free at last

At long last, my days of training are over. Apparently, management has either decided that I now know what I’m doing or that they’ve simply given up and are going to let me single handedly sink the entire company. Either way, my Donna days are done.

Donna, the lady who has been ‘training’ me, made her final appearance the other day. It had come to my attention that one of my duties in the billing department was to prepare the quarterly reports for company board meetings. Having seen nothing about this responsibility previously in the training manual, I was told that it fell under the ‘other tasks as assigned’ category.

So Donna, in her swan song appearance, was going to help train me in the ways of board member report preparation. Donna, having last worked in the billing department 15 years ago, has proved to be unhelpful with the whole helping thing…and this time was no different. She pulled up old Microsoft Works files that hadn’t been opened in over a decade and began typing, merging, and printing various documents that would be included in the portfolios which would be distributed at the next board meeting.

“Now go grab those papers I printed and start filling in the projected profits for the upcoming quarter in the blank spaces on the sheet,” she told me.

I had learned that handwritten information was the preferred way of doing things in the Training by Donna handbook. A few weeks prior, I had made the stupid assumption that typing, rather than writing, would be faster and look more professional on company documents. Donna’s response was to severely reprimand me by yelling, “THAT’S NOT THE WAY WE DO THINGS AROUND HERE!”

After pulling the papers from the printer, I sat down to begin filling in the projected profits for the upcoming forth quarter and realized that ‘forth’ was not the correct way of spelling ‘fourth’. Yet Donna didn’t seem to realize this, having just printed out many sheets of paper with projected figures for the forth quarter. Trying hard to hide my glee, I pointed this mistake out to Donna.

“Of course it’s correct!” she informed me. “How else would you spell ‘forth’?”
To which I replied, “F-O-U-R-T-H. The way you spelled it means to go forth…like going forth into the future.”

“WELL THE LAST QUARTER HASN’T HAPPENED YET, HAS IT?! SO THEY ARE GOING FORTH! Besides, no one reads these reports anyway, SO JUST KEEP STUFFING THEM INTO THE FOLDERS LIKE I TOLD YOU TO!”

Knowing that her error would be credited to me, I waited until Donna left and stayed long after quitting time fixing her mistake, consoling myself with the knowledge that I would no longer have Donna in my life.

Which is good, because all the extra work I end up doing by undoing Donna’s training was adding several hours to my work week.

modern etiquette

Some people clearly aren’t aware of certain social etiquettes. Etiquettes which allow us to live in a civilized society. And when civilized etiquettes aren’t followed, society just isn’t as civilized as it should be.

For instance, when you ask someone ‘how are you’ they’re expected to answer ‘fine’. Because the truth is that you could really care less how they’re doing. And when that person starts to actually tell you how they are the whole fabric that holds society together begins to unravel.

I bumped into an old high school friend last week, and after a short ‘catching up’ which entailed where we work, where we live, and recalling the old high school memory of how Brett got his head stuck in a gym locker one day, I felt that we were adequately caught up…at least for another decade.

As he was leaving, he asked for my email address…because email is the new phone, and nobody who’s anybody ever asks for a phone number anymore. It’s just too ‘low-tech’.

So I gave out my email address with the unspoken rule that, in giving him this email address, he was never to use it. But this weekend he emailed me, thus breaking the unwritten ‘giving of email addresses to acquaintances’ rule. And, as if this wasn’t bad enough, the email he sent consisted of exactly 21 words, words which were strung together in this way:

dude, good seeing you. wild times! i still keep up with some of the gang we should all party sometime. peace!

And this is why I will forever safeguard my email address from now on, because high tech communication doesn’t make communication better…it just makes it easier to communicate without actually communicating anything at all.

If we were still in the ‘write a letter and stick it in the mail’ days, this type of thing would never have happened. Besides the fact that the actual act of writing requires a lot of work, you’d realize that you really need to have a lot to say to make it worth the 37 cents that it will take to say it. At 21 words, you’re paying almost two cents a word, and when you’re paying two cents for the word ‘dude’ you’re getting screwed.

