrates yet again the kind of shit that happens at my job on a regular basis...

At the end of June, a guy really fucked up some super important shit at work. Actually it was technically two guys that did it. K signed off on something very important, and then P signed off verifying that that very important thing had indeed been done. Except that it was discovered the next day that this very important thing had not been done at all. It was such a huge occurrence that it sparked hours and hours of meetings of bosses, not only in our office, but also our Chattanooga office, as well as our client who was affected by this horrific mistake. K and P were kicked off the project, feeling lucky to not be fired for such a monumental error.

The purpose of all these meetings was to discuss how this event could have occurred, and what could be done to prevent it from happening again. At the end of all this, after an estimated $100,000 of man-hours lost, the bosses were certain that we had gone above and beyond to prevent another such tragedy. But alas, a similar event happened again two weeks ago on a Wednesday night. The error was discovered by A on Thursday morning, who after looking at some paperwork determined that R and D were to blame. R and D were kicked off the project, and a similar string of events occurred again with meetings and interviews of coworkers to corroborate sides of the stories being documented. And then the following Monday morning, A came into the office and declared that after thinking about it over the weekend, he believed that it had actually been him who had made this terrible mistake not on that Wednesday night, but on that Thursday morning...about an hour before he "discovered" the error.

So now our company not only fucked up really, really important shit twice in less than two months, but now we sound like idiots because the guy who was originally documented as discovering the error is now saying he was actually responsible for it, but just doesn't remember doing it like an hour prior to finding the mistake. So it wasn't a huge surprise to any of us when our client decided to strip our office of any of this work and to transfer all the responsibility to our Chattanooga office. But...Chattanooga doesn't have enough knowledgeable people on their staff to handle all this extra work load. So the solution was to send some of us from the Chicago office to the Chattanooga office to do the work. Yes, the same people who work on the team that fucked everything up are the people who are going to continue working on this project, only now from Chattanooga instead of Chicago, as if that would make all the difference. Quality.

So the group of us were called into a meeting on Tuesday by our supervisor and our boss to let us know that they were looking for volunteers to transfer down south for approximately three months. The boss asked for a decision from everyone in the morning. No one stepped forward. Two days after this meeting, our supervisor send out an email to our team saying that they were still in need of volunteers and he needed to know within the hour if our decision was Yes or No. I emailed back No.

Everyone had been stewing about this all week now. Whispering amongst each other while our supervisor was away in meetings, people kept telling me that I was the most qualified in my position to be chosen. I am one of the five draftsmen on my team, but here is the breakdown of us. Two of those guys don't specialize in the area that's needed. Yes, they know how to draft, but it's harder to draft something that you don't understand. So that leaves myself and two other guys. One of those guys is new, only with the company for three months. He is fresh out of college and still learning so, therefore, not an experienced choice. The other guy has a 7-month-pregnant wife. That leaves me.

So I asked my supervisor on Friday morning if he knew when he and the boss would announce their decision about who would be going. He looked confused and asked why I would be concerned since I hadn't volunteered. I responded that I didn't think anyone had stepped up, in which case they'd be forced to send people who didn't want to go. He said that one of the non-specialist guys had volunteered and made it seem like I had nothing to worry about. But ultimately the decision is not up to my supervisor. It is up to my boss. And he's not really the sensitive type to say, "Let's send the less qualified guy who volunteered so that Lauren doesn't have to be apart from her newlywed husband for three months."

So for now, this story is to be continued. I hope to have the conclusion on Monday. And until then, Jim and I are just thinking on the bright side...that if I am sent away for three months, Jim will be happy to come visit me in the city that has the best Bob Evans restaurant in the country, as well as nine different Waffle House locations. So I guess it wouldn't be all bad :)

Online Dating

If you read my last post about the slacker at work, I think it was pretty clear that I was happy to have him finally out of my life. But ironically, it's actually because of that guy that I started dating the man who is now my husband.

It all started after another horrible day at work dealing with M's bullshit. I updated my Facebook status to "Quality is quality is quality...," which at the time was really only understood by the three of us at work who M said that to. So a little confused, my then future husband made a comment that was something like, "I guess you had a good day??"

