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There’s a Pearl In My Wine Glass

Faux pas number one: trying to make my case with the boss. Past experience should have been jumping up and down on my shoulder and screaming into my ear, “Shut up, you big dummy!” But the light bulb didn’t turn on and my normally introverted self kept talking (and talking, and talking).

Faux pas number two: giving the boss’s wife the cold shoulder (who, I should mention, was the cause of my trying to make my case with the boss in the first place). Of course, when the boss’s wife turns out to have multiple personalities that would send Sybil voluntarily fleeing into the proverbial corn bin, simply ignoring her seemed the safest course of action.

Faux pas number three: not falling to my knees and begging for mercy when asked by said boss about criminal actions number one and two. Instead, I turned an interesting shade of purple while trying to suppress the mad hysterical laughter forcing its way up my throat and out of my big fat mouth.

Three strikes and you’re out. Or fired. Or let go. In other words, there goes my steady income which provided the finer things in life such as rent and food, not to mention regular manicures and eyebrow waxing.

So this is the point where most sane people would panic. Right? Well obviously I’m not sane. As I cleared my desk and gathered up my office essentials (green tea bags, flu swabs, contact lens cleaner), my thoughts were already racing ahead to my sunny future. I was on vacation! I would finally have the time to get my freelance business off the ground! My phone would be ringing off the hook with offers of employment! I could spend my days cleaning and cooking and doing laundry and being the perfect wife! See? Insanity. Instead of speeding directly to the unemployment office and securing my rightful benefits that would ensure continuing salon appointments, I instead headed directly to my local wine and spirits establishment, stocking up on my favorite Pinot Grigio. A girl’s got to celebrate, er, drown her sorrow in style, right?

Which brings us to day four of my, uh, hiatus. The Pinot Grigio bottles are empty. My house is still a mess. Clients haven’t been knocking down my door to procure my freelance services, nor have the full time employment offers been pouring in. Okay, I haven’t even been asked in for an interview. And my nails need a fill and my brows are looking a little bushy. Some vacation. I know what you’re thinking. This is the point where most insane people would panic. Well obviously I’m not your run-of-the-mill insane person.. In fact, maybe I could be a case study for a new strain of psychosis. I could get paid for being a lab specimen! Scientists will marvel over my ability to avoid the obvious - I’m unemployed, broke, and have no immediate prospects.

But while sane people might dwell on the obvious, creative lunatics such as myself concentrate on seeing the wine glass as half full - with the promise of new freelance opportunities, the promise of working for a kinder, gentler boss (minus the schizophrenic better half), and the promise that everything happens for a reason. Was I really that unhappy in my job? Probably more so than I was ready to admit. Was it really a good idea to tell my boss that maybe it was “time I moved on”? Obviously not. He took me at my word and sent me merrily on my way. Am I suffering from panic attacks at the thought that I may not have funds for the next clearance sale. Never!

My wine glass is never empty, nor is the promise of what tomorrow may bring. The world is my oyster and if there’s one thing this southern girl enjoys, it’s a nice fat steamed oyster on the half shell. Pass the hot sauce, please.

Karen Fulford

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Another day in Paradise

Despite the title of this post, yesterday was horrible. I’ll start at the beginning…

I was scheduled to work at eight o’clock so me and my ride went to Subway. We were there on time, but that didn’t make a difference. No one was there. It took twenty minutes for my boss to arrive. She apologized and noted that she had driven halfway here and then realized that she left the keys back home, so she had to turn around and make the trip again.

I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but shortly after I started working my boss, who is actually the Regional Manager, came by and asked if I could watch the front while she went to the bank. Watching the front is the manager’s way of saying “If anyone comes in deal with them.” I’m not sure if I said I would or not, but every bit of me inside was screaming No! I am new. What did she expect? Yesterday was like my fifth day of work. Did she expect me to know everything by then?

Anyway, my boss left and I was at the store alone. ALONE! I admit I wasn’t too worried at first because it’s a brand new store and I didn’t think anyone really realized that it was open already. Boy, was I wrong.

