When I don't feel like working, which is pretty much 90% of my working day, I drop by a friend's office for an update on her dating life. I have to live vicariously through her, as I have no dating life of my own.
She's one of those terribly annoying women in their late forties who look about five years younger than I do in my mid thirties. She does very well with online dating, given that her demographic is men who are also in their late forties, coming off of their first or second divorces.
It also helps that she doesn't mind if they're fat or bald, citing something about personality and spirit over appearances. Admittedly, this is not an equation I'm familiar with.
The fact is, she's got so many men lined up to date her, she hasn't had to pay for a coffee, lunch or dinner in two weeks.
She was telling me about a lovely dinner date she had with a 49 year old high school teacher that she said even I might like, largely because he has a very dry sense of humour.
She knows perfectly well I'm much more likely to be pursuing one of his students, but she can't help trying to steer me in the direction of men who need to trim their ear hair more frequently than I shave my legs.
It amuses her.
She and the high school teacher agreed to share a plate of calamari, and all was going well until a piece of deep-fried squid became lodged in her throat. Aware that she was choking, she attempted to drink some water.
To her horror, her throat was so completely blocked the water just washed up again, spilling out down her shirt and over the table. By now she was panicking, flapping her arms, getting out of her seat, all the while trying desperately to cough or vomit.
Her date had rushed to her side, and was preparing to go full Heimlich when the deadly appetizer dislodged itself and plopped to the floor.
I was suitably horrified on her behalf, right up until she told me the only thought going through her head as she was being slowly murdered by a mollusk.
Instead of her life flashing before her eyes, all my friend could think of was that she was having a "Bambi Date."
My name is now so synonymous with dating mortification, that a woman can't simply come close to death, vomit on a dinner table and regurgitate seafood while her date attempts to save her life without thinking about me.
If I leave no greater legacy, I can be happy with that.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Would this be dill or gherkin?
I had lunch with a friend the other day who described my situation as being, "a real pickle."
Frankly, I've never understood why this phrase would ever be used to denote something negative. Pickles are phallic shaped, crunchy salty goodness. If I had more pickle in my life I might actually be getting somewhere.
Crunchy salty goodness was not what she was referring to though. I have a job I can't stand, and to be fair, the job hates me back hard, so we're even. The best course of action would be to find another job, which wouldn't be a problem if there were other jobs available.
It's true it wouldn't be impossible to land a job at the lower-end of the pay scale, but I have a mortgage to pay, shoes to buy, and an inability to walk by Sephora without spending my grocery money on eyeliner.
Mostly it's the mortgage that's the problem, and I truly can't afford to make any less than I already do, even if I went back to the cheap eyeliner that smudges.
Surprisingly enough, my salary would be considered by most to be decent, and yet I need to work a second job anyway.
I live in a city filled with old people who bought their houses for $1500 two years before the discovery of fire, and now that their homes are worth 1.5 million they can't understand what's wrong with all the young people these days who won't stop whining about the crazy cost of living in our chosen city.
My cost of living would be less if I had a partner who also made a decent salary, but according to at least one friend of mine, I can't ever hope to "get" a guy who makes anywhere close to decent money.
Even though I may want to start reconsidering my friendships on top of everything else, that friend is probably correct. So far, the last six months have demonstrated I can't land a redneck used car salesman, a low-rent security guard with a penchant for inappropriate masturbation or a 20 year old virgin. I wouldn't describe my track record as hopeful either.
Making more money where I am is impossible. I will never be promoted, there's no chance to move anywhere else within the organization, and my most recent request to slightly shift my role and responsibilities in another direction was denied.
I've hit the wall.
Athletes talk about hitting the wall all the time, and having always had the good sense to stop participating in athletic activity when I'm tired, I never knew what they were talking about.
Now I do.
I just don't want to work anymore. This doesn't make me unique - most people would retire this afternoon if they could. I'm no different, but I realize my current financial and personal situation won't allow me to stop working until I'm at least 97. Particularly if my love life doesn't change, I'll need any extra income I can find to cover the cost of cat food and kitty litter.
Thankfully, I've started planning for retirement. I'm a grown-up with RRSPs and a Retirement Savings Account. According to the banks calculations based on my contributions, by the time I'm 97 I should have just enough money put away for a week long all-inclusive vacation - providing there's a seat sale.
