Things to be Thankful For

Since I haven’t posted since Thanksgiving (a) because I am a lazy ass sometimes and (b) because I just haven’t been inspired by much of anything lately, a few days out of the office will calm one right down. But now I am back at work and wanted to think of a few things I have been thankful for lately.

1. Last night, pulling out of my garage at work the unthinkable happened. It was a crowded busy street, where no one will let anyone get out of a garage for quite sometime. But then it happened a METRO BUS (did you hear that? A BUS!!!!!) stopped in the middle of the road and waved me through. I hesitated for a few seconds, not understanding the kind thing he was doing, I thought for sure I would start moving and then he would plow me down. I have never, ever in my over 3 years of commuting into and around Washington, DC EVER had a bus do anything other then run me down. So, random kind metro bus driver….thank you.

2. Not having Children- This might sound a little mean but while Mr. First year and I enjoy some activity I often notice families around us trying to enjoy them to, but they can’t because they have some children with them. Now I am sure there are tons of great things about having kids, and I don’t personally hate them or anything…but really life seems so complicated by them. For example, we were at the grocery store wandering around and looking for something interesting for dinner. We were chatting about something unrelated and stopped once in awhile to grab an item or discuss which brand/product we wanted. Then we observed the “lots-a-kids” family. It was mom pushing one of those carts that 2 kids can sit in (and there were 2 kids) and 4 other children walking around Dad as they “shopped”. They were a noisy bunch and mom and dad looked so miserable (and in fact the screeching was making anyone in earshot miserable) because they had to go so slowly, the kids were grabbing and whining, and it seemed that it was just an all out stress-fest. Why do people do that? (a) Can’t you leave the kiddos at home with one parent? (b) clearly, those two could not control 6 kids….maybe there’s something to be said for not being out numbered 300%?.

But in any case, when comparing their shopping experience (stress, loud, whiny, long, etc) and ours (leisurely, short, just Mr. First Year asking for things :) I don’t know why I would trade. So, thank you loud annoying family, you made me realize just how thankful I am for still having some independence and having a much more tame life because I don’t have kids. In that light, I guess I should thank birth control as well. Thanks condoms and Ortho!

3. Tree Farmers- Totally random but we picked out our tree this weekend (a Balsam Fir) and its beautiful. A big, full and obscenely wide tree, I love it, but we’re sort of lagging on the decorations. We have the lights on and some garland and ornaments, but its just such a huge tree I have a feeling it will be a process. So, tree farmer, who grew my tree for 9-11 years….Thanks!!


Anyone else thankful for anything?

:)

Pre-Thanksgiving Rants

I can’t decide which of the rants I have going in my head today I actually want to write about, but I’ll just get them all out there. I figure clearing my mind before Thanksgiving will be good for me.

1. Office Food- For some reason people in offices just love (and I mean really love) free food. Something about having food, eating all you want, and not having to pay a penny makes some people go wild. Well the problem with this is that sometimes food comes with strings attached.

This week an invitation was extended to the office to attend a presentation about how business in our industry was done in another country, led by a person in the industry from that country. In order to offer an incentive for people to come to the presentation they had catered breakfast for those attending the meeting. Well I went to the meeting, and it was actually pretty interesting and the breakfast was good. Mainly, I was interested in the lecture (the women who led it is an excellent speaker), I wanted to blow off 2 hours of my work day, and I don’t mind being fed breakfast (it was delicious). However, several employees walked into the room before the meeting started, loaded up their plates with food and….took them back to their desks.

Excuse me, but the food is for the people in the meeting. If there is food left over after the meeting its also put in the lunch room and anyone can have whatever they want. However, to go in before the meeting, in front of all of your bosses, take the food meant for other people before they could have any, and then to leave the room and not even listen to the lecture the bosses wanted people to go to…..wow, just wow. You really looked greedy and just tacky. Don’t do that. You folks are probably the same people who sneak into the conference rooms when there is a catered lunch and steal sandwiches, making someone in the meeting go without, and forcing us to order 20% more food then we need to because you’re so free-food hungry.

