pseudostoops

There’s still snow on the ground here, which is disappointing, if not surprising.

I’m back from my trip to New Orleans for the half marathon, which was followed immediately by a business trip to California.  You know what New Orleans and California have in common? No snow.  Also: delicious foods that I can’t get in Chicago.  (Though those foods are not similar to each other: I’m left craving hush puppies and beignets from New Orleans and from L.A., those fabulous huge salads full of produce that one can only dream about during a Chicago winter.  And pinkberry.)

I’ll definitely want to tell you more about the half marathon (with pictures! of me making goofy faces!) but for now it appears that I am late for work.  Which I have to walk through the snow to get to.  Not that I’m bitter.

The normal secretary in our office has been on vacation all week, and we’ve had a substitute secretary, a very nice lady named Marge, who is ENTIRELY THE OPPOSITE of our normal secretary who owns a tricked out Harley and wears both a leather vest and leather pants to work on semi-regular basis (not joking).

On Wednesday, Marge started crying, rather noisily, at her desk.  My coworker and I went out to investigate (we are not made of stone) and found her mopping at her eyes with paper towels (we are not made of stone, but we are not made of money, either, and we were out of Kleenex.  At Marge’s suggestion, I went down to procurement and got some raggedy one-ply tissues, which were a minor improvement over the paper towels, plus now I know they have tissues in procurement.  Never have to buy office tissues again, bitches!)

It turns out that Marge’s father is very sick.  He’s probably dying.  Poor Marge and her sister are trying to set up hospice care so he can get out of the hospital and come home.  We heard about this in some detail on Wednesday when the crying jag happened.  Then again on Wednesday afternoon as we came back from lunch.  Then again on Wednesday evening as Marge was leaving for the day.

Thursday he was worse.  Marge is a mess.  She cried several times at work.  She left early to go home and help her sister finalize plans for bringing their dad home.  As she was leaving, she said they weren’t sure he was going to make it through the night.

I feel terrible for Marge.  This is a very difficult thing she’s going through.  But I also…how do I put this delicately…. I don’t really KNOW Marge.  I cannot think of much I can say that would be comforting.  You know who I do know?  My boss.  You know what I know about him?  He is not the sort to really take a shine to his employees spending an hour over the course of the work day nodding sympathetically and listening to the woes of a substitute secretary.  Yesterday, I heard Marge talking to him for at least fifteen minutes about her dad.  You don’t know my boss, but trust me when I say that a fifteen minute conversation about ANYTHING would make him twitchy- he’s a fast-moving guy- and I could hear him getting more and more impatient as the conversation ran on and on.

Today is Marge’s last day with us, probably.  Our regular secretary is scheduled to come back on Monday.  But I wonder: how best to handle it when a near-stranger tells you a LOT about a very difficult family situation? At work? Where your boss would like you to be, you know, working?  I do not want to abandon Marge- she seems like a lovely lady and she’s clearly struggling- but I’m just not sure what to say.  What is the proper way to give support (and potentially condolences) to a near-stranger who has a demonstrated ability to talk at some length and in tremendous detail about a very difficult family situation?  Can I continue to nod sympathetically and say “mmm,” and “oh, that’s hard,” or is there something more specific, perhaps, that I should offer?  Potentially something that will get me back to my desk in under 30 minutes?  Or should I just say eff it to my work and give her as much time as she needs to talk it out?  Truly, give me a script here, people.  I’m at a loss.

Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but:

Our holiday work lunch is today.  It’s at one of those silly downtown clubs that’s like an urban country club but without the golf and tennis.  You know, the kind with a “reading room” and a squash court and like forty-seven bars?  The kind that only let women in starting like 15 years ago and which still requires jackets and forbids denim?  They’re odd places.

So today, which is CASUAL FRIDAY, on which I could USUALLY BE ALLOWED TO WEAR JEANS, I have to dress in a suit so that I can go to a silly downtown club to be served a dry club sandwich and a warm diet coke.  Ho ho ho indeed.

Grumble.

So: work.  I can’t, won’t, will not, must not talk about it.  Except I have to say this:  I leave home earlier every day, get home later, eat lunch at my desk, and pretty routinely feel like an idiot.  It’s taken over my life, my free time, my cooking time, my writing time.  It has, as of this afternoon, officially taken over Thanksgiving with a project that will take me all weekend that absolutely must be done by next Monday.  By all measures, I should be frustrated and miserable.

But I had lunch today with a supervisor from my old job and it was almost impossible to hear what she was saying over the deafening chorus of “thank god this is not my life anymore” running through my head.  New job is hard, it’s a little bit greuling right now, and I love it.

That’s pretty cool.

Outfit: selected (after several false starts)

Fancy work bag: packed

Shoes: laid out

Hair: blown out

Makeup: actually applied, for a change

Train schedule: memorized

Stomach: flip-flopping

I start my new gig today.  Wish me luck!

So, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I have some time off between the end of my last job (which wrapped up right before we went to Egypt) and the start of my new job (in 2 weeks.)  The first two weeks of this time off I spent glued to the couch, battling the great non-swine-flu of 09.  But I am finally feeling better, and the weather is gorgeous, and now I’m…well, I’m a little bored, truth be told.

I don’t do well with unstructured time, you see.  I begin to feel guilty for not being “productive”.  I worry that I’m not doing it “right”.  For example: I love to go to movies by myself, I love to sew and have plenty of projects pending, and I love to cook elaborate meals without time pressure.  There, that’s all my time filled up right there, right?  Well yes, except it’s shaping up to be a gorgeous week in Chicago, and it feels like such a WASTE to be sitting inside watching movies, sewing, or cooking.