After my holiday, I'll be ready for the career that will keep me comfortable well into my nursing home years. Porn. I read recently that there's a growing niche market for porn starring really freaking old people. By the time I'm that age, I'm not going to care whether the treatment for chlamydia interacts badly with my arthritis medication.
When I say I don't want to work anymore, I still recognize that I need to. It's more that lately I don't want to work the way I've always worked. My career doesn't matter or mean as much to me as it once did.
For years now, my only goals have been a better position, a better title and a better salary. I wanted respect, I wanted glowing performance appraisals and a job that I could base my entire identity and self-worth upon.
I worked so hard for all of those things, and now that I've come as far as I can go and I still find myself here - I don't care any more.
Basing my happiness in life on an activity so easily derailed by your average CEO believing he's a warlock, or a president and CEO who once described women's equality in the workforce as an "interesting concept," was never going to bode well.
So.
If I no longer care about the only goals I've ever cared about, if my current work situation is unsustainable and may actually be making me ill, if I can't afford to back away from my current work situation until I find a better opportunity, if there are no better opportunities, if my focus is shifting away from my career and onto the gaping holes in my personal life, if I don't want to go but can't stay here, if I cried during an episode of Say Yes to the Dress for no apparent reason, if what has always worked no longer works and if I have absolutely no idea what to do next...what then?
It's a real pickle.
Frankly, I've never understood why this phrase would ever be used to denote something negative. Pickles are phallic shaped, crunchy salty goodness. If I had more pickle in my life I might actually be getting somewhere.
Crunchy salty goodness was not what she was referring to though. I have a job I can't stand, and to be fair, the job hates me back hard, so we're even. The best course of action would be to find another job, which wouldn't be a problem if there were other jobs available.
It's true it wouldn't be impossible to land a job at the lower-end of the pay scale, but I have a mortgage to pay, shoes to buy, and an inability to walk by Sephora without spending my grocery money on eyeliner.
Mostly it's the mortgage that's the problem, and I truly can't afford to make any less than I already do, even if I went back to the cheap eyeliner that smudges.
Surprisingly enough, my salary would be considered by most to be decent, and yet I need to work a second job anyway.
I live in a city filled with old people who bought their houses for $1500 two years before the discovery of fire, and now that their homes are worth 1.5 million they can't understand what's wrong with all the young people these days who won't stop whining about the crazy cost of living in our chosen city.
My cost of living would be less if I had a partner who also made a decent salary, but according to at least one friend of mine, I can't ever hope to "get" a guy who makes anywhere close to decent money.
Even though I may want to start reconsidering my friendships on top of everything else, that friend is probably correct. So far, the last six months have demonstrated I can't land a redneck used car salesman, a low-rent security guard with a penchant for inappropriate masturbation or a 20 year old virgin. I wouldn't describe my track record as hopeful either.
Making more money where I am is impossible. I will never be promoted, there's no chance to move anywhere else within the organization, and my most recent request to slightly shift my role and responsibilities in another direction was denied.
I've hit the wall.
Athletes talk about hitting the wall all the time, and having always had the good sense to stop participating in athletic activity when I'm tired, I never knew what they were talking about.
Now I do.
I just don't want to work anymore. This doesn't make me unique - most people would retire this afternoon if they could. I'm no different, but I realize my current financial and personal situation won't allow me to stop working until I'm at least 97. Particularly if my love life doesn't change, I'll need any extra income I can find to cover the cost of cat food and kitty litter.
Thankfully, I've started planning for retirement. I'm a grown-up with RRSPs and a Retirement Savings Account. According to the banks calculations based on my contributions, by the time I'm 97 I should have just enough money put away for a week long all-inclusive vacation - providing there's a seat sale.
After my holiday, I'll be ready for the career that will keep me comfortable well into my nursing home years. Porn. I read recently that there's a growing niche market for porn starring really freaking old people. By the time I'm that age, I'm not going to care whether the treatment for chlamydia interacts badly with my arthritis medication.
When I say I don't want to work anymore, I still recognize that I need to. It's more that lately I don't want to work the way I've always worked. My career doesn't matter or mean as much to me as it once did.