Point: Taking free food not meant for you before the people it was meant for and in front of the big wigs makes you look stupid. Don’t do it.

2. Thinking for Yourself- Working, living life, and generally being an adult require some level of independent decision making, value judgments, and preferences. So, why is it so tough for some people to do anything by themselves without having to ask a million questions? Let me demonstrate this in a scenario form:

Say I start a new job and one of my duties includes putting away office supplies. There I am, standing with a huge box of office supplies with me, I know where both the copy room and the supply room are. Is the right things to do…..

Scenario A: Pick up each object and call some other employee and ask where it goes. Do this for everything. Call for pens, call for pencils, call for the ball point pens and gel pens separate.

Or

Scenario B: Look in the supply/copy room and see where similar (or even more of the same) supplies are kept and put away as much as possible. Then, at the end, if there are things I truly cannot figure out a place for I can ask about them all at one time.

The answer should be obvious. Nothing slows down my day more and makes my blood boil faster then a person who doesn’t even try to find the answer to their own question before asking someone else. If I need some file on the company shared drive I don’t randomly call the boss over my direct boss and ask him, that would be completely stupid. I look for the damn file myself and most likely I will find it. If I cannot find it then I ask an employee around me, I don’t bother the boss with inane and stupid questions.

Point: If you have a question, try to answer it yourself first. If you can’t, ask a co-worker. If they don’t know then ask your immediate supervisor. Do not just call a person several steps up the ladder from you and ask them something you could easily find out yourself with 10 seconds of investigation.

3. Leave People Alone- With the travel season here to stay for another month or so I would like to remind people to leave others alone when those people clearly don’t want to chat with you. This applies to trains, buses and planes (especially planes since this is how I will be traveling and I don’t want you to bug me). A few hints that someone does NOT want to chat with you:

- They are reading a book
- They are listening to music
- They are writing
- They are working on their laptop
- They are already engaged in a conversation with their travel companion
- They are on the phone
- They are staring out of the window and enjoying the view
- They are watching a movie
- They are playing a game

And now, a few hints for when a person MIGHT be up for a little chat:

- When you sit down next to them they give you a big great smile and start talking to you
- They respond in a chatty way to pleasantries
- They aren’t distracted by the above mentioned things

Really…this shouldn’t be needed. It should be automatic and obvious when another person is busy and does not want to engage in banter with you and when the person is receptive to chatting to pass the time. Please see the difference, and please leave the people who don’t you near them alone.


Well that felt good. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone :)

First Year-

People You Meet at Work: Trust Fund Brat

One of the most infuriating people I have met at work by far, this overgrown brat cannot be avoided, it cannot be understood, and it cannot be tolerated without cringing. The specific trust fund brat I speak of is a new employee. He graduated from a prestigious school in the area and was taking a low level job in an administrative position, so I was a little suspicious about him to begin with. My suspicions were right on the dot because it wasn’t long before he revealed himself for who he really is: An overindulged brat, without a brain cell in his head, happy to live off of his rich parents then to accomplish for himself.

Shortly after he started I found out that he hadn’t worked for a year before starting at my company. When I offered my sympathy that it had been that long (perhaps trying to commiserate, I hated being out of work and couldn’t wait to get back to earning an income) he just gave me a weird look and said, “oh it wasn’t a big deal I enjoyed having the time to just relax”. Well, I let it go, but thinking about it not too many folks in my age range can just take a year off from working and relax, mainly because we have rent to pay and groceries to buy, car payments to make, and other financial obligations many of which cannot be reduced below a bare minimum.

A few days later he casually mentioned that he was a little tired because he was hung over from being out late the night before. Hey I can sympathize, until he continued to say that his friend who had gone out with him didn’t have to work and he wishes he was still doing that. I questioned a little further and discovered his friend lived entirely off of a trust fund, something the new employee was doing for the past year….until his father told him to go to work for a little while at least.

