MIA

So sorry that I haven't kept you up to date on the stylings of my life recently. But my life is so terribly boring that not even I, with my razor-sharp wit, can make it seem interesting. Let's see, you know that I got a promotion at work. That lead to lots n' lots of extra responsibility. There wasn't a whole lot more work involved, just an official-ness to go along with all the work that I had been doing.

The Axe was on Maternity Leave for the whole summer, so we were short staffed on her side of things. I had to go through the whole process of hiring someone. That is a notoriously painful process at my company. We have these tests that we put people through - a short competency test, an integrity test and a *long* personality profile. I've heard that only 25% of the people who take the tests pass them.

Our office is not located near *anything*, so it is often difficult to get good people to come down for an interview. And to make matters even worse, our HR department really doesn't have a good handle on how to hire IT people. They refuse to post the openings on real sites like Monster or ComputerJobs. So, I thought it was going to take forever to find someone. Closet Singer was also hiring someone at the same time, so a lot of the leg work that I did helped both of us.

Anyway, the HR person gave us access to something she wasn't supposed to and it actually made the process go a lot more smoothly - essentially, we did her job for her. Closet Singer and I ended up hiring a person each within a week of each other. The only problem was ... we didn't have a place to put them. We had run out of desk/cubicle space.

So at the same time that I was dealing with my official extra responsibility AND interviewing candidates, I also redesigned our department's office space. I worked it out so that Closet Singer, The Axe and I all got (newly built) offices. I had to work in cubicle space for 8 people in the remaining space. I had some help laying it out - the Network Queen had to have his say, but I spearheaded the operation. Granted, I wanted to because my office was at stake. But it was still a lot to do.

Building the three offices entailed tearing down 4 cubicles (including the one where I sat) . Then, over the course of a weekend, they tore down and reconfigured the other 8 cubicles. I had to be there for that to watch over the cubicle people. If I hadn't been, we wouldn't have had enough drawer space or overhead bins. It's amazing how lazy those guys were. They didn't want to do anything out of the ordinary. I had to argue with them over just about everything to tell them that they could do it because I'd seen it done somewhere else in the building. Give me a break.

Well, our offices were constructed a couple of weeks later, but we didn't get office furniture for almost 6 weeks. So for almost two months, I didn't have a permanent place to sit at work. I had to bounce around to whichever cube or office was available at the time. Thankfully, I was out of town two of those weeks (on work trips) and for a few more of the weeks people were on vacation. But I still was working out of boxes for far longer than I'd anticipated. And I didn't even bother to plug my phone in for that whole time. I had my cell phone, but no one could contact me via my desk phone.

Now, I'm sure you're asking why it took so long to get office furniture. If I believed in pagan gods, it would be easy to say that the Furniture God carries a personal vendetta against me. I must have *really* ticked him off by waiting until I was almost 30 to purchase my first piece of furniture from a retail store. But since I don't, I can't explain it. It's just one of those odd things in life. Some people can't wiggle their ears, I can't get furniture delivered in a timely manner.

The story goes like this... We *did* wait too long to order the furniture. But we ordered a fairly standard set up from a catalog. By fairly standard I mean that I only asked for one smallish change. But according to the catalog, it was something they could do. You see, the desk is a five piect unit. There is a back credenza with a hutch (or headboard) over it and a file cabinet beneath - 3 pieces. There is a front "desk-y" part where I actually sit to work - 1 piece and a connector piece that runs along the side of where I sit, it actually joins the front piece and credenza together - 1 piece. The whole unit ends up looking like the letter U - just imagine me sitting in the bottom left corner of the U facing the left.

Now, here's the *slight* customization that we asked for (OK, OK, *I* asked for it!). The standard front desk-y piece comes with a full length "privacy panel." It's a vertical panel that blocks the view from the other side of your desk. I get it. If I were a short-skirted, high-paid lawyer chick, I would probably want a privacy panel to hide behind. But I'm not. I'm a pants-wearing, IT geek who likes to sit back in her chair and put her feet up on a milk crate under her desk. This privacy panel would not have allowed my short legs to stretch out to their full length, so there's no way the 6' 3" Closet Singer could have stretched out his legs under his desk.

