More @ The Office

Sometimes you have those days, weeks, months, when you look back and the only good thing you can say is that you survived. I kind of feel that way about this week. I guess it wasn't so bad, but I just feel incredibly exhausted, like too tired to fall asleep. Bone weary. And I really can't complain too badly because some poor suckers have to work on the weekend to make sure everything is ready on Monday. My boss, who usually rolls out of work around 3:30, was there after five, trying to take care of stuff around the office.

My badge still doesn't work on the new building. Someone has been leaving the door propped open, which is cool, but I can't guarantee that's going to happen. Since I have the misfortune of having to be there at 8 AM every morning next week, I'll probably follow someone in if I can't get my badge working. I ended up calling around trying to get that resolved, and put off. "The building is for my department. You can see in your computer that I'm IN that department. Give me access." Seems simple to me, but I ended up sending a priority email to everyone in the management chain in hopes that it would happen by Monday.

I'm still not used to the auto-flushing toilets yet. I was thinking of suggesting the sensor be a little more lax than going off the second one stands up. There are three stalls plus the disabled stall in my nearest bathroom, and I've tried them all, looking for the toilet that sounds least freaky. Haven't figured which one it is yet. I'm also a bit confused by the fact that the faucets are automatic, but the towels are manual. I wonder if they just ran out of money there.

My frequently absent diseased co-worker has come down with something official, or at least, he's in the hospital now and is going to be out for some time, possibly indefinitely. My boss had some interns unpack his boxes today, so they probably expect him to return at some point. Anyway, since he's now out on some kind of leave, I assume, they are actually bringing a temp in on Monday. That's the good news. The bad news is of course, I have to train the temp. And knowing my boss's track record with hiring people (I was hired by my previous boss), well, I am hoping that she's at least a good listener if nothing else. All I know about the temp is that she's female, not her name or anything else. I'm crossing my fingers on that one.

The Fear Of The New (Toilets)

I'm behind on everything, including unpacking into my new desk. Well, since I've only been allotted an hour a day to do so, and today a large part of that hour was taken up with trying to get my access badge activated, let's just say, I didn't get much done at my new desk. But that's okay.

I think a large part of group therapy is what they call "normalization" meaning that you realize that no matter how fucked up you think your life is, there are plenty of other people who think their lives are just as fucked up, and quite frankly, a large number of them do have way worse problems than you. No matter how bad your life is now, there are tons of people who have it worse. Maybe thinking of "the starving children in wherever" doesn't actually make people happier about their own fate, but when you realize the person next to you has the same crappy problems you have, it puts things in perspective.

Being in this large moving situation at work, I have gone through stages of stress, dreaming about having to make copies and not knowing where the copier was, and weird crap like that. In the last day or two, I started realizing that plenty of people around me have it worse. At least everything in my office is working, and setup. My computer and phone work. And yeah, I haven't unpacked all of my boxes, but I've done about half and I have a plan on how to do the rest. For some people I work with, there are just unbelievable amounts of crap going on, and they are having to put up with crap from every level of management, not to mention political infighting. Yeah, I can't sit at my new desk for a few days, but that's pretty minor because I soon will be sitting there. One of our admins doesn't have a job in the new building and is being unceremoniously laid off. The way they are handling it is the usual thing for someone the upper echelons don't like, meaning they are doing nothing for her. One of her fellow admins had to send out a message about her last day.

I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that's having a gigantic cubicle in a new building.

The only thing that scares me is the auto-flush toilets. Seriously, it kind of freaked me out when I was starting to get up to wipe, and the toilet flushed itself. The noise was eerie, not what I was expecting, and I was a bit worried about blow-back. I suppose, like everything else, I'll get used to these new-fangled porcelain receptacles, but I'm probably going to be super nervous the next ten times I go to the bathroom.

Stealing The Chair Out From Under Me

Well, I will eventually stop bitching about work, but I have to say, moving is disturbing. No better word for it, disturbs the usual routines. I'm actually not yet at my new desk, but am hanging out at the old building finishing stuff up for the last week. I did sneak over to the new office to pick up my desk key and get a fantabulous Panera Bread Cinnamon Crunch bagel. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. I'm kinda surprised it only had 410 calories. It tasted like a very hearty cinnamon roll, more dessert than bagel.