Now, you’d think with all that money to go to college (a top school in fact, the most prestigious in my area…) without having to work, the private tutors, the successful parents that this guy would at least be half competent. But he ISN’T, not in the least bit. I do not want to demean his job, but it includes such complicated duties as: answering the phones, greeting guests and directing them, opening a department’s mail, and other mainly simple tasks. But this guy cannot seem to do it. So below, just because I dislike him so much are the things he’s done so far to show that he is a spoiled rotten moron who would never make it in the real world without Daddy’s money and power, which is undoubtedly the reason he was able to secure admission and graduation from his college.

1. Office Repairs- As I said one of his jobs is to greet visitors and direct them. So, when 2 men with a ladder and a light bulb came into the office and announced, “We’re here to replace the light bulk in the ____________ room” one would expect him to simply lead the repair people into that room and let them replace the light bulb. But not this genius, he buzzed me in my office and asked me to come up because, “some guys are here with a light”. If he couldn’t figure that out, I am not sure I trust him to keep breathing without forgetting and suffocating.

2. Mail- Another job, getting the mail for a few people. Dealing with mail is really a 3 part job, so perhaps I am over simplifying it. Part One: Get mail from mailroom 3x a day at predetermined times. Part Two: Sort mail and give it to people it belongs to. Part Three: Take mail that people have written and bring it TO the mail room so that it can be mailed. So, when I walked by his desk today at around noon I was not pleased to see a piece of mail I had addressed and placed in his “Outgoing Mail” bin for mailing, still sitting there. I asked if he had checked the mail yet that day (or on the previous Friday) he answered “Not yet.”, and I just couldn’t understand….given that his other duties encompassed about an hour a day of actual work, what the hell he was doing that he was so busy he has not yet gotten a chance to check the mail.

3. Simple Office Things- Ordering supplies goes over your head, you couldn’t call the people who provide the water cooler and tell them it was broken. Call a dishwasher repair man? Yea, not for you. There is such a long list of things you are “Unsure about” or “Have no idea about” that I really wonder what the hell you do know anything about. You simply have no uses. You routinely hang up on people because you don’t get the phone system. You take paper messages and then lose them because you don’t like to transfer calls to voice mail.

See, I suspect that the following is the only thing you are even remotely capable of doing with any sort of achievement:

- Sitting on your ass
- Shopping
- Chatting on the phone
- Looking at yourself in the mirror
- Whining about how hard your life is and how you just haaaave to get awwwwwaaaay.
- Arguing with Daddy about how much you get next month
- Booking trips to see your trust fund friends
- Drinking
- Wasting space
- Eye rolling

I could go on and on but I wont. But I do hope you go away soon because you are just a worthless human being. I just don’t get how you could have graduated grade school and still be as stupid as you are.

Apparently no amount of money and no size of trust fund will be able to purchase simple intelligence and aptitude for employment (or life in general).

First Year :)

You’re a BAD BAD Employee!!!

Things at work, when I do most of my blogging, have really been a little nutty and tense lately. Most of the problems surround a few misfit employees and their crazy antics. As a public service announcement, I would like to kindly ask that other people please refrain from the following behaviors. I know this is the free world and we can all do whatever it is that we feel like…but as one my favorite sayings go, just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

1. Quit Gracefully-

If you’ve already given your notice and your future at the company is limited just relax and ride it out until the end. You’re leaving on good terms, let it just stay that way. I can understand your lack of enthusiasm and of course if I were you I would be rolling in late and spending hours trolling the internet instead of doing my work…but the key is to still show up.

You’re leaving anyhow, and I know you don’t have another job lined up. So why is it that you called out 2 days last week pleading an awful illness (that made several people here fret for your health and well being) and then just didn’t come back to work? Are you really ill and sitting in a gutter somewhere? Or are you just an incredible jack ass. Unfortunately I am afraid you’re a jack ass because your position requires that someone be doing it each and every day and your replacement has yet to be found, since you were “Staying” for your notice period (and in fact stayed for about half of it, thanks!). So…. Thanks a lot for screwing us all, me especially since I got to pick up the slack for you until they find a permanent replacement.