The other thing this privacy panel would have curbed is people being able to sit down at my desk across from me and pull up for a meeting. My Boss Again's desk has this feature. I'm able to sit down across from him at his desk like I'm at a table and we can have a meeting. You can't do that with a traditional desk. Pull your chair up as close as you like, your knees will hit the "privacy panel" well before they're under the small overhang. You will not be able to write or feel like you're at a table with the person sitting at the desk across from you. It is very restricting in the type of work I do. I have learned a lot from my boss by being able to sit there and work with him while we can both see his computer screen.

Naturally, I asked for the "privacy panel" to be removed. Let me emphasize that the catalog clearly showed a desk set up that way. But when the furniture arrived (well, most of it arrived - they didn't have all of it), the privacy panel was included and leaving it off made the desk incredibly unstable. It wobbled when I typed. There was no way I could have sat on my desk. I know, I'm not supposed to sit on my desk. But you want to at least feel secure that when someone *leans* against it they're not going to tumble headlong into your new office wall because your desk collapsed under their weight. I had several engineer-type people from around the building come to suggest a way to shore up my desk. The answers ranged from, "wait until it falls down, then sit on the ground indian style in front of it" to "change this single post to two posts."

After being told that the rest of our furniture would not arrive from ... wait for it ... Brazil, we decided to dump the crappy furniture they'd sold us and try to find some from a supplier who had all the pieces in town. Don't ask me why this lame furniture was on a slow boat from Brazil, but they said that the hurricanes were delaying the ship. Great. We found replacement furniture that was of *much* better construction (meaning it didn't feel like it would collapse under its own weight) and could be installed by the end of the week - whichever week it was by that time. Friday of that week came and you guessed it, they didn't have *all* of our furniture. But they actually did have enough to construct each office. They were only missing very minor pieces that we could live without in the short-term.

So now I have an office with furniture...that won't fall down.

Actually, I'm not so sure that the office won't fall down around me. I've only been in it for about two or three weeks. But already The Axe has dented the inner wall under my light switch. Last week she was standing in my doorway, leaning against the frame, she laughed about something and slapped my wall. When she removed her hand, there was an 18 inch long dent in the wall that had not previously been there. Just yesterday, I was hanging my name tag on the wall outside my office. I looked down (on the outside, but at the same spot where The Axe had dented my wall) and noticed that the caulk between the doorframe and the wall is completely gone. There is now a valley reminiscent of the Andreas Fault running down the outer wall of my office. Today, just before leaving, I looked at another outer wall and noticed that someone has already put a giant gash in the wall about 6 inches off the ground. There was still drywall dust on the baseboard, so I know that it just happened today. I'm sure it was someone in our department who had our cart loaded down with computer equipment and ran it into the wall. But dang. At this rate, it won't be long before the drywall crumbles and I'm sitting inside an office that's only framed with metal studs. Uh, don't they call those cages at the zoo? I'll have to put up a sign reading, "Please do not feed or poke the IT staff. IT geeks are people, too."

On a good note, they finally patched the hole in the drywall that I made in My Boss Again's office wall a couple of years ago. It's not painted, but it is patched. Of course, now I'm not so convinced that it will stay patched. I bet I could go over and breath on it and watch it fall back inside the wall. That may be a fun little experiment.

And, uh, let's not tell anyone that my company builds really expensive houses. I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the quality of our work. (Technically, *we* don't build them, the subcontractors do...)

Hanging Committee
I'm on the Official Hanging Committee. ("On the Brute Squad? You *are* the Brute Squad!") Last weekend, I went to Savannah for the summer gallery art show. The art association has a new president (there's a new one each year). So, technically since it is July, she's not really new. However, she decided to institute new hanging rules for this show. She's designed all these new forms and regulations for the gallery. I've always been partial to rules, but in this case, I think it's a little overboard. Perhaps I just get annoyed because she talks to us like she's bringing great wisdom to the 'tards. Hello. We've all been in this organization for a few years. We know how to do this. I've hung at least four shows, including the first one this year where you didn't show up...