When I stopped by to see my boss, she told my coworker would (once again) be out all week. Oh, and she told me that I should get my office keys, because "someone" had been taking things from our office, like chairs and filing cabinets. What the hell? I know we are on the third floor, so I'm doubting someone is taking this stuff for their private use. It seems kinda shifty to me. Don't have enough chairs? Why don't you fucking order some more? Oh, and my boss was doing this sort of rant about the work-men still in the building, like they are going to steal her wallet or something. I know that happens, but if I had to guess, most of the workers are unionized and probably make a shit-load more money than me. Oh maybe they'll pick up her purse, and then stick a chair in it?

Then later, I got to thinking. I have a key for my filing cabinets, but I haven't gotten a chance to actually unpack anything and put it into those file cabinets. All my office stuff is just sitting in boxes in the corner of my new cube. So if someone did want to take something, they could just walk in and take it. Not like I have anything super valuable in there, but then again, these chair thieves might find my extra Post-It Notes and tacks for hanging photos valuable.

Anyway, the day goes by really quickly when you are busy all day, as I was. Barely caught up on Google Reader, way behind on Scrabulous, and generally not in touch with the latest celeb news. Alas.

Maximum Numbing

I had all these plans to go shopping today, because I figured the mall wouldn't be crowded since it's not a holiday for most people, but I just couldn't drag myself there. I've been besieged by allergies or something, sore throat and congestion, and it's making me tired as hell. I did manage to do three loads of laundry and in honor of it being spring and all, put the lighter weight comforter on the bed. Then I went out to get drugs at Longs. I got some Claritin, because that's supposed to be the shit when it comes to allergies, right? I also wanted to get some Sucrets. I hadn't had them since I was a kid, I think, but I remember those things being pretty tasty and good with a sore throat. Well, the drugstore didn't have them. Maybe they don't make them anymore? I got some other stuff by Cepacol which is maximum strength tastes like cherries. Well, like cherries that have been sitting in a vat of poison for a while. Ugh. Not as tasty as Sucrets, but they worked. It was a really weird experience trying to drink some water with my throat numbed down.

I remember reading about allergies when I first started volunteering at the Humane Society. People ask about allergies a lot, so I figured I'd be prepared. One thing I read said that it's really about the level of allergens you have present. Usually the cat hair around my house doesn't bother me at all. But I think with all the pollen in the air, it seems to be getting worse. So I washed all the bedsheets that were covered in hair and dragged the Dyson over the floors. It seemed to help a little bit around the house. Maybe the Claritin is also kicking in and soon I'll be able to breathe deeply again. I've never had that bad allergies, so I'm hoping this is just a first week of pollen effect and I'll be back to normal soon.

Sleeping In

Yesterday was just too much at work. I have to say that lately, work has been too much anyway, with my coworker always out, with there being so much crap going on. Dealing with the move fall out was just too annoying, and I ended up feeling like crap by the end of the day. I went to the Humane Society after work and that helped a bit, but I ended up feeling pretty sneezy by the end of it. I don't usually have allergies to cats, so I'm guessing it's because it's spring and all.

Today, I called in sick. And slept. And slept. I seriously slept most of the day. And I feel pretty well rested now, and a lot less allergic. I have a weird relationship with sleep because of it's link to depression, and when depressed, I tend to sleep a lot. But I think I need more sleep than most people to function, and about 9 hours a day is almost enough for me. So I felt today that I kind of caught up on all the sleep I hadn't been getting lately, plus some extra sleep to deal with work stress. And I woke up around the same time I'd be getting ready to leave work, which seemed slightly ironic to me.

Anyway, after a day of sleep, I feel a lot better. This is probably the most boring blog entry ever. I also have tomorrow off at work because it's Good Friday, so it's essentially a four-day weekend for me.