I suppose I should back up here a little and give you some background on my husband and I. Jim and I have known each other for about 20 years. We grew up just over a mile apart from each other and went to the same elementary, junior high, and high schools. The first time we had a class together was in 7th grade, and with an alphabetical seating chart in place, we ended up sitting right next to each other. We were friendly, but we didn't hang out together outside of class.

We had a few classes together in 8th grade as well, and at the end of the school year, I wrote in his yearbook, "Have a great summer. Call me. [phone number]," but alas, he never called (to be fair, I have long ago thrown away my junior high yearbooks so we were unable to see what he wrote in mine. his defense is that maybe he gave me his number too and maybe I never called him either. I suppose that's possible). Then in our four years of high school neither of us can remember any classes together, so whatever relationship we had begun to form in junior high basically disappeared, and after graduation we went our separate ways.

Jump ahead to ten years later, in the summer of 2008 I got a phone call from a high school friend who said, "You'll never guess who I just reconnected with on Facebook," and I replied, "What's Facebook?" Apparently it had been around for quite awhile and I was just a super nerd who had no social life to be aware of this incredible networking site. So I joined, and it wasn't long before Jim noticed me and sent a friend request.

I was in a relationship at the time with an asshole which was quickly falling apart, and Jim was being really interactive with me on Facebook. My memories of him from 7th grade were that he was really shy, but he wasn't anymore. He was so funny and sweet and charming and hot and I totally started falling for him...my online crush.

So not long after my relationship with the asshole was officially over, I was pretty seriously set on getting together with Jim somehow. It was April of 2009 and he had made a status update that he was thinking about having a Memorial Day party. I decided that I was going to invite myself to that party. I figured that even if he had zero interest in me, he was way too nice to say "No" to my request to crash his party. But before I had to do that, things fell into place on their own when I made that "quality" status update, setting off a string of comments, and then instant messaging.

I couldn't believe he was messaging with me! Like, how did I get so lucky that this amazing guy who could be busy chatting with anyone else, had decided to dedicate his time to catching up on the previous decade with me. But I knew this was going to be my chance to ask him to that party. So I started flirting with him, at least as much as that's possible via instant message. I was trying my hardest to sound cute and funny and sweet and single. And it was going fine, but he hadn't really given me much of an opening to make my intentions known. So I just decided to be blunt about it. I figured that the worst case scenario would be that I'd make a fool of myself and he'd un-friend me. I typed, "So...are you ever going to ask me for my phone number, or what?"

Jim: "Oh...geez...I mean...I really wanted to...but...I just...well...I didn't want to seem too forward...like...I was just trying to be a gentleman......."

Me: "I have been flirting with you for the last 2 hours. What did you think my intentions were?"

Jim: "Oh...well...okay then. Yeah...um...I'd love to have your phone number....."

Me: "Here it is. And you better not wait the 'obligatory' 3-day rule to use it!"

Jim: "Trust me. I won't!"

He called me as soon as we logged off Facebook, just to say goodnight and hear my voice.

I guess it's still probable that if I hadn't made that status update about M which initiated my relationship with Jim, I still would have gone to his Memorial Day party, and I guess our story would have taken the same path. But a little part of me still feels like I owe a big thank you to M for being such a Douchington and helping me begin a fabulous life with my husband.

Selfish

Have you ever seen the episode of "Friends" where Joey is a volunteer at the PBS telethon, taking pledges? He gets into a debate with Phoebe, who blasts Joey for being selfish, saying that he only wants to help with the pledge drive so that he can be seen on television, which would be good exposure for his acting career. He argues that there is no such thing as an unselfish good deed. He claims that even Phoebe acting as a surrogate for her brother was selfish because it made HER feel good to help out her family. And I think I have to completely agree with Joey's side of the argument.

The last few weeks at my job have been really busy for our small group of 14. We have so many projects going on simultaneously and not enough people to get everything done by the deadlines in a normal 8-5 workday. So in an effort to get our project schedules back on track, we've been asked to work a lot of overtime, which is visibly stretching everyone pretty thin. I've been working 6 days a week, averaging about a 10 hours per day, and we are pretty much all in that same boat. So people are coming to work tired, sluggish, not smiling as much, just pulling the mood down. And by Friday morning, I was pretty bummed about it. There was a lot of TGIF talk on my favorite morning radio show, discussing weekend plans and events going on around town. But for me, my Friday wasn't much to celebrate since I still had two more long work days ahead of me.

