A Reward for your Patience

For those of you who have been patiently awaiting my next post, provided that there are any of you, I am sorry. Pre-vacation prep and vacation has kept me away. Here is a brief update of what went on while I was away from the keyboard.

• Henry had his last day and rode off into the sunset.

• My foot swelled up like a sausage and broke one of my favorite shoes.
  

• I was invited to a very la event at SFMOMA, and will go next week. Apparently the person who wangled the invitation for me said I was qualified to go based of my 'young and fascinating" status. I didn't know I was young and fascinating, but hey, I'm not going to argue with it.

• I went on a leisurely vacation far away from my cell/cubicle. Acquired a bit of color that has in the two days I've been back faded back to gray.
  

• Earnesto and the senior managers went on a retreat I planned for them, enjoyed it, talked me up there, and repaid me by de-authorizing my overtime. What a swell guy.
  

But I promised a reward, and you so richly deserve it, don't you? So I will tell you all about the time when I was driven to the brink of madness by Renaldo. That's right, our very own James Brown of the industry/institute have a fascinating history that includes him driving me so batty I walked a mile to buy a chocolate cake.

I have a lovely coworker named Camille, who all the boys love. Not joking. Henry loved her, Renaldo loves her, and various and sundry other pathetic fellows have prostrated themselves at her feet in the hopes she will pay them some attention. To date, that I know of, she has only dated Henry. She has repeated fended off advances from Renaldo, who has an obnoxious tendency to pout in an obvious manner afterwards and general then endeavors to makes everyone around him feel acutely embarrassed for his complete inability to take the none-too-subtle hint.

One day, many moons ago (think May-ish) I agreed to go out one evening and give Renaldo a few tips about the situation. It was a moment of weakness on my part, but motivated by the excellent intention to give him the tip of 'IT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN' and have done with the whole slightly silly saga. It had been going on since last September. Anyway, you know what they say about intentions.

So the evening rolled around and I was already feeling grave misgivings about the whole scheme. Renaldo was just so happy. He was also ridiculously stealthy as he collected me from my cell and we left to the sports bar he had chosen for what would be my torture. I don't drink, but for a fleeting moment I wished I did so I would have something to blunt the agony that loomed. No, just a diet coke and glimpses out of the corner of my eye of a Detroit-Chicago playoff game (that was a tragic series, I rather like the Bulls, but they do have some room for improvement).

Even P.J. Brown felt better than I did that night (and less violated). (Reuters)

Renaldo got himself a beer and what he perceived as license to wax poetical about the virtues of Camille. The best/worst was when he said "She is one in a million, no, one in several million girls." News Flash - That same could be said of me, but it is certainly not high praise, now, is it?

He continued for TWO hours, and every time I tried to reacquaint him with reality, he would reject it out of hand. Add to that overly loud really bad music (pretty much things I would only ever hear if I was being tortured, like being forced to go to a baseball game, or back in time to the 80s ((and not the good bit of the 80s, but the really cringe-worthy parts))) and the fact that I hadn't eaten yet that day, and you will understand, surely. I tried melting into the wooden table top or just disappearing completely, but that is the one time Radiohead actually didn't help. Nothing could prevail against this pernicious crush. It was a new kind of evil.

Finally, I demanded that I be let go. Renaldo relented, in that he took me to the Bart station, but the entire ride was absorbed with his descriptions of his "feelings" for Camille. That's right, he used the f-word. And it wasn't as funny as the clip I just linked and it was more painful than this one (partially redeemed by the Spanish intro). Anyway, feelings are things that should either be able to be explicated - example, I am attracted to Damon, I loathe Styrofoam - or not mentioned. I tried explaining this to him, but something was lost in the English as a second language area.

** DISCLAIMER** Please don't assume this means I am xenophobic or anti-Hispanic or anti-ESL. Not that it matters, but Renaldo is not in fact Hispanic. That's not his real name. It is a simple fact, however, that when going between any two languages there are certain nuances and cultural factors that are frequently misunderstood. That is all I am saying.***

I was in this purgatory of a car ride when by divine intervention, my brother called me to discuss basketball. You can bet our last dollar that I was all over that. Who cares about cell-phone courtesy when their are being granted a reprieve from torture? So I leapt from the car when it came to the station and ran.

I was shell-shocked by the time I arrived home. Shell-shocked and ravenous. All I could think of was, 'must have chocolate.' Indeed, chocolate seemed the only thing that could possible make it bearable. So I proceeded to walk a mile to the store and a mile back (uphill, in the snow, both ways! okay, it's a little cliché, but it is the truth), purchased a fine chocolate cake and ate a healthy slice. By healthy, I refer to my mental health, as it did much to restore my mental health.

Ever since that fateful day, things have never been the same between Renaldo and me. Being around him makes me crave chocolate, even though he has not repeated his version of the Inquisition. It's simply not the way things used to be. He asked, as have his coworkers, what happened that has cause this rift. I don't say anything, because I have realized, it doesn't matter what you say to Renaldo, he has very selective hearing powers. He perceives that which is pleasing to him, and this isn't it.

And to cap this tale, I have made a timeline. Enjoy!

