Archive for the Category »Working Girl «

Apr
21

To say I’ve been busy the last few weeks is an understatement. We had Easter, and we spent basically the entire weekend at Joe’s parents house, and I spent that whole time furiously working on a baby gift for April’s soon-to-be little one. Last weekend was Joe’s sister’s going-away party, so we hung out for a million years. Sunday, we didn’t really do anything, but I spent the day trying to wake Joe up. lol.

The big BusyFest, though, happened on Friday. Where I work, we don’t get a LOT of calls. This works for me, though, because I do SO much more than answer the phones. I do the work of like, 5-6 people. I process invoices, warranty requests; I’m in charge of our copiers, incoming & outgoing mail. I make coffee and make sure we have cold water and sodas. I order said water and sodas as well as office supplies & catering, and I do so many other things. My “job description” is like three pages long. lol. Answering the phones is only a teeny tiny part of the job.

Except for last Friday.

Last Friday, our phones lines somehow ended up being taken over by a medical group. A HUGE GIANT MEDICAL GROUP WITH HUNDREDS OF EMPLOYEES.

Every single one of their phone lines (general phone numbers, direct phone numbers, fax numbers) was somehow directed to our phone numbers. I don’t know HOW or WHY or what was so special about Friday, but I swear I answered about 400 phone calls, IF NOT MORE. About 10-15 minutes after I went to lunch, the problem was finally resolved. The person covering my lunch was very thankful for that. LOL It was crazy, though, and I was thisclose to ripping the phone out of the wall and throwing it out the door. I’m a “trained” phone answerer, though, and I believe in smiling when I answer the phone because the person on the other end can hear that, and I sound like I”m five, so it was easy to “fake” it. I impressed everyone I worked with who was aware of the situation. lol. Besides all that, getting pissed about it isn’t going to change anything, so I just let it all roll off my back, and I do what I need to do to get the job done.

I have to say that my favorite part about Friday, though, was the hour from 12pm-1pm when EVERYONE went to lunch… or at least didn’t try calling the place, so it was QUIET, and I was actually able to get WORK done. lol. And you could tell the people who answered phones from the “OH GOD, I am SO sorry” they always said. LOL

Anyway, today I came back from lunch, and there was a HUGE floral arrangement on my desk. My co-worker was all like “You got flowers!!” I was so shocked, because I wasn’t expecting anything & I didn’t have any idea who they would be from. They were from the place our lines were crossed with!

Look! I got flowers!

Aren’t they pretty?! :D

Hopefully this next weekend is a little less crazy. We’re having our Admin luncheon for Administrative Professional’s Day on Friday, and after lunch, we get to go home early! ROCK ON! :) I can’t wait. :D Saturday, we’re going to the California Academy of Sciences. Sunday, we’re not doing anything, but I might go shopping. I have some gift cards to spend. :D

Category: Working Girl  4 Comments
Mar
27

If you’ve been paying attention to my photostream, this won’t be anything new for you.

A couple of weeks ago, my office found out that we had.. erm… some little friends. What started out as a small ant hill type thing that people thought was the cleaning crew not doing their job ended up being a case of termites! Termites who are LOST. Apparently they hit a crack somewhere and took a wrong turn, which landed them in our office, coming through a crack in the concrete under our carpet.

Someone put a paper cup over the mound on the ground so people wouldn’t step on it & so we had something to show the pest control people. A couple of days after we called someone, they finally showed up, and we moved the paper cup to find something like this (only a bit taller):

Lost Termites

Ew, right?? Well, the first pest control place we called ended up being a pain in the ass. They sent out a “rep” to take a look at it, who said he’d call the “termite guy”, and then the “termite guy” said he was going to have to call someone else to come out to actually take care of it, and then they never showed up. WTF? After the weekend, we came in to this:

Lost termites pt 2

I didn’t take any pictures of it all week. Anytime I’d walk past, I didn’t have my phone or a camera. This morning, though, I remembered to bring the phone with me, and I took some pictures. Good thing, too, because we found out someone is supposed to be coming into the office tomorrow (yes, on the weekend!) to drill some holes and inject the “termicide”. This is what it looked like when I came in this morning:

Lost termites pt. 3

Here’s a side view, too.

Lost termites pt. 4

The gross part about this one is that I THINK the white things are the termites. GROSS! According to one of the ladies who works back there, she said it grew quite a bit before the bug guy took it down. I’m sorry I missed it… they ended up doing it while I was at lunch.

This sign was up when I was taking pics this morning. LOL

Lost termites pt. 5

Memorial services…. ROFL. This afternoon, after I got back from lunch, this is the scene:

Lost termites pt. 6

That small hole near the center is where they came up from. I am so sad that work is going to be so boring now. While I’m icked out by the whole concept, it was kind of like a trainwreck. I just couldn’t stop staring. LOL It is a good thing I work all the way up in the front, or I would just be camped out there watching it happen. haha.

