I talked to the company HR Director today. Our company's HR department is a one woman show and she's fabulous. Unlike a lot of corporate HR departments, she really is looking out for the employees. My last company had a phone number you called and you received a ticket number. Supposedly someone would get back to you in 24 hours. What kind of thing is that? We actually had an HR person in the office where I worked, but she was only supposed to support the support staff, not the employees on actual contracts. We had to call someone in another office. Oh, and there was an HR investigation on my boss that was being conducted by an HR person two time zones away. Does that make any kind of sense? I believe the corporate policy was based on making it such a colossal pain in the ass to contact anyone regarding a problem that you would just give up and not bother. Imagine how refreshing it was to join my new company and realize all you have to do is send an email, make a phone call, and/or walk down the hallway and talk to a real person.
Her words to me were "Don't panic yet." She must have said this ten times. I'm still looking for other jobs. I even saw a great one at (wait for it) the Department of Labor. It was posted today. I need to think about applying and do a whole hearted job at completing the application (vs. my usual half assed click to forward the resume).
I know it could be so much worse. I think I'm doing alright (I have this urge to shop but I am on shopping hiatus until this is figured out). I realize some of this anxiety is me feeling sorry for myself after my husband was laid off, I was nearly laid off and now we're trying to recover from the not so great job-shake up of 2009.
4.06.2010
Trip through the Lou
When I was four years old we took a cross country road trip from New York to California. My memory of the sequence of events is spotty and I only remember specific incidents from the trip.
1) The ride
No, no, it wasn't this. We had a 1978 Dodge Diplomat. It looked a lot like this one, except ours was blue on blue. The vehicle's appearance supports my theory that the 1970's were the start of the dark age of car design. The Diplomat (who names a car "Diplomat?" Was there an "Ambassador" too?) was known as the "new" car. Our other car was a 1968 Dodge Dart. Take a guess what we called that one. That's right, the "old" car.
The accomodations:
We stayed in Holiday Inns. Somehow the four of us shared a room and survived. In fact, the sight of the old Holiday Inn signs used to excite me, proving that at one point in my life I was truly easy to please.
The sightseeing:
The St. Louis drive by: I remember passing through St. Louis as my dad ordered my sister to take some photos of the arch. I remember wanting to stop and get a closer look, but we passed it and that neat looking thing was gone, only to reappear when the blurry photos were developed.
Cities: We visited San Francisco and L.A. I don’t remember which one came first. Near san Francisco, we stayed with the family of the realtor for our house in New York. This realtor had sons (and a daughter?) and a giant Afghan hound that I could ride like a horse. All of us put on KISS make up one night (I was the cat). The theme song seemed to be “We don’t need no education.” The beach was right down the street from their house. The weird part was that about 10 years later we wound up moving there. We tried to contact that same realtor, but she had moved elsewhere. We used the same agency and made friends with the new realtor.
National Parks: We visited the sequoias and the Grand Canyon. I don't remember much from these, but luckily someone took photos.
Theme Parks and terror: We also went to the happiest place on earth. The happy parts included the Dumbo ride. The not so happy parts involved the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride. I don’t know who was responsible for deciding this was appropriate for my four year old eyes, but I do know this ride terrified me. I am pretty sure I screamed the entire time. It traumatized me so much that when it was time to get onto “It’s a Small World” (which involved a similar little boat that carried you through the ride) hysterics ensued. I’m pretty sure I was coerced onto the boat and I remember calming down when it turned out to be harmless.
We also went to Universal Studios, which involved the train trip over the collapsing bridge. No one told me it wasn’t real. To this day, in my head it really happened. I’m surprised my poor young heart didn’t quit on me.
No place like home (and mustaches):
The final straw was the trip home. In one of the hotels where we stopped, my dad got the idea to shave his mustache. Keep in mind that I had never seen him without it. Yup, more hysterics. I was screaming as if a strange man had invaded our hotel room, and in a way, that was what my head was telling me.
Some people might think this kind of road trip is a true adventure (*cough* my husband *cough*) but I’m not inclined to agree. Maybe it was from hours in the back seat of the car sucking on bottles of bug juice, playing tic tac toe and counting cars of a certain color, but as an adult, I find myself extremely averse to long trips in the car.
1) The ride
No, no, it wasn't this. We had a 1978 Dodge Diplomat. It looked a lot like this one, except ours was blue on blue. The vehicle's appearance supports my theory that the 1970's were the start of the dark age of car design. The Diplomat (who names a car "Diplomat?" Was there an "Ambassador" too?) was known as the "new" car. Our other car was a 1968 Dodge Dart. Take a guess what we called that one. That's right, the "old" car.