Anyway, previously, artists were given a full week to drop off their entry for the show. They paid their entrance fee and filled out a form with the information necessary for us to write wall tags. The last show I hung had 43 entries. That was a LOT of art for the small gallery we're in. It was very cool. (It was also cool that I took Best in Show in the biggest show we'd had in a couple of years.) Anyway, I got up at 5:00 to put my entry together and drive down to Savannah on Saturday morning. I didn't take any clothes with me, I was just going to hang the show and come straight home.

I could tell that I was going to be a little late getting to the gallery (9:30 instead of 9:00). I called to tell her I would be late. She said there was no problem, there were "plenty of people there to help." What? I had told her that I was coming for this hanging. If there were so many people available that I wasn't needed, I was not going to be a happy camper. I would have rather stayed home than drive 6 hours round trip.

By the time I got to the gallery, there were more people there than I'd ever seen at a hanging before - a total of 4 already there, with 2 additional artists available in their gallery next door. I made the fifth person. Again, the last hanging I did was me & T. Thankfully, two new members showed up to help us and we *barely* got all 43 pieces hung in time for the judging. It took us over four hours to hang that show.

But five people? Huh. The president had new systems all set up. She assigned out specific tasks to each person. This time, the artists were bringing their art in on Saturday and had to fill out all the *new* paperwork before we could even begin hanging the art. We were accepting art from 9 - 2 and then hanging it from 2 - 4. The judging was supposed to happen at 4. Here's the five stations that each artist had to go through:

Station 1: Greet the nice chatty lady and tell her the names, prices, media of all your entries. She will write all that down on a log and assign a gallery inventory number to each piece. Remember the number the nice chatty lady gave you. Oh, you had two pieces? Um, you'd better remember which number was assigned to which piece.

Station 2: The nice chatty lady shows you the membership list and asks you to verify that the information beside your name is correct. It doesn't matter that you've received all your mailings, gotten emails and received phone calls recently. You still have to look it over and put a check mark by your name if everything is correct.

Station 3: Can I pay now? No. Please see the next woman with the big calendar. That's right. Technically, you're not supposed to hang art in the show if you haven't signed up to sit once a month for the full run of the show (3 months in this case). Please pick three days that you can sit and watch the gallery over the next three months. Yep, better get out your calendar so you know when you're free. Oops, why don't you just set down that pesky artwork over there while you look over your calendar?

Station 4: NOW can I pay? Nope. Please see ... me ... for ... well, can you just repeat for me most of the information you gave the first lady? I need to know the name of the piece, the name of the artist, the medium, the price and the size. Oh, I also need the inventory number. Yeah, that funky number the first lady gave you. Sure, go back and ask her. Be sure to remember which number goes with which piece of art. Let me write this all down in this tiny little form. Now I've got to cut out this little form and stick it to the back of your artwork. This is so that the lady who is making the wall tags knows what information to put on the wall tags. It also actually ties your piece to the inventory number. Oops, don't forget to take these new RULES with you. Yeah, the only change I saw was that our art is now supposed to be smaller than before, but it doesn't look like that affects you today, just keep it in mind. NOW, you can go to station 5 to pay.

Station 5: Pay $10 per entry. The man at station 5 stacks your entry next to his desk where the President then uses the information I wrote down to create the wall tags.

Does that seem logical to you? Me neither. I think they should be able to fill out a form like they used to, with all the relevent information that can then be used by the first lady, me and the last lady. There's no need for the artist to have to repeat it each time to each person. Eventually, the President decided that she no longer wanted to make the wall tags, so she passed that duty back to me. I then had to make the tag for the back of the art and immediately copy the info again onto the wall tag. All that did was hold the artist up a little longer before they were released to pay.