Walking to work, I decided to stop at Corner Bakery for a bagel. But when I got there, I walked past a display table of coffee cakes. I selfishly bought one to share with my coworkers.

I am usually the 2nd person into work at 7:00 a.m. as was the case on Friday. I set up the coffee cake next to the coffee maker and went to work. And as I expected, within minutes of others arriving I could hear talk about "Who brought in the cake?"

One guy came over to my area of the floor and asked, "Is anyone over here celebrating something?" I replied that I had brought in the coffee cake, just feeling like doing something nice for everyone. And he went around and spread the word that I was the source of the breakfast treat. He even mentioned it at our daily morning meeting in which we discuss the status of our projects. People started appearing at my desk, cake in hand, not only to thank me but also to just take a break from their day and talk to me. So for a few minutes here and there, we all got to set aside our piles of work to indulge in some sugar and some friendly conversation. And everyone seemed to enjoy it so much that I was (selfishly) even a little hopeful that my generosity would spark others to do the same and take a turn to provide breakfast for the rest of us.

But I guess karma didn't care for my selfish breakfast-sharing intentions. No one else brought in breakfast on Saturday :(

Quality

I work for an engineer which, at least at my current company, is a job that requires a lot of team work. So to facilitate that need, our desks are organized into "quads" which are basically one huge cubicle with a desk in each of the four corners. It's great to be that close if you are lucky enough to sit with awesome people. It also makes it pretty tough to slack off without at least three other people being aware of it. And that was the case a few years ago with our 58-year-old Head Designer, M.

When I first started working at this company, I was put into a quad with M, J and E. J and E are both super awesome. Those two guys had already become great friends, and I fit in really well with them too after I joined the quad. The 4th member of our group however (who I'm happy to say no longer works here) was one of the worst people I've ever know. His lack of commitment to his job and his family was absolutely despicable. Here's how a typical 8 to 5 workday for him would go:

8:30 - Show up to work
8:30-9:00 - Check email (work and personal)
9:00-9:30 - Go to Starbucks
9:30-9:45 - Tell me a boring story...

M (holding a camera): What year were you born?
Me: 1980.
M: Would you believe that I bought this camera in 1977.....

9:45-10:00 - Take a break
10:00-10:45 - Call girlfriend
10:45-11:00 - Call wife
11:00-11:30 - Work
11:30-1:00 - Lunch break
1:00-1:30 - Eat the lunch he brought back, while surfing the Internet
1:30-2:00 - Work
2:00-3:00 - M.I.A.
3:00-3:30 - Work
3:30-4:00 - Take the camera out of his desk again and tell me the same boring story he told me earlier...

M (holding a camera): What year were you born?
Me: 1980.
M: Would you believe that I bought this camera in 1977.....

WTF?? Is he doing material? Does he rehearse this in the shower every morning or something? And does he seriously not remember that he already told me the camera story?

4:00-4:30 - Call girlfriend again
4:30-4:45 - Pack up and leave for the day

Now, you might think I'm making it look worse than it was. I'm absolutely not. It got to the point where I actually said something to him about it. He'd been talking to his wife for at least a half hour about some maintenance issue at their house. When he got off the phone...

Me: If you have personal business to take care of, then you should use a Personal Day and go take care of your business.
M (surprised): Did you need me for something while I was on the phone?
Me: No. But that's not the point. We are so far behind on this project schedule, E and J have been working shit tons of overtime for weeks, and you're charging hours to the budget that are spent making personal phone calls.
M (still surprised): ......Okay....

He turned around and started to pretend to do a little work, just moving the mouse across the screen and zooming in and out of a drawing a few times. Awesome. And when he (not surprisingly) had continued to keep up with his usual daily schedule, the other three of us were so mad, that all we could do to keep from smashing his testicles into the ground was to just try to laugh at the situation.

So we started timing him whenever he wasn't working and we would make bets every Monday on what we thought his weekly total of work time vs. non-work time would be. I think it averaged out to about 18 of 40 hours a week not working, although I know that's giving him the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it was hard to determine if the periods of time he was away from his desk was work related or not. And a lot of the time the three of us were so busy actually working that we wouldn't notice he was gone, or on the Internet, or eating peanuts, or playing with his camera, or clipping his fingernails...but either way, he was clearly a slacker.

