Category: lazy

Oh so much happier!

Ok, confessional time. Yes, I’m owning it here, publicly, on my blog.

Here we go

Due to the immense amount of food they provide here at my job, cookies, cakes, lots of candy, full lunches, parties, celebrations, the whole nine yards….

I *might* have maybe, sort of, kind of….gained some weight.

I know. *gasp*

Not a lot. But enough to make most of the clothes in my closet feel tight.

So, I do that thing that women do, “Oh, I’ll lose this. I don’t need to buy new clothes! I’d just buy them and have to give them away, what a waste of money!”

What do I do? I wear the few items that fit over and over. And wear the tight things and sit at my desk with a wince as I get marks on my body from the clothes.

So, I just…I don’t know…gave up. I started dressing like crap. If you know me, you know clothes and style matter to me. So this is REALLY giving up.

I’m not proud of it.

Well, as fate will do, I had a *very* important meeting today, one where I needed to be on my game. And I needed to dress in a businesslike way.

In preparation, I tried on all my current dress pants. Yeah. No luck. Ok, I could get them on and zipped, but they were tight and immediately began pressing into my waist.

This isn’t humorous.

With fear in my heart, a couple days ago, I took to the mall, shopping discount outlets looking for *something* I could make work. Something I could wear and look professional and still be comfortable.

Guys, you have to know. To a woman…shopping for pants is the seventh level of hell. I don’t know why, it just is. Only slightly more appealing than shopping for a swimsuit.

The mall I visited is all broke down and busted (like many malls are these days) and it was a very hot day in the Bay Area. The entire mall had NO air conditioning, so shopping for pants (ugh!) with a sheen of sweat on your brow is not amusing. May I reiterate: NOT!

And being the cheap ass that I am, I wanted something at a low cost.

So. I found a couple things. The quality was only so-so. I wasn’t overjoyed with the items, but ok. I’d have something to wear.

I was depressed.

Then, yesterday I had an inspired idea. There is a store I used to shop at quite a bit, but then drifted away from. Their stuff is good, stylish, but often a little pricey. Their last couple of lines were not attractive at all, so I had moved on.

But I remembered that they usually stock a good range of sizes.

Yesterday after work, I went to this store. And I almost cried. In addition to air conditioning, they had gotten in all their new Fall line and much of it was TOTALLY my style. And sizes! Oh the size choices. I tried on some stuff that was too big! Some too small, but they had the next size.

And their prices were not that bad, actually. Reasonable. They’ve clearly made a shift to help with the economy.

So I stocked UP. I mean, I went a little nuts. I bought good quality clothes that fit and make me feel *good*. I bought a whole new wardrobe!

I walked out smiling. Today I’m wearing one of the new outfits and I am walking so much taller. My pants fit! They don’t bind. My waistline has been spared for the day. My whole outlook has vastly improved.

Ladies! Don’t give in to stuff that cuts and binds! Wear clothes that fit and feel good!

(and yes, I’m cutting back on the feed rations and exercising. Lifelong battle.)

Stages: Circling the Drain

If you’ve worked in a corporate environment, you’ve no doubt had the opportunity to watch one of your coworkers go through the progress of becoming ever more disenchanted and eventually leaving.

Things are pretty wacky around my own employer these days. Times are strange since the merger, so we’re seeing a lot of bad behavior.

There is the coworker who, on Friday, was in the employee directory, and on Monday, wasn’t. No one knows what happened. After sixteen years at this company, he was just…gone.

There was also the senior manager guy with a whole set of direct reports who suddenly no longer has direct reports. He is listed as a peer to the people he once managed.

Weird.

Right now, I have a good friend, mentor and coworker who is going through the “stages”…he’s on the path toward “I’ve had enough!”

So with that in mind, here’s my unofficial, opinion oriented, based on experience, stages of the descent of a corporate minion.

Stage One: Grumbling.

“This place is so strange, I don’t understand why (boss) has to manage like that.” This stage is characterized by a slight uptick in the complaining about the job. I mean, we ALL complain about the job, but this is taking it to a new, higher level, with some unconvincing, “I should find a new job” statements thrown in.

Basically, the disenchanted is still in the game, still meeting deadlines, still doing the work, but is starting to think about doing something different. This is like picking at the edge of a scab, really. Just picking and picking but not serious about it. The grumbling stage includes a lot of thinking, “Can I make this work?” and “I’ve been here a long time” and “Maybe things will improve.”