2. Delegate Duties to Right People-

I am a helpful person, so if I happen to see a pile of mail sitting around I will take mine and give the rest to the people it belongs to. If I need to take something to the FedEx both I ask the people around me if they have anything they need to take. This does not mean I am an administrative assistant, a secretary or anything of the sort. I’m still an accountant and if you call me up and rudely tell me the front message box has the message light blinking and that you want it checked because you want to know if its for you I wont care and I wont help you. But…I WILL be insulted and think less of you. And since we’re more peers in the company then you being my superior (which you in way are) I suggest you don’t piss me off too much.

Things that will leave me wondering what planet you came done from include: Asking me to run and get coffee, getting ALL the mail and sorting it, making you photocopies, sending a fax for you, or taking notes for you at a meeting. As you storm into my OFFICE (notice the door, the desk….very much unlike where the secretary sits at the front desk and nothing like the cubicles in the hallway the admins reside in) and thrust a pile of crap at me *telling* me to do something with it, I will get annoyed. Don’t get me wrong if you need a favor and ask me nicely, which includes the word please, most likely I will just do your chore when I do mine. But in no way am I going to be setting up a precedent that I act as your assistant. Thanks.

3. Learn to Take Non-Verbal Cues-

Sometimes I am busy, we all get there once in awhile and most of us just shut our doors and get to work. But you…you never get the subtle hints that I don’t want to chat or catch up with you. Apparently having my door closed (not open even a crack) is no deterrent to you surprises me, but moving on…. Does my desk, completely covered in paperwork, the excel spreadsheet on my screen, and my tired glazed over expression not indicate this isn’t a good time? But when I decided to be less subtle and say, “Oblivious Co-Worker, I am a little busy right now, can I catch you later on?” you sulk and act as if I have insulted you in some way. Would saying, “Get the fuck out of my office!!! Don’t you know what time of the billing cycle it is? I don’t have time for inane conversation with you. LEAVE.”, be better?

4. Trust the “Experts”-

Now I am no HR or Accounting expert. But I did graduate college with a degree in both fields and have worked in accounting for several years. I am also the HR admin now apparently. So, when New Girl filled her tax form out wrong and I mentioned to her that she was incorrect I didn’t really expect her to argue with me.

So folks, let me tell you. We’re just being friendly. I honestly don’t give a flying fuck if you fill your tax form out wrong. Its your problem not mine, I am just trying to save you a headache at the end of the year. If you overpay your taxes, no big deal you’ll get them back, but you’re giving a loan to the IRS for free. However, if you overstate your deductions and underpay your taxes you’ll owe more (much more) at the end of the years. And unless you’re making quarterly payments in anticipation of this, it can really smack you in the face because it adds up if you’re not saving it.

So, when I tell you that you can’t claim a deduction, believe me. I gain nothing from helping you properly fill out your tax forms. And definitely don’t argue with me and act as if I don’t know what I am talking about, because I do.

Thanks for letting me get that out!

First Year :)

Poor Gays :(

With the close of the polls the endless political ads that we all love to hate have all been mercifully removed from our TVs. I had my favorites (Michael Steele likes puppies but he LOVES George Bush) and not so favorites (Webb…. Right for 06….1806), but now they are all finally gone.

In the end the democrats prevailed in VA (I believe today was the first day it was safe to say Webb won without some one freaking out about recounts and the such) and both the house and senate turned blue. It still feels like a hollow victory, mostly because of the first ballot question in Virginia, which passed.

Apparently it wasn’t enough for Virginian’s to refuse to allow gay marriages. So, then they decided to not acknowledge a gay marriage performed somewhere that such a practice was legal. But yet this still wasn’t enough and all civil unions and any other “marriage equivalent” was removed as an option. But someone still wasn’t happy and decided to was time to change the constitution of the state to make damn sure that marriage was defined as between ONE women AND ONE man, because I guess… they wanted to make 100% sure gays were not marrying in Virginia.