Then when it was actually time to hang the art... The President went all professional gallery on us. She had very specific ideas in mind for what pieces should hang next to each other. I've always made sure that I didn't hang pieces of similar style and color next to each other. I made sure that none of the photographs are near each other, that two watercolors aren't next to each other, etc. I think each piece stands out more individually when it "clashes" with the piece next to it. The President wanted to hang pieces next to each other that used similar colored frames. No silver-toned frames could be next to gold-toned frames. Black frames should hang with other black frames. I had a big problem with that because just about the only black frames in use were photographs.

To make it even more annoying, the two judges showed up early. They were friends of hers, so she stopped her militant arranging to chat with them. We needed to get this stuff done! One other lady and I looked at each other, expressed how we wanted to do it and just went for it. We got a few pieces hung before the President returned. She only rehung one or two. We took fives steps forward for each step she brought us back. We giggled about how we were going to get in trouble for hanging while she was distracted. When we were half way through, she said, "I think y'all are getting the feel for how I want this done. Can I designate you as the Official Hanging Committee? We've only got one show left this year, but I'd hate to have to retrain new people for that one." I agreed since I already consider myself a member of the Hanging Committee.

We eventually got it done, but only because we had under 25 entries. If this show had been as large as the last one I hung, we'd still be hanging it. I only entered one piece. It didn't place. As soon as I learned that one of the judges was a photographer, I gave up the idea that any of the photographers would place. Photographers are typically pretty hard on each other and are often truly amazed by the work of painters.

Oh, who won? Funny that the judges were friends of the President and her piece took Best in Show. Third place also went to a woman the judges knew. I'm not making any accusations, I'm just sayin'.

Saved by My Pinky
We don't have a lot of choices for lunch spots around our office. Today, we ate at "the Mexican place." I'm trying to think how I can accurately describe this place...

It is attached to a no longer functioning hotel. The hotel looks like it was a pretty scary place back in the day. Today, it is downright creepifying. The place was "renovated" a few years ago. Translation - they replaced the rotting suspended ceiling tiles and painted the rest. But, the food is good. And the non-smoking section has a nice view of an abandoned parking lot.

As we left "the Mexican place" today, I had quite an experience. Only two of us had paid and were outside, the other two were still inside paying. I was calmly walking along, chatting, not looking down at my feet. I find that I haven't had to look down at my feet in some 30 years. All of a sudden, my footing became very unstable, I tripped and I could tell there was no way to stop my fall. Which direction was I falling? Face forward. TIIMMMMMBBBBBBBEEEEEERRRRRRRRR! (I really wish I'd had the presence of mind to yell that instead of the incoherrent, "Ooh, ooh, dang, dang, dang" that flowed from my lips.)

I don't know how, but I managed to *not* break the fall with my face. I was able to get my hands out in front of me, though somewhat awkwardly. I ended up bearing the brunt of the fall on the side of my left hand, right where I used to get ink and lead stains when I was a child (a little inside joke for lefties there). I sorta rolled onto my side and then was able to get up. Thinking back, the funniest thing was that poor Lazlo witnessed this whole event. He was a very good boy and didn't laugh, not even after I got up. I wasn't really hurt, but I scraped up a little spot on my watch. The other two guys missed the whole thing and by the time they were out, I was able to jokingly tell them that they'd "missed the show."

My pinky still hurts, though. I don't think I broke it, I don't have any problem using it. I just "feel" it when I do certain things with it, like type the letter A. I joked around about at least "not breaking my hip," but dang it! I think I'm going to be very sore tomorrow. I'm too young to feel this old. I gotta do something about that.

I don't rightly know what to make of that
Something that has been in the works for over two years came to fruition today. Well, it technically happened last Friday, but it was announced to our staff today. My promotion came through.