So I think I’ve got today covered: I’m going to go for a super long bike ride, followed by reading a book on the beach, followed by some very necessary grocery shopping.  But I’m looking for more inspiration.  Having a few weeks off is such a luxury and a rarity, I really want to take advantage, but I’m a little short on ideas of things to do solo, in the middle of a weekday, without spending too much money.  Help me! If you had a day or a week or a month off, what would you do?

It’s been a busy 24 hours. Yesterday was my last day at my job, and in about 10 minutes we’re leaving for the airport to go to Egypt.  I kind of can’t believe it.

See you in a week.

I used to write for my college newspaper, and there was this joke that the one thing you couldn’t write about was the post office on campus. It sucked, everyone knew it sucked, and writing the 659th article about its suckage pretty much meant you sucked as a writer and couldn’t come up with anything newsworthy.

I recognize that writing about the many small indignities of commuting is the office-drone equivalent of writing about the campus post office, but here I go anyway, because this NEEDS TO BE SAID.

Gentlemen (because it’s always a guy) take note: you are not entitled to spend the duration of your commute in the space in the train you occupy when you first alight.  You are just not.

It is one thing if you are sitting in a seat.  If you get a seat? Fine. Stay there. Sure, I’d like to see you stand up for little old men and pregnant ladies, but if you prefer to be kind of a low-grade jerk and keep reading your magazine while you pretend not to notice the blue haired grandma struggling to keep her balance right in front of you, fine. I will leave you be.

But if you are standing? And if the place you like to stand is leaning broadly against the glass wall right inside the door of the car? And if it is rush hour and dozens of people are getting on at every stop?  MOVE YOUR ASS.  Seriously. You are slowing us down with your stubborn refusal to move further into the car.  Yes, I realize that it is more comfortable to lean in a languid fashion against the glass than it is to hold on for dear life to a greasy metal pole.  AND YET. People should not have to jostle around you, buffeted by your huge ridiculous Timbuktu man bag, to reach the open spaces within.

Perhaps a diagram would be illustrative:

So are we clear? If you are a young, fit, able-bodied dude, there is no excuse for you taking up prime real estate in the el car at the expense of everyone else.  You can pretend that you’re so engrossed in your music or magazine that you don’t even notice the people having to contort themselves like circus tumblers to get around you, but no one is fooled.  You’re annoying, you’re rude, and you’re going to get you an elbow to the face pretty soon if you don’t cut it out.

Thank you, that is all.

I’ve had a bunch of days in a row that are the crazy-making kind – darting from one meeting to another, no time between, always running a little late, scarfing down sandwiches during meetings that aren’t technically lunch meetings because there is no time to eat lunch unless it’s in front of other people in a conference room – those kind of days.

It’s funny, on Monday when I looked at my schedule for the week, I actually felt relieved that it was so crowded.  I thought I’d be enjoying this, after several weeks of long, sparsely-filled days populated mostly by blah administrative work.  I’m leaving this job in a few weeks, and everyone in the office knows it, and as a result I’ve gotten about zero interesting new work, and a fair amount of “hey, can you make sure the commas in these footnotes are placed correctly?” (For those wondering if I’ve gotten canned: no.  I always had an expiration date.  Such is the joy of public interest legal jobs for young lawyers: your funding often runs out after two years.)

Though I fully understand WHY no one in my office is exactly fighting to give me fascinating, challenging assignments right now, I was starting to feel a little annoyed when it became clear that my last two months here (fully 1/12 of my entire time at the company) were going to be spent colating and updating Excel spreadsheets.  I wanted to leave on a high note, do something useful.  I wanted to leave my mark.

It’s a ridiculous thing, I know, that I had any idea that I should be leaving my mark after a scant two years at a company that has existed for longer than I’ve been alive.  But that’s what we’re taught to aspire to, right? Work hard try hard be good do your job well leave your mark.  I suspect this feeling is particularly acute for those of us who have self-selected into lower-paying careers for the sake of “doing something meaningful”.  It doesn’t make me better than you, but it does really heighten one’s sense of “god there better be something to show for this at the end of all this!”

I’m not sure if there will be.

But back to this week: after several weeks of being slower than slow, sudenly things are fast fast rush rush hurry print write this rewrite this rewrite it again please this has to go out today we’re counting on you!  Just what I wanted, right?  Except apparently, during those slow weeks, my brain got on board with the idea that I’m wrapping up.  I guess I made some peace with my imperfect mark-leaving skills.  Without even realizing it, I transitioned into a place where I’m okay with being slow, with tying things up neatly, drafting transition memos, filing things away for the next person.  Suddenly, I find myself longing for the slow days.

Stupid grass is always greener.

Two of our spring semester interns left today, so we had a little get together in the conference room to thank them for their contributions, and have snacks.

The spread:

• Lime flavored tortilla chips
• Cheddar cheese and caramel popcorn, mixed together
• Kalamata olive and dill cheddar cheese
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Red wine (half a bottle; already-open, leftover from our annual dinner a month ago) and pink wine (also already opened; warm), both served in paper cups
• Radishes

I shit you not.  Truly, it was the oddest assortment of foods and drinks I have ever encountered.

As we were all looking at the weird array of foodstuffs, my boss, who is over 70, said “man, that must have been some really good weed I was smoking when I picked out this stuff.”

And then the departing undergrad interns scarfed down some cookies as fast as possible and made a run for the exit.  Thanks for coming, interns! Sorry about the nausea-inducing party food and the inappropriate drug jokes from your boss!  Also: welcome new summer interns! Aren’t you excited for what the next two months will bring?