I hopes it would fail miserable, because I like to think that most people are of the reasonable variety. But that was not the case. Even though in Northern VA, where I reside 70% of people looked at the question and said, “ What???? No…..” the rest of the fucking hicks in this state decided writing discrimination right into the state constitution was the way to go.

I really want to hear one reason, just one that is NOT based entirely on religious views of what marriage is and is not about why gay people shouldn’t do whatever gay thing they want (including marrying each other). Is the fear that the illegality of gay marriage was what was keeping most of the population straight? So, if gays could marrying most of us straight folks would yell, “Woooohooo!!!!” and promptly grab the nearest member of the same sex and run down to the justice of the peace? Because if that’s the case….you’re just stupid.

Then there’s my favorite argument that once we let gay people marry then we will have to allow bestiality, incest and pedophilia too. Can someone explain this to me? Homosexuality = 2 consenting human adults deciding to be gay together, right? Bestiality = 1 consenting adult (or one would hope…) and 1 animal who does not have the ability to consent or not. Can people not see the difference? Sex acts that happen between humans and between animals are not comparable. Incest? Well personally I couldn’t give a crap less if people want to fool around with their relations, personally I find the idea unpalatable but really who am I do judge? The only exception to this would be if one of the relations was….a minor. And that brings us to the pedophilia thing. This is the dumbest comparison of them all. When someone molests a child it is not a consensual act, when someone engages in gayness, it is consensual (unless another crime is going on, but that’s a different story).

But none of that matter….gay people are “unnatural” and gay marriage will “cheapen the institution of marriage” (right but celeb marriages that last 10 minutes don’t….) and whatever type of “reasons” people have.

Today I am definitely NOT proud to call myself a Virginian, and I hope the people who decided to change our constitution are ashamed of themselves, but I know they aren’t, smug assholes.

:( First Year-

(P.S. Hi Mr. First Year :)

Tattling: Not Just for Kids Anymore!

Even as adults none of us want to be a tattle tale or a rat. I hate telling on people and I unless something really horrendous was going on, I would not tell on people at work or otherwise. This is why I hate the situation Bitch Project Manager has put me in.

Despite what anyone thinks my job is, foremost during this time of the month it is to invoice all the people that should be giving us money. This is an important job because we need money to pay all the people who work here, pay the rent, and so on. Most people understand our need to be paid and cooperate with me in my mission to make sure all the invoices are correct and sent out in a timely manner. In fact, everyone but Bitch PM has given the information I need on time and generally not completely aggravated me.

But not this raging bitch, she is simply do busy to do a task that will take her approximately 5 minutes to accomplish and is the sole thing holding me up from sending out invoices for about 50-60% of our clients. I am pissed beyond belief, every day spent in the office is a waste of my fucking time because there is nothing more I can possibly do until this moron get her act together long enough to type some information into a computer that she should have been doing all month long.

In the beginning I asked her nicely when she would get the info in. She assured me it would be in only 2 whole days after the deadline. Well here we are 6 days before the deadline and still nothing from her. I tried emailing her and she hasn’t answered. Calling her offices affords me a, “I’m busy I’ll buzz you when I am done” (the buzzing never happens). And today my all time favorite when I just walked into her office this morning she looked at me, while drinking coffee and reading the post and said, “I am busy, maybe by the end of the day.”

Well, if this women wants to power struggle with someone half her age I guess she should do whatever makes her feel good about herself. But seriously I wanted to send these invoices out on the 1st or 2nd at the latest. Its not the 6th, what the fuck is the matter with you? Also, when you send our interoffice memos looking for reading material to help pass the time it makes me painfully obvious to me that you aren’t really all that busy.

