I’m Going Out!

OMG guys, even though I have tons of stories I haven’t been updating because I’ve been so busy…getting ready for external conference!

You all remember the time they passed me over for a new girl who had only been hired 3 months before? She ended up being blackballed from the event because of her behavior there. Or how about last year, when they said they just couldn’t bring me because there wasn’t enough work, but they took a coworker who had left the company and had just returned plus another new hire?

I’d given up all hope of going and had become incredibly bitter that others had been chosen over me when I’d been here longer, proven myself etc. I was definitely losing my loyalty to Anonymous Software Company. Then my boss, Ching, called and made my day better saying that they’d decided to bring me.

I can’t wait to update you all on what happens – be back in a few weeks!

Track The Ones You Love

Studly lives and works about 2-3 hours (depending on traffic) away from me. He also works the 5am shift. I think you see where this is going – on nights that he stays with me, he has to leave at 2:30 to 3am to get to work on time, which makes me worry that he’ll get into an accident or fall asleep at the wheel.

Or if I stay the night at his place, I leave at 4:30am when he’s on his way to work and drive the two hours home, shower and dress, then go to work at 7:30a. It’s definitely easier on me than on him. We usually try to text each other – when he gets to work or when I get home. I’m a wonderful fucking human being so I text promptly. He forgets and wants me to worry so he doesn’t always text me before going to work, which means I may not hear from him for hours.

This morning I waited for his text the whole drive home and didn’t hear from him until 10am. For the record, that’s 4 hours after I got home! It’s a 25 minute drive for him to get to work, he just forgot to text before working and then didn’t have his phone until his lunch break.

So naturally, I got pissed.

Zoogie2: I was worried about you

Studly: Didn’t mean to worry you, maybe we can get me a tracking app

Zoogie2: A tracking app?

Studly: So you can see if I make it safe when I forget to text

Zoogie2: Sounds like stalking

Studly: I would have called it creative problem solving

Zoogie2: Would you track me too then?

Studly: Like a Fed Ex package? ;p

Zoogie2: Are you serious about wanting to get an app to track each other?

Studly: I’m serious about making sure you don’t worry about me

This is weird, right? This can’t possibly be normal…

Scarred for Life By Pinterest And A BreakUp

Amazon has been dating this guy, Good Christian Guy (GCG) for the past year. Since they’re both very religious, they’ve barely done more than peck each others lips and hold hands while on group dates.

Did I mention they’re in their early 30’s and he’s divorced? It’s not like they’re both virgins. But I digress.

They pray together…a lot, and have been saying they’re in love since their two month anniversary, which they actually celebrated. Last month GCG went to Amazon’s parents and asked for permission to marry her and when they said yes he brought his grandmother’s ring for her to try on so it could be resized.

Hold the phones.

I realize in the olden days women were owned by the men in their lives and therefore permission needed to be asked and given in order for the ownership of said woman to transfer. That’s why fathers walk their daughters down the aisle and literally give them away to their husbands, kind of like buying a car and meeting at the DMV to have the title transferred over.

Personally, it would insult me as an autonomous person if my future spouse asked my parents for permission to marry me, because the only person who can give an answer that makes any difference is me. Ultimately, it will only be two people in the relationship. I know some people will cite ‘tradition’, but didn’t we burn witches at the stake? What a lovely tradition! In some cultures men had to pay for the priviledge of marrying women and in others women had to come with a dowry, why don’t we keep those ‘traditions’? Ah, because (in my country) women are independent individuals and parents should not pay or be paid.

Anyway, I’ll stop ranting and say ‘to each their own’. I let Studly know that if he wanted to ask such a question of me, so be it. But the question should go to me first, foremost and only, because as far as I can see, we’re the only two invested in the answer.

Back to Amazon.

Here she was: a strong, independent woman with a job and healthcare, a fiance and the future bright ahead of her, her 30th birthday only two weeks away. Until GCG called her and told her that he’d been thinking and he decided that things weren’t working out between them. And he broke up with her.

OMG guys, how friggen sick is that – to propose to a woman, have her try on your grandmother’s ring and then dump her a week later, a mere two weeks before a major birthday!? He wouldn’t even tell her why, just that it wasn’t working. That’s not very Christian of him.

Amazon was duly devastated and took some time to recover. He finally told her that the reason they were breaking up is because she didn’t respect him as a leader and man of their relationship, since they hold with ‘traditional values’ he should lead their relationship. He felt she disrespected him by questioning decisions that he made for them. I told her that I couldn’t believe they dated for a year without her punching him or vomiting due to all the shit coming out of his mouth. She giggled then gave me a lecture about how god doesn’t like potty mouths. I told her that her god shouldn’t have invented anuses…or assholes.

Athiesm, gotta love it.

