Category: cackle

Caw! Caw!

Ooooh, it’s getting a bit raven-y outside my office door right now. You see, there have been recent changes in my organization. Some of our team moved to another location, and then some people left the company entirely and weren’t replaced.

The result is, for the past three months or so, we’ve had about four open hard wall offices along my row and about six open cubicles.

Now, if you’ve ever worked at any corporate entity, you know that office space is *always* a big deal. Especially hard wall offices.

For us, it’s been great, the open offices have been used as conference rooms in a pinch, and we have plenty of hotel cubes for when people are visiting. Also, when my UK Boss comes to the states for three months every quarter, he’s able to have space to work.

It was great to have a little open space around here. But I knew it wouldn’t last.

It couldn’t last.

At this very moment, there is a coven of crows Executive Admins outside my office squabbling over the space.

My Big Boss got dragged into the middle of this since technically he owns the empty space. It should be noted that Big Boss is only about 5 foot 5 inches tall on a good hair day.

Poor Big Boss, he never stood a chance. He listened patiently for a while then said, “Just let me know what you decide” and walked away (that he can pull that off is what makes him the Big Boss…just sayin’ )

He left much cawing in his wake:

“But I need two offices for my team!”

“No! I need all of the offices, I have all directors! They can’t sit in cubes!”

“What about my team? We can fit into that space which means they can all sit together!”

“But then you have to move everyone!”

“But you can have my old space!”

“Then my team doesn’t sit together!”

Lest anyone every think differently, the true power of this company lies right there in the center of that circle of post-menopausal women.

They are negotiators, leaders, deal makers and will claw your eye out for a hard wall office on the right floor in the right corner.

They own everything that happens around here and everyone in it.

Which means I’m hunkering down in my office. Except when they look in here to check out my space. Then I sit up quite tall and make my little room look VERY occupied.

I’m scared, mommy!







Photo by Justina Kochansky, and found on the Articulate Matter Flicker photostream.



Tis the Season

On this rainy, cold, dark Tuesday morning, my alarm went off extra early as I have meetings with London today, and that eight hours time difference is making me blue.

There I lay in my dark room, pondering my life and what it might take to get me up and out of the bed. The Good Man slept quietly next to me.

I froze in place when I heard outside my window a low moaning sound. It was a little otherworldly. It started very quiet and then grew in volume.

Well. I’m a child of New Mexico. You know what I thought, right?

La Llorona.

I’m not even kidding. I started *freaking out*. La Llorona here? In California? Did she follow me here? Does she live here now too?

My heart began racing as I remembered all the nights as a child I lay awake in my bed listening for La Llorona, straining my ears to hear, swearing I’d be ready to fight off her ethereal form and survive her grisly plans.

I clenched up, my stomach hurt, I bent to listen as the wailing increased in intensity. That bitch wasn’t going to get either me or The Good Man. Hell no!

And then the wailing became very loud, following by a hiss and a loud “RRRROOOWWWR!”

Oh wait, it’s just two cats fighting.

Sure. Ok. Right. I knew that all along. I’m a grown up. I’m a good kid. I’m in control of this stuff.

Relief washed over me. I joked to the now awake Good Man “what a sound to wake up to, huh?” and chuckled like my body wasn’t raging with adrenaline.

I got up to face my work day, pack my lunch, have some breakfast and shook my head at myself.

In my defense, a chilly, damp, dark October day….that’s La Llorona season. I’m just sayin’…..

: shudder :






Image found at Soda Head.


When Just One Word Doesn’t Get It Done

Today, a trip into the wayback machine to answer a question that was posed to me: What is the funniest non-real word you’ve ever heard?

It was the mid-1990’s and I was a fresh faced college grad. I had a financial calculator under one arm and an ink-not-quite dry MBA under the other.

After just a year of working as a financial analyst for a large aerospace company, I was offered a job at Sandia Labs.

The hiring manager told me that it was ok that I had no background in the business of purchasing, they would be more than happy to bring me on and train me.

I was too naive to really understand that opportunities like this didn’t come along very often. Even less so these days.

So I took the job. I landed at one of New Mexico’s largest employers and I had a lot to learn. I worked for one of the best managers I’ve ever had (he’s still a friend and mentor) and I learned how to be a government procurement agent.

It was a move that would shape the next twenty years of my career. In lots of ways.

My desk was situated next to a tall lanky guy who had worked at Sandia for some twenty or more years. He was a bit outrageous, opinionated and wickedly intelligent.