The accomodations:
We stayed in Holiday Inns. Somehow the four of us shared a room and survived. In fact, the sight of the old Holiday Inn signs used to excite me, proving that at one point in my life I was truly easy to please.
The sightseeing:
The St. Louis drive by: I remember passing through St. Louis as my dad ordered my sister to take some photos of the arch. I remember wanting to stop and get a closer look, but we passed it and that neat looking thing was gone, only to reappear when the blurry photos were developed.
Cities: We visited San Francisco and L.A. I don’t remember which one came first. Near san Francisco, we stayed with the family of the realtor for our house in New York. This realtor had sons (and a daughter?) and a giant Afghan hound that I could ride like a horse. All of us put on KISS make up one night (I was the cat). The theme song seemed to be “We don’t need no education.” The beach was right down the street from their house. The weird part was that about 10 years later we wound up moving there. We tried to contact that same realtor, but she had moved elsewhere. We used the same agency and made friends with the new realtor.
National Parks: We visited the sequoias and the Grand Canyon. I don't remember much from these, but luckily someone took photos.
Theme Parks and terror: We also went to the happiest place on earth. The happy parts included the Dumbo ride. The not so happy parts involved the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride. I don’t know who was responsible for deciding this was appropriate for my four year old eyes, but I do know this ride terrified me. I am pretty sure I screamed the entire time. It traumatized me so much that when it was time to get onto “It’s a Small World” (which involved a similar little boat that carried you through the ride) hysterics ensued. I’m pretty sure I was coerced onto the boat and I remember calming down when it turned out to be harmless.
We also went to Universal Studios, which involved the train trip over the collapsing bridge. No one told me it wasn’t real. To this day, in my head it really happened. I’m surprised my poor young heart didn’t quit on me.
No place like home (and mustaches):
The final straw was the trip home. In one of the hotels where we stopped, my dad got the idea to shave his mustache. Keep in mind that I had never seen him without it. Yup, more hysterics. I was screaming as if a strange man had invaded our hotel room, and in a way, that was what my head was telling me.
Some people might think this kind of road trip is a true adventure (*cough* my husband *cough*) but I’m not inclined to agree. Maybe it was from hours in the back seat of the car sucking on bottles of bug juice, playing tic tac toe and counting cars of a certain color, but as an adult, I find myself extremely averse to long trips in the car.
4.05.2010
And now for something completely different
My husband and I have actually made it to the movies on a few occasions, a rare feat when you have a kid who can't watch the gory, or the scary, or the inappropriately funny with you (well, you could bring the kid, but be prepared to be judged and hear a chorus of teeth sucking and "oh no they din't"s when you bring "the baby" to an R-rated flick).
We have seen:
Repo Men
Okay I had to break my rotten tomatoes rule on this one. Usually if Rottentomatoes ranks something as rotten, I use that as an excuse to nix watching a movie. Most of the time that rule applies to something my husband wants me to watch with him (that usually involves a ridiculous budget, a hammy cast and/or Jerry Bruckheimer). Hypocrite that I am, I still wanted to see it. Why? Jude Law. I know he's lost some points due to the Phil Collins-esque pattern baldness, and the nanny cheating incident and the lollipop physique, but I like watching him. It also stars Forest Whitaker. It took a science fiction concept and a dystopian future (it's always interesting to see how that's portrayed, usually it's dark, dingy and depressing) and a plot that starts off okay but makes less and less sense as you progress towards the end. This isn't the only science fiction thing I've weathered due to J.L. I also watched "A.I." which is sort of unwatchable, except for Gigolo Joe. You come out of the theater wishing the whole movie had been about him instead. Oh and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Sky who and the what, you say? Yeah, that one might have lasted in the theaters for an entire two hours. But, Jude Law! And lots of ridiculous green screen fun. Hm. It turns out rotten movies that star an actor with the initials "J.L." seem to defy my common sense when it comes to picking a movie.
Hot Tub Time Machine
I know, I know, right? It's like, Noooo, come on, how could you blow a night out on this crap? My husband rarely sees comedy movies in the theaters and I figured out why. If you watch a bad movie in another genre, then it turns into a comedy and there's still some level of enjoyment there. If a comedy fails, you've got nothing. It doesn't become a drama, or an action flick, or a visual masterpiece, it's just a waste of money and time. I admit that I also liked "The Hangover" and "Knocked Up." I can watch, laugh at the jokes, and then be perfectly fine if I never saw them again. They're disposable movies. You go in knowing it's stupid humor while feeling incredulous that someone actually greenlighted a movie involving time travel through a hot tub (and you bought tickets). You lose some brain cells, you hand over your money, but it was still fun.