Stage Two: Misbehaving.

If the grumbling progress continues, things ratchet up and become tinged with a bit more emotion. Anger, frustration and acting out become obvious. Could be an, “I can’t believe he said that” comment from a meeting where the disgruntled shot their mouth off on something, could be missing a “mandatory” all hands event, could be missing a deadline. Enough to get noticed, but not enough to get fired.

At this stage, the disgruntled begins thinking seriously about looking for another job. They usually start by looking at other open jobs within the same company. May even go so far as to navigate over to Monster.com and Craig’s List to see if there is even anything interesting outside the company.

At this stage, the disgruntled usually stops just short of actually updating their resume and, usually, aren’t happy with job opportunities found elsewhere, so they decide to hang in there a bit longer to see if things improve.

Stage Three: Actively acting out.

Characterized by coming in late consistently, leaving early, disappearing for large parts of the day, distracted in meetings, more impassioned discussion of looking for another job, and complaints about “this place,” followed by mentions of actual job openings at other companies.

Resume has been pulled up in Word, updates are being made, daily searching the job sites. Asking friends for leads. Making rumblings among close coworkers that he’s looking. Trying to find allies that are also looking, or trying to convince others to join him in the job search.

Pretty serious, but yet, could be convinced to stay with a little management intervention, a little love, a little promise of something more.

This is usually where the disgruntled invites a trusted friend to lunch offsite and runs down a list of grievances and confesses they have had it. They are looking for a job. The case is laid out, discussed, asked “do you think it will get better?” Lots of “this is ridiculous” statements issued.

Sometimes, this is where the disgruntled will receive a surprise bonus or promotion or similar, and this puts them back at state one or less…at least for a while.

So this is the stage where my friend is hovering. Actively looking, actively disgruntled, been to several offsite lunches, discussing the merits of job opportunities at other companies. Then again, we are actually due for a mid-year review and bonus, so we’ll see…..

Stage Four: Stealth.

The disgruntled is not only actively looking, he’s got a few leads. Maybe even calling in sick here and so they can go interview. Something may be happening, so it’s time to pipe down. Many people (especially boss-type people) often confuse stealth with a move back to stage one. Easily confused, certainly.

The disenchanted person may be coming in on time again, but if you look close, they aren’t really working that hard, aren’t volunteering to take on new projects, may be handing off work to coworkers. They want to leave on a good note and are feeling optimistic that something is about to change. Mood has improved. Complaining a bit less. Laughing at all the boss’ jokes.

Stage Five: Poking the Tiger.

Not everyone gets to stage five. Many people get to stage four, find another job, and leave. They leave on good terms, shake hands with the boss and go off to a new gig with a fresh look of optimism in their eyes.

Those that can’t find another job or aren’t motivated enough to find another job move into the phase where they start stirring the sh*t. Oh yes, they are too timid to actually *do* something themselves, they want someone to do it for them. Passive aggressive.

So they start actively missing deadlines and meetings and coming in late and not even pretending like they care about the work. They may even speak insultingly or say stuff that’s not cool. They openly challenge people to say something. They aren’t just picking away at the scab, they are making new wounds.

At this point, the boss may actually realize they have a performance problem on their hands, and put the disgruntled on a performance action plan. This either spurs the disgruntled to find another job…or, bad attitude continues until the end of the performance plan and the inevitable happens.

Or, some powerless bosses still won’t take action, and they let the employee keep flailing away.

Often the employee will finally just up and quit. Sometimes in a blaze of glory “this is part of company folklore” kind of way.

Sometimes, the disgruntled poking-the-tiger guy gets weary, still lacking any self-starting behavior, becomes stuck in place, and they just pipe down and keep doing the job. These people become the “retired in place” completely useless employee, the guy who just can’t get fired and just won’t quit, so he sucks down company resources until retirement.

We’ve all known one of those, haven’t we?

Did you know…

…that today is National Health and Fitness Day?

I didn’t either, but it is.

So my own company decided to celebrate by hosting a lunchtime walk along a really pretty bayside trail near our offices.

When I told my favorite coworker about the planned event, he reminded me that employees of our company get *plenty* of exercise jumping to conclusions, walking away from responsibility, and running to line up first for the buffets.