And as the project deadline got closer and closer, and M's pile of work was getting bigger and bigger, the rest of us were getting more and more concerned. So one day E asked M what his thoughts were about meeting our project deadline. M replied, "I'm not concerned about the project schedule. It's more important to take as much time as we need to make sure it's correct....because I believe that quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality."

No exaggeration...he repeated it at least a dozen times. And the other three of us were trying SO HARD not to burst out laughing. It was so effing ridiculous! Of all people to be talking about quality...was this guy fucking kidding??

But apparently he actually was aware of the fact this his level of "quality" wasn't quite up to par, because as the project deadline approached, M knew that he couldn't possibly get everything done in time. And he knew that the boss would question him about all the hours charged to the project and that he wouldn't have adequate justification for it. So he quit. Without any new job lined up, he just quit. He made up some lame excuse that he'd rather be working at Starbucks and two weeks later, he was gone. About a year later, one of M's friends who still worked at the company told me that M still hadn't found a new job. I guess Starbucks wasn't interested in his personal policy that quality, is quality, is quality, is.....

The Other White Meat

When I lived alone, it made absolutely no sense to cook any meals for myself:

1. I had no one to impress
2. Recipes are always meant for a minimum of 4 people
3. Even if I cut the recipe in half, there would still be leftovers
4. Leftovers are always gross reheated so I'd either be eating gross, reheated leftovers or more likely just throwing them away once they started to grow mold in my fridge
5. I'm pretty lazy and would much rather take 2 seconds to push a button on the microwave vs. making any more effort than what is minimally required

But after I moved in with my husband (who had the same exact feelings about cooking for 1 that I did), I felt like it might be slightly more worth the effort of cooking, now that there were two people to feed. So lately I've been seeing a lot of commercials for pork. I have never in my life eaten pork, but have always been curious. They market it as "the other white meat," and since chicken is pretty good (the original white meat, I suppose), I thought pork couldn't be that bad either, and I picked up a package the last time I was at the grocery store.

So last night we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner...get fast food, make a frozen pizza, microwave a Lean Cuisine...but I noticed that the pork was getting to the date where I either needed to use it or freeze it. So I found a recipe online for a casserole and decided to give it a try.

As soon as I put the pork in the skillet, I knew I would hate it. It smelled like feet. Like...a LOT like feet. But trying not to disappoint my husband after I already committed myself to cooking, I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I figured that maybe if I just added a lot more cheese than what was called for, it might overpower the foot taste. But I ended up overcooking the pork on the outside of all the pieces, and half the pieces were tough on the inside; the other half were raw on the inside.

So I asked my husband if he would mind NOT having pork for dinner, to which he quite happily responded that it was fine with him that my cooked skills had failed. So I guess you can add another item to the aforementioned list of why I don't cook...

6.  I suck at cooking.

Scammed

I work in the Loop, and have about a mile walk from Union Station to my office building. Along the way, I pass by a lot of regular beggars, and it always baffles me when I see other commuters giving change to these people. In my opinion, after 3 years of working downtown and not once handing out a single penny, these people still manage to be alive and well, so they must be doing just fine without my donation. And I know that even if I give them some change today, they will be right back in that same spot tomorrow asking me for more. So I do my best to avoid eye contact and just make my way quickly past.




But there are a few of them who are more pushy than others, and make themselves harder to completely ignore. There is the lady who yells, "HI! C'n ya sprr su CHANGE!?" (although every once in awhile she's too busy talking on her cell phone instead of asking for money. i guess she's got to pay that verizon bill somehow...)

And there is the guy at the end of the bridge with the crutch who rattles around a few coins in a McDonald's cup while holding a sign that says something about God blessing those who help, trying to get the sympathy hand-out. I can't imagine that this guy is fooling anyone just by leaning on that crutch. I can stand around with my leg turned inward too. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm crippled.

And then there is the legless guy at LaSalle and Adams who shouts "Good morning!" to everyone who passes him. And this is the guy who scammed me out of $6 one day...

I had long-ago discovered that the best strategy against these beggars was to just avoid them as best I could. So I simply began walking on the other side of the street as I crossed LaSalle, until one morning when a coworker came in and told me that he had just talked to the legless guy. My buddy found out that this guy was also a military vet, which gave the two of them something to talk about, and that he was a really nice, well-intentioned guy. My friend had tried to give him $20, but this guy responded that he wasn't out there for money. He got enough from his disability checks to get by. And after fighting in the war and seeing all the hatred people have for each other, he thought he'd just go out there and try to make people smile by wishing them a good day.