The blindsided
Just days after she won an Oscar, news that Sandra Bullock’s husband was messing around came out. I can’t even imagine being in that situation (if my husband managed such a stunt, I would be devastated, but once I regained the ability to speak, I would have say to him, “Well played, sir. Well played.”) The biggest deal is that everyone considered Sandra Bullock to be the one marrying down to a dirtbag, so the question for the cheating dirtbag was, “Why eat a burger when you have steak at home?” (A: Because sometimes you just really want a burger). Sandra Bullock is one of the few famous people on my husband’s “list” (The list also includes Janet Jackson and Eva Mendes). He loves that Sandy.
After the dust settles the next step seems to involve the offender checking into some kind of rehab and disappearing from the news until they emerge a changed-for-the-better-person.
As a government contractor, rule number 1 seems to be this: contracts end. As in, once the time is up and you have accomplished (or not accomplished) what you have agreed to do, you can no longer justify charging to said contract, which means you are not in a good situation. “On the bench” is what my company calls it, and while that sounds like fun in a college intramural softball team way, it stinks.
The good part was that I didn’t love my project. The customer was sort of a pain. I was the buffer between her and my company. It wasn’t an especially challenging job and the things I thought could make things better were not allowed to happen because the contract had strict guidelines on what we would provide. I had all these brilliant ideas (really, they were), and nowhere to execute them. So, while the situation of not having a job sucks, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am a tiny bit relieved.
On to the sucky parts—
1) How I found out:
I work at the government site (or should I say, “worked,” but we’re getting to that) part of the time and the rest of the time I was in our company office. A few weeks ago I had the tedious task of filling in a spreadsheet so the blank values we had in our database could be filled with (duh) data. It took ages (“ages”= a little over a week). I would stream episodes of “This American Life” on NPR and I would go to town looking up possible values for the blanks. It was dreadful but at the same time it felt like I was accomplishing something and contributing to the cause. The following week, the customer called me to ask when I planned to come in and turn in my badge. I thought, “why turn in my badge when I will be there next week to continue working?” Well the obvious answer is: Because you won’t be there next week to continue working. Duh. But the wheels in my head hadn’t turned to reach that conclusion yet. I thought it was just a case of the customer being difficult again.
2) I was holding down the fort alone the week the shit hit the fan.
My manager was not available and the other guy on the project was working on something else. My manager returned towards the end of the week. He was also under the impression that our work should be continuing. Had things gone properly, someone would have clued him in first, he would have told me what was going on, and I would have concluded on my own that I needed to turn in my badge.
3) The turn in
This was just…awkward. I had to go in, tell the IT people to close my email account, reset my own voicemail (this was a failure because the directions were wrong and the thing would not let me reset it, but you know what? Not my problem), get people to sign off on my outprocessing check list and finally, turn in my badge. I talked to the customer and put on the brave face saying “these things happen,” instead of going out in a blaze of glory because these are the same people that decided to eliminate my job. I returned to the office with nothing else to do.
4) The alternative
I have been offered the possibility to work in support of another project. The issue is that this would require a one and a half hour drive (in good traffic). Have I mentioned that I don’t carry a spare tire in my car? I don’t have runflats, either. I just envision myself stranded somewhere along the highway because of some kind of car problem. I know part of this fear stems from taking public transit for so many years. If a train broke down or there was a delay, it made the news. You were also stranded with hundreds of other passengers someplace along the highly populated train route. I’m not saying that the train is an ideal way to get to work in all cases, but it has some benefits (and don’t anyone say, but you can listen to audiobooks. My reading comprehension seems to be at its best when the information is going through my eyes).
5) The hustle (not this kind). It was September when I last looked for a job. I felt I had time to mentally prepare for it and I had some contacts in mind. It had been over 2 years since my last job change and I felt energized enough to get myself back out there. This time it feels different. I like my company. I don’t want to leave, but I don’t think I have a choice. I am planning to talk to the HR director but I’m not hopeful anything like “Work 10 hours a week from home for your current rate of pay” is going to turn up for me. I did update my profile on Monster and I signed in to multiple employers’ websites to register and upload my resume (here’s an idea, why don’t these companies get together and use one database application?) I did get a call today from a recruiter. It was going pretty well until salary (and what sounded like a lack of any kind of benefits) came up. When he said “Well you could take this now since you’re not working…” I pretty much stopped listening. It’s not that I’m above taking a pay cut, it’s that those words translate to: “Hey, I would like a commission if you get hired, so go on and take this even if it’s not quite what you want.” I want to say, “Oh, well, you know, I didn’t know I didn’t have a job and I needed one. Since you mentioned it, sure! Let me go on and take it.”