The dangers of being overqualified for your job

I would like to think of myself as reasonably intelligent. But as was pointed out by my dearest boss, Earnesto, nearly any sentient body, including furbies, could probably be an executive assistant. It's not a terrible job. It just isn't that great. Part of it is the institution, I know, but really, even fresh out of college, it turns out I was dangerously overqualified for the the position.

I say this because in the stagnant pool that become my mind as I thought of the exigencies of trying to schedule 50 hours worth of meetings into 37.5 hours, last summer I developed a perilous infatuation with Rusty (so named because for reasons unknown, he dyes his hair the exact color of iron oxide, and somehow captures the texture as well)

Okay, now I realize he's just not attractive, but I was sensory deprived, and he seemed so splendidly different from that to which I had become accustomed: the executive. And his hair was also not rusted then, it was my Achilles heel color of feather boa blue. Which is also probably not enticing to you, but work with me.

We met, we were friends, I was really silly, etc, and gory details will not be shared because I do have some dignity I would like to maintain. Anyway, fast-forward months and his contract runs out, and I realize I will never see him again, and I come to my senses. Thank you, blessed October. And I move merrily on with life and back to crushes of guys who are actually in some way shape or form attractive. My acceptance of Rusty's departure was facilitated by his new hair color, which just made me cringe. You can't take hair that color anywhere, unless it's to a stylist to repair the ravages.

And then, in January, back he reappears in my life, wanted to start back where we left off as friends. So not going to happen. I have developed super-skills at ignoring him, and he mopes about when we chance encounter. But in January I was so angry.

Despite my new found ability to deny his entire existence, every time I see Rusty, I wince with the reminder of my terrible mistake, and wish I could undo months of stupidity induced by job dissatisfaction. It was insanity. So when I saw him on the bus this morning, looking just awful, I reiterated my vow to trot out the resumé and start applying for a job where I would use my brain enough to forever hereafter avoid dangerous infatuations.

Let's label this: flirtation

When I'm not busy scheduling, or doing my work, or writing this, I do a little something that brightens my day. It's almost inexplicable how much I enjoy this activity. It is communal flirtation.

Please allow me to explain a little further. Our Accounts Payable is kept in a room slightly larger than a broom closet, but smaller than the executive office, with four of them in there. They are nice people, three girls and a boy who I have determined is crazy (Renaldo). But it is a place of community, you can almost always find a visitor or 6 in there disputing accounts, providing receipts etc. And they have this game they started, which is a really stupid game, when you think about it.

This game is primarily consistent of typing secret words into their label maker, and leaving them for the other people playing. I love it. I love words, they are little gems to play with. The other thing I love about the game is that it allows me to flirt with a specific person, Henry, a very lovely fellow from another department, without actually being held to that flirting. It gives us foundation for some very lively banter, and our face to face interactions have prospered. However, since the basis for the flirtation is done in proxy through the label maker, and is read by more than just Henry and myself, we are not committed to it in the eyes of our peers.

So Henry and I exchange our words and play a game that other people can play too. It's thrilling. I'm sure part of the thrill is that Henry used to date one of my favorite coworkers, so is forbidden fruit. I know the other women who play the game see it as a way to flirt with Henry, but since Henry and I are the wordsmiths now (we hijacked the experience about three weeks ago), they are at most periphery.

I love this, flirtation with plausible deniability, otherwise know henceforth as communal flirtation. See below, the tool for our delicate relationship.

Your mission, which you should reject and run screaming the other way: Project Negative Value

When I joined this Ship of the Damned more than a year ago, my predecessor made fleeting mention to Project Negative Value as if it was a done deal. It turns out she too was infected with the pernicious optimism that has struck many a coworker in this institution.

For starters, she didn't call it by its proper name, she called it something more like "Daisies and ponies and cupcakes." But let me tell you. Even if you bought a tons of all three, it wouldn't be nearly as expensive or ridiculous as Project Negative Value. In fact, negative value is only one of the valuable phrases I've learnt in my position. The other key phrase is Eyewash, which will be dealt with separately.

Story: When I was younger and still residing in the bosom of my familial unit, my mother told me the cardinal rule of any contractual work is that you should automatically add 50% to the highest bid and assume that is the true cost. That's for work like getting that deck built. I am assuming that large institutional work type projects that involve for serious work would be 75-100% tack on estimate clause. But then again, I was never an optimist.

Cost and practicality were introduced to the project with the last four months or so. That's not fair, there were a couple people who always knew the score, despite the fact that the masses were apparently inhabiting a parallel universe. The savvy persons were told to keep quiet and stop raining on their parade of fools. Even with the recent smack of reality, the majority still maintains plausibility to the project. I am of the opinion that there is equal plausibility to bankruptcy in the near future.

It is as if the institution has arrived at the point that is similar to in the Wasteland: "What shall I do, whatever shall I do?" They are running around with their heads in the clouds and blithely unaware of the imminent danger posed by Project Negative Value. Or they are playing at this: millions have been spent and they refuse to admit they are throwing the money into the dirty water of the bay hand over fist, so they will soldier on in vain.

Project Negative Value Timeline