I went over to her place a month after they broke up to help her redecorate – we painted and I helped her assembe a new bed with a DIY headboard made out of some old wooden planks we nailed together (I was terrified of the nail gun) and some white paint haphazardly slapped on. Once the room was done it looked beautiful and we grabbed some food and went outside to let her apartment air out since the paint smell was overwhelming. She brought her laptop so that we could watch a movie while we waited, but then we started talking about Pinterest.

Imagine this headboard painted white so that streaks of the wood show though…I heart DIY projects!

“My coworker is kind of crazy. She isn’t even dating anyone, but she has her entire wedding planned on Pinterest. Down to the smallest detail. I know that men don’t usually like to get too involved with things like this, but maybe some do! It’s a major day in their lives too, planning before you even met the guy implies that it doesn’t matter who they are or what they’re interests or likes are, it’s only about the bride.”

“I don’t agree.”

“I’m not saying having ideas is a bad thing, but when you say it’s set in stone you negate any ideas or requests your future guy might have which you can’t anticipate because you haven’t even met him yet!”

“I had my entire wedding planned on Pinterest.”

“That’s different, you were going to marry GCG. You didn’t plan it before you met him.”

“…yes I did.”

“What!?”

“Yes, he and I went through it and if he didn’t like things I removed them. We used it as a foundation for what we wanted.”

At this point I’m speechless. That happens when I open my mouth and insult something only to find out I’ve just insulted the person I’m spending time with.

Amazon looked down, “So, do you want to see?”

Already feeling bad, I nodded mutely. Then she proceeded to show me 267 pictures of her wedding. Down to exactly what vest color would have gone perfectly with GCG’s hair. Fuck.

It was awkward.
It was sad.
It was a damn train wreck.

Then I saw another Pinterest board that had the words “Our Perfect Room”. I pointed it out and she started to show me. Every DIY project she had done, alone and with me was on there.

“Wow! There are so many pictures on here, how did you figure out how you wanted your bedroom to look so quickly?”

“Oh I’ve been pinning these for ages.”

“Really? I thought you only decided to redecorate after you and GCG broke up.”

“Oh, well actually I’ve been planning this room for a while. It was going to be the master bedroom once GCG and I got married.”

And just like that, the bedroom project turned from a statement about being single and getting over a breakup into some sort of shrine to the relationship that had died.

I thought it couldn’t get any weirder or more awkward. Until I saw that she had a board that said “Children I Wish I Had”.

The End of SlipNSlide

After RockStar realized that SlipNSlide fit the profile of ‘once a cheater, always a cheater‘, he dumped her. He vowed to save up money while living with Mom and Harley, since supporting SlipNSlide for the past few years had drained his savings and he wanted to be single for the first time since high school to learn more about himself.

That lasted all of five minutes.

Within a month he was in a new relationship with Perky. I got along famously with SlipNSlide because she was down to earth, a regular sized gal and funny as hell. I’m awkward around Perky because I’m not sure she’s human. She is:

• Blonde
• Skinny
• Pretty
• College Education
• Professional Office Job
• Significant savings Account
• Marathon Runner

What is there to relate to!? I have curly, frizzy brown hair, I’m curvy because I prefer to read more than move my ass off the couch. While I’m college educated with a job, I’m pretty mellow and average. She sounds like a walking, talking Stepford Wife!

On the other hand, RockStar seems happy so I’m glad about that. He settled down with Perky and they seemed pretty damn happy for a few month but then SlipNSlide moved back to hometown. I guess her months of interning for no pay with no job prospects led her to financial ruin, so she moved back in with her family. She and RockStar had stayed Facebook friends (WHY!?) so she was privy to every joke and pic and status update for him and his new beau.

I was hanging out, drinking daiquris with him (can you tell it was my round to treat?) when he received an email from her. He handed his phone to me to read and blog-friends, how I wish I could have forwarded this to myself to share with you verbaitum!

Unfortunately I couldn’t forward with him watching me, so I’ll summarize. It said that she missed him and wanted him back, but could see that he was happy for now without her. She could see everything that he and “the new girl” in his life were doing via Facebook, and she thought that they would still be together if he had done some of those things with her. She cried about him everyday wishing they were back together and she held out hope that they would end up together someday.”

…”she thought that they would still be together if he had done some of those things with her“. I should explain. SlipNSlide loves to dance, to party, to go out. When they first started dating, like most men, RockStar actually gave a flying fuck and tried to impress SlipNSlide by taking her out and attempting to dance. I say attempting because while my brother is many things – including very gifted musically – when he dances he looks like a chicken going through electroshock therapy.