For years now, my only goals have been a better position, a better title and a better salary. I wanted respect, I wanted glowing performance appraisals and a job that I could base my entire identity and self-worth upon.
I worked so hard for all of those things, and now that I've come as far as I can go and I still find myself here - I don't care any more.
Basing my happiness in life on an activity so easily derailed by your average CEO believing he's a warlock, or a president and CEO who once described women's equality in the workforce as an "interesting concept," was never going to bode well.
So.
If I no longer care about the only goals I've ever cared about, if my current work situation is unsustainable and may actually be making me ill, if I can't afford to back away from my current work situation until I find a better opportunity, if there are no better opportunities, if my focus is shifting away from my career and onto the gaping holes in my personal life, if I don't want to go but can't stay here, if I cried during an episode of Say Yes to the Dress for no apparent reason, if what has always worked no longer works and if I have absolutely no idea what to do next...what then?
It's a real pickle.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Further consultation required.
Ah consultants. Where would my organization be without them? Besides in the black that is.
Over the years, I've met with a virtual parade of people, all of them boasting entire alphabets after their names and possessing a driving passion for leveraging synergy, making sure we're all on the same page, drilling down, and suggesting that certain nouns and verbs can and should be "unpacked."
As in, "That's an interesting observation Bambi - let's unpack that."
In other words, I've met with a large contingent of people who make me want to chew my own ear.
My favorite new thing to do when sitting across the table from any new consultant is to tell the absolute truth, just to see what happens. This may be the clearest sign that I have simply run out of fucks to give.
I recently shared during an interview with a consultant how the five year strategy for my current department first went off the rails. The issue was staffing, and the question was why I had none.
A brief time ago there had been a plan in place to remedy this situation, and the consultant wanted to know what had happened to the plan to hire for position X. I told the absolute truth.
"There was definitely a plan in place to hire for position X. An interview panel was convened, interviews took place and a preferred candidate was chosen. The offer was to have been made over the weekend, but CEO #1 intervened before the offer could be made, and the position was awarded to somebody else. That person accepted the position, but resigned less than three months later."
Naturally, the consultant wanted to drill down and unpack.
"CEO #1 had a dream or what he considered a vision regarding another candidate, and he intervened to hire the candidate who appeared in his dream. When I expressed concern regarding this course of action to the managing director, I was told that although this may seem unusual, CEO #1 considered himself a warlock, had reached a heightened state of enlightenment, and was very, very intuitive as a result."
(This happened by the way. Seriously.)
So far, no consultant has had the Texas sized balls necessary to include the continued employment of a CEO who considers himself a warlock as a possible reason the $50 million project said warlock was responsible for never got off the ground.
To do so would be to question how in the hell that was allowed to happen, and to ask such a question would mean pissing off the asshole who signs off on their contracts. Coincidentally, the same asshole who signed off on the warlock.
(Some may say I have no pride in my company, but that's not true. We had a pants-shittingly crazy bastard wasting millions and calling himself a warlock on our payroll, long before Charlie Sheen ever lost his mind. Suck it Charlie. We're the real innovators.)
Consultants bring a unique, outside perspective. This outsider perspective allows them to spot roadblocks and potential issues so much more quickly than those of us working within the system.
After all, we were all hired because our organization is an Equal Opportunity employer, with a soft spot for the deaf and the blind.
The semi-annual re-organization of all company departments can cause a considerable amount of anxiety. It's true that not knowing who you report to or where your desk might be located from day to day can be stressful, which is why an army of new consultants are brought on board every year.
(Sadly, the consultants are all hired at different times throughout the year. I think it would be amazing if they could all gather in the same place at the same time, on one special day.)
(Instead of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, we could have the Running of the Contracted Consultants. It would be glorious, and really, really crowded. Anybody too slow to jump over fences and out of their way gets to meet with them first.)
If employees haven't learned to embrace change after their 8th re-organization in a year, then clearly they need some one-on-one time with a consultant who can produce an org-chart with clearly defined arrows.
A really good consultant offers so much more than arrows however. This type of consultant really gets on the same page with people, and drills down to the heart of the matter so that synergy can occur.
In fact, I was fully synergized just this morning.
