Blown Fuse

What sound do chicks make?

"Cheap, cheap cheap!"

Okay, so I tried to pursue the editorial position and without sounding a little pretentious, it just didn't pay enough. It was 30 hours/week and I'd be making negative income. Part-time daycare is capped at 30 hours, so when I add in travel time, he'd still be there in the >30 hour fee group.

Scott and I did the math, and after taxes were taken out of my paycheck and daycare paid for, it'd be ridiculous. I wouldn't even be earning enough to buy a pack of gum.

Still waiting for the verdict on the other position.

When it rains, yada yada.

Okay, so the interview. I thought it went pretty well. A bit scripted on their part, but I was honest and didn't hem and haw. The interviewer told me that I sounded like a very confident person, which made my eyes bulge at the gross miscategorization. I don't really know what sorts of people I'm competing against, but when she said that it made me think they were amoebas or some other equally stagnant organism. The thing about writers is that that we tend to be more articulate on paper than we are in oral conversation. On the rare occasion that you encounter someone who has both a bubbly personality and great proficiency at their craft, you jump at them. I hope I conveyed that I can at least pretend to be bubbly, even if my smalltalk skills are limited to such statements as "I know the feeling," "Ha ha!," and "No, that's perfectly fine."

Oddly enough, a couple of hours later a woman left me a voicemail about a local magazine position I applied for three months ago. I recall the schedule for that position being pretty flexible because...well, can't say without giving too many clues about what the publication is. Let's just say that by the time Rosco turns five it'd make a big difference because I could be home in time to see him get off the school bus. I'll call her back on Monday to see what the gig's all about.

The worst case scenario is that I get neither job, but this is a great situation because I'm learning what skills I need to brush up on to find similar work. This has turned into a pretty good week, huh?

Oh God, I want this.

I have a job interview tomorrow. It's a phone interview, so I haven't really been giving it as much thought as I would to something where I'd have to pull a pair of dress slacks up over my fat hips and drive to a corporate office.

I responded to a Craigslist posting a few weeks ago for a job that seemed too good to be true - it fit my professional needs exactly. It's a writing position that would require me to only go into the office for meetings, to turn in assignments, and so on. I would be employed by a company on the west coast and contracted out to a [large] local corporation to create document copy.

Because I have issues with not wanting to put Roland in day care just yet (or ever), it seems like one of those opportunities that makes your mouth water with desire. If I have to work (which I admit I do), this is the way I want to do it. I could work comfortably in my paint-stained sweatpants and hire a part-time babysitter/mom's helper for the days I really need to crank.

I honestly never thought I'd hear from them because I a) was honest about how much money I need, and b) I chose to reveal that I have a small child that would benefit from having a parent work from home. Hope comes when you least expect it, I suppose.

The phone interview is supposed to occur at around lunchtime tomorrow, and though I feel confident right now, I'll probably wake up with a lump in my throat and doubting my strengths as a potential team member. The best thing I can plan to do at this point is to have a glass of wine with my lunch to take the edge off my nerves and to loosen me up so that I can get over my aversion to chattiness.

Send some good vibes my way. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. And momma needs a haircut.

Half-hearted little protest.

I won't talk about that AmeriCorps fiasco anymore...well, not as much, anyway, but I'll say this: I fianlly got some sort of financial document from them yesterday: a W-2.

Let's analyze this situation. Over the couse of a month and a half when I had the misfortune of being associated with them, I never recieved a single pay stub. I didn't even know what my pay rate was until two weeks into my stint of torture. I never recieved my health plan card (policy was supposed to be in effect on day one). However, they were on the ball enough to quickly yank me from payroll the instant I gave the virtual flip-off to the organization I was placed with. (Would have been nice to have gotten a phone call from someone at the state level apologizing for the frustration and the lack of professionalism in the agency I was placed with, but that's water under the bridge, right?)

Guess whose information is incorrect on her W-2?

Yup. My name is spelled correctly, which is somewhat miraculous, but my house number and street name are both wrong.

Doesn't the federal government have oversight on this kind of thing? Don't they check and double-check those fifty ka-trillion fucking forms I filled out and signed to verify data gets put in correctly? The address they printed doesn't even exist.

I had no idea the idiocy in the program was so widescale. I assume someone at the state level input the information, but there's really no excuse. I know it's just a W-2, but really it's the final insult I've recieved from that program.

I'll never get back the money that came out of my pocket to support that program, and I can't even claim a tax deduction because I don't have documentation of all that gas and milage that went in my car, the fact that I used my personal home to store their property for almost a month, and so on. Guess who didn't have the forms she needed to record that information and get it approved because my supervisor was a moving target? Yeah, me.

I'm tempted to set a match to this insulting little W-2 and not file it with my taxes as a show of protest, however something tells me that Uncle Sam has an eye on me and will flag me if that employer identification number doesn't pop up in my documents.

So there, government, take your frickin' taxes from my $1000 living allowance. I hope that money serves you well and that you'll use it to fix the AmeriCorps tangles that seem to be so prevalent.

Let's lowball me, okay?

So, today I finally got a call from one of the staffing agencies I registered with seven weeks ago. Neither was particuarly close to my house, so I'm pissed about having to go there to take assessment tests and to answer questions that could have been answered over the phone.

Anyway, the offer was for a three-week full-time position doing data entry at $10/hour.

Let's do the math. Daycare (at any center I'd consider adequate for my discriminating tastes) would cost at least $775 for three weeks plus a deposit and application fee (add $500). So we'd have to pay upwards of $1275 in order for me to earn $1200.

She must be on crack.

WAHM.

While I'm at home waiting around for someone to hand me a fantastic job with free daycare, I've been doing some research on whether doing some freelance writing would be a viable income source.

The reality is that I don't really need to make that much money to make it profitable. I have some consumer debts to pay off, and of course there are the utility bills I'd like to contribute to, but those don't total an excessive amount of money. I could probably make do on half of what my last full-time job's salary was, although my aim is to earn more than that.

If you recall, one of my New Year's resolutions was to write out a business plan, but I haven't done anything as formal as that yet. It would be extremely helpful for me to put in writing what I need my bill rate to be, what niches I can market to, and so on, but frankly I'm just not informed enough about the profession yet to write intelligibly on that.

I'm taking baby steps. Every morning I sync my PDA with writing-related tasks that I need to accomplish every day. It may not amount to eight hours of work, but I believe that over time I'll be doing less planning and administrative work and more assignments. I just need to get into the mindset that this is "work" and that there need to be routines established, and that in the meantime I should develop a portfolio.

To be honest with you, one of my biggest weaknesses is advocating for myself. I know I can do this and be successful at it, but don't know if I have the courage to market myself to the extent I need to. Hell, I don't even know who to market to.

I'll keep you updated.

I don't want to, but I need to.

Now that The Kid has graced us with his snuggly self, I'm really stepping up my employment search. While I was pregnant, it was really hard to stay focused on a job search when I knew that my belly would distract people from the fact that I have a brain. I went on three interviews between Labor Day and the first week of last month. Haven't heard a peep from any of them. I did my due and sent my thank you notes and even followed up one with an email. They haven't had the courtesy of telling me to fuck off formally (or even informally), so I assume that I should let those go. Scott believes that I should call them and remind them about myself. It's been at least a month since all three interviews. I feel that if I wasn't a strong enough candidate during my interview to stay on their radar, then screw it - I'm not going to guilt-trip them into hiring me.

Part of me wants to believe that it really does take an average of five interviews to land a job, but the realist in me says that they didn't want to hire a pregnant woman. Period. They can't say I wasn't qualified (because I was) so I'd be interested to see what the rejection letters would look like.

Anyhoo. Over the past week or so I've been tossing my résumé around all over the place at anything remotely close to matching my skillset. Of course I have certain limitations concerning location and pay, but for the most part I've been pretty open to exploring companies I wouldn't otherwise persue. I know for certain that I don't want to work for another super-small business where I'll hit the career ceiling within six months, but I don't have a problem with working at a non-profit or the like if they're financially stable.

I actually went to a staffing agency today and spent three hours filling out stupid forms and taking assessment tests. It turns out that I know how to use Excel and Word! Whoopie! I explained very tactfully what I've been doing employment-wise since Labor Day (not a damn thing) and watched a safety video. If they can put me in something temporary so that I can placate my starving bank account, fine. The staffing manager called me a couple of hours after I left there to see if I were interested in a position way out on the far side of Raleigh (far from here, anyway). Nope. I don't mind the idea of driving 40 minutes to work, but not if it's through traffic.

Someone from another agency called later to see if I would be interested in something in Chapel Hill. The pay is better and I'd be minutes from home, so I'm supposed to go in and see what it's all about on Monday.

As much as I'd hate to abandon the baby to someone else's care at this point, I really need to go back to work. Scott has to go back to work on Thursday so I'm hoping that there won't be a daycare issue. I realize a lot of places won't take a kid until he's six weeks old...if I have to hire some granny to come watch him during the day until he's old enough to lay in an institutional bassinet and catch other babies' germs, so be it. I'd really rather stay home with the stink-muffin, but the way I figure it his quality of life would be so much better if he didn't have to watch Star Trek with me all day.

Just an isolated incident.

Here's a story from my month in that aforementioned service organization that I have disgust for. Note: this relates directly to the specific program I was working with and not the Corps itself.

One day my site supervisor had asked me to come along to a meeting that had been arranged at a company. A program had been previously set up to match employees with local youngsters to mentor. I don't know what the point of me tagging along was at that point as I had never attended a volunteer recruitment meeting and had no clue as to what I was supposed to talk about. I expressed that before we left the office when my supervisor asked "What do you want to contribute?"