So, if you don’t want to get your shit it, know that you have pushed me to the end of my rope. I was patient, understanding, and amicable until you blatantly thrust your power trip in my face. So I sent the following email it our collective boss:

“Boss,

I am having some trouble with invoicing this month and I was wondering if you mind advise me on the best course action. All the invoices, except for those accounts managed by Bitch went out on the 1st and 2nd, however Bitch’s clients cannot be billed because I am missing key information. I have asked Bitch for this information but she has yet to provide it. Since Bitch has not responded to my emails, calls or visits I do not know what more I can do to get these invoices out. I wondered if you might be able to talk with her to see what might be holding up her end of things. Thank you so much!

First Year”

This is what I really wanted to say:

“Boss,

Bitch is at it again! I got all the invoices that don’t involve her out the door as planned on the first and second, but she had made it impossible for me to do my job to this day. She needs to get some fucking info into the computer, a process she should have been doing all month long and would seriously take her 15 minutes or less now but she has failed to do it. I have asked her over a dozen times over email, the phone, and in person to get this info so I can bill our clients….but she wont budge. Since she has such a large chunk of our clients in her responsibility I haven’t billed xxx,xxxx this month. Bitch is going around reading Marie Claire while I wait day in and day out for her to do her work. Well, I give up. You talk to the bitch because apparently I am not high enough on the ladder to warrant her actually doing her fucking job.

Thanks!

First Year”

Which do you think I should send?

Ok…vent over!

(Don't forget to check out God Lady Below, Blogger hated me this past week :( )

People You Meet at Work: God Lady

I don’t know about you folks but almost every place I have worked that was reasonably large had at least one person, always a woman, who loves Jesus. She loves him A LOT, not the normal religious type of love, but the type of deep sitting obsession that permeates into everything they say and do. You know the type, they just cannot shut up about Jesus, the dying on the cross bit, the sacrificing for the sins, and on and on.

Of course my current gig is no different and I have the extreme pleasure of getting to work closely with this woman, as she is the manager of a department I must work closely with. At first things with God Lady (“GL”) started out nicely enough, but quickly the mention of religion, Jesus, heaven and hell got to be simply too much for me.

So, the next time GL was in my office I casually mentioned being made uncomfortable by all the Jesus-talk and she flipped out. “The only reason someone doesn’t want to hear about and talk about the Lord is because they haven’t accepted him heart and soul.”

So, I informed GL that not only was I not Christian (I am a Jew…go figure, a Jewish accountant and soon to be lawyer) that I and simply not religious at all. Well she flipped, apparently she didn’t want my Jew soul to rot in hell ( that’s so sweet) so she made it her mission to show me Jesus in everyday life, and the “Miracles that he creates all around us”.

Miracle 1: “The Magic of the Automobile”-

GL: “ Say FY, do you ever wonder when you start your car how exactly humans progressed from walking everywhere to driving these marvels of creation?”

FY: “No, I don’t have to wonder, I am pretty familiar with the history of the automobile.”
GL: “You know that technology was given to made by God. Man is simply, but with God great things are possible”

FY: “No, I am pretty sure the technology was slowly developed overtime by man. But if you want to think God did it, that’s fine.”

Miracle 2: “God Makes Rainbows”

GL: “Just look at the gorgeous rainbow God left for us to gaze at.”

FY: “No, that’s what happens when rain and sun mix, but its quite lovely.”

Miracle 3: “God Makes Babies”

GL (about a pregnant coworker): “Wow, Jill sure is glowing with that little treasure God put in her baby.

FY: “GL- please stop the I don’t want to think about how Jill got pregnant, but in any case I don’t think it was god that put anything anywhere.”


But it didn’t stop there. Every time I saw her, it was Jesus Jesus Jesus. He died for me, he loves me, he accepts me as imperfect. Well I got fed up. So any of you out there dealing with your own God Lady…just bitch to HR immediately. These people have no shame, no common sense, and polite attempts to let them know their line of conversation makes you uncomfortable and is inappropriate for the work place.

So, don’t bother. Ring up the HR person and tell them GL is harassing you about Jesus, if its anything like my GL it won’t be the first complaint!

First Year-

(Side note, I have been MIA because Blogger hates me. I have about 4 posts I have tried to put up this week, all rejected by blogger. Boooo)