Anyway, sadly, this has been the highlight of the last couple of weeks at work. Actually, there is happier news not having to do with work, but I am not putting that with the Termite Post, so I’ll wait a day or so before I squee about the other good news. LOL

Jan
20

You’d think that in 2009, if you were stuck at work and wanted to watch the Inauguration of the first President that You Actually Voted For, you’d be able to!

The TV we use for video conferences is not “set up” for real TV, and all the websites that you’d be able to watch it on are BLOCKED!

I tried my phone, but it’s not letting me either. WTF?! :(

I guess I’ll have to see it on the news.

Jan
10

I forgot to post yesterday. Honestly, though, I was so tired, I just couldn’t do anything. Except knit, of course. I did my fair share of net-surfing last night, but I forgot to post. Yesterday… the whole last week, in fact… sucked. But yesterday was the worst. We’ve been working on a project, trying to get it finished for the VPs next week, and every time I’d “finish” it, I would end up having to do twice as much work on it. WTF?

In the middle of all of this, I have a binder I need to update for one of the VPs. I finished the original project on Thursday and was looking forward to just printing all the stuff off that I need to update the Binder of DOOM and catching up on some other stuff I’ve had to let fall by the wayside.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and the Binder of DOOM is still not updated. I hope the VP doesn’t need it anytime soon. *sigh*

009.365: Binder of DOOM!

Nov
06

Oh my gosh, how quickly things can change in just an evening… and not I’m a good way. Yesterday was very depressing.

I walked into work yesterday morning, high off Tuesday night’s victory for Obama only to have the wind knocked out of me. My “work BFF” was laid off yesterday, and I’m still reeling from the shock of it. Nobody is safe in these hard times, and yesterday was a reminder of that. S is a great girl, and I am sure she will land on her feet, but the rest of us admins sure do miss her.

On top of that, I am pissed off at my fellow Californians for passing a completely stupid proposition. To my friends who are in a same-sex relationship, I am so sorry you are being treated so unfairly. I hope that one day we will fix this.

(if you couldn’t tell, I have nothing to do right now, so I just typed up this whole post on my iPhone. It looks likes novel on here, but it will probably only be like 2 sentances long once I post this. LOL. I really wish I could read or knit right now, but that’s a little harder to hide if necessary. I am so glad I bought this thing!)

Oct
05

Happy Friday. T.G.I.Fing.F.

This week… wow.
Next week is going to be even WORSE.

I just found out I get to be part of the group that helps plan our Christmas Holiday Party this year. The venue and the caterer have already been taken care of, but apparently we need to plan ideas for gifts and all kinds of other things. Joy, oh joy.

I’ve mentioned before that I suck at planning, right?
We’re supposed to have a meeting next week, I guess, about things for the party.

Should be fun.
Or something. (I’m really excited that I’m being included, but I’ve mentioned my suckage in planning before. That’s why I’m not married yet.. among other things, like moving halfway across the country, but whatever. LOL)

Also – the biggest of the BigWigs are in town next week. I think I’m going to cry.

Aug
30

Okay, it is sad that I don’t have more than this to post about, but it’s like 104 here today, and every chair I sit in is so annoyingly hot. Every chair in the office is a leather chair. The seats in the car are leather seats. I get in the car, and I burn my butt off. I’m cooler at work if I stand. People around here don’t believe in decent A/C.

The good news is that I don’t think it’s supposed to be this hot tomorrow. I hope not. I moved to get away from this kind of crappy weather. It wouldn’t be so bad – it’s cooler near the coast – but we’re just inland enough that it can get stifling out here! Ugh.

Overall, today has been a craptastic day, but the weather and my stupid chair is not helping.

Aug
28

I bought a bag of candy at the store while I was on my lunch break. They’re having meetings today, so lunch was catered in, and I ate here. I wanted something sweet, though, so I went to the store in search of something, and also to kill a few minutes.

I bought a bag of Hershey’s Miniatures.

I poured the bag of candy into our candy dish around 2pm…maybe a littel later. Now, as of 4:39pm, the candy is ALL GONE.

Two and a half hours people. That is how long it took the office to snarf through a bag of candy.

I don’t think I”ll be buying candy until it goes on sale after Halloween and is only like, 50 cents a bag. LMAO :)

That’s all I have to write about right now. LOL :) Hopefully I’ll have a bit more to say after the holiday weekend. We’re going up to Clear Lake w/ Joe’s family on Sunday, and I’m thinking about chopping my hair on Saturday.