Anyway, we proceeded to the meeting, and on the way there I became suspicious as to why were were taking two seperate vehicles. He had said something about having another meeting directly afterwards. I was annoyed because I knew I wasn't going to be compensated any time soon (and never will be) for the mileage, but oh well. Another tax write-off, right?

When I arrived, I grabbed myself a slice of pizza (it was a lunch meeting), and organized myself to take notes or have some information on hand. Over the course of the next half-hour to fourty-five mintues, I listened to my supervisor sell the benefits of working with the kids and field questions from the employees. At times, he would be asked direct questions which he either answered erroneously or would beat around the bush at. I sat there thinking, "Wow, he's a trained social worker, and he doesn't know anything about black kids at ALL. Poor kids, either!" He could spew statistics, but the "common sense" just wasn't there.

I couldn't believe how flippantly he answered some of those questions about whether the kids were at any risk for gang involvement. Of COURSE they are! Why do you think people join gangs in the first place? I can assure you that it has a helluva lot to do with not having money.

I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to step on any toes (being new, and all). Keeping my raised eyebrows in check was a little more difficult.

Right after the last question was fielded, he gathered up his stuff and zipped out of there so fast that you could see a trail of smoke kicking up from his heels.

Two or three of the female employees start bring out some donated items that the company had collected for local students. Basically, it was enough stuff to fill the cargo area of my Jeep and the backseat. While these strangers, noting my pregnancy, had enough common sense to say "Don't carry that!" to me as we were loading the car, my site supervisor had taken off with no worry for my personal welfare whatsoever.

First of all, heavy lifting of materials that are NOT going to be used in the office fall directly under the category of "direct service." VISTA participants are NOT allowed to participate in direct service. They can go out and fundraise for hammers and nails to build houses, but they can't actually be out swinging the hammer.

Second of all, what the hell did he expect me to do with all that stuff in my car? I had already told him that I already had my guest bedroom filled with items that had been collected, and found the situation ridiculous. There was no way I was going to be able to park my Jeep in front of the building and make fifteen or twenty trips up the elevator with all that stuff. There was nobody to help me, and the idea of "recruiting" a volunteer for the purpose of doing that was asinine, especially when that stuff had to be distributed very quickly.

As soon as I could get a live voice on the phone at a school, I, with the assistance of a janitor and a 7th-grader, unloaded all the supplies out my car. Actually, I just stood there holding the doors open while they carried stuff. I quit immediately after that.

The stuff that was in the bedroom? I slowly, one bag at a time, carried all that crap back out to my car, and on the Wednesday after I quit, drove it out to another school where the security guard helped me unload it.

That may seem like one isolated incident of abandonment, but that actually happened at other times as well. I was actually on track to have to do one particuarly stressful heavy lifting task EVERY WEEK.

There has to be a balance and recognition of what AmeriCorps particiants can and can't do. Just like you wouldn't leave a new hire with less than one month at your company to give an important presentation to your board of directors (because you have to go babysit your kids), you also wouldn't devalue the fact that if your organization is lucky enough to get a VISTA with a college degree and solid work experience, you should USE THEM ACCORDINGLY.

To be frank, I knew I wasn't going to last at that agency when I was driving the guy back to the office from a high school one day. I made a right turn into the slow lane on a four-lane street. He clutched at the bracing handles in the Jeep and squealed like a little mouse, shouting "LOOK OUT!" I calmly finished my turn, and the car in the far left lane continued past. The car had always been in that lane and I saw that it would be safe to make my turn. I could never get out of my head that he freaked out like a little girl, and to this day I feel so sorry for him.

Not gonna hold my tongue anymore.

The more I speak with others about my negative Americorps experience, the more I want to see some actual figures of how many participants complete a full year in the program. I want to see what kind of background they took into the program with them and what their degree of financial independence was. I don't want to discourage anyone who's interested in finding out more about joining, but someone has to stick their neck out to put some of the more negative aspects out there.

Out of the four VISTAs in my orientation group that were involved in the same community organization, two of us quit within 45 days. The guy from another NC city who had quit had a better opportunity fall into his lap and had basically stated in his resignation letter that he would be "foolish" to remain in Americorps when he could recieve full-time pay for doing similar work. When we corresponded during the first week on the job, we were both having similar experiences of doing a lot of grunt work and not having any real accountability.

I don't know the status of the other two participants, however given that their supervisors were present at the orientation or else active in their on-boarding, I'm almost certain that they recieved more support from their work sites than we did.

Every so often I run a Google search looking for other negative participant accounts of the program or else for some statistics. All I can find is the form you fill out to quit early (because if you quit, it's something wrong with you, not them). I just wanted to make myself feel better for leaving something I was so incredibly unhappy with.

I want to make it very clear that this program may NOT be suitable for people who have accumulated assets and benefits from previous work experiences, because the chance that you'll lose what you've gained is pretty high. You shouldn't need to have thousands of dollars in savings to be able to do AmeriCorps - that would have been the only way I could have been able to get through the program, even if I had wanted to stay. The living allowance they provide is supposed to help you cover your living expenses, but what it DOESN'T do is ensure that you'll be able to maintain your quality of life (the rationale is that you're supposed to be at the same income level as the people you serve). If you have a car, good health insurance, and a nice apartment, chances are good that you'll have to give up those things to make ends meet. Seeing as how bus transportation in Durham is neither particuarly safe nor running close to my home, giving up my car was out of the question.

The interesting thing is that many of these programs depend on you using your personal vehicle to get around. While Americorps provides "health benefits," after a full month of tenure, I had yet to recieve my card. They also insist that if you have other insurance, you use that as your primary because, well, the benefits aren't that good. I STILL HAVEN'T RECIEVED PAY STUBS or endorsed copies of all those forms I signed in duplicate, but they sure yanked my payroll entry fast after I quit.

Basically, anybody with enough smarts to apply for food stamps and section VIII and such before entering Americorps will do so. And can someone explain to me the point of enlisting volunteers to go out and help the community when those very volunteers are DRAINING THE SYSTEM OF THE LIMITED RESOURCES IT HAS TO GIVE OUT? UH, duuuuuuuuuuuuh!

The real kick in the ass is that because you're a "paid volunteer" and not an employee, if you have to leave the program you can't apply for unemployment benefits. Americorps doesn't make any effort to help participants re-enter professional/academic society smoothly after their service year. True, if you apply for the "stipend" instead of the educational award, they'll give you $1000 or so at the end (broken up over several pay periods) for the purpose of transitioning out of the program. In a lot of cities, you can't even put a deposit on an apartment without a full month's rent - who are they kidding?

I have an arm's length of complaints that I want to put out there, but for right now I'm going to cut this off. I've stated in the past why I left my particular program site, and now I'm stating why the program as a whole is deficient.

I now have the great displeasure of tactfully explaining to everyone I interview with why I was only at that place for a month. While some people are understanding, I can imagine that there are even more jobs that I've applied for that I haven't been called in to interview with because of that one-month stint. I AM NOT A FLAKE.

Self-Bribery

Let me tell you a little bit about my fiction writing process.

Unlike some writers, I don't like outlining plots and characters and such before I get underway. I tend to feel stifled by outlines. I know they're just an organizational device, but they sort of put my imagination on lockdown. Once the character is created, I tend to make some notes just to ensure they don't change stats mid-plot, but that's it.

A lot of my stories have come from fragments of crazy dreams I've had or spun off from other stories I've attempted that didn't work. Sometimes I have to wait for a section of a story to "come to me." I don't want to write for writing's sake - I fear that's why so many stories make a reader feel like, "Haven't I read this already?"

That is precisely why I've been working on one particular novella for 6 1/2 years. In fact, I originally began the piece for a certain quarterly contest. That contest has another deadline on 9/30 and I'm really trying to get it done this time.

I spent a lot of time refining the story last week and now I need to put an ending on it. The ending is ALWAYS hard for me, whether we're talking about a dry, boring critical analysis of some snippet of Wordsworth, or a one-page opinion on Lindsay Lohan's black leggings.

I have to make myself a promise here...if I finish the piece in question and get it postmarked on time, I'm buying myself a laser printer (pending employment...).

A-dee, a-dee, a-dee - that's all, folks.

I hate interviews. Have I told you that I hate interviews yet? Well, I hate interviews.

I had one today for an administrative position - I know I said I'd never go back, but it's for a publisher...so it's a foot in the door.

The reason that I really don't like interviews is that I can't make my mind move as fast as my mouth. So, even when people ask me questions that I know the answers to, I always sound like I'm bullshitting. It's easy for me to be colloquial on paper and still seem as though I have a brain, but out loud it's hard to be casual in conversation without reverting to country-isms ("y'all know what I mean?"). I never feel like I get it all out - I just can't get my point across.

I'm going to follow throw and put my thank you note in the mailbox. Then I'm going to cry for about fifteen minutes. Then I'm going to eat ice cream.

Like a bad Ricki Lake episode.

I think I just quit my job, or something. I won't get into the nitty gritty details of it, but the woman from the state office came out and met with me and my site supervisor. I walked in calmly, stated my true feelings (the non-pregnant Tiffany would have tempered herself), and left with my dignity.

The offer was made for me to stay with certain changes being made...namely that I'd be given work to do that adequately reflects my skill level. Err, too late. It's been a month. If he'd been around more than 15 minutes/week he'd know that I'm a frickin' superstar.