Toward the end of their relationship, RockStar was working tons of overtime hours trying to keep them financially afloat since SlipNSlide and their housemate weren’t contributing to the household expenses at all. Most nights he would get home, fall onto the couch and fall asleep right away. On nights that SlipNSlide whined until they went dancing or out to a movie, she constantly berated his clothing, saying that he didn’t look nice enough. I’m sure she could afford her nice shoes since she wasn’t paying rent, utilities, groceries or any other cost.

Now that he’s with Perky, he’s essentially reset his clock back to “Impress Woman” phase – taking her out and looking nice now that he’s built his savings back up. I’m galled, appalled, shocked that SlipNSlide implied that they’d still be together (ie – she wouldn’t have CHEATED) if he’d worn nicer clothing and taken her out dancing.

She really shouldn’t complain – he let her have all of the furniture from their place that he paid for so she could sell it and pay off some debt. He’s worse than a doormat.

I Cry When I Cook For a Reason Dammit

Studly wanted his anniversary gift to be a home cooked meal. When he said that, I almost broke up with him just to avoid cooking.

Some people are naturally born chefs that can make mouthwatering dishes. Some people spend a lot of time learning to be good chefs. Some people spend a reasonable amount of time becoming acceptable cooks. Some people are able to microwave a fairly decent meal. I am none of those people.

This looks delightful! If I attempted to cook it, you’d have food poisoning at best and instantaneous death at worst (or maybe it’s the other way around)…

I’ve ruined canned soup before. CANNED SOUP. Not only are there instructions on the side, it’s all of three steps:

1) Open can
2) Pour soup and water into pot
3) Heat

I know you’re dying to know which step I screwed up – the answer is #2. I poured soup into the pot and didn’t add water. Not because I forgot, but because the instructions on the side didn’t tell me to. How pathetic is that!?

Turns out that the instructions on how to heat and the ones telling you to add water are in two different places. That’s my only defense. I totally planned on adding a picture here, but forgot to take one. I’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks.

I’m the same woman who didn’t add seasoning to my meat for a year in college because I didn’t know I had to. This is what happens when your parent feeds you only fast food, you have no idea how to do anything on your own.

Granny told me to make Studly “Engagement Chicken” but I think if I tried, it would end up being “Dumped Chicken”

These days I’ve learned to add water to my condensed chicken noodle soup, and salt and pepper to my turkey meat but I’m still no Gordon Ramsey. Hell, I’m not even that good at microwaving things! But for love I decided to try to cook a full meal. It was a god damn disaster.

Studly was traveling (again) during our anniversary, so I rescheduled it for the day he was set to come home, three days after the actual anniversary. I went all out – dinner would be steak with mashed sweet potatoes, glazed carrots and roasted tomatoes. I worked out when to do everything and prepped the day before. Dessert would be a tunnel of love fudge cake. I hid his gifts all over my apartment and drew a treasure map so he could find them all. The final gift he would find would be me, wearing something that I hoped would make his jaw drop. *Sigh*, it was such a good plan.

I made the cake the day before and right in the middle of mixing the ingredients Studly called. His grandmother and mom had decided to surprise him the night he came home…with a special dinner.

“What?”

“Babe, they didn’t know you were planning an anniversary dinner for me.”

“The hell they didn’t! I told your mom about it two weeks ago!”

“Oh. Maybe she forgot.”

**Long awkward silence where he waits for me to say I’ll postpone or that everything is OK, meanwhile I’m waiting for him to say he’ll skip their dinner to celebrate our anniversary**

In the end, we agreed that he would sit through their dinner and then would rush to get to ours just in time to eat. I should have fucking rescheduled or just plain cancelled it and told him to cook his own damn dinner.

The night of the dinner, I started cooking the items that would take longer – like boiling the sweet potatoes and roasting the tomatos. He was supposed to be at my place at 7pm, which is how I determined when to start everything. At 7:30 the steaks were done and had cooled down significantly, the plates were on the table with a candle waiting to be lit. I was changed into a dress he’d never seen me in, staring at the wall and trying not to cry since I didn’t want to ruin my mascara. When he rushed in at 7:45, he gave me a chagrined look and then brightened and stuck his finger in the mashed sweet potatoes to give it a taste.

All hell broke loose. There was shouting and crying and threatening of bodily harm if he touched my dinner, since he’d forfeited his when he came to our anniversary late. He apologized for a good ten minutes before I would let him take a single bite. Unfortunately, that’s when we discovered that despite trying my best, I’d ruined another meal. The sweet potatoes were not sweet enough, I’d added an overwhelming amount of thyme to the tomatos and the steak was badly undercooked. The carrots turned out excellent though.