He was the guy who knew EVERYTHING about the procurement systems, the department and the rules of the road. He was like a walking encyclopedia and we hit it off right away. It was fun to learn from him.

One day, I heard him tapping away at his desk while he was on the phone with a supplier that he supported. He was growing ever more frustrated with the supplier rep on the other end of the phone (and I think she was being snappish at him).

He hung up the phone and sighed…”what a coleslaw bitch.”

Wha?

My brows furrowed. A coleslaw bitch? What the heck is that?

So I asked.

He laughed. “No, not a coleslaw bitch. A cunslubitch. She is such a pain in the ass she deserves not one but three insults. It’s my three favorite words mashed together.”

Oh.

Wow.

Right here at work.

That’s really something.

Then I started laughing. It was so outrageous and so perfect and so YEAH MAN that I couldn’t help it. What a terrific concatenation of words. Useful!

That was the better part of twenty years ago and I still remember that word. And every now and again a supplier rep (male or female, doesn’t really matter) will work that last nerve, step over that last line, bully me just a little bit to far and get my procurement dander right up….

And I’ll think….what a cunslubitch.

I learned well from the master.





This Is Why I Went to College

So I can have a good job and a nice hard walled office.

So I can listen to my Pandora radio in my iPhone.

So I can tune it to the “60’s, 70’s, and 80’s hits” station.

Where I can hear Aerosmith’s “Dream On”, first released in 1973, and again in 1976, right in the prime of my formative years.

So that I can sit in my hard walled office and sing along.

Badly.

With Steven Tyler.

“Dream ooooowwwnnn, dream oooowwwwwn, dream until your dreams come true!”

And especially this part:

“…sing with meh/sing for the yeaaahar/sing for the laughter, sing for the tear/sing with me, if it’s just for today/Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away”

And then there is that howl part on the word “away”… Yeah.

In my mind I think I can hit those same notes that Mr.Tyler could hit some 40 years ago.

Then the employee seated in the cubicle just outside my office prairie dogs up over his wall to give me a crooked eyebrow.

And I think “ffft! He was born in 1983, he doesn’t understand.”

So I go on singing. In my office. With my Pandora.

Thank you NMSU, that I may have this job with a Fortune 500 company, this office, and the ability to torture my employees on a Friday morning.






I never get tired of recycling this image.


Image is of Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and a pretty extensive web search could not net me the attribution on this photo. I found photos from that same event on the European Commission page which allows for the use of photos with attribution.



I Got Yer Circle Of Life Right Here

Today on my regular noontime walk, my walking partner told me a story that I decided I needed to share.

I’m going to tell you this story using the first person voice, as though my friend were telling this story directly to you. I think that point of view lends itself to the events of this story.

Ok, here we go.

“So on Friday while you were in all of those vendor meetings, I came out for a walk with Susan (not her real name).

We were about halfway around the pond when we saw this caterpillar, at least I think it was a caterpillar. It wasn’t fuzzy but it was a big fat thing, bright green and its markings made it look like it had a smiley face on its back.

We were so into this caterpillar, he was so cute. Just the sweetest little worm guy!!

We noticed he was right in the middle of the walking path, and with all the foot traffic, we were concerned for his safety. So I used a stick and a leaf and brushed him over into the grass.

Whew, I was so relieved to get him off the path. I felt so proud that I’d saved his little life.

On our next loop around, we looked for the green smiley face and sure enough, he was over in the grass, munching on a nice juicy blade. He looked so happy!!

We were like Yeah! I think if the green guy could have given us a little wormy thumbs up, he would have. It was just the coolest thing!!!

This just made my whole day. My whole week!

So on our next loop around, we got to the same spot, we looked again for our new little green friend, but we didn’t see him. We were both looking off into the grass searching for him. I started to get worried. I wonder where he’d gone off to. I really hoped he was ok.

I turned my head back forward and said to Susan, ‘I hope he didn’t get back on the walking path.’

That’s when I felt a splurt under my shoe.

I hoped it was goose poop. I prayed it was goose poop.

It wasn’t goose poop.”

—-

My friend was so very terribly distraught telling me this story. Hand wringingly upset.

She is very much an animal person. This is the same lady who shouted at the geese to come back in off the road, and they obeyed.

Four days later, after the events of Friday, and her voice still quavered as she told me this story.

Her eyes were a little misty.
.
.
.
.
.
It is wrong that I laughed really loud and from deep in my belly?

Yeah, I thought so too.

Just going to have to add that to my “sins I must atone for later” tab.






Public domain image from wpclipart.com