Of course, the site supervisor tried to pin everything on the fact that I hadn't communicated with him that I didn't have enough to do. When did he want me to do that? When he was at home with his kids or perhaps when he was out at yet another meeting? Right, it's my fault that he thought that I wasn't efficient enough to be given more work to do. Why didn't I ask for more work to do? Because I was already driving around the continent doing shitty menial jobs - why would I want to do MORE of that? And who in their right mind would say, "Um, I'm not doing that" knowing they can get fired for insubordination? He didn't even want to acknowledge that the work I was doing was menial. He didn't even want to acknowledge that he's sent me out to deliver paperwork more than once. Feh, how soon they forget.

Anyway, if he couldn't recognize that there was a problem before I had to get the state office gestapo on his ass, I'm not going to sit around there for another 11 months trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents. It's not my responsibility to request supervision. He's the supervisor - that's what he's there for...to SUPERVISE!

My choice now is to move laterally into the same position in another county or to tender my resignation altogether. I've already rejected staying at the current location and turned in my key.

If I can line a temp job up by Friday, I'm through with the whole national service thing altogether. See, I tried to be nice and sacrifice and I get pooed on. Karma's a bitch.

I'll just float around the temp world until after the baby is born and then take some time to find a job in my actual career path.

Nincompoop.

I had a revelation this morning sometime between snooze button hit number 3 and snooze button hit number 4.

My supervisor at work doesn't know what he's doing. "Bumbling fool" comes to mind.

You know, for most people, that tidbit of information would have been "DUuUh!" from jump, however me - being the undercover optimist that I am, can always find an excuse for why things aren't what I planned.

For one thing, both me and my husband sacrificed a lot by me taking this position. It's not that I was earning my worth at my previous job, but if you know anything about AmeriCorps or Peace Corps positions, you can guess that I'm earning approximately $diddlysquat right now. Part of what made leaving my last job so painless was that my standard of living wouldn't be effected all that much.

People in their right minds don't job shift when they're pregnant. They stick it out until after the baby is born and then just don't come back after maternity leave. I knew that this would be an easy way for me to jump ship and move into a position where I could actually put that experience on my résumé and at the end of the service year I'll have proof that I can do this job.

I have to make you understand that my learning curve is typically super-short - even in situations where I have no contacts, limited resources, and no supervision. If someone gives me a task to complete, you'd better be damn sure that by the time they come back I'll have found a way to get it done. I don't make excuses. If I can't figure out how, I figure out who to call. If something is impossible to do, I want to be able to tell my supervisor why.

Now, how does that go back to my supervisor not knowing what he's doing? There are several little incidents that have occured and mini-realizations I've had over the past couple of weeks. I'll give you an example.

Last Wednesday, we went out to a company to give a presentation to some people who were potential middle school student mentors. He had asked what I wanted to talk about during the presentation, and I was like "Huh? I don't want to talk about anything - I have no idea what's going on, so I'm just observing." Seriously. I said that. Dude knows he hasn't specifically trained me on anything. I ain't psychic. I don't know what promises he's made these people (that's another whole bag of worms I'm not even going to talk about right now - promises he makes people that I find from those people) I'm not going to go out running my mouth. Anyway, we get to the company, and the way the session was ran was sort of like a question-and-answer roundtable. I don't think that man answered a single direct question. In fact, there were a lot of statements he made that made my eyebrows shoot up "Whaaaaat?"

I'll just say that the conversation was about mentoring in specific and after a while it became apparent that this man had never mentored a student one-on-one in his life. I have. Rather than say anything that was contrary to what he was spewing, I kept my mouth shut for the sake of professionalism. Most simply: privileged students don't need the sort of mentoring we're tring to foster. You don't skirt around that fact because you think you'll be able to get a couple of more volunteers out of it. Let's cut the bullshit - this is Durham. In some of our schools, 80% of the students can't afford to pay for lunch.

You have to be upfront and say that chances are good they'd be matched with a student whose teacher has a REASON for referring them to the program. It ain't because that kid is interested in what the mentor does for a living, but it's not necessarily because they're little gangbangers. It might just be that they've discovered a new group of peers who for some reason have caused their grades to slip from one year to the next. That's how I was matched with my last mentee - the enrichment teacher wanted to find out why the little girl's grades had slipped. I found out from the girl's mother that she'd starting hanging out with some girls who were criticizing her for making good grades.

I'm rambling at 7 a.m. Lord.

Point is, I can't go to this dude and tell him he's got to change his style or else I'm out. Ultimately, he's not even my supervisior - a woman in the state office is. Today I have to get in touch with her and make sure she has an understanding of what's going on. I know the guy had a VISTA last year that he inherited from the previous director. I don't want it to seem like, "Well, she stuck it out - she did the job. Why can't you?" when the reality is that the woman didn't have a car and spent most of her time in the office doing clerical work (poorly).

I'm evaluating some options right now, but first and foremost is telling my state supervisor my grievances soon as possible. That way if I find something else in the meanwhile, she won't be put off because she knew I had beef.

I'll let you know what she says.

Yes, I'm recalcitrant.

You know, my work productivity slows down exponentially when I feel like I'm being "checked up on." I know I have certain things to do by certain times. I can get them done without incessant reminders because I'm professional. I sort of feel like if you're going to spend so much of your energy reminding me to do something, you should be doing that thing yourself.

Here's the deal. My job entails (and I say "entail" rather than "require" for a reason) that I drive around a lot. If I didn't have a car, the tasks I'd be assigned to would be equally demeaning, just less mobile. Instead of schlepping school supplies around and engaging in manual labor, I'd be sitting in that dusty-ass office waiting for the phone to ring. Whoopie.

If I have to run out and burn my gas to do a task, there's a 90% possibility that I ain't coming back to the office afterward. Especially being that my computer at work is so close to death that getting a document completed requires praying and holding your breath. Also, I park a block and a half away from the building. That's too damn much exercise to be making trips in and out of the office. I usually create most of my reports at home and get them to whoever needs them. It smells better here and the creepy people on the sixth floor don't pop their head into the office to bother me. The three phone calls that I didn't catch because I wasn't in the office can wait until the next day.

What I'm tiptoeing around saying right now is that I think it's bullshit that I have to fill out time sheets. Because VISTAs are on-call to serve 24 hours/day for 365 days, it's basically pointless to ask us to itemize our time spent working. I can just slap down "8 hours, 8 hours, 8 hours, 8 hours..." and know that there's no way the site supervisor can verify it. HE'S NEVER THERE. But the reality is, I don't know how much time I actually work at home. Just like I can't itemize how much productive time I have in that damned office (because it's pretty close to zero).

What am I going to do? Well, if he wants time records for the past four weeks, I'll give him some numbers. I'll pull them right out of the sky, and then ask who's signing off on his time sheets.

"And...what will you be doing?"

I'm pissed. I'm almost even livid at this point. To not make a short story long, I'll just say at this point that I spend a good part of last night ranting myself red in the face about my current work situation. Yes, that one. The new one. Why? Because I've been made a lot of promises that haven't been made good, but I don't have time to explicate on that right now.

What I'm really pissed about this morning is that [(1) I haven't had breakfast, won't have time for breakfast (or to pick up lunch for that matter) and I'm getting lightheaded] and that I have to be at some fucking back-to-school event in about 20 minutes to set up a table. Why am I blogging about it instead of hopping to? Because if I go down there without getting this off my chest, I'm going to bite someone's head off.

I was supposed to bring a few things to the event: a volunteer sign-up sheet, a donation sheet, an information flyer (all of which I had to create last night on my home computer), business cards, etc. There was a list of things that the executive director wrote down that we should take, like the banner and some other display items.

I had no idea that I would be responsible for taking ALL OF THEM. When I last saw him yesterday, we were at some company recruiting volunteers in RTP when he scurried out to leave me to pack my car with school supplies the company donated. He said he'd see me this morning at the event.

Oh.kay. I knew I had to come into the office this morning to print things, so here I am. I didn't realize until I came in that he wasn't going to take ANYTHING.

Let me tell you something. My fucking car is packed to the ceiling with school supplies because I haven't coordinated with the person who's supposed to receive the donation. Scott is driving my car today because it'll be less likely to get broken into where he parks. I have to take all this shit to the event, find parking, and then pay for my own parking. Then I have to sit there for four hours while the ED is at home with his kids. Then I have to pack up all this shit and bring it back to the office.

And in 4 weeks I haven't been reimbursed a penny for gas. It's going to be hard to put a fucking smile on my face and be nice to the public when I am so fucking pissed off at how poorly this program is being run.

Manning the Booth

Tomorrow, my agency is participating in this back-to-school bash thing at a local hotel. What that means is that we're setting up a table with information on volunteering and such.

The event is really geared towards kids, so there will be a ballroom full of little screamers. They'll be entertained by other stuff going on in the room, so I won't be interfacing with a whole lot of people, but the adults that do stop by will probably want to ask me an assload of questions I don't have politically correct answers to (i.e. "why don't you work with my son's school?").

The thing is, I have to be there for four hours. My supervisor, depending on how bored his kids get, will be there for one. One hour. One. And then I get abandoned to slump in my chair and look pitiful.

As much as I recognize the "throw her into the water and see if she swims" approach to things, I think in general it's a bad idea to leave someone who's been working with your agency for less than four weeks in a role they didn't expect they'd be playing. Because I'm awesome, I know that I'm not going to embarrass myself, but at the same time I really feel like this is a task a more outgoing person should be involved in. I suck at making small-talk and I won't make eye contact with a person unless I'm actively conversing with them. I could just do without the crowds, thanks.