It seems, and let's keep in mind that this is from an outsider perspective, that the external communications my department is responsible for are important. I needed a moment to take that in, as I'd never before considered communicating to have any real purpose until the outsider consultant said it out loud.
Once I was on the same page, it became time to work together to create a new org-chart with new arrows, because as it turns out, my writing is unprofessional and inappropriate for use in any external communications.
Let it be known, this was not a criticism. Writing is a skill that very few can master, and it does not come easily to everybody.
Just so we're on the same page, let's reference the latest article I uploaded to the online corporate newsletter, as I've done monthly for the last four years. The posting appeared to have a more casual tone. Yes, casual.
It's true that nobody has complained, and it may very well be true that some people say they enjoy reading that column particularly for the more casual tone, but I need to embrace change.
If there was to be an approval process in place of no less than three people for anything I write that may be published anywhere, and or read outside of the organization, and if my writing showed improvement, there might be a chance that I could apply for some professional development funding to take a non-credit course at a local college in basic writing.
Wouldn't that be nice?
It sure would be nice. The xeroxed certificate of participation I might earn from taking a non-credit basic writing course sure would look great next to my BFA and Degree in Writing I've got hanging on my wall from the University of Victoria. The UVic program only accepts 10 people a year, so clearly it can't be that sustainable.
But because I've run out of fucks to give, I didn't tell a consultant she could unpack my ass or synergize my fist through her face this morning. That would have been a clear sign I wasn't embracing change, and if we were to drill down any further I might have murdered something.
Instead of murder, maybe I'll just publish a book already. Casual, inappropriate and unprofessional would make a pretty awesome tag line.
Over the years, I've met with a virtual parade of people, all of them boasting entire alphabets after their names and possessing a driving passion for leveraging synergy, making sure we're all on the same page, drilling down, and suggesting that certain nouns and verbs can and should be "unpacked."
As in, "That's an interesting observation Bambi - let's unpack that."
In other words, I've met with a large contingent of people who make me want to chew my own ear.
My favorite new thing to do when sitting across the table from any new consultant is to tell the absolute truth, just to see what happens. This may be the clearest sign that I have simply run out of fucks to give.
I recently shared during an interview with a consultant how the five year strategy for my current department first went off the rails. The issue was staffing, and the question was why I had none.
A brief time ago there had been a plan in place to remedy this situation, and the consultant wanted to know what had happened to the plan to hire for position X. I told the absolute truth.
"There was definitely a plan in place to hire for position X. An interview panel was convened, interviews took place and a preferred candidate was chosen. The offer was to have been made over the weekend, but CEO #1 intervened before the offer could be made, and the position was awarded to somebody else. That person accepted the position, but resigned less than three months later."
Naturally, the consultant wanted to drill down and unpack.
"CEO #1 had a dream or what he considered a vision regarding another candidate, and he intervened to hire the candidate who appeared in his dream. When I expressed concern regarding this course of action to the managing director, I was told that although this may seem unusual, CEO #1 considered himself a warlock, had reached a heightened state of enlightenment, and was very, very intuitive as a result."
(This happened by the way. Seriously.)
So far, no consultant has had the Texas sized balls necessary to include the continued employment of a CEO who considers himself a warlock as a possible reason the $50 million project said warlock was responsible for never got off the ground.
To do so would be to question how in the hell that was allowed to happen, and to ask such a question would mean pissing off the asshole who signs off on their contracts. Coincidentally, the same asshole who signed off on the warlock.
(Some may say I have no pride in my company, but that's not true. We had a pants-shittingly crazy bastard wasting millions and calling himself a warlock on our payroll, long before Charlie Sheen ever lost his mind. Suck it Charlie. We're the real innovators.)
Consultants bring a unique, outside perspective. This outsider perspective allows them to spot roadblocks and potential issues so much more quickly than those of us working within the system.
After all, we were all hired because our organization is an Equal Opportunity employer, with a soft spot for the deaf and the blind.
The semi-annual re-organization of all company departments can cause a considerable amount of anxiety. It's true that not knowing who you report to or where your desk might be located from day to day can be stressful, which is why an army of new consultants are brought on board every year.
(Sadly, the consultants are all hired at different times throughout the year. I think it would be amazing if they could all gather in the same place at the same time, on one special day.)