Distress Tolerance

Today has just been a craptastic day so far. I'm ready to go home but I have over an hour left. The move has sort of happened in stages. Well, we were supposed to have the movers take our stuff today, but then they swooped in early yesterday. Since I don't have that much junk, I got all my packing done quickly. Then they took my computers today, but I'm stuck in my old office, so I'm sort of floating around at various computers. I've had the bad touch with them lately, and seem to crash them out... have crashed 3-4 so far today.

Anyway, I'll have to write a real post later when I feel less like banging my head against something hard.

I'd Rather Be Queen

My thirty-fifth birthday is coming up in a few months. I will soon be old enough to be president. I remember when I was a kid, my mom told me I should be the first woman president. I have a feeling all the "inhaling" I did in college, would easily disqualify me, not to mention everything else I've done since college, aka had jobs that weren't really putting me on that path. Oh yeah, and the fact that I'm not part of either of the major political parties... Other than that, it would be perfect, right?

I honestly couldn't imagine putting myself through the sort of scrutiny that minor celebrities have to go through, much less political candidates. Every move is weighed, every stupid thing you say is pondered, quoted, and misquoted. And if you do something really dumb in front of a camera, it will end up on YouTube. Oh and if you offend people, it's off to rehab for you. It's got to be 10 times worse to be a presidential candidate, because not only is the media looking for bad shit about you, your opponent(s) is/are as well. And then the caricatures, where they exaggerate some of your most notable features, and make you look like crap. I heard one of these artists talking about how some of his peers in the field made Hillary Clinton look particularly porky in some drawings, all for comic effect. I'm nowhere near thick-skinned enough for that.

I dated someone in my 20s, who updated Andy Warhol's famous quote to say, "In the future, everyone will have 15 MB of web space." I'd like my portion represented by some words, and maybe cute cat pictures, but not throwing myself out there for intense media scrutiny. I like to have the option to be wrong, to say stupid things unthinkingly, and to not have every moment over analyzed. Also I don't want to have to be responsible for listening to the voices of the people.

So, if it comes down to it, I'd rather be royalty than an elected official. The requirements are less stringent, and people will just follow my orders instead of me having to convince them. My fantasy of having a huge amount of money has always been the "buy a desert island" fantasy. I would setup my own government and print money with my picture on it. Since I don't seem to be destined for great wealth anytime soon, this remains just a fantasy.

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

I don't talk about all the circumstances of my work for obvious reasons. I don't want to get fired for blogging at/about work. And really, who does? I'd rather walk out of here on my own steam, and not because I was pushed out the door for being a rude bitch.

Anyway, that said, I have to talk briefly about the stuff going on here. For starters, we're moving into a new building. A building that was built for us, and a few other departments, and we're all being squished together. It's probable that this course of action is in fact the best for the company, but obviously, anything merging is going to resent the merge. Yes, I learned to drive in Los Angeles, where drivers would in fact speed up to the top of the ramp instead of trying to get in with the speed of the other traffic.

Today, I had to sit through a two hour "technical training" class for some functionality at the new building. And at the beginning of class, they asked us, "is there anyone here who thinks they could teach this class?" And I raised my hand. Because all I do all day is technical support and training. I could say that I did learn one or two things at the class, but really, I could have easily taught that class. The ladies that did the class are people I like, and they did great job, but I seriously think I deserve a medal for not falling asleep in the middle of the class.

Part of me wants to be resentful for having to be in classes like this, wondering if it's some sort of insult that anyone thinks I'm not on top of things enough and need this retraining. But since they are giving it to everyone, well, I know it's not personal. And through this process, I realize how much I know and how good I actually am at my job. This is not the kind of thing that management tells you here, not really, but I realize it is true. If I left here, I would be missed.

Tabby Road

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It's A Drag, Man

Been dragging a bit with this time change. I get up at around 7 AM and it's still dark here. Vile. I guess there is the good part of it being light after work to make up for it.