*does Snoopy dance*

For those of you familiar with Blown Fuse before it was assimilated into the munu collective, you might remember certain video clips of me dancing around like a fool to demonstrate my glee at certain things. For those who haven't seen them, let's just say it involves leaping about like a gazelle and pumping my fist "Yes! Yes!"

If I still had that clip, I'd put it riiiiight here. If I weren't pregnant, I'd make a new one for you.

Anyway, you might remember me bitching about how a certain writing contest I'd entered was frustrating the hell out of me because long after the deadline had passed for them to post the winners, I still hadn't got my "Thanks! Here's your story back! Please recycle!" letter. I'm typically less concerned on winning because I'm such an amateur and I've no illusions that my writing is any more fantastic than anyone else's, but I've got to have a "yes" or "no."

It's like my previous boss used to say: "I come to work every day to get decisions, most of which will be 'no'." I need that "no" so I can move on.

Well, about a month ago (and mind you, this is almost a full year after the contest deadline), I got an email from one of the staff members of Simon & Schuster congratulating me on being one of 10 second prize winners of the "Be the Next Downtown Press Girl" contest and telling me to look for my prize in the mail.

I thought she was bullshitting me. Scott asked why I couldn't just be happy for myself, and I think my response was something like "Eh." I couldn't even remember what the story I submitted was about and had to go read it (I'll refrain from giving you my criticisms a year later).

Well, my prize came today. Hee hee! I am now the proud owner of 10 Downtown Press books - 9 of which I haven't read. I own a lot of Downtown Press books. I didn't know exactly how many until I did an inventory of my bookcase a couple of weeks ago. I'm excited that I want to read all nine of these books...and that I didn't have to pay for them. Yay! Go me!

And no you can't read the story.

The books are:

How to give a negative reference

I was poking about at Mac's reading her post on being a job leper, where someone brought up in the comments that she should have a decoy call her references to make sure someone she listed isn't talking shit about her. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not illegal to say something that's true and can be proven (like the fact that you clocked in an hour late every day for a year and were warned about it four times before being fired), but in general, if you say something negative that prevents the job seeker from finding employment, you could be sued.

So, if you tell someone that so-and-so was bossy and had an attitude problem, they would have grounds to say that you caused them to be stigmatized by their potential employer (or some such bullshit).

I was actually thinking about giving a couple of past coworkers negative references if anyone had called, but fortunately that hasn't happened. I'm glad I've come across this article on eHow: How to Give a Negative Employee Reference. Now I realize I should keep my mouth shut seeing as how those people could be potentially litigous.

"And that's HOW much in pounds?"

Had my monthly ob appointment this morning. I've gained five pounds since last month's weigh-in. Supposedly that's normal. Even if the kid is gaining half a pound per week from now on, that means that the rest is coming from me. *looks at chubby arms*

I'm sure that most pregnant women say this at some point or other, but I've never weighed this much in my life. I know I'll lose most of the weight within a couple of weeks of the baby being born, but damn I feel like a blimp. So much so that I fear that unless I walk exactly through the middle of a door frame I'll scrape the sides. I'm sure part of that is a bit of body dysmorphia, but I have to tell you it isn't stopping me from eating.

So. Hungry.

"We're parked on lot 33."

I went to a childhood development training session through my agency last week, and this funny comment stuck in my head. A woman was retelling some anecdote about driving some ghetto kid home from a volunteer function (I'm paraphrasing; I don't think she said "ghetto"). She remarked that yeah, she'd drive out to the projects 'cause she really don't care.

I couldn't help but to think "Wow, she's super-tact." Oh, and she's white.

Okay, see, well, you'll be hard-pressed to find the Tiffany driving through any of Durham's bad spots because we statistically have way too many murders for a city our size. And I'm too young to die.

However, I will be driving through the sticks tomorrow to drop off some supplies. And I will be making a stop at at least one trailer park. Now, I'm country. Not exactly Britney Spears country, but I'm country enough to know that country folks like to keep guns loaded and cocked. Hell, my grandma had one just in case some fool tried to break and enter. Thankfully, she never had to take it out in my presense, but I knew where it was.

Even knowing that, I'd rather take my chances out in the boonies any day. I speak the language. I've got mud splatter on my Jeep. I'll blend in.

Uh uh, too early for that.

Um. Something told me today wouldn't be simple. I left the office yesterday at around 3:20 because my computer here runs Windows 98. Because it runs Windows 98 and is lacking a lot of the programs I need to edit graphics, open certain types of files, etc., I had to go home to use my computer so that I could create a flyer to send out (that really needed to go out yesterday, but anyway). I couldn't even get by downloading a trial program from Download.com because nothing there supports Windows 98.

Anyhow. After spending much of yesterday pissed off, I figured I'd come in today to a fairly lazy day (save certain asinine tasks I won't even discuss). I unpacked my bag and turned on my behemoth CPU. Behold the start-up failure message!

At that point I started grinding my teeth. I was able to start it finally by holding the power button and doing a cold reboot, but just to be on the safe side, I'm going to need to back up all the files that I've created since I've been here.

Oh, and there's no USB port for me to stick my portable drive into, so I have to email everything to myself.

I can't wait for this computer to explode. And this fucking laser printer that you have to feed one page at a time into. At least then, I could justifiably work at home.

Strippers

This is particuarly directed towards my geek readers, but any non-geeks with connections can take a stab at it as well.

I've sort of promised that I'd look into getting an assload of donated (working) laptop computers for an Elementary School the agency I work with has programs going in.

Now, I don't want your laptop specifically, but I want to know if I get a bunch of oh-so-magnanimous people to donate their laptops (that they were going to dispose of anyway), there will be far less problems with getting them to part with them if we have a means in place to strip their hard drives of sensitive information.

I know that the only real way to erase that information permanently is to set a fire to your hard drive, but that's not practical in this instance. Is there software available that anyone can recommend we use that will at least give people some peace of mind?

*feels the need to shower*

Some dirty old man just came into the office and offered me a mint.

Actually, I saw him first on the elevator this morning coming in - he's the guy that goes around to all the suites to see if any of the lights have blown out. He eyed my belly unabashedly. I was giddy with relief when he got off on the bottom floor.

An hour later, here I am, minding my own business...whiling away the hours before my supervisor comes in by blogging, and here comes the dude again. "Shit," my inner monologue said. He checks the light, and proceeds to offer me a mint, which I took (and ate. it was wrapped.). He asks me questions about my pregnancy and whether the baby will be spoiled and blah blah blah and tells me all about his fatherless childhood.

He left after that, and I just shook my head and went back to my time-wasting. Less than five minutes later he comes back to ask me if my husband works in the building. No, he doesn't. "Okay, well, you make sure you tell him to treat you right or I'll come after him."

*blink blink*

Okay, I need an office with a door. The only other one in this suite doesn't have air conditioning.

Dragging Ass

Either I'm coming down with the famed pregnancy nose congestion, or I'm in the beginning stages of a nasty cold (or end of a cold I didn't know I had). I hate colds. One of the reasons I like keeping an obscenely large amount of personal space between myself and strangers is that I'm absolutely miserable when I'm sick. I haven't had a cold since September of last year.

I suspect some runny-nosed brat on the plane last week passed their filth on to me. It's even worse being sick when you're pregnant because all your medication options become limited. I can take Tylenol for my throat, Claritin or Benadryl for the sneezing, but there's nothing I can effectively take for the congestion.

I've been absolutely exhausted all week. At Tuesday I was sitting at my desk fighting to keep my eyes open. I got up to pee thinking some activity would wake me up and I started falling asleep on the toilet. What finally woke me up was loudly chomping on a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

I left work at around 1:45 yesterday (I'm still building my schedule. I don't know if I want to do a traditional 40 hour week working 8 hours/day or if I want to work extended hours four days/week and take a day off. The upside of being "on call" 24 hours/day is that you can pretty much pick and choose when you'll be in the office...within reason) and went home to watch t.v. on the couch before I had to leave for a focus group.

Because I still haven't recovered from the stress of last week's trip and I'm sick and tired now, I'm not being 100% effective sitting here at work. Eh. As long as I appear to be effective, I'm technically doing my job.

Too much information.

People are stupid. I'm serious. Through force of habit I clicked on the Outlook Express shortcut in my shortcut menu on my work computer. Of course, I immediately realized what I'd done and tried to close the program before all the "outlook can not connect to the server" shit tried to pop up.

Well, lookie here, some people don't know how to delete their personal emails when they leave the job. I don't know if you know anything about VISTA positions, but in general you can't have outside work. Well, one girl was "President and CEO" of her own organization and was using this company's resources to promote her own business. She was also sending off various emails in regards to her child support claim. Okay.

The other chick that just left has a glut of personal emails stored on the computer as well.

Folks, if you're going to waste time working at a nonprofit at least cover your tracks.

Maybe I'll Close the Door

We have security guards sitting by all the public entrance doors in the building I work in. That doesn't say much other than the fact that on occassion you get some very unsavory characters darkening your doorstep when you work downtown. There were a couple of our (very disheveled and probably under the influence) homeless citizens standing around the parking lot yesterday during lunch, panning for change, just as an example.

It's the job of the security peeps to make everyone they don't recognize sign in (and tow vehicles out of your fucking paid parking place if you so demand). Occasionally, a few weirdos still get upstairs. Weirdos in daisy dukes wearing more hair gel than The Fonz. They walk around the hallways loud as hell, announcing such things as "It's hot - I'm gon' sit down," and you sit and hope that they aren't eyeballing the one chair that's in front of you desk by the door.