There's a long story to this. It includes lots of hurt feelings and bitter, bitter anger. But that's all water under the bridge, now. For me, at least. For others? I'm not so sure. Essentially, My Boss Again told me over two years ago that I would get this promotion. Then our management changed and two guys were hired - one was given the title I was supposed to get but not made my boss, the other was made my boss and given the title that I just acquired. We're under different management now, so my boss went back to his original plan and promoted me.

Anyway, my boss announced this at our staff meeting this morning. There were three changes to announce, he listed mine last. No real reason for it, that's just the way it worked out.

What shocks me, though, is that not one coworker congratulated me. Well, not one today. The guy who was my temporary boss found out about it earlier in the week and he said something to me a few days ago. Boy, was *that* awkward! But do these people hate me so much that they're not happy for me? Was Joe Samurai my only friend at this place? Or was that an illusion, too? I'm starting to wonder.

Seriously, the one guy who I have given the worst time to over the last year and half was the only one to say a few kind words to me. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

American Idol Finale
Of course I have to comment on this...

1. It amazes me that E! actually did a red carpet show for this affair. Thankfully they did not unleash Joan & Melissa Rivers on the Idol crowd. But it cracks me up that this finale is being treated like an awards show.
   
2. All the celebrities seem to want Fantasia to win.
   
3. I missed my shot to be on the finale. They let people in to the Georgia Dome to watch it in honor of Diana being from Snellville. I don't know if everyone was allowed in or if you had to buy tickets. But they showed the crowd to Diana while she was in her dressing room. I coulda been in that shot. Oh well.
   
4. During the E! pre-show, we were treated to a shot of the stage outside the Kodak theater where we could see the Czech girl singing to the crowd. About 1 minute later, Randy Jackson joined Simon for his interview. Randy stopped talking to ask who was singing. He seemed to have no idea who it was. He said, "Who was that singing? That was AWFUL. They shouldn't let people sign out here." I almosst died laughing. How harsh. I bet that chick is going to be incredibly embarrassed when she sees that replay. I hope someone else caught that and comments on it.
   
5. During the E! pre-show, they interviewed my pen salesman and the redhead together. The pen salesman pretty much didn't let the redhead get a word in edgewise.
   
6. Paula Abdul looks like she shoved two overfilled water balloons into her bra. Are boobs supposed to be perfectly round?
   
7. Why did they begin the show with the American Anthem? Is this a sporting event?
   
8. Over 65 million calls were received for this thing. Not even I called in. Who are the people calling in?
   

Proper Warning
She Walks on Her Hands called me today to let me that she's coming town and would like to stay with me. These kinds of phone calls normally cause instant panic in me. We've been through the whole story about how bad I am at keeping Stinky Garbage Trailer clean. Well, it's really, really, really, really bad right now. The garbage is outside, not stinking. But the place is a horrendous mess. Of course, I intend to clean it up... but you know the battle that a procrastinator faces with intentions.

So why didn't her call cause panic this time? She gave me a good amount of warning. Not counting this weekend, I've got 2 weekends to work on my house. See, she knows me. We have a system worked out. She knows that she can't call 3 days ahead of time and expect to be let inside. Now She's Caramel Headed hasn't learned that lesson. She called me a few months ago wanting to spend the night with me. She only gave me 1 day's notice. I had to tell her no. I felt badly, but working full-time, I can't do anything with 1 day's notice. If she'd been standing on my front porch, I still would not have let her in. I would have given her money for the motel down the street.

It's actually a little bit of a relief. I can't focus unless I have a deadline. I have a deadline and it is reasonable. I think I can do this. But check back with me later. I'll probably wait until the week before and just shove everything into one of the spare rooms.

Seen and Heard
I don't have much to blog about. So I thought I'd mention some commercials that have caught my attention over the last week. Huh? (Just read on.)

The first is a great TV commercial from one of the credit card companies. Or maybe it's from a bank about their check cards. Either way, there are several versions of this commercial out right now. It's the ads that talk about special anti-identity theft feature of these cards. You see one person's body talking with another person's voice. The voice tells about the things they bought with the stolen identity of the person you're looking at.