We're getting ready for the big move at work, and my boss has been trying to subtly nag me about moving. She's not really a subtle person, so I figured out what she was getting at when she stopped by to remind me to do things like put my name on my trash can, or put all my computer parts in a box. I realized she could see that the stack of boxes she gave me was still tied together, and that's how she knew I hadn't done any packing yet. So, I opened the stack yesterday. That took me about one minute. Still haven't started packing. Nothing like nagging to get my back up. I was inoculated against that in childhood.

I'm picking up Proust again. There is a slight feeling of dread, though I know once I get back into it, it will be okay. It's just so daunting. Book 3, Guermantes Way, has about 600 pages. 600 densely written pages. I read the first 10 on Sunday night. One of the things that I've noticed is that when I'm reading something "not Proust" now, I read it a lot faster. It's almost like mountain climbing, after doing a really high peak or two, the little ones seem like nothing.

Sleep, The Final Frontier

I hate Daylight Savings Time. Well, I hate the "Spring Forward" part because I hate losing an hour. Does everyone have memories of being late for something because you didn't know it was time to change the clocks? Not having enough time to get ready because of it? I remembered that happened to me once as a kid, I was sleeping over at Jen's house, and my mom called and said she'd be picking me up in fifteen minutes to go to religious school, and I had just woken up. Damn DST.

I've just been taking it easy this weekend, perhaps too easy. Well, I did have to wake up and do the training class at the Humane Society yesterday, and it was a huge class of nine people. Thankfully it was class of nine attentive people, and the cats were all well-behaved, and everything went smoothly. Amongst the attendees was a brother and sister pair, and the sister was leading the brother around, explaining everything and making sure he was following things, and that reminded me a bit of my ex and his sister. And I vowed, I'm not going to date a guy who has that kind of relationship with his sister again. Well, yeah, I want someone capable of taking care of himself, and I don't want to be surrogate family member for someone.

After I got home, I slept for a few hours, then I watched TV and slept some more. Then I woke up today, ate breakfast, took a nap, and then cleaned the house. Have I gotten enough sleep? Sometimes I'm not sure if it's that I really need to sleep so much as I need to rest my brain from all the crap I have to deal with during the week.

I did get to see my new office on Friday and it's awesome. My new cube is literally three times the size of the current one, and my group is in an enclosed office and not in a cube farm. I'm not right by a window, but I can crane my neck and see out two windows. And I'm on the third story, so I can walk up the stairs every day and get some exercise. Oh, and my boss's new office is on a different floor. And her office is tiny and windowless. Ha ha. I should bring her a broom as an office-warming gift. That works on so many levels.

The Busy Girl Buys Beauty

I've been reading a lot of fat acceptance blogs lately, and that has caused me to question a lot of my consumerism. I really have absorbed so much advertising in my life, and the message is "there is something wrong with you and only buying this product can cure it." And how many products have I bought, thinking they can somehow transform me into something "better." I'm not sure what that is, something better, exactly. Nothing is going to make me taller. Nothing I can buy will make me taller. And I don't want to spend millions on plastic surgery, making me look like everyone else. When I start thinking about that, it just seems ridiculous. When does it ever stop? I like watching How To Look Good Naked, and they had a woman on a few weeks ago who was constantly getting plastic surgery since she had kids, to make herself "better" or something. And really, she just looked fine to me and to most people. And I was thinking about how that money spent on plastic surgery could be better spent on tons of other things, but once you start going down that road, you open the door to thinking everything can be fixed.

I was at Sephora last night, and there was this woman in front of me who was my age or younger, and she was buying something that said "Youth" on it. And she didn't look old, but she was buying about a hundred dollars worth of products promising youth. And quite frankly, no matter how much of that stuff you are going to smear on your face, you're going to get old. I'm going to get old. We're ALL going to get old. As they say, it beats the alternative. And I'm not decrying using moisturizer, because I think that moisturizing is a good idea. But I think that they make a fortune selling us these products that are probably just as good as stuff we could buy at a drugstore, but for much more money. And they use our fear of getting old to make us spend all that money.

