Category: whining

Hitting Close to Home

I can’t abide people who are rude to waiters or assistants. — Tim Gunn, via Twitter

On the off chance you aren’t familiar with Tim Gunn, his main job is to mentor contestants on the television show Project Runway. He is also Chief Creative Officer with Liz Claiborne.

He’s a very stylish man and holds high standards in both manners and dress.

I am quite a huge fan of Mr. Gunn and enjoy watching both his style and compassion as he helps over-stressed designers through the rigors of competition.

The show Project Runway is quite inspiring to me, creatively, and so it was with little hesitation that I began following Mr. Gunn on Twitter as soon as he began tweeting.

Last week was a bit of a drag at work, and Mr. Gunn’s words were timely.

Part of my job is to oversee folks who provide end user support to employees of our company.

Help desk support is, truly, a thankless job.

As I told the Boss of my Boss last week, “People don’t email us just to say hi.”

No, people email us to dump big piles of vitriol and venom on my extraordinarily hard working and talented team.

My employees always fix the problem, and they do it quickly and with grace, but my goodness how demotivating it is to all of us to be constantly hammered with rude words and shouting.

When someone pings us, outlines their problem and asks for guidance, then great.

When someone fills an email with everything they think is wrong with my program, the company and the world, it’s brutal. Once or twice is easy to ignore. Over time, it builds up, like soot in a chimney.

I have to keep an eye on my team because burn out is a real possibility hovering over us all. It’s a management problem in any support organization.

I was feeling a little low, worried about my folks, and then I saw that simple powerful quote from Mr. Gunn.

I can’t abide by it either. If only I might add “help desk personnel” to the sentiment.

Glad to know that there are others in the world that believe it’s wrong to treat support folks of any stripe with bad manners. I’m hoping there are more who believe it’s wrong than believe it’s right.

Ok, lament over. Sometimes it feels good to vent off a little steam. Important to ease the pressure a bit so I can dive back in and be polite in the face of overt rudeness.

Here we go!

*sigh*



Boss of my Boss had much the same sentiment for me.




Image found all over the internet in various forms. If this one is yours, let me know and I’ll take it down or add attribution at your request.



Son of a &*$#^#ing mother *@!$&ing holy *&)^%$#!!!

Look at it, isn’t it lovely? It’s own glimmering constellation. A shimmering planet hovering in space, reflecting the rays of light.

An ethereal orb. A beacon. A sign.





Or.

The m-effing new ding in my windshield. This was caused by a rock flung from the tires of a big truck as I drove down 101 yesterday afternoon.

It’s only mildly funny that it happened as I was smack in the middle of a great big yawn. Biiiig sleepy yawn and then *whang*.

And then the curse words. Lots and lots of curse words. A string of expletives befitting a sailor on shore leave.

Because, of course, this window pock is right at my eye level on the driver’s side.

Which means in addition to the other eight thousand things I have to do this week, I now have to deal with my insurance company.

One of my very least favorite things to do. Just above a DMV visit for a new driver’s license and one rung below annual lady physical.

Rattin’ smattin’ rootin’ tootin’ gall durn window ding.

Gah!







Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone 4s and the Camera+ app.



It’s All So Wonky

I’ve now been twelve days in Britain. I’ve sorted out shuttle buses, trains, the grocery store, a local pub and even the post office.

Basically, I’m living here. I have a job, I have an income and I have friends. Hell, my hotel room is about the same size as my first apartment out of college.

What I’m saying is, I got this. I’m even getting better at recognizing and correctly using British money.

I’m walking with a bit more of a swagger. I’m a local. I’m confident enough that people have been asking me for directions and “is this the bus that goes to the technology park?”

A few days ago I did a quick Yelp search and found a little place that gets good reviews. It’s called Pret a Manager and it reminds me a bit of Panera. It’s tasty sandwiches and soups and really excellent coffee.

So took a walk and easily found it. Once there, I got some mushroom soup and a tuna melt and a decaf latte. Yay! It looked delicious.

Then I went to grab some sweetener to add to my latte. I was presented with these two choices:





The white one is sugar and the yellow one is Splenda. Right?

So I grabbed three Splenda (the packets looked small) and I dumped them into my coffee and stirred.

Only the Splenda felt gritty. Like large granules.

Look a little closer.




Whoops.

Why are the packets reversed in this country? Why isn’t the twenty pence coin larger than the ten pence? Why do all the exit signs look like someone running to a rectangle and WHY don’t toilets flush right?

The nice guy working behind the till at Pret a Manger said to me, “I can’t quite place your accent. Where are you from?”

“America,” I said, “Can’t you tell?”

He laughed and said “oh yes, you’re the people who put salt in your coffee.”

Yeah.

I kinda sorta don’t really got this. But I’m going to act like I do.

Fake it until you make it. It’s going to be my new life philosophy.



Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the far right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.



You Scream, I Do Something Else Entirely — For Ice Cream

It’s a blisteringly hot summer day in Albuquerque and mom has hauled her three monkey children to the swimming pool at the Coronado Club (inside of Kirtland Air Force Base) to cool off and work off some energy.