(Instead of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, we could have the Running of the Contracted Consultants. It would be glorious, and really, really crowded. Anybody too slow to jump over fences and out of their way gets to meet with them first.)
If employees haven't learned to embrace change after their 8th re-organization in a year, then clearly they need some one-on-one time with a consultant who can produce an org-chart with clearly defined arrows.
A really good consultant offers so much more than arrows however. This type of consultant really gets on the same page with people, and drills down to the heart of the matter so that synergy can occur.
In fact, I was fully synergized just this morning.
It seems, and let's keep in mind that this is from an outsider perspective, that the external communications my department is responsible for are important. I needed a moment to take that in, as I'd never before considered communicating to have any real purpose until the outsider consultant said it out loud.
Once I was on the same page, it became time to work together to create a new org-chart with new arrows, because as it turns out, my writing is unprofessional and inappropriate for use in any external communications.
Let it be known, this was not a criticism. Writing is a skill that very few can master, and it does not come easily to everybody.
Just so we're on the same page, let's reference the latest article I uploaded to the online corporate newsletter, as I've done monthly for the last four years. The posting appeared to have a more casual tone. Yes, casual.
It's true that nobody has complained, and it may very well be true that some people say they enjoy reading that column particularly for the more casual tone, but I need to embrace change.
If there was to be an approval process in place of no less than three people for anything I write that may be published anywhere, and or read outside of the organization, and if my writing showed improvement, there might be a chance that I could apply for some professional development funding to take a non-credit course at a local college in basic writing.
Wouldn't that be nice?
It sure would be nice. The xeroxed certificate of participation I might earn from taking a non-credit basic writing course sure would look great next to my BFA and Degree in Writing I've got hanging on my wall from the University of Victoria. The UVic program only accepts 10 people a year, so clearly it can't be that sustainable.
But because I've run out of fucks to give, I didn't tell a consultant she could unpack my ass or synergize my fist through her face this morning. That would have been a clear sign I wasn't embracing change, and if we were to drill down any further I might have murdered something.
Instead of murder, maybe I'll just publish a book already. Casual, inappropriate and unprofessional would make a pretty awesome tag line.
Friday, April 1, 2011
If it's finally puberty, I'm hoping I'll grow boobs.
I'm going through a weird phase right now, and I'm not sure what to chalk it up to. I'm just not myself. For example, I had lunch with a very good friend recently, who I don't get to see very often but who is one of my ten faithful readers.
She seemed hopeful that I hadn't done anything ridiculous in quite a while, primarily because I hadn't updated my blog. I wish I could say my lack of posting is a sign of unquestionably good behaviour on my part, but that wouldn't be true. Not writing is part of my weird phase.
Describing how I literally fell out of my stupidly high heels while exiting a night club at closing time where 200+ people were milling about and can now testify as to whether I bounced at all after hitting the payment could have made for a good story for my blog.
Even though I hadn't been drinking enough to fall over, stepping off the curb onto uneven pavement was all I needed to gain an entirely new appreciation for how fast gravity can work.
As I lay sprawled and suddenly barefoot in the street, I had time to think to myself that 34 years old is entirely too old to be laying in the street in front of a night club at closing time, and yet here we are.
The gathered crowd was kind enough to find my shoes for me, seeing as my shoes had got even better air time than I did. I'm grateful for these drunken good Samaritans. At least being able to walk away wearing my shoes again afforded some kind of dignity to the situation.
Then there was the twenty year old virgin I picked up while out dancing last weekend. Oh calm yourselves - he's still a virgin as far as I know.
I didn't start talking to him because I had any idea that doing so could violate both gay math and whatever passes for Madonna's moral code, so I was as shocked as anybody.
There was just something about him that was so shy and sweet, he appeared a completely different species than the guys that would normally attract me. For this reason we ended up talking and dancing, and then we went for coffee after the club where we talked for another two hours.
It was somewhere in this conversation he let slip that despite being twenty and in the military, he's still a virgin. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have scalding hot Tim Horton's tea go down the wrong pipe all of a sudden, and then try to recover gracefully while reacting like everything is completely normal? Do you??
It's really hard.