I wish there were a rehab I could go to—hide out for 30-45 days, and emerge at my own press conference as a completely refreshed and no longer jaded employee.
After the dust settles the next step seems to involve the offender checking into some kind of rehab and disappearing from the news until they emerge a changed-for-the-better-person.
As a government contractor, rule number 1 seems to be this: contracts end. As in, once the time is up and you have accomplished (or not accomplished) what you have agreed to do, you can no longer justify charging to said contract, which means you are not in a good situation. “On the bench” is what my company calls it, and while that sounds like fun in a college intramural softball team way, it stinks.
The good part was that I didn’t love my project. The customer was sort of a pain. I was the buffer between her and my company. It wasn’t an especially challenging job and the things I thought could make things better were not allowed to happen because the contract had strict guidelines on what we would provide. I had all these brilliant ideas (really, they were), and nowhere to execute them. So, while the situation of not having a job sucks, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am a tiny bit relieved.
On to the sucky parts—
1) How I found out:
I work at the government site (or should I say, “worked,” but we’re getting to that) part of the time and the rest of the time I was in our company office. A few weeks ago I had the tedious task of filling in a spreadsheet so the blank values we had in our database could be filled with (duh) data. It took ages (“ages”= a little over a week). I would stream episodes of “This American Life” on NPR and I would go to town looking up possible values for the blanks. It was dreadful but at the same time it felt like I was accomplishing something and contributing to the cause. The following week, the customer called me to ask when I planned to come in and turn in my badge. I thought, “why turn in my badge when I will be there next week to continue working?” Well the obvious answer is: Because you won’t be there next week to continue working. Duh. But the wheels in my head hadn’t turned to reach that conclusion yet. I thought it was just a case of the customer being difficult again.
2) I was holding down the fort alone the week the shit hit the fan.
My manager was not available and the other guy on the project was working on something else. My manager returned towards the end of the week. He was also under the impression that our work should be continuing. Had things gone properly, someone would have clued him in first, he would have told me what was going on, and I would have concluded on my own that I needed to turn in my badge.
3) The turn in
This was just…awkward. I had to go in, tell the IT people to close my email account, reset my own voicemail (this was a failure because the directions were wrong and the thing would not let me reset it, but you know what? Not my problem), get people to sign off on my outprocessing check list and finally, turn in my badge. I talked to the customer and put on the brave face saying “these things happen,” instead of going out in a blaze of glory because these are the same people that decided to eliminate my job. I returned to the office with nothing else to do.
4) The alternative
I have been offered the possibility to work in support of another project. The issue is that this would require a one and a half hour drive (in good traffic). Have I mentioned that I don’t carry a spare tire in my car? I don’t have runflats, either. I just envision myself stranded somewhere along the highway because of some kind of car problem. I know part of this fear stems from taking public transit for so many years. If a train broke down or there was a delay, it made the news. You were also stranded with hundreds of other passengers someplace along the highly populated train route. I’m not saying that the train is an ideal way to get to work in all cases, but it has some benefits (and don’t anyone say, but you can listen to audiobooks. My reading comprehension seems to be at its best when the information is going through my eyes).
5) The hustle (not this kind). It was September when I last looked for a job. I felt I had time to mentally prepare for it and I had some contacts in mind. It had been over 2 years since my last job change and I felt energized enough to get myself back out there. This time it feels different. I like my company. I don’t want to leave, but I don’t think I have a choice. I am planning to talk to the HR director but I’m not hopeful anything like “Work 10 hours a week from home for your current rate of pay” is going to turn up for me. I did update my profile on Monster and I signed in to multiple employers’ websites to register and upload my resume (here’s an idea, why don’t these companies get together and use one database application?) I did get a call today from a recruiter. It was going pretty well until salary (and what sounded like a lack of any kind of benefits) came up. When he said “Well you could take this now since you’re not working…” I pretty much stopped listening. It’s not that I’m above taking a pay cut, it’s that those words translate to: “Hey, I would like a commission if you get hired, so go on and take this even if it’s not quite what you want.” I want to say, “Oh, well, you know, I didn’t know I didn’t have a job and I needed one. Since you mentioned it, sure! Let me go on and take it.”