By far the best of these commercials is the Asian lady speaking with a man's voice. Despite the hideous stereotype of the Asian lady performing a manicure, I crack up every time I watch this commercial. The man's voice is so creepy; late-night radio DJ creeopy. He talks about going to a single's convention in Acapulco and all he did to prepare for the trip. He talks about getting hair plugs and waxing his chest hair. It's so creepy! But the part that just has me rolling is the end where he does this deep-throated chuckle. The Asian lady makes the most perfect face while he's doing that nasty chuckle. Seriously, every time this commercial comes on, I stop what I'm doing to watch it. I always laugh out loud. That's good stuff (except that I can't remember for the life of me what they're advertising).

The second is a radio commercial that is just odd. One of the motor oil companies is running a drawing for $1 million right now. Not bad. What makes me scratch my head is that in trying to entice you to go sign up they something like, "Find the Havolin dealer in the Atlanta area to enter the $1 million sweepstakes. $1 million will buy a lot of stuff in Atlanta." Do I live in a dream world or won't $1 million buy a lot of stuff in pretty much any city? I mean, if we're talking real estate, $1 million obviously won't buy as much in some places as in others. But "stuff" is rather generic. I still think $1 million is a nice chunk of change in any city.

The third is a radio commercial that has been around for a long time now. What exactly is a "four wheel friction reline? I'm so tired of hearing about it. I think it's all a marketing ploy. Just Brakes has come up with a new phrase for "brake job" and they're suckering everyone into believing it is something special. Is their description of this mythical "four wheel friction reline" different from a standard brake job? If you know the answer, please fill me in...

That Person
Isn't it funny how we have an image of ourselves and an opinion of what we deem pathetic behavior and we never blend the two? I mean, things we do may seem pathetic (or geeky) to other people, but as long as we're not crossing our own lines of patheticness, we're OK. Let me illustrate.

He Does No Wrong really likes weather. He's facinated by it. He watches The Weather Channel for fun. This wouldn't seem odd if he were a meteorologist, but he's not. Instead, I like to think that perhaps he should have been a meteorologist, but life got in the way. So, I think of this weather obsession like it should have been his career, and in that case, it would not be odd for him to watch The Weather Channel.

Closely related to that obsession, is a facination with astronomy. He Does No Wrong isn't obsessed with astronomy, but he understands it pretty well and thinks it is interesting. I'm the same way. I don't care so much about weather, but I love to learn about astronomy. I particularly love to learn about celestial events that we can witness from the earth. I blogged about the recent opportunity we had to see the five "naked" eye planets in the sky a couple of months ago.

Well, last weekend, He Does No Wrong and I were talking about that particular event. Somehow he had not heard about it and so he missed it. I felt badly for not having called him, but I thought that he would surely have known about it. We got into a discussion of the sky and one particular bright body. I felt pretty certain that it was a planet, he thought it was a star. We both listed reasons for why it had to be this or that. We were too deep in conversation to realize that his wife, She's an Other, was completely bored. She finally interrupted us with, "Enough, you geeks. It's just up there." She couldn't believe that we'd care so much about such a boring topic to discuss it like that. But neither he nor I could have cared less that she thought we were pathetic or geeky for being interested in astronomy. To us, it is still facinating.

On the flip side of that, at the Renaissance Festival last weekend, my friend Mitch displayed this same disdain for people who've crossed his line of patheticness. I didn't realize until we were at the Festival that Mitch doesn't necessarily enjoy going to it. He goes because his wife likes to. After going several times with her, he has figured out the parts of the Festival that he likes and concentrates on those. But overall, he'd rather not go at all. This became particularly apparent while we were shopping. I wanted to see the "Joust." Mitch told me that the area in front of the joust usually fills up pretty early. He had no desire to shop, so he offered to sit at a table and just wait for the rest of us. We could shop right up until the Joust started and then go sit with Mitch.