I’ve swam and swam until all my digits are little prunes and then I swim a little bit more for good measure. Exhausted, I finally drag myself out of the pool to lay on the scalding hot concrete and let the sun dry chlorinated water from my arms and legs.

Mom is out in the grassy area surrounding the pool reading a book or chatting with friends. She always finds a lot of folks she knows at the Coronado Club. She’s been coming here since she was just eighteen.

I find my mom and plop into a lawn chair with my beach towel. Starving, I gulp down a sandwich or some cold fried chicken or whatever fun stuff mom has packed into the ice chest.

As the late afternoon sun begins to cast slanted shadows on the ground, if I’m lucky and have been a good kid, I’ll ask my mom for some money and she’ll agree. Cash in hand, I’ll dash to the food stand and procure a soft serve vanilla or chocolate ice cream in a cone.

I’ll bear the thing proudly, like Lady Liberty and her torch, then I’ll savor every last drippy bite.

Ah, summer and ice cream were made for each other.

However, lately, something dark and insidious rumbles inside of me, irrevocably breaking the summer fun and ice cream connection.

Seems I’ve developed a little ol’ thing called lactose intolerance.




It ain’t right. It’s some cosmic comedy, it has to be. Dairy and I are friends from way back. Ok, I can’t stand fluid milk, but sour cream, all manner of cheese, ice cream and half and half in my coffee are what make walking in this mean old world seem tolerable.

The Good Man marvels still at the vast array of dairy products I have in my fridge. I have a whole drawer devoted to cheese! Well, I used to…

Me? Lactose intolerant? It just isn’t even funny. Not one little bit.

I took my concerns to my doctor who nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, you know, that happens pretty frequently to people over the age of forty. It’s common as we age.”

Great. That makes me feel ever so much better.

I use Lactaid and it helps some. It is, at best, an imperfect solution.

The only real cure is to stop eating dairy entirely.

Well that ain’t gonna happen.

That said, I have cut waaaaay back. And because the universe has a really excellent sense of humor, I also get rumbly tummy from soy milk, the most common substitute.

So far hemp milk and almond milk are my frontrunners for adding to coffee and having an ice cream-like treat.

They are fine, but just…not the same.

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for almond milk iced dessert” just doesn’t have the same ring.

Because we don’t all scream for that.

*sigh*




Image is, of course, The Scream by Edvard Munch, and is used under Fair Use as the image is considered Public Domain in the United States.

This week’s Theme Thursday is: ice cream



I’m Not Alone

So it was on flight SQ16 from Incheon to San Francisco that I picked up a new friend.

Maybe friend is too generous a word.

A follower? Stalker? Shadow?

I think it all started somewhere over the international date line. It gets pretty wonky up there over the Pacific.

When I got off the plane, there was someone there. With me. Only I didn’t realize just who yet.

Tuesday, as I went to work, he came along.

I say he. Really, this thing is a genderless entity, a spectre, an imaginary friend. But for the sake of ease, I’ll say he.

As I commuted to work, I finally realized he was there. In the passenger seat. He went with me into the coffee shop. He was there when I parallel parked my car. He took a seat in the conference room where I’m attending a training class.

He sits next to me. With me. On me. On my head. Wrapped around me like a blanket made of wet mud and peat moss.

The entity is jet lag. I call him JG for short.

I think you’re not supposed to talk about JG. When someone asks, the right answer is “fine! Oh I’m doing great. Yeah, no problem.”

But it’s a problem.

JG is real and JG is profound. I try to stay normal. I try to make a salient point during the workshop on data security but while I speak, JG puts cotton fluff and jello into the working parts of my brain.

JG gives me a nice outfit to wear to work, only the fabric is the leaden material found in xray rooms and dentist offices.

My shoes are made of concrete.

I lean forward and my shoulders slump so I can carry the heavy load. I straighten up again and pretend JG isn’t there. My shoulders slump once more.

JG won’t be ignored.

I turn in early to bed to try to get right, to reclaim my brain and my body and I drop easily into sleep. JG jostles me awake at 2:00 am and says “hey! Let’s play!”

I rise and have a snack and try to get something done so my day isn’t a total loss but JG robs my motivation and steals my creative will.

Instead I sit on the couch watching “Mad About You” reruns and wondering where in the hell my life has gone since Paul and Jamie examined married life in the ’90’s.

Then I hallucinate about being stuck in customs somewhere in Asia.

I shake my head from side to side to clear my etch-a-sketch of a mind and try again to focus on the television. Maybe some more food will help.

There isn’t a pill that can cure me of JG. There isn’t a quick fix remedy.

There is only time.

JG and I will be hanging out for a while. You’ll find us in aisle 6 at the grocery store. I’ll be the one standing there bewildered and trying desperately to remember what I needed to buy.

JG will be the one playing tricks in my eyes and tripping me at the ankles and making me want to lay down on the stack of ten pound bags of jasmine rice and close my eyes, just for a moment.

Until strange dreams startle me awake and I rise again to wander the world, a little lost American girl searching for another cup of Singaporean coffee (kopi) and a slice of kaya toast.








Image found on Anabolic Minds.