While I couldn’t argue his point, I decided to take a walk anyway. Feeling cranky and amped up, a walk seemed like a nice idea.

It was walker’s choice, a one mile or two mile jaunt. I went ahead and chose two miles, strapped on my trainers and got to it.

Can’t say it was the nicest day for a walk. After being hotter than the hinges of hell for the past several days, the Bay Area Inversion (description here) has kicked in and today we get windy and cold.

Whatever.

Look, while most of my coworkers sat at their desks and ate hearty lunches in the cafeteria, I actually *did* something useful today.

I feel *so* smug too. I even took the company provided shuttle over to the start point in an effort to conserve fuel.

And I recycled the bottle from the water they gave me.

When the walk was done, I ate a salad.

If I keep this up, I’m going to be driving a Prius soon.

What?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Ok, to offset all this goodness I’ll have red meat and whiskey for dinner.

That ought to restore balance to the universe.

They never promised life would be fair

Today was a particularly tough day for me to roll out of bed with the alarm and come to work.

I didn’t sleep well last night due mainly to the crazed feline. I have a friend who has a theory that occasionally the cat brain will release some hormone that is akin to kitty crack, which then is the reason for the dilated eyes and tendency to gallop around the house making crazed movements.

If that is true, then my personal feline got deep into the kitty crack at about 3:30 in the ayem, and is, today, my least favorite person in the world.

Sleepy eyed, I ventured out onto the highway to make my way into my place of employment. I was heartened to see the sun slanting over the hills with the promise of a really warm day. This never fails to cheer me.

But that smile turned into a snarl when I made the merge and found myself rolling behind this.

Click for full size if you can’t make it out. If you can make it out, what you see there is a Forerunner with two surfboards sticking out the back.

Dude driving and his long-haired blond lady in the passenger seat are headed, I assume, to Pacifica for a nice day of surfing.

While I drive to work to sit under florescent lights all day and literally watch my muscles lose their elasticity. In a building located in what is considered one of the most foggy and windy areas of the Bay Area.

And this is fair how?

Just one little thing…

Last night, after coming home late, and looking for something to accompany my dinner of hot soup, I watched some throwaway episode of some throwaway show in syndication.

The premise of the episode was that just one little thing can change the outcome of your whole day. It was a riff on the Butterfly Effect complete with a CG butterfly.

I actually thought it was a clever bit of television writing, and it was highly satisfying, along with my chicken soup.

This morning, I had occasion to revisit this bit of chaos theory as I made my way into work.

I left the house a skosh later than I’d wanted to, and when I fired up the Jeep, the gas indicator began making noises at me. I had to stop for gas, making me run even later.

The closest gas station is located on a road out of town that I don’t usually take, because along that road there are three schools. The parents dropping off their kids always backs up traffic, so I avoid it.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. In addition to running later than usual, and running into school traffic by taking a road I normally don’t take, it turns out there was a traffic light blinking at the most critical intersection (right before the highway entrance). So traffic on that road was backed up for about five miles.

And because I sat for an hour on a road that should normally take ten minutes to traverse, I got to work much later than usual, meaning I had a hard time finding a parking spot. The one I did find was a tight squeeze by a wall in the parking garage, and so I dinged my own door on the way out.

It also means the work cafeteria was out of orange juice by the time I got there.

And my staff gave me an arched eyebrow when I did finally roll into my office.

All this really bodes for a great day, right? Ugh.

So as I sit here at my desk drinking coffee instead of OJ, I got to thinking about how just one little thing had ruined my whole good day.

At first I blamed the traffic light. That damn light! If not for the flapping butterfly wing of that stupid busted stoplight I would have made it to work on time!

But that’s not really true, is it?

It’s that I rolled out of the house late. Had I had my you-know-what together and left earlier, there would have been less traffic.

But that’s also not really true, is it? Because even leaving late, I would have taken a different road and been fine…if I had a full tank of gas.

The crux of this whole thing was my empty gas tank.

See, last night when I was driving home, my near empty gas tank was already beeping at me. I could have stopped for gas on the route home, but feeling lazy and tired, I chose not to.

So the flapping wing, really, was my decision not to stop and get petrol last night.

That one decision has blown my whole Wednesday morning.

And unlike the television show, I can’t do a second act on this day and show what would have happened if the decisions had gone differently.

I have to, as The Good Man says, “just play through”.

That there is chaos theory, Karen style.