You'd think being ever so slightly older, wiser and more experienced than this guy would have given me an edge, but I was still SO crazy nervous about calling him afterward.
Telling myself he was so young I could have given birth to him (providing I was a raging whore in middle school) just made it exponentially worse.
Cougars are supposed to be confident, but I must be more of a hybrid jungle cat - about as dangerous as a Build-a-Bear grizzly.
This could have made a good story for the blog, although a bit anti-climactic. After breathing into a paper bag for a while I finally phoned him two days later, and we had a pretty good conversation - mostly about how he was leaving the next day for three weeks at sea.
I suppose I'll be happy for our Canadian Navy's rigorous training schedule should I ever need rescue from Somali pirates, but right then it really pissed me off. He said he'll call me when he's back on dry land, but I'm not holding my breath it'll cross his mind again. Kids have such short attention spans these days.
Overall, it's not as though there's nothing in my life that wouldn't make my readers feel so much better about their own. I'm still ridiculous. I could be writing. I probably should be writing. Instead, I'm going through a weird phase.
Although we can safely rule out mood altering conditions such as pregnancy or vegetarianism, I'll be sure to let you know if I figure out what the hell it is and what it all means.
Until then, I'll try to stay in my shoes and share more stories. Good advice for anybody.
She seemed hopeful that I hadn't done anything ridiculous in quite a while, primarily because I hadn't updated my blog. I wish I could say my lack of posting is a sign of unquestionably good behaviour on my part, but that wouldn't be true. Not writing is part of my weird phase.
Describing how I literally fell out of my stupidly high heels while exiting a night club at closing time where 200+ people were milling about and can now testify as to whether I bounced at all after hitting the payment could have made for a good story for my blog.
Even though I hadn't been drinking enough to fall over, stepping off the curb onto uneven pavement was all I needed to gain an entirely new appreciation for how fast gravity can work.
As I lay sprawled and suddenly barefoot in the street, I had time to think to myself that 34 years old is entirely too old to be laying in the street in front of a night club at closing time, and yet here we are.
The gathered crowd was kind enough to find my shoes for me, seeing as my shoes had got even better air time than I did. I'm grateful for these drunken good Samaritans. At least being able to walk away wearing my shoes again afforded some kind of dignity to the situation.
Then there was the twenty year old virgin I picked up while out dancing last weekend. Oh calm yourselves - he's still a virgin as far as I know.
I didn't start talking to him because I had any idea that doing so could violate both gay math and whatever passes for Madonna's moral code, so I was as shocked as anybody.
There was just something about him that was so shy and sweet, he appeared a completely different species than the guys that would normally attract me. For this reason we ended up talking and dancing, and then we went for coffee after the club where we talked for another two hours.
It was somewhere in this conversation he let slip that despite being twenty and in the military, he's still a virgin. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have scalding hot Tim Horton's tea go down the wrong pipe all of a sudden, and then try to recover gracefully while reacting like everything is completely normal? Do you??
It's really hard.
You'd think being ever so slightly older, wiser and more experienced than this guy would have given me an edge, but I was still SO crazy nervous about calling him afterward.
Telling myself he was so young I could have given birth to him (providing I was a raging whore in middle school) just made it exponentially worse.
Cougars are supposed to be confident, but I must be more of a hybrid jungle cat - about as dangerous as a Build-a-Bear grizzly.
This could have made a good story for the blog, although a bit anti-climactic. After breathing into a paper bag for a while I finally phoned him two days later, and we had a pretty good conversation - mostly about how he was leaving the next day for three weeks at sea.
I suppose I'll be happy for our Canadian Navy's rigorous training schedule should I ever need rescue from Somali pirates, but right then it really pissed me off. He said he'll call me when he's back on dry land, but I'm not holding my breath it'll cross his mind again. Kids have such short attention spans these days.
Overall, it's not as though there's nothing in my life that wouldn't make my readers feel so much better about their own. I'm still ridiculous. I could be writing. I probably should be writing. Instead, I'm going through a weird phase.
Although we can safely rule out mood altering conditions such as pregnancy or vegetarianism, I'll be sure to let you know if I figure out what the hell it is and what it all means.
Until then, I'll try to stay in my shoes and share more stories. Good advice for anybody.
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