It turned out that the others kept shopping, so I was the only one to join Mitch. He had been sitting at the table for about 30 minutes with nothing to do but watch the Festival patrons. He happened to be surrounded by people who really get into the whole Renaissance thing. A couple of guys were in kilts and they all had swords and daggers. Evidently, he'd overheard some rather pathetic conversations about buying new weaponry. "Dude, look at the dagger I bought." "Yeah, well look at the sword I bought." "Ooh, that's nice. I wanted to get one of those, but I ain't got $150 on me today." "Yeah, I been saving for this one."

So when Mitch's wife, Kristy, rejoined us and asked Mitch to carry the $10 knife she'd bought for her grandfather, his only response was, "I don't want to be that guy." He didn't mind carrying it for her if it was in a bag. But carrying just the knife meant crossing a line that he just couldn't bring himself to do.

I had a similar experience last night. One of my cousins, who I'm not close to, had a wedding "reception". (They were married back in February, but didn't have a big shin-dig at that time. Last night, they rented out a little bar and invited family, friends and co-workers to celebrate their marriage.) A lot of people from my family were there. It took a while, but they even got around to having music and dancing. In case I haven't already mentioned this, my family LOVES to dance. My aunts and uncles grew up during a time when the popular dance was called "The Shag." It's a variation of Swing and Jitterbug, but it's done to "Beach Music." (It's a whole other discussion to explain what constitutes Beach Music, just understand that it is NOT the same thing as surfer music.)

Well, not many of the guy cousins my age know how to "Shag." (I HATE HATE HATE how Austin Powers has ruined that word!) A particularly great Shag song came on and both Laughter and I really wanted to dance. I didn't bother trying, though, because I could see that all the guys who know how to Shag were already on the floor. Laughter wanted to dance so badly, that she tried to show her husband how to do it. That was hopeless. She started looking around and couldn't find anyone to dance with. She finally looked at me and said, "Come on, let's go."

That's my line. See, some of you probably think it's pathetic that I'll dance with my cousins. I don't think so because they're great dancers, we're close friends and it's always a blast. But dancing what is obviously a couple's dance with another girl is ... well, it would make me that girl. I just can't sink that low.

I think my, "Uh, no," response was enough to let her know not to ever ask that question again.

So what about you? What behavior do you see people do fairly regularly that you think is just pathetic? Show me a line that you've drawn and won't cross.

Closet Singer

I'm getting a little taste of my own medicine these days. In the email message (or his Last Will and Testament) to several people in the company, Joe included this line, "To Unnamed Programmer I leave my cube, eventually you’ll learn to block out Meredith’s singing and to ignore her when she starts talking about Jeff Buckley." Yes, yes. I sing along to the Muzak. I can't help it. I'm so bad about it that I once got in trouble for singing along to "La Bamba" during a staff meeting. My boss (my old boss) looked at me, thought I was saying something and then realized what I was doing. He stopped the meeting to ask me if I was singing along to the Muzak. Everyone else in my department cracked up. I felt a tad bit stupid. To this day, I have to be very careful not to listen to the Muzak during meetings.


Well, Joe Samurai used to sit "behind" me. He was really next to me, but the way our desks are oriented in our cubes, if you remove the wall between them, he was really behind me. Get it? No? Don't worry about it. Just know that sound travels to the right of the cubes better than it does to the left. But my singing would defy this rule by traveling to the left to annoy Joe. :-P


The Unnamed Programmer used to sit behind Joe, so sound from his cube should have traveled up to Joe. Joe used to talk about how he rarely heard a peep coming from Unnamed Programmer's cube. I guess I was singing too loudly for Joe to hear him.


I know I have better hearing than ... well, just about every other human on the planet. But it's only been three days since Unnamed Programmer moved into Joe's cube behind me. I caught him today, TWICE!, singing along with the Muzak. What kinds of songs strike his fancy? So far it's been "Let the Music Play" by Shannon and "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You" by The Miami Sound Machine. He sings very quietly, but he does sing. I didn't imagine it both times. So this guy just got his official blog nickname, Closet Singer. I'm telling you, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.