But with email, economics is taken out of the equation. And now, people all over the world are communicating haphazardly at lightning fast speeds, and saying very little in the process. So many emails, delivered so very fast, that I can barely keep up with all of my not responding.

issues from a relationship

I was out with Trish, the girl I’ve been dating, this weekend when I got the dreaded ‘we need to talk’ line…a line which never brings good tidings.

“I don’t feel like I get any support from you,” she said, “and I need someone that’s going to be supportive of me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, “I’m very supportive…a pillar of support, in fact.”

“Well, like a couple of weeks ago…I mentioned my toe nail thing and you weren’t supportive at all!”

“My support does have its limits,” I tried to explain, “and these limits don’t include the foot region.”

“See, this is what I mean! You just don’t stand behind me on issues! This is more than simply a toe nail issue, this is an us issue!”

“See, I thought that this whole thing was really just a toe nail issue.” I told her.

“We’re completely opposite,” she continued, “you like coffee, I like tea. You’re more of a morning person and I like the nightlife. I love movies and you prefer television.”

And I realized that she was right. I do like television more than movies. I’ve never liked sitting through one of these two or three hour movies that are the norm nowadays. That’s simply too big of a commitment to make for something that I may not even enjoy. At least with television, you’re only looking at a half hour or an hour…and that includes commercial breaks to grab something to eat or run to the bathroom. So if the program stinks, at least you didn’t waste too much time.

And if I can't commit to sitting through a three hour movie, how in the world am I supposed to commit to a potential lifetime with Trish? It’s too much time to invest for an ending that I may not like.

Thus, I think that my relationship with Trish has just been yanked from the theaters.

life threatening coffee related injuries

The early morning is not an ideal time for me, especially when there’s unpleasant activities to deal with…activities such as a job which I have to show up for. So to help guide me through these rough first hours (those that tend to occur before noon) I turn to my good friend coffee.

My typical morning activities consist of grinding and brewing coffee, showering, and then emerging to a fresh pot which, because I was half asleep while grinding and rarely remember doing so, seems to have magically appeared in the pot. This morning, however, my peaceful sleepwalk into the kitchen to commence the grinding activities was terribly interrupted by a potentially life threatening bag of Starbucks French Roast.

This delightfully rich, bold coffee which has a hint of chocolate and Earthy undertones, comes equipped with a little twist tie thingy attached to the bag. The twist tie on the bag gives the illusion of an air-impenetrable seal, thus keeping your coffee beans safe from the horrible effects that air would bestow on it…effects that, while I’m not certain what they are, would surely be devastating to the coffee within. And though this twist tie really doesn’t keep much air out, by affixing it to the bag our corporate friends at Starbucks can justify charging an extra buck for their coffee.

As I groggily stumbled into the kitchen, towel wrapped tightly around my waist, I opened the coffee bean bag and raised it up for the first scoop of the morning. And it was in mid-raise that this twist tie on the coffee bag nearly tore my right nipple off.

The sheer pain caused instant awaken-ness, and I frantically started searching the kitchen floor for my nipple…the same nipple which, I reasoned in my sudden jolt from slumber, surely could not have survived the slicing which just took place.

I realize that my nipples are of little use and, quite honestly, I rarely think of them at all. Sometimes I go whole weeks without a single thought to either of my nipples…except when one has been violently ripped from my chest. Then nipples become of the utmost importance to me. Because I shudder to think of how lopsided my chest would look with one lone nipple, not to mention the taunting I would endure, shouts of ‘Uni-nip’ echoing up and down the street as I walked by.

Clearly, there was no possible way I could live a happy, one nippled life…so I searched all the harder. And just as I was prepared to file a massive lawsuit against Starbucks to demand reparation for my lost nipple in the largest nipple losing lawsuit the world has ever seen, I saw it resting on my chest. Somehow, it emerged from this ordeal unscathed…with barely a scratch. Obviously, I have nipples of superhuman strength. Which is lucky, because I really can’t survive without my morning cup of Starbucks coffee (because, seriously, how many other brands of coffee can claim to have ‘Earthy’ undertones?) and an ugly lawsuit would have ruined what would have been an otherwise wonderful beverage. And who wants to start a morning like that?

sometimes parasites are preferable

Besides the joy of having one less day of work to drag myself awake for due to the long Labor Day weekend, I was hoping that I would escape my weekly meeting with Donna, my 'trainer'. Unfortunately, this was wishful thinking, as she appeared on Friday.