One member of the scanktified whoreiness church just poked her head in the door and asked where Mr. So-and-so was, to which I replied in a dry tone: "I have no idea who that is." It wasn't a lie. The cracked-out troll really thought she knew people on this floor. I think someone from the technical college down the hall finally told them they were barking up the wrong tree.

Fuck. Some woman just told a girl who was attempting to drink out of the water fountain not to "drink that water." I had half a bottle of that foul swill yesterday. Wish someone had told me.

Eep!

You know, you can see a lot of different things working in various jobs, but you're never quite prepared to react to "I'm sorry, but he's dead." Fortunately, I got that in automated email form and didn't have to stutter and stammer my way through condolences.

I sent a request for quote to the organization's preferred printer through their website and got an automated email back saying that the person who monitored the box, Tim, had passed away suddenly in the middle of the night. Wow. I don't know whether to forward the entire message to the customer service address provided or do some selective editing and pretend I never saw it.

People still say that?

I shit you not, I just heard some woman in the hallway say "It's quittin' time."

For me, the luxury of not having to drive that hellacious commute that I had at my last job is all the motivation I need to keep my ass in this [donated] chair until I finish what I need to for the day.

Am I supposed to be excited?

So, I unofficially start my new position today. Unofficially, as technically my start date was Saturday. You see, I'm technically on-call 24 hours/day and 7 days/week, however the only site supervisors who enforce that are masochists.

It weird for me to be up this early on a work day and not be at work yet. My supervisor doesn't get in until around 9:20, so I have to sit around in the meanwhile and twiddle my thumbs. I've had a semi-nutritious breakfast, I smell squeaky clean, and the cats have been fed. Now I just have to wait half an hour to leave...I don't want to be sitting in the hallway in front of a locked office...because time that noone witnesses is basically time you're not there.

I guess I could finally unpack my suitcase from last week's trip, but I'm not feeling like doing anything "above and beyond" right now. I think I'll go eat a candy bar. Maybe I'll go spend my last $5 in cash on a frappuchino so that I can put on that facade of peppiness that some people like to do on their first days.

Or maybe I can make a bet with myself of how many times I'll have to pee today. I'm thinking 10.

Drained

One of the things that I hated about college and being in academic settings in general is how when some people are drawn into group discussion, they're unable to see the forest for the trees.

I'm just not the kind of person who'll try to dominate a roundtable discussion - if my point has already been made by someone else and I have nothing else of value to add, I keep my mouth shut. Even if I could have stated the point more eloquently or required less follow-up than the person making my p.o.v., I'm not going to jump in and beat the dead horse.

In case you didn't know, the focus of the program I'll be participating in the next year, (Americorps*VISTA) is in eradicating poverty: specifically by addressing what communities have expressed local causes of poverty to be. So, if people in my Durham community believe that folks are being brought down by dropping out of school and by gang activity, we work on those facets. It's not a program where the government tries to fix a problem by giving people subsidies.

Anyhow, we were having a group discussion about a) what poverty is and b) what causes it. People in the room were getting so heated over what they felt the causes to be (shy of causing real arguments, though), and I couldn't help but to think that the idea of poverty is such a subjective concept. The government can set guidelines for income to assess what poverty is, but when it comes down to it, isn't poverty a subjective thing?

I would be hesitant to call someone impoverished unless I heard them refer to themselves as being that way. Two families with identical income and identical resources may think of poverty two different ways. One may think that being impoverished is not having a television/car/name brand wardrobe. Another may think that it means they lack basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter.

In my opinion, the only way to eradicate poverty is to strive for 100% education of resources in a community - that is to say that every single household knows of what is available in their geographic constraints that can either help them better themselves, or at least be comfortable at the level they are. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to be rich (or even middle class, for that matter) - just that they'll have the same opportunity to access what they need. If they know resources are available and choose not to use them, then they're not impoverished - they're just poor.

I want to help people help themselves. The only way I can make my service worthwhile is if the community takes ownership of these programs after we help set them up.

Bend me, shape me, any way you want me.

So...here I am in a hotel room with no Internet connectionafter a shuttle ride to the local Target, here I am in a hotel room with a wireless Internet connection. I wrongly assumed that if I brought my laptop that I'd be able to plug into the high-speed connection. Unfortunately, the hotel only provides a wireless connection. My circa 1999 prehistoric laptop doesn't have a wireless card; there are See 'n Say's more technologically innovative than this thing. I bought an wireless adapter identical to the one I have on my computer at home and bing bada boom here we are.

The hotel check-in was a nightmare. I had specifically requested a single room several weeks ago and was told I'd have to pay something like $78.01/night (instead of the $0 that double-room occupants pay). I swallowed hard and said "Fine." I really didn't want to have to deal with the anxiety of sharing a room with a stranger. I called the person at the corporation state office to confirm and she told me that I was all set.

Lies! Not only did they book me into a double room with the roommate accessory, but they had no record that I had requested it at all. Gee, THANKS lady. I'm glad I know now to ask at least two separate people for confirmation. Anyway, after much ado, here I am in a double room occupied only by myself. The bright side is that I only had to pay for half the room cost. Originally I was told that if I wanted my own room I'd have to pay for it out of pocket (which didn't make 100% good sense to me), but I was going to suck it up. Now that I'm here, I know that the corporation is supposed to stay for my stay and I pay for the empty bed in the room with me. Either way, the hotel makes more money because they have one person in a double room.

I can see cliques starting to form already. So many of these people are KIDS! Like, just graduated from college and think that the world is they're oyster types. Here I am all stoic and reserved and old feeling, and they're all talking in exclamation points: "Yay! That's so cool! So are you from here? Awesome!" I feel like these people need to sit in room filled with Ritalin gas.

I did find myself drawn into a group of real grown-ups, one of which had to pause during our Target excursion to thank God for the fact that she could have adult conversation for a change instead of with her kids.

So far we've had one group session where we went around the room doing those embarrasing exercises that require you to find five people born in your birth month, etc. - forced mingling. Usually I'd be perfectly content to be a wallflower, but I'm completely comfortable with the fact that I don't know a damn person here, so if I embarrass myself, it's not like I have to see them on Monday.

More from the front tomorrow.

The Sweet Taste of Freedom

You know that song "Born Free" that they're always playing on commercials to demonstrate that a long personal battle has finally been won? I'm playing that song in my head right now. I would be doing leaps and pirouettes around the house if it weren't for my recent change in balance. Instead, I just keep pumping my fists in glee (see this illustrated on the right).

As soon as I left the office yesterday afternoon I realized that I didn't turn in my key. I thought to myself "Shit." I wasn't going to turn around to take it back (because that'd be conspicuous), so I plotted to just bring it in early this morning. I was actually considering mailing it in, but that'd be a pretty punk-bitch thing to do.

I was in the office for about an hour and a half switiching out computer parts and writing missives for a couple of people. As soon as the one guy who doesn't have a key pulled up, I was out the side door faster than you can say "Fuck yeah!" I passed by one coworker on the main road on the way in...I don't think she saw me. I just totally bypassed several hours of, "So, what is it you'll be doing?" I rock.

There's something liberating about being at home at 9 a.m. on a work day. It's like, "Aaaaaahhhh." Now I just have to figure out what I'll do for the next couple of weeks (if in town, that is). Certainly nothing productive.

giddy with anticipation

So, today will effectually be my last day here at work. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but given certain peoples' predictable natures, I'm not going to stick around for the barrage of questions about what I'll be doing and such (my planned answer would have been "I'm going to be the new Jasmine at Disneyland). I don't want to be taken out to lunch. I don't want people to gather around an ice cream cake purchased for me that I won't even eat (who the hell likes the idea of their company celebrating their departure?).

As soon as I can reprogram a couple of computers and shuffle some papers off my desk and onto someone else's, I'm out. I'll be spending the next six days at home in front of the television in a vegetative state and fielding phone calls from frantic people who can't figure out how to XYZ. Next Thursday we leave for Tampa, and when we get back, I have a few more days at home to sweep cat hair. Then I'm off to Atlanta to be reprogrammed on how to be a good person non-corporate service.

Don't hate.

UPDATED: 12:44 pm

Still at work. As predicted, a couple of last-minute projects have been sprung on me. *mad*

"Does not share well with others."

By now you all know that I've taken a position through AmeriCorps. I was viciously reminded via mail today that I'll have to share a hotel room with someone during training next month.

I just don't like strangers that much. I don't know anyone else participating in the program this year, so I can't request a particular room assignment. For four days, I can tolerate someone I know at least a little bit. It's luck of the draw. I could get some tree-hugging weirdo that wears the same pair of hemp underwear each day, or worse yet - someone who has to watch television to fall asleep. Don't dare interrupt a pregnant woman's sleep.

I haven't been forced to share lodging with another female since the end of 2001, and that didn't end well. She was trifling, and I was never home.

As I'll be 5 1/2 months pregnant when I'm there, I want a room and bathroom to myself. I don't want to be sharing a room with some 18-year-old who makes friends easily and will have people sitting on her bed (and mine) all hours of the night chatting about how excited she is about starting college. Seeing has how my pay will be cut severely after this month, I should just work through the pain and take the free room, right? The very idea makes me want to break out in hives.

I'm also regretting that I rejected driving down there in my own vehicle in favor of a pre-paid plane ticket. If I end up having to pay for a room out-of-pocket to guarantee peaceful sleep, I'm not going to want to rent a car. Also, I'll want to book the cheapest hotel room I can find, even if it's not in the same venue as the rest of the trainees. If I'm across town, I'm going to have to drive something...shit.