Right after my boss pulled out of the parking lot it hit. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! People were coming in by the hundreds…well not really, but the way I was feeling just then, it might as well have been a hundred people. It was more like seven or eight. But still, that’s enough to send a greenhorn crazy! Honestly!

I got through the first two customers with very little trouble, but once I got to the register, WOOSH, I hadn’t a clue how to ring up what he had ordered. Luckily the customer I was helping was really nice. I told him that I was new and he was perfectly alright with that. He said “We’ve all been there before.” I got really embarrassed when I accidentally put steak on his sandwich instead of roast beef. -Well they look exactly the same! He told me that I had made a mistake, very politely, and then I fixed it. The rest of the line looked at me funny when my face turned bright red and I started apologizing. I could almost hear their thoughts as I worked my way down the counter with the sandwich. Argh!

Fortunately my boss showed up just as my register problems started happening. I was glad she had returned, but the fact that she was upset with me didn’t improve the way I was feeling. In fact it got worse. I did my best to just keep smiling and I pretended like I knew what I was doing and actually I came to realize that I knew a lot more then I thought I did.

My boss never yelled at me or wrapped her hands around my throat, but I could tell she was upset. The look on her face when I asked all those questions was one of pure acrimony. As the day trudged along, however, her mood lightened up. Soon after the rush, she was laughing and joking just as if this morning never happened. For that I was grateful.

My ride picked me up at four o’clock and we headed home. As she drove I related my awful experience of work. I also told her that despite the horrid nature of my morning, I was glad for it. Why was I glad? Because now I had something to Blog about. Isn’t that sad? My life is so utterly boring that it has to be made abhorrent in order for it to be interesting.

Anyway, about the title. My day reminded me of a quote I once read and it goes as follows: Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. …Yeah, I never was a big fan of Adolf Hitler. But he is right. If a Richvillian (….I hope you don’t mind if I just start making up words for you-) were to see a pauper and how wonderful their life really was (should that be the case) then they would see their “paradise” as a sort of hell. And were the pauper to see the Richvillian’s life he may think just the opposite. Life is strange. Why is it that we always want what we don’t have?

Julia Willis

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Locked in the Stairwell

It began with a call from my boss who worked 3 floors above me in the Chase Manhattan building on Pine Street in the heart of New York’s financial district. Thinking myself the athletic sort, I took to the fire stairs taking them two at a time up to the 41st floor. Inserting my security card into the slot I was surprised when the indicator flashed red rather than the lime green I was accustomed to. Retreating to a different floor and a different card key reader produced the same result and it came to me that something was up.

I had heard stories about people getting locked in the stairways and having to descend to the sub-basement to find an open door. When they got there they were met by a phalanx of security guards who would question them intensively and then not release them until they could get someone to vouch for them. I sought an alternative.

Knocking on the door persistently finally got me readmitted to the offices of Davis, Polk, and Wardwell the 13th largest law firm in the United States. I’d been working there more or less happily for two years as a computer programmer. I was one of about a dozen propeller heads in a sea of suits and ties. I made my way upstairs (using the elevator this time) to face what I now figured couldn’t be good. As I proceeded to my meeting all of my security privileges were canceled and my computer accounts were locked. I was, of course, fired but my boss could not really explain why. Just three months before I had received a stellar performance review but management had soured on me in the interim. Oddly, I was not immediately escorted from the building by armed security personnel but given three months at full salary to arrange my affairs. It was the best thing to ever happen to me.

When my wife Lenore and I first began dating we would often discuss things that we would do if we had the time. Back in the early seventies she had taken a trip through Europe and Israel doing the obligatory time as a kibbutz volunteer. She extolled the virtues to my often skeptical ears. Here was a chance, though, to see what she was talking about. Lenore was working as a special education teacher in an upper east side school and had her summers off and, having conveniently gotten laid off in May, she convinced me to postpone my job search until the Fall. (more…)

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Office Prank - Aluminum Foil(ed)

From my experience a great office prank involved aluminum foil. A friend’s office was covered in foil and believe it or not after we took it out of the oven it was gooey on the inside and crisp on the outside.

Anyone else have experiences “decorating” an office as a joke. Post some pics on this site and lets see how creative you can be and how annoyed you can make a co-worker.

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