I wish there were a rehab I could go to—hide out for 30-45 days, and emerge at my own press conference as a completely refreshed and no longer jaded employee.
3.26.2010
Truth is dumber than Onion
I love The Onion. Sometimes I run across articles that look like they belong in the Onion, but they're real. Sometimes it's the onion free truth that makes you cry.
This black-and-white handout photo provided by the General Accountability Office (GAO) shows a product billed as an air room cleaner that was actually a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips attached. Fifteen phony products, including the air cleaner, won a label from the government certifying them as energy efficient in a test of the federal 'Energy Star' program. Investigators concluded the program is 'vulnerable to fraud and abuse.'
3.25.2010
Open Book
I was going through a bookcase the other day. I love books, but they’re heavy, and heavy things aren’t really the best thing when you’re considering moving. I had to go through and be brutally honest with myself—was I going to read it again? Could I find it at a library? If I bought it and hadn’t read it, was I ever going to? If I did plan to read it, could I find it at a library? You get the point. I am the person that says she won’t buy a Kindle (or e-reader) because 1) I’m cheap, and 2) I like books. Books don’t need to be charged, and if the book gets damaged (water bottles have a strange way of leaking all of their contents around my books), you’re not damaging an entire collection. If you leave it someplace (yes I've done it), you didn’t just throw away $200+ dollars.
At the bottom of the bookcase are my journals from college. I wrote in them every year I was there. I didn’t write “Dear Diary” or have a lock on it or anything corny like that, but I wrote pretty regularly. People say this is a good habit—it’s therapeutic, and you’re keeping a record of events as you see them when they’re happening, not later when your memory is fuzzy and you embellish the past into something better than it was. I will probably always have them, but here’s the problem—I can’t go back and read them without feeling embarrassed for myself. It’s like time traveling without the advantage of being able to interact with those characters from the past. Suddenly you’re reading about things that happened and how you felt, but you’re also thinking, who is this dumby? I read a page, cringe, turn the page, read, cringe and repeat until I’m compelled to shut the book.
Some people say (who am I, Fox News?) “But the past is what makes us who we are!” Please. That’s just a way to excuse the sheer idiocy that went on. I don’t keep a journal, but I write here, and what you see is just a highly edited sliver of what goes on in my head and in real life. If there’s anything I learned from those books I wrote in college, it's that sometimes the fuzzy (and sometimes embellished) memory really is better than the young, dumb truth.
At the bottom of the bookcase are my journals from college. I wrote in them every year I was there. I didn’t write “Dear Diary” or have a lock on it or anything corny like that, but I wrote pretty regularly. People say this is a good habit—it’s therapeutic, and you’re keeping a record of events as you see them when they’re happening, not later when your memory is fuzzy and you embellish the past into something better than it was. I will probably always have them, but here’s the problem—I can’t go back and read them without feeling embarrassed for myself. It’s like time traveling without the advantage of being able to interact with those characters from the past. Suddenly you’re reading about things that happened and how you felt, but you’re also thinking, who is this dumby? I read a page, cringe, turn the page, read, cringe and repeat until I’m compelled to shut the book.
Some people say (who am I, Fox News?) “But the past is what makes us who we are!” Please. That’s just a way to excuse the sheer idiocy that went on. I don’t keep a journal, but I write here, and what you see is just a highly edited sliver of what goes on in my head and in real life. If there’s anything I learned from those books I wrote in college, it's that sometimes the fuzzy (and sometimes embellished) memory really is better than the young, dumb truth.
3.11.2010
Early Bird
Apparently Conan O'Brien is doing a tour. As soon as I found out about this, I looked for tickets. The D.C. show is on June 8th. Well, I checked the calendar and initially thought "
Apparently word got out through Twitter. I have a Facebook account but I drew the line at Twitter. It just sounds too annoying and high maintenance. Some people look at Facebook the way I look at Twitter. "Why should I get an account? It's just people twittering or tittering or tweetering in 140 characters or less. Why do I need this?" Well I got my answer today, didn't I? Apparently the tickets sold out pretty quickly, or at least for the D.C. shows, you can't even find tickets in pairs anymore. If I really wanted to find some tickets now, I guess they wouldn't come cheap. Get it? Cheap? Cheep? CHEEP CHEEP? Eh?
is this thing on?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)