Have you ever been forced to share a hotel room with a coworker (for business purposes)?

How 'bout reading before answering?

I just emailed some woman at corporate to find out some information about a certification exam. I asked her very pointed questions so that she would not refer me back to what I had just read on the website. I actually asked for clarification of what the website said because it had conflicting information.

What did she do? She copied and pasted information from the website into my email and then referred me to the website for more information.

That irks the shit out of me.

And their on-hold music is HORRID.

You know how you call a utility company to cancel a service and the rep transfers you to the "orders department" to take care of that?

I sometimes wonder if the people who express an intrest in cancelling a service are put into a special queue where they're on hold twice as long.

Yeah, beacuse I just spent like 15 on hold with Verizon trying to cancel a number that I told them to cancel two months ago.

Someone should do a study on that: whether people who are signing up for new service hear a live voice faster than people doing account maintenance or closures.

How I Read a Résumé

Because I've had the misfortune great priviledge of sorting through and disqualifying at least 100 résumés over the past few weeks while looking for a new assistant, I'd like to share with you all a compilation of a few of my pet peeves. Feel free to copy and paste this in entirety to email to your job-seeking friends and/or foes. While this may piss a lot of you off, I have to be perfectly upfront by saying that a résumé is nothing but a document that has information that gives hiring authorities reasons to NOT pursue you for a position. I'll explain why.

1) Putting your photo on your résumé:
Do you know how much frickin' information a person can get out of a photograph? As it is in most situations I can determine your sex (or at least your gender) just from how you spell your name. (If a person named "Bobbie" is looking for a construction job, I'd be hard-pressed to find a single male hiring authority that would take her, and it is a her, seriously for a job requiring heavy lifting).

That out of the way, I don't care how fucking cute you think you are. Chances are that if you're applying for a clerical job your direct supervisor is probably female. Sorry, that's just the way it is. You being cute and blonde is not going to sway me one way or the other. In fact, I'd be insulted at your blatant idiocy.

Lastly, under no circumstances should you INCLUDE A PICTURE OF YOUR ENTIRE NUCLEAR FAMILY with your CV. So, you're married and have a buncha kids? Um, are you going to be at work on time with all them kids to dress and feed?

Those (marital status, # of children, etc.) are questions that interviewers are NOT ALLOWED TO ASK YOU. Why would you put that information out there?

2) Vague objective lines:

I loooooooove it when people include a well-written objective line that actually makes me feel like they know what the hell they applied for. Objective lines that read "To obtain employment" or "To support my family by finding full-time employment" are absolute turn-offs.

You MUST change your objective for each different type of position you apply for and it has to be SPECIFIC. For example, If you're looking for a position in HR and are trying to get in on the ground floor, it makes more sense to say "To progress to a Human Resources Generalist role by contributing my skills and education as a Human Resources Administrator" than "Human Resources." Pretend that we're dumb and have no idea why you sent your information to us.

While that's on my mind, if you ever apply for a position through a website such as Careerbuilder, you MUST make sure that the person on the receiving end can tell that you really knew what you were applying for especially if your skillset isn't a perfect match for what is required.

3) Cover letters can benefit you!:
And I'm not just talking about the generic version that you copy and paste EVERYDAMNWHERE.

A cover letter should tell me why you would be good for an advertised position. It should contain information that I can't surmise from your résumé. For example, if you've been a teacher for 12 years and decide that you want to have a sudden career change, you need to explain why - especially if you're applying for a less-skilled position. You don't have to put people all into your business and say "I want to stay home with my cats and kids," but you can say that "At this time I am seeking a position with more flexible hours that will allow me to work some from home."

Again, make us feel like you know what you're applying for. It pisses me off when I call someone to phone screen them for a position and they don't even know what the specs of the job are, or else think they can get around them. If the pay is $30,000, don't send me a cover letter saying that at your last position you earned $55,000. Next!

4) Don't oversell yourself:
Here's the deal - if I need a new assistant, my boss will begrudgingly let me go out and get one. If he's going to dip into the company coffers to pay for someone to help me get my productivity up, I'd better get them for as cheaply as possible. I, therefore, look for people at the very bottom at what the pay range for the position is. I don't want my assistant to get paid anything near what I get paid. That's putting it simply.

So, if it comes down to two résumés where one is a person with less than one year of exerience in an office and the more experienced person who I assume wants to be paid more, I'd hire the cheaper one and spend some time training them.

No, I don't know what the second person's salary expectations are or what their current personal situaiton is. I just know that it would be less financial strain for the company to get the person with the longer learning curve.

How do you prevent yourself from sounding overqualified for a position? Well, for starters you can take out any information about your previous positions that do not specically mirror responsibilities you will have in your new job. So, if you were an office manager in your last job, to get a job as a payroll administrator you'd need to clarify everything you did as an office manager that related to payroll and downplay everything else. The fact that you wore a bunch of different hats isn't going to help you when you're trying to go into a specialized role.

Figure out what the responsibilities of the job you're applying for are and use your résumé to explain how you've already been successful doing it.

*grumbles incoherantly*

So, 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I'm at the office...and not the warm, comfortable office in my living room, either.

I'm here administering an airport screener exam...because that's how we keep our overhead down - we pimp our computers out to other agencies.

Am I a team player or what? I could be at home in bed with the cat dancing "feed me" jigs on my chest.

Watered-down

Some cheap-ass has been pouring water into the hand soap bottle in the women's bathroom every time the level gets low.

There are two unopened bottles in the little cupboard in plain sight.

I can't believe that people are that cheap with stuff the company pays for! I can understand if we took turns buying it, but sheeze...

Just drowning in it.

Okay, so...about that water cooler bottle problem? It happened again. Being at the end of my rope this morning, I crafted and distributed the following email to the entire office:

Subject: FLIP THE BOTTLE!

Nothing annoys me more at 7 am than to come into the office and find that there’s not enough water in the cooler for eight ounces of hot tea. This I learn, of course, after placing cup with bag in it beneath the little red spigot and having only enough water come out for the teabag to wade in. This has happened FOUR times in the past 10 days or so. When you fill your cup and hear that hissing, empty noise – that means flip it.

I’m especially confused by this; anyone taller than me can see through the bottle bottom that there’s no water in it. Please do the polite thing and replace the bottle before returning to your seat.

t.p.

We'll see how this goes over.UPDATED TO ADD: Here are the responses from the email.

1) "Bwahahahahahaha!!!"
2) "When I saw the subject line I thought you were emailing me a game!"
3) "Next time, call me at home and I'll come flip it for you." (Yeah, right.)
4) "While on that note, please let Tiffany know when you've used the last of a form so that she can print some more."

Damn, my back hurts.

Yesterday the office drove down to Charlotte for the corporate North Atlantic regional conference. Because half of the people in my office had gone out the night before and got shitfaced, the ride down was pretty quiet. I learned that one of my coworkers continuously farts in his sleep.

I got to meet with a lot of people who have made a lot of money. I even met the company president. I heard through the grapevine that he's a consumate womanizer.

It was an interesting, and almost enjoyable experience. It would have been sort of fun to have went up on Thursday for the first day events and checked out this morning after the conference closed. At least we would have gotten to use the indoor pool.

A Little Levity

(I'm at home "sick" today. Likely I'll be able to screw up enough hostility to go into work tomorrow and not give a shit about anything or anyone for that matter.)

A coworker got this careerbuilder applicant in her email last night...it's likely a hoax, but if he's real - what a nutjob!

You have received an application to your job posted on CareerBuilder.com. You can respond to this candidate by replying to this email. Your Reference ID for this job is 0000400.

Job Information

Job Title: Process Improvement Leader
Location: US-NC-Gastonia
Job Details: Click Here

Contact Information

Name: tariq last name withheld to protect the stoopid
Email: ptariq95@domain withheld to protect the stoopid

Cover Letter

No cover letter submitted.

Resume

CareerBuilder was able to convert the text present in the body of the email

Dear Sir (Tiffany says: I do believe that "Kate" is obviously a woman's name, right? Okay. Proceed.)

Im chemical engineer, i passed my degree 2002, till now im jobless, why
- b/c i got accedent in my leg, i was hospitalized and got 10
operations in my leg, l was sick till 2 years, now im searching job,
every company refuse me, they ask me why did u not do a job, why u
late have u experience - but i tell them no sir ?, i have proof in my
leg, i tell then sir i can do a job without pay for gaining exp but
they dont give me, im very trouble, my mother weap a lot for me, my
father dead in 1996, im 32 years old, i have right for marry or not
am i not human being tell me plz - im typing but also im weaping
now, but u dont believe at me, what is condition at me, i can tell u
one thing im very work harder but my luck is very bad, i know if i
will sucide then GOD will send me in hell, i fear hell a lot, i think
some time for my mother, otherwise ???, plz sir give me job im
chemical engineer, im very work harder u can try me, if not u can
beat me u can kill me, oof
course, plz sir give me job, plz think sir plz, im very upset now a day, i want
to be some its my right, i can do a job without pay sir just i have to gain
exp, some time my mother tell to my sisters that Tariq shouldn't have to come
in the world, why why sir my mother tell to my sisters tell me sir - ha ve u
answer

Thanks

Tariq

Boy, oh, boy.

*shakes weak, tired fist*

Paul from Snooze Button Dreams commented that it really gets his goat when the big girly men see that the water cooler bottle is empty, however rather than replacing it, walk away and wait for someone else to flip it.