Aug
24

Ugh.
I don’t want to go to work today. I want to just stay home and not do anything. :(

I actually have a project to work on at work now, and while I’m grateful for it, the lack of knitting time is making me cranky. :)

I had to clean the conference room the other day, too. By clean, however, I mean shoving everything in the empty drawers. :) LOL Not that I was being defiant and all “I got your clean right HERE!”, because I wasn’t. It’s just that they were plans and project/land review packets, and that stuff is important. If someone gets in trouble for throwing that stuff away, it most certainly won’t be ME. :) Our new office mgr thought it was too untidy, and I can’t argue that, but she made it sound like “just whenever you get a chance”, but she came up at like, 3:30 and was like… “do you think you’ll get to it today? We have meetings tomorrow..” So, I did it. :)

I better finish getting ready for work. I know it’s Casual Friday and all, but I should probably really brush my hair or something. :)

Category: Working Girl  3 Comments
Aug
15

The one thing I hate about moving is that you’re bound to lose touch with some people. My move to California has been lucky. So far, I haven’t really lost touch with anyone. I talk to Teresa less (since I saw her almost every day), and now that we don’t work together, I don’t get Dina’s lovely phone calls ["Hey, how's it going? Is Teresa there?" lol], and I don’t get to see people anymore, but for the most part… thanks to blogs… my group of friends are almost always in some form of contact. Mostly electronic contact, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s contact nonetheless.

Past friendships have not been so lucky. My first big move was when my parents got divorced. We moved from one side of town to the other, and that meant changing schools. I took a few addresses and promises to keep in touch with me from one school to the next, but for the most part, we didn’t keep in touch. I did get lucky in that three people from my old school ended up transferring to the new school for various reasons with me, so I took a few friends with me. It was kind of cool to walk into the new classroom, terrified of being the new kid, to find that a couple of other people came with me!

In that move, I did lose one friend, though. She lived at the bottom of the hill at almost the very end of my street, and she was a girlie, prissy little blonde thing, but she had the Barbie Mansion, and more dolls and toys than you could shake a stick at, and I always remember thinking she was sooo lucky, even though I didn’t lack in the toy department myself. I wonder what happened to her, though.

My next big move was the move from Wisconsin to Texas. We left after my last day of 5th grade. I’d made quite a bit of friends from that first day of 4th grade to the last day of 5th grade, and my class had a party for me for the last part of the day. They all signed a t-shirt for me, and I took it with me. The names have long since faded, but I kept that shirt with me up until this last move to the Bay Area. I wonder if any of those kids remembered me. I wonder what happened to my friends there. I took away a few penpals from that move as well, but only one actually kept up with it, and that was up until about 5 or 6 years ago. I *think* she got married, and I know that she had a daughter, but I haven’t heard from her in a very long time! I tried writing to her old address, just to see if maybe her parents still lived there & would pass it on, but I never got a response. I hope things are going well with her.

We made a little move almost a year after moving to TX, but that resulted in me being in a completely different school district, and not really near any of my friends, so we lost touch. I made friends at my new school, but was really joined at the hip with my friend Ashleigh, when she moved there from NY. I remember it was in math class, and we had to partner up with people. All the other people partnered with people they’ve known since forever, or just found someone, and the two of us were left without partners, so that’s how it started. She ended up being in a few more of my classes, so we became fast friends. Spanish class was probably my favorite. [Cute story - we had these language lab things where we'd put on these headphones, and you could either talk to people around you, or you would listen to the lesson or whatever...however the teacher had it set up for that particular lesson. We were in groups of three for this particular one, and we had to say what we wanted to be when we grow up. The guy in our group was supposed to say "Quiero ser un maestro.", but instead, he said "Quiero ser un mujer.", which means "I want to be a woman." LMAO!] We were always getting into some sort of trouble because we were always giggling, but it was cool. :) We grew apart, though, in 8th grade. Boys… drugs… rehab… things like that get in the way sometimes. She was in one of my classes again my Freshman year of school, and I saw her now and again my Sophomore year of HS, but the damage was done. I wonder how she is… I talked to her once, and she’d moved in with her boyfriend, but that was the last I’d heard from her.

My Junior year of High school, I moved back to my previous school district, and ended up having a class with one of the girls I went to school with in 6th grade. I remembered her, and she ended up remembering me, and I ended up sitting with her at lunch, and meeting people. THen in PE class, I met Teresa, and I pretty much credit her with the group of friends I have today, because I think she introduced me to just about all of them!!

So… here is to friendships. To my girls – may we never lose touch! Especially since the possibility of us splitting up even more is there!

So. That’s enough sap for the day. See what happens when I have too much time to think at work? :D