I thought that was pretty cool. And it made me feel really bad about judging this guy and trying to avoid him. So I began walking past him every morning, giving him a big smile, and wishing him a good day. And I noticed how many shitty people walked right past him and couldn't even be bothered to say hello back or give him a smile.

This went on daily for quite a few months that I would walk past and greet him. And I even let it slide that he would sometimes say things to me like, "Hey. You have a great smile!" or "Good morning, Beautiful Lady!" because his intentions overall seemed good. And he would always say "Go Blue!" when I wore my U of M jacket, so that scored him some extra points with me.

But one Saturday morning, I was on my way to work and he was out there as usual. As I approached him, getting ready to say "Good morning," he surprised me by saying, "Hey beautiful. Can you spare a few dollars?"

WHAT?! Where the hell did this come from? He told my buddy that he wasn't out there for money. But by this point, after months of friendly greetings every day, I had grown to think he was a nice guy. And then to make it even harder to say no, he added, "My brother needs a new kidney so I'm trying to collect money to help him."

So in an effort to avoid confrontation, I gave him the $6 that I had on me.

He seemed sincerely grateful for the donation, but I was still a little put off by it. And the more I thought about it, I realized that this might have been his plan all along; sit out there every day, don't ask for money, be super nice to people, build up a good reputation with these people, and then after they think you're a cool person, pull a 180 and ask for money, and since you've been so awesome to so many people for so many months, and have a sob-story to go along with the request, it's pretty likely that these people will give you money. Brilliant.

So now I walk on the other side of the street again.

Vegetarianism

A few years ago at a bachelorette party, the group of us girls went to a steak house for dinner, and I ordered a salad. The girl sitting next to me looked stunned and said:

A: You got a salad?

Me: Yeah. It's really good!

A: Why did you just get a salad?

Me: I'm a vegetarian.

A: Are you allergic to meat?

(side note...is that even possible? it might be possible, i don't know, but it just sounds really weird)

Me: No, I just think it's kind of gross to eat a dead body.

A: But don't you know that meat is good?

(wow.)

Me: Well, I've actually never been a huge fan of meat anyway so it was easy for me to give it up.

A (sounding confused): But....there's cheese on your salad.

Me (even more confused): ......Well......I'm just a vegetarian, not a vegan.

She paused, gave me a blank stare, turned her back to me and started talking to the girl on her other side. I guess the vegetarian lifestyle isn't understood by everyone.

My off-and-on vegetarianism began in 7th grade. The choice back then was really just following along with my best friend who wanted to stand up for animal rights, which I had much less passion about than she did. So it was only about a month or two later that I was staring at the menu at McDonald's trying to decide between a garden salad, or chicken nuggets. The chicken nuggets won that battle and my animal rights movement went down the drain.

That became a pattern for me every few years...not eating meat for a month or two but ultimately realizing that it was just easier to eat meat, even though it was kind of gross to eat a dead body. So I guess this proves that I'm just lazy and am more strongly influenced by convenience rather than conviction.

This last time around, at the age of 26 I decided once again to stop eating meat. And by this time there had been so many advances in soy over the years that I thought it would be an easy switch for me...and it was...but I also fooled myself into thinking that all this new soy would provide the key I had previously been missing in making the lifestyle actually stick for life.

But now I am once again "off" vegetarianism, much in part to my husband's love of meat, and also due to my accidental meat-eating a couple years ago that made me say, "Screw it. I'll just start eating meat again." It happened at work one Saturday. As a "thank you" to everyone who had come in to work that weekend, the boss bought Jimmy Johns for everyone for lunch. It was a catered platter with a variety of sandwiches. I took one that looked like a veggie...all I saw was cheese and lettuce. But when I bit into it, I discovered that there was tuna fish buried under the lettuce. And it was delicious! So I was torn. I had devoted 3 years to not eating meat, and I still wanted to be a vegetarian, but now there was this blemish on my not-eating-meat record. The damage had been done. I didn't know what to do. And it continued to bother me for a few more days after the tuna fish incident, until I was on my way home from work later that week and had a huge craving for a turkey sandwich. I gave in. So much for conviction.