As a trainer, Donna is less than ideal. Having worked in the billing department 15 years ago, I'm sure that, at one time, she knew what she was doing...those days are long over, however. Most of the information that Donna has been telling me is incorrect. And when you combine this with the fact that nothing was done on the computer in Donna's day, not only is most everything she's telling me incorrect, but it's also antiquated...resulting in many hand written invoices and notices which then must be manually calculated...the same invoices and notices that I've already made computer programs for that get the work done in a fraction of the time.

Several times over the past few weeks, I've had to call my supervisor for clarification of what Donna has been telling me to do. And each time I've been met with the response, "who told you that? That's not the way it's supposed to be done!"

Apparently, Donna has become aware of the wealth of misinformation that she’s been imparting on me.

"I've discussed this with your supervisor," she announced on Friday, "and we've decided that to prevent any misunderstanding on your part as to what you're being told to do, you will now be required to write up a report on each task that I instruct you on, detailing the specific steps you are to take in order to complete this project. I then want you to drop off a daily task list in my mailbox at the end of each day."

So, due to Donna's incompetence, I now have more meaningless work to do.

After graduating high school, thus ending all attendance in high school English classes, I thought my days of doing pointless essays and reports were over...but then came Donna.

I've been leaving work very tired, drained, and demoralized...with a pinch of really wanting to kick someone's dog added in for good measure. My mom detected this in my voice yesterday.

"You sound tired, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing mom, I've just been feeling run down lately."

She paused in thought and, being the practical and non-alarmist mother that she is, told me, "I bet you have a tapeworm! I just saw a report about them on the news...have you been eating any undercooked food lately?"

"No mom, I'm sure that I don't have a tapeworm."

Though I would gladly welcome a tapeworm over my co-workers. I'm quite certain that tapeworms would have a better disposition.

a labor day toenail test

I’ve been dating Trish for a couple of weeks now and, in the spirit of Labor Day, we decided to attend a picnic that some of my friends were having.

As is the case with my friends, the most unappetizing discussions tend to pop up at the exact moment when everyone is about to eat. Yesterday was no different, and as we were all preparing to delve into abundant helpings of hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad, Randy said, “you know, probably the most disturbing commercial I’ve seen was the one for that anti-depressant drug…you remember, it had those side effects which included ‘nausea’ and a ‘greasy discharge’.”

“Well a lot of those erectile commercials are no better,” Jill added. “And those poor people with liver or heart problems can’t even take the drug to give themselves an extra hard stiffy. And don’t forget that if you experience an erection for more than four hours you need immediate medical attention.”

“Personally,” I added, “I enjoy those commercials that try to use cute little cartoon characters to lessen the disgusting factor. Like that foot fungus one, where those cute little brown puffy things crawl under that guys toenail, turning it yellow and brittle.”

“Actually,” my date Trish said, “I ended up getting that exact thing about a month ago. It’s horrible! I can barely stand to look at my feet. I’m just hoping that I can get rid of it soon.”

And while I try to be an understanding partner, this toenail information was not the type of thing that I needed to know. Suddenly, all the potato chips I had scooped up looked very much like discarded brittle toenails littering my plate.

“Well,” I jokingly told Trish, “don’t expect any toe sucking to take place tonight. I can just imagine a toe nail popping off in my mouth during mid-suck.”

“So would you spit or swallow?” Jill asked.

And as we laughed, I couldn’t help but notice that Trish seemed less than amused. In fact, she was giving me quite a cold and icy glare from across the table. Because, unbeknownst to me at the time, I had just been given one of the many dating tests that women administer to the men that they’re seeing. Needless to say, I failed miserably.

I’m confident that, had this test been announced prior to the start of the day, I would have aced it. Had Trish informed me that, “I’m going to be mentioning my toe nail fungus during lunch and I expect an appropriate and supportive response from you,” I could have passed with flying colors. But I’ve always done poorly on pop quizzes…and Trish’s was no exception.

As it turned out, I was quite right in the fact that no toe sucking took place that night. Nothing else took place either, however.