I was having one of those days, right before my period, where my hair was dry and my skin was greasy, and I was thinking that there I was, the perfect victim. I could be sitting there, feeling self-loathing and spending hundreds on products that I don't really need. But I realized that it was a temporary situation, and I didn't really need anything other than the foundation I came in to get. And I could go home and wash my face with some stuff I got at the drug store that seems to reduce the grease and acne I get right around my period. And I walked by Bath & Body Works which had a new scent, and if you spent $15, you could get a free bag, and I almost stopped, but then thought about how much lotion and crap I already have at home, how many free bags I have, and I walked on. I had a coupon for a free pair of underwear at Victoria's Secret, so I went in, picked up my free underwear, and bought nothing else.

I feel fine with myself, with what I already have. I don't need to rush out and spend money on things just because I have money. I might buy more beauty products, might even buy more products to make myself feel good. But I want to stop buying products to cover up feeling bad about myself, feeling like there's something wrong with me and only consumerism can save me. And I want to stop thinking that the more crap I have makes me a better and more attractive person. All it makes me is a better consumer, a pawn of the advertising industry, and I don't want to be that pawn anymore.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

I've voted in every presidential election since I was 18 and I've always picked the person who didn't win (well, except I did vote for Al Gore in 2000). I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that a large part of how I view politics is based on reading Orwell at an early age, which probably skewed my perceptions. But at least, I didn't read Sartre, right? I know that I read 1984 in 1983, when I was a mere 10 years old. Can a ten-year old understand an oppressive government who forces its citizens to speak and act a certain way? What ten-year old can't? That's kind of what being a kid is all about, following the rules of your parents. Well, at least, that was my childhood. My mom was a dictator, and we were the lowly subjects who would only be released at eighteen.

I don't have a lot of hope for politics and politicians, and especially not with political parties. I've been registered non-partisan since I registered at 18, and have never felt myself swinging near either party. My main criteria in voting in local elections is to pick women or people with ethnic-sounding names. I feel kind of funny admitting that, but I think that it's better for our governing bodies to be diverse.

In voting for president, I always try to pick the person who seems the smartest to me. That's why I voted for Al Gore. I saw all his debates with W, and while he wasn't always articulating his ideas effectively (okay sometimes he did talk like a robot), he didn't stumble over his words. He had facts at his command. I remember hearing that a lot of people liked W because he seemed like the kind of person you could see yourself having a beer with. But I'd rather see someone in the White House that I could have an intelligent discussion with, someone who has a grasp of facts, figures, ideas. I think I'm oversimplifying it a little, but stupid people in power scare me.

On another note, I feel overly emotional today. I know it's hormones, but I feel like sobbing at the weirdest things. It doesn't help that I'm having to work super hard this week at work, and the one sort of friend I have here is retiring next week. And I'm supposed to be packing my desk for our big office move in a few weeks. And I really would like to just be sitting outside, sipping iced tea and enjoying the spring weather.

"Classic"

In my day, it was just called rock.
- my ex

I heard on the radio today that the music of the 80s is now being referred to as "classic rock." I can look in the mirror and see no gray hairs, the same wrinkle between my eyebrows I've had for years, and none of it makes me feel as old as hearing that the music from when I was younger is now considered classic.

Speaking of feeling older, today is March 1, and in a few months, I'm going to be 35. I talked with my friend Jen in LA about this, and she was talking about feeling old. But I realize that if you aren't worried about having children by a certain age (or at all), 35 is just a number. I don't feel any anxiety with that number approaching. As the days go by in my life, I feel closer to regaining whom I was, whom I was meant to be, before years of depression took parts of my life away. Not saying I'm always not-depressed or always making the right decisions about everything, but it gets easier as I get older to be the person I want to be.

I can't believe it's March, but the weather has been awesome here in the last week. It's been about 65-70 degrees during the day and nicely sunny. I was thinking about that phrase about March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb, but I think maybe it's April and not March? I know living in California spoils you for the seasons, no idea of what it's like to have a "snow day" or what it's like to only have a few weeks of spring before it leaps into a crappy humid summer. My mom said it was snowing where she lives back east this week. And here, it's just lovely. I know we have a way higher cost of living and all that, but I guess we're paying to live in great weather.