Sometimes I still think about going back to that lifestyle, but ultimately, I'm not sure why I really would. I know it would just end up the same way that it always has. Not having a passionate reason for choosing vegetables (or in my case lots of pasta) over meat has really been my downfall. I should just accept the fact that even though I don't love meat as much as I feel that a meat-eater should, that doesn't mean that I have to stay away from it all together. It's perfectly fine to still eat vegetarian meals whenever I feel like it and yet not consider myself a vegetarian.

But on days like yesterday, waiting in line for my turkey burger at our office cafeteria, I was horrified as I watched the cook put raw pieces of chicken on the grill; all slimy with spots of blood in them and fat stuck to the edges. It made me want to throw up. And it's in those moments that I think I might prefer to be a vegetarian again...at least for a little while.

Naive

I've always been very trusting, and expect the best intentions from people. I'm still a bit of a push-over at times, but I'm working on that. And I've learned to pick my battles (which means that I do fight back sometimes). But this is a pretty recent notion for me...within the last year...that I've started standing up for myself and saying what I really feel. My husband calls me "Assertive Lauren" during these moments of expression.

But a few years ago, my naive self got sucked into doing something that I didn't really want to do, and was just too nice to say no. Before I get into the details of this situation, let me give you some background...

I began taking dance lessons at the age of 10 and, unknown to me, had a very neglectful teacher. It wasn't until the age of 14 when a new teacher came along that within the first few minutes of the first class with this instructor, he stopped the class to point out a mistake that I was making...bending my knees pointing them straight forward while my feet were turned out to the side. Proper technique would have been knees over your toes, so knees pointed to the side. The new teacher corrected my error and said that if I kept doing things the wrong way, I might really mess something up. But by then, after 4 years of dancing that way, the damage had already been done. I went to see an orthopedic doctor and was diagnosed with malalignment of both knees. Each of my kneecaps is dislocated in 4 different directions and my legs have grown crooked. There is no way to correct the damage that's already been done (surgery isn't even guaranteed), but by keeping my legs strong, I can prevent my legs from getting worse. So a few years ago, this prompted me to join a gym.

And here is where my naivety comes into play. As a "thank you" for joining the gym, they gave me a free personal training session. I was told that the trainer would show me around the gym and instruct me on how to use the equipment, especially focusing on the machines I was really interested in to meet my goals (leg machines). So I went to my free session and it was awesome! The trainer was really friendly, funny, helpful, and he actually seemed to care about me and getting my legs stronger. I thought I would be walking away with the knowledge that I needed to start working out on my own.

But at the end of that free session, he said, "So, how would you like to sign a contract with me to have regular training sessions?" What? I was stunned. Stunned by the question and stunned by the fact that I hadn't seen this coming. The question honestly hit me like a punch in the face...totally unexpected. So this left me feeling very uncomfortable, not knowing what to say, not wanting to spend the money on personal training sessions, but not wanting to say no because I would have felt bad for wasting this guy's time. So I decided the easiest thing to do was to just say "yes." I signed up for 4 sessions and thought to myself that at the end of that month, I just wouldn't renew the contract. But what would make me think that a month would have been enough time for me to grow a pair, stand up for myself (and my budget) and say no? So of course after those 4 sessions when he asked me to sign up for 4 more, I once again said "yes." And so it went for months, and months, and months.

But after that first 2 or 3 months, I really started to notice a change in my strength. My trainer kept pointing out to me how much more weight and reps I was able to handle. And the best thing about working with a trainer was that, if I had been doing it on my own, if I started to get worn out, I would have just quit. But working out with him, he was able to help me lift some of the weight when it got harder for me, and he kept pushing me to keep going. Giving up was not an option.

It became something that I looked forward to going to. And in addition to being a great trainer, he became a great friend too. Only a year or two older than me, we had a lot in common, had similar personalities and senses of humor. And it didn't take him long to realize that I had a lot of crazy, funny, interesting stories to tell. Our sessions would always start off with a warm-up on the stationary bike which I would start on my own when I got there, and he would meet up with me when he was done with his previous session. So he would walk up to me on the bike and ask the same question every time..."Stories?" And that was the beginning of the most fun hour of my week.

So here are my stories for you to enjoy...