>:|. You put a jinx on me, man.

I came into the office, fully expecting to have my hot tea before I start my routine, but guess what? There's no water in the cooler. Guess who had to flip it? Yup. I tore my back and shoulders up last night in pilates class, and I'm flipping water bottles that weigh more than my desk.

Bunch of savages.

Truer words were never spoken.

We ask new hires to take a personality survey when they're interviewing to see if they're going to able to fit into the company culture. I took one many moons ago, but never read it. I retook it yesterday during lunch: the results are in the extended entry. Basically, it says (very professionally) that I'm a stark raving bitch but I get 'er done.

Summary
Tiffany, your responses indicate that you apply yourself to perfecting systems, and you prefer to rely upon your own work rather than training fellow workers and delegating to them. You are highly creative and, at the same time, very quality control-oriented. You are inclined to work your way diligently through the course of reaching a decision. Your concern about making a correct decision is enhanced by your capacity to see ways of improving upon it. Exaggerated statements cause you to be skeptical.

Communication Style
Tiffany, you are very direct, candid and fluent in your communication style, and you appreciate straightforward answers, based on reality, to your questions. You are very effective in your use of a commanding style rather than a persuasive one. You tend to get straight to the point. Also, Tiffany, you are reserved and prefer to communicate with people one-on-one. You need to be spoken to and listened to in a respectful tone. You express yourself straightforwardly and with candor. You are analytical and you like to be in control. You say exactly what you mean and prefer that others do the same. You are only interested in details if they relate directly to getting results, you readily adjust systems, and you might appear strongly critical of others without intending to do so.

Tiffany, you relate best to a team when it fits into your selected goals. You drive hard to get things done and, in doing so, may forget other's feelings and ignore their time restraints. You do not tolerate mediocrity readily. You are pleasant as long as results are being accomplished.

You push aggressively to get the job done, and prefer not to work under close supervision. You function well when given problems to solve, when allowed to make things happen, and when given specific goals. You are adept at handling technically oriented projects.

Leadership
Leadership Style: Authoritative
You perform your leadership role by assuming a tone of direct command and a concise use of words. You are inwardly directed, prefer to think matters through alone, and show a lot of self-confidence in your ability to accomplish projects. You tend to take on additional responsibilities and may be disinclined to delegate authority. Within your realm of expertise, you make very quick decisions. You want fast, accurate results and may be reluctant to delegate details.

Conscientiousness
You are able to apply self-discipline and thoroughness to your work. Your orientation toward tasks and achievement is guided by an above-average ability to plan, organize, and fulfill specific goals and obligations. Your motivations are usually positive and focused on results.

MOTIVATION

Motivation Needs:
Tiffany, you tend to be motivated by daily challenges and tangible results. Power, prestige, and rewards for results achieved are important to you. You prefer direct answers and candor in communication. You desire freedom from constant supervision, and control over your own environment. You are most productive when operating under strong, capable leadership, when allowed to make decisions regarding your daily routine, and when you have bottom line responsibility for business activities.

You are demotivated by the absence of challenges or significant goals. You can be frustrated when vague answers are given to direct questions, and when your day-to-day tasks are closely supervised. Vacillating leadership demotivates you, especially when it makes you unable to give straight answers to your co-workers or staff. Primary Motivation:
Daily challenges.
Tangible results.
A position with power and prestige.
Direct answers and candor in communications.
The respect of the leadership.
A generous amount of freedom from controls, constant supervision and details.
The ability to measure results on a regular basis in monetary terms, (keep score).
Opportunities to be in charge, make decisions and be responsible for the results achieved. Primary Demotivation:
Not challenged.
Supervised too closely.
You receive vague answers to questions.
Leadership vacillates.
You lack significant goals.

Emotional / Intelligence
Tiffany, your responses indicate that your Emotional Intelligence is exceptionally well developed. You tend to recognize your own emotions, moods, and drives as they occur. You perform accurate self-appraisals of your talents and abilities. You are able to attune your own style to the emotional reactions of others. You strive continually for self-improvement, and you prefer that your work be aligned with your personal values. You tend to feel at ease in almost any social situation. You form carefully considered judgments about people or situations.

Busybusybusy

It was my intention to take today off work, but after learning that Puffy wouldn't be available to pick up until after 5, I decided I didn't want to waste my remaining 2005 vacation day. I'll use it sometime at the end of February when there are no holidays in sight - the office doesn't close for a holiday again until good Friday.

It feels as if I got a lot accomplished today. I got the water in the expansion space switched to our account (after twenty minutes on the phone with the City of Durham I can tell you that such is quite a feat). I ordered business cards for a new associate. Put together a contract package for yet another new hire. Got three new computers set up.

The one thing I did not get accomplished was getting the police on the case of our stolen phone service. I called the police this morning to follow up on a fax I sent last month and was told that I either needed to come to the station in person to file a report or dial 911 and have an officer come to me.

I left work at 2:30 to drive to the police department on my way home. Being there, I learned that there were no officers there and I would have to wait a while for one. The secretary suggested that when I get into work tomorrow I simply dial 911.

So...yeah, I'm totally putting that into my Palm for 9 o'clock tomorrow: "Dial 911."

On an interesting note, I figured out how to use my PalmOne to download driving directions (because I'm directionally inept). It was so cool using that to navigate around Durham instead of a stapled pile of paper.

Stupid People

As I mentioned in a previous post, in my office we are involved with a government contract where we take people who want to work for the government into our office and administer computer-based screening tests to them.

On occasion, people decide that they really don't want a job that badly and either don't show up or else come in late.

Today was an inclement weather day in some surrounding counties. Durham County was not one of those. Schools were opening on time, so there was really no excuse people could give for not showing up.

This morning, one idiot called in at 9:05 to say they couldn't find us and wondered if she could reschedule. She was supposed to have been here to test at 8 and to check in at 7:45. I told her that she had to do all scheduling through the recruitment center - we don't have access to any information about them.

So, apparently she called them and an hour later she calls us back, irate, demanding to know why she couldn't sign the late waiver form if she was more than an hour late. She gave every excuse in the book of why she couldn't be here on time, and I told her, quite tactly, that these tests take AT LEAST an hour and a half to take. She was already TWO hours late. If she showed up at 10:30, I would have to stop her in an hour, and manually upload any answers she'd submitted. Besides that fact, we log into the testing service's database, and they have it programmed to NOT allow people to sign into the test if they're more than an hour late. These are government policies - we don't make them, we just enforce them.

We're just messengers.

She goes on and on on a rant talking about how the testing people should have told them that they wouldn't be allowed to come late and blah blah blah.

Let me ask you this - do you think if you showed up for the SATs an hour late they'd let you into the room? No. They regulate who they let in and out and you have to beg to go to the bathroom between breaks.

Just like in any college exam, if someone in the room has already completed it, you can't go in - they could have given you the answers in passing.

People just don't want to work. What probably happened was she got up late and needed an excuse.

Pissed me off royally. I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from cursing her out. If she had called at 8:55 and said she was lost, I would have cut her some slack and get her logged in just in time, but evidently she didn't have the smarts to either use her cell phone or drive to the nearest pay phone to make the call.

Huh.

I drove my coworker to the airport yesterday morning (the airport is spitting distance away from my office) and on the way over he told me a very interesting little tidbit of office gossip.

After I left on Wednesday, someone began a debate on which staff member I hate most. I mean...damn. Okay, maybe I am a cold, expressionless bitch, but if I didn't like you I'd be much more obvious about it. I just wouldn't do anything for you.

I wonder who won.

INTERNAL MEMO

To the coworker who came into the office over the weekend and clogged the toilet:

A POX ON YOU!

Use the Gee-Dee plunger, bitch!

Public Domain

So...if you have a cup on your desk with supplies like scissors and pens in it which happens to be your own personal cup and your on personal supplies, do people have the right to steal pens from it if it is sitting on desk belonging to the business?

Discuss amongst yourselves while I go bitchsmack the person that stole the last gel pen.

The COM port Triangle

In case you were wondering, I got the COM port situation resolved. Sort of.

Yesterday morning I went into work with a renewed pisstivity at the situation and emailed tech support, detailing my frustration with getting the damned panel replaced and apparently someone was feeling magnanimous enough to just send me the damn thing. It arrived this morning.

Next problem: I can't install it. Actually, I probably could but would most likely end up breaking something else in the process. I called our tech people (Take 2) and asked if I could send it to them and have them install it. After all, we do pay them thousands of dollars each year to keep them on retainer for these sorts of situations. I was given a brief runaround and then was told that they would find me someone local to come install it.

My contact calls me back a couple hours later and tells me that he got me confused with "The Tiffany in Cincinnati" and didn't know of a technician in our area that would do non-warranty service -- but he would keep looking.

By end of day today I heard nothing.

So, what good are they? They never follow up on anything urgent unless there's additional money involved. I bet you that I can go into the office tomorrow, make one phone call and have the whole thing solved...but we pay other people to do that for us!

"You want me to put what where?"

I hate Indian tech support. Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of "Indians" and tech support is sort of a necessary evil of microcomputing. The problem is when those two forces combine to form a time-wasting, infuriating segment of an industry.

I'm the de facto Ms. Fixit in the office. If someone's PC goes bonkers it's my job to either fix it or complain to someone who can.

There's a PC in our server room that has two purposes: collecting call data from the phone system, and broadcasting the "on hold" music. That's all it does. Nothing else (well.....occassionally I go back there to check my bank balance before lunch without the prying eyes of my cohorts). About a month ago the computer stopped collecting data from the phone system. This was very confusing and sent the entire office into an emasculating clusterfuck. You see, the boys don't know what to do with themselves if they don't know how many phone calls they've made.

I hounded the software manufacturer and discovered it wasn't their fault. Nor was it a problem with the phone system as it was sending data as programmed. After much back and forth we learned the problem was a busted COM port.

The remote tech people we have on retainer informed me that the unit itself was no longer under service warranty but the part itself was eligible for replacement. They never got back to me on that, but being armed with this information I attempted to get the problem solved directly through the OEM.

Let me tell you - I wasted two hours of my life this morning dealing with some bozo who didn't even understand the problem. Such is the case when you have people sit around all day, scan for keywords, and search a F.A.Q. database.

He tried to walk me through taking the machine apart (which I pretended to do), resetting this and that, and finally determined that problem was with the external modem which was not shipped with the unit and therefore not covered by warranty.

Um...WHAT EXTERNAL MODEM? This dude needed to be blindfolded and whipped.

I logged out of the session and gave up. Tomorrow I have to try this all over again. Pray for me.

Anything to avoid a 20 minute drive.

It's Saturday (Duh!) and I'm so far behind at work that I'm actually sitting here contemplating the benefits of going into the office.

There are a lot of things that I can do from home, but then again a lot more that I need to be in the office to do.

By the time I go on vacation, I would like to be caught up enought that I can leave a basket of work for my assistant and have it get done by the time I get back. Any other emergency sort of situation will just have to be taken in stride until I get back.

Excuse me while I consult my magic eight ball.

...*shakes ball rapidly*

Magic eight ball says stay home.

Okay.

Tiffany's Rules of Conduct for Job Interviews

*no specific candidates were harmed in the compilation of this list.

1 - When you show up to interview for a job that involves working in an office setting you MUST wear a jacket and tie if you're a male unless otherwise instructed. [You should not fear that you'll be overdressed. Your job at that point is to impress your interviewers and make it look like you put in effort into your appearance. Don’t go in there wearing a dingy polo shirt and khakis and expect people to be blown away.]

2 - When you walk through the door, treat everyone congenially - do not merely walk in and demand to see whoever it is you're supposed to be seeing without a "Dog, kiss my ass" to everyone else present." [Always assume that everyone you encounter has a say in hiring decisions. For all you know the receptionist could be the sales manager’s niece and if you treat her like shit on your shoe he'll know about it.]

3 - Never interrupt the hiring agent’s pre-rehearsed spiel with utterances of “Mm hmm, yeah, I know,� because contrary to popular belief, you do not.

4 – Ladies must show taste in selecting garments that are interview-appropriate; cleavage is verboten and, I’m sorry naturalists, pantyhose with leg hair poking through it is not acceptable.

5 – Comb your damn hair (both sexes). [While I am personally the Mistress of Frizz, I have that whole “ethnic� thing going for me. If you’re whiter than Casper and show up with wall-to-wall hair you’ll not fare well. Yes, it’s hair discrimination. You’ve been warned.]

6 – If you are lost or otherwise running late you are absolutely required to give a courtesy call. [Sidling up to the front desk fifteen minutes late with no explanation offered will get your résumé put into the “file for one year� box in the storage closet.] Further, if you’re unable to show up altogether, please forego the complex explanations involving broken-down vehicles and baby-momma drama. [We’ve heard it all before too many times. While, true, people are pissed that you flaked on your appointment, it’s better to just say, “I’m very sorry, I need to reschedule� as soon as you know you’ll need to. Too many excuses make people wonder if you’re reliable and if you’ll show up for work on time if you’re hired.]

7 – If you’re only interviewing to test your marketability because you have “Friends that are xyz� and don’t really have a notion of what the job entails you’ll inevitably end up wasting the interviewer’s time, especially if you have a law degree and think that makes you qualified for everything. [If at any point you discover that you definitely don’t want a job, you should wait for the interviewer to pause in the conversation and then state, “You know, INSERT NAME HERE, I’m extremely grateful for your time, however I don’t think I am a suitable match for the position. May I forward your name to others who may be interested?� Don’t sit there going “Mm hmm, mm hmm, yeah, I don’t want this job.� You look like a fucking idiot and the staff will make fun of you when you leave.]

8 – Turn off your fucking cell phone. An emergency will still be an emergency in thirty minutes.

9 – Never lie on your résumé – a good recruiter can sniff out discrepancies and exaggerations and call you on them during your meeting.

10 – If you’re at ALL interested in going further in the interviewing process, send an email “Thank You� immediately to everyone you interviewed with, and follow up with a hand-written note in the mail as soon as possible for instances where the hiring process may be long and drawn out. [By not sending a note you’re basically conveying that you’re not sure if you’re interested and you’ll be passed over for the person equally qualified who acts eager for an offer.]

Dis-R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Some asshole kid just called me a bitch. My natural response was "Excuse me?" to which they replied "bitch" and logged off.

...makes me hate kids. They must not know that if they tried that in person I'd make them feel so small that they'd wet themselves and then drown in it.

Wheeee!!

So. Since Bossman's out of town attending his son's wedding celebrations the office has been a bit lethargic. It's not as if work isn't being done - some is - but no one feels particuarly motivated to step outside their comfort zone.

I left work at 12:15, dropped a check off at the bank (ka-ching) and came home to change my clothes. I then went to Lowes to pick up a free bag of mulch and to see how their perennials looked.

I then came home, watched the rest of "Dead Like Me" Season 1, and spent 30 minutes planting three gallons of something-or-other plants. I contemplated hacking down the ugly-ass nandina bush around my neighbor's mailbox as it now casts a distasteful shade on my whatchamacallits. They don't really trim that thing anyway. At some point I hoped that it was ours just so that we could kill it, but once Scott "accidentally" trimmed it with the weed whacker we saw that it was staked up against the neighbor's pole. *sigh*

And here I am.

I should take more afternoons off.

Le sob, le moan.

This has been a long-ass week. Between trying to catch up on the backlog that forms in my work in-box as soon as I close my eyes to sneeze or go to the bathroom, and taking on other tasks that have "clerical" written all over them, I'm a bit burnt out.

If I had two spare nickels to rub together right now I'd put a deposit on a vacation. I would leave my cell phone at home so that any calls from work from people trying to locate thing in my file drawers would be automatically shunted to voice mail.

*sigh*

I need a meme. Excuse me while I go find a meme.

Burnout

In honor of Administrative Professionals' day, I took half a day off (under pretense that my mom is coming into town). I came home, watched Real Women Have Curves, (which I thought was merely "eh.") and now I'll do some laundry.

Perhaps I'll clean the toilet. Maybe I'll put away the dishes. I may go buy Mother's Day cards. Who knows, but the afternoon is mine. MINE, all MINE! *cackles maniacally*

Moonlighting

Okay, so it really isn't moonlighting. I've been a elementary and middle grades math tutor in the Tutor.com Live Homework Help program for a little over two years. It's been a good source of "pin money" to help stretch those days between pay checks.

Now that the medical bills from my sugery are trickling in, I'd like to get them paid off without suffering any real losses from my standard of living. I refuse to give up beer to pay the anesthesiologist, lo siento.

The problem with doing anything online is that there are always problems with communication--people take things the wrong way.

Occasionally I'll get some asshole kid that will say "I want a boy tutor" or " Lick my nuts." Tutor.com insists that we be politically correct and customer-centric and not snap at these little demon spawn. We have to bring the sessions to educationally sound closes and warn the students accordingly that we're going to end the sessions or at least try to begin a tutoring session.

Some of the vicious things these kids say used to really bother me, like the one kid that told me I was all wrapped up in all the money they pay me. Bullshit. Let's just say that experienced tutors get paid about the same per hour as a first-year teacher. You can surmise that isn't much, although the abuse is intensified by the fact that you'll never meet any of these kids face-to-face, so they never get held accountable for their actions.

What I really need are some catchy one-liners to use on these verbally abusive that won't get me in trouble when my sessions get reviewed by the higher-ups. The standard tag line I normally use is "That sort of language is not allowed in the classroom. That is your first warning. If you make that sort of reference again, I will end the session."

I need something that will NOT get me in trouble, but will put these ill-mannered brats in their place.

GET AWAY FROM MY DESK!

What is it about the sound of a fax machine that makes peoples' ears perk up and feet get set in motion?

I swear, the fax machine in my office is like a hive. Every time it rings at least two people JUMP out of their seats to come read who it's for.

Mind you, I'm sitting right next to it and can easily deliver it to its intended recipient with no problem. If it's contract information that relates than both the recipient and our company, I'll quickly photocopy it for our achives, collate it, and drop it on your desk when I make my rounds to the Lou.

It doesn't even matter who it's for: "Ooh, a fax." *stares at fax*

Me: *reads area code on caller I.D.* "It's not for you."

Eager person: "But what is it?" *stands there stupidly and proceeds to read someone else's fax and then leaves it catacorner in the tray so that the rest of the pages eject funny.*

I don't know about you, but if I'm recieving a confidential fax, I expect you to read no further than the cover page, and not even that if my name is at the very top as it prints out. Go back to your desk, sit your ass down, and wait until I call your name.

That is all.

Slowing me down to 60 wpm

Does workman's comp reiumburse for Carpal Tunnel?

The problem with being around 5 feet tall is that no matter how much you pump up your swirly seat, you'll never be high enough to type comfortably at a standard height desk.

I need a jumbo monitor and a wireless keyboard. I'll buy it and expense it.

Yeah, right.