So that was his punishment, I watched him eat every bite of his dinner (except parts of the steak that were clearly raw). He choked it down to please me, since I regularly eat my own cooking I’m used to terrible meals, but one thing I’m not that bad at is dessert – I’m a whiz baker. That’s why I cried when I bit into my cake and it was thick and terrible. Studly tried to eat his small slice with two glasses of milk, but it was dense and so fudge-y that we couldn’t swallow.

Next year I’ll pull a Mrs. Doubtfire and pay for someone else to make a good meal that I can plate and take credit for. Or better yet, he can make me dinner and I’ll be late!

Evelyn Update

We’ve been following Evelyn’s journey during messy break ups and some really strange behavior, but now we’ve hit the motherload.

Let’s recap her past few years, shall we?

First, she was denied entry into colleges in California due to low GPA, so she decided to go to the midwest to follow her career path…of opening a bakery…with a Classical History degree. Since she was moving she decided to lose her virginity to some random dude while we were drunk and then she fell for him all while telling him the she only wanted to be fuck buddies. After breaking her heart over this worthless piece of crap, she rebounded with a marine preparing to ship off to Afganistan who joked about killing Evelyn and some friends (including me) then licked the inside of his ‘best friend’s’ mouth and put a picture of it on Facebook. Eventually, they broke up – although not soon enough to salvage what was left of her pride. A few weeks after Evelyn posted a status about the marine dating someone new, she was suddenly in a new relationship…and they got a phone plan together! And an apartment!

And now, less than six months after they first met, he proposed.

Yep, you read that correctly.

Over the months she’s lived with him, she’s contacted me less and less frequently. It feels like I’m throwing notes to her across the 1,600 mile distance and I never know if she receives them and just doesn’t want to talk to me or if she doesn’t get them at all. I suspect it’s the former. I know she’s alive because I have a daily stream of notifications about her Farmville on my Facebook.

98 other items in a 1 month period and she can’t take 25 seconds to fucking text me?

She did pause in helping local Farmville villages long enough to ask me to be a bridesmaid and inform me that the wedding colors would be apple green for the ladies (this dress will go really badly with my skin tone) and teal for the men.

Aside from that I’ve heard more new life events from Charles Dickens…if you don’t count how many prized longhorn cows she’s raised as “life events”.

I’m pretty sure it makes me a bitch and a bad friend, but I question if they’ll make it to the wedding…

“Promotion”

I’ve been working for Anonymous Software Company for seven years – three of those as an intern, the rest in my current job title. At my last review, I requested a promotion and my boss happily put it in the works. I was excited but didn’t want to say anything in case it was turned down.

A few weeks before me, Smokin’ had asked for a promotion and was on her way to receiving one. She revealed her salary, which was almost $10,000 less than me per year, despite having a similar education.

The is the difference in our salaries in $100 bills. No wonder she still has to live at home with her parents!

“How did that happen?” I asked, aghast.

“That’s how much they offered me,” she said, a hurt look in her eye, “Did they offer you more?”

“No,” I said bluntly, “they offered me about that amount too. I negotiated.”

“Negotiated…I didn’t even think to do that.” Smokin’ said, upset.

The good news was that her promotion would raise her salary up significantly, close to my current salary. She proudly told me this and revealed that her new title would be XXXX. I gave her a hug and waited for my news.

“Good news!” Ching said to me, “management is in the works to promote you.”

“Oh!?” I asked, breathless.

“Yes, to the position of XXXX.”

I felt my face fall, especially when I heard that the raise would not be that much since I am already close to the top of average salary in my current position. While I respect Smokin’, I’ve worked at Anonymous Software company for more than three times the amount of time she has but we’ll be in the same job title. I already feel far behind one of the other interns I worked with, who is now a manager. That would be SpeedRacer.

I confided in Poww, since he’s been in the same position for 5 years and I knew he would understand my feelings.

“You and Smokin’ are both going to be XXXX?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t that Arch’s title when he was first hired?” Poww asked, confusion on his face. Arch, the other person who interned with me, although he interned half the amount of time I did. Arch, who made it his mission to try to learn my job to take it over and only a few months ago was given a huge promotion into management. I felt livid.

So I told Smokin’ and we used our contacts throughout the company to find out. Guess what? Poww was right. Smokin’ and I are both being promoted (even though I have much more experience) into a position that Arch was hired into directly from college. Even though he had less work experience than me and the same education that both Smokin’ and I have. We’re all the same age, we all went to high school together!

I’m upset to say the least. I feel like he was unfairly hired above me from the very beginning. If we have the same education and similar skills but I have more work experience….why was his hire position an entire level above mine?

I’ve always been loyal to my company, but I don’t know how I can be now that I have this information.

Opinion: Don’t Be An Asshole

The New York Times ran a column asking for advice from a babysitter that noticed that their client was scheduling her time far in advance (causing her to rearrange other job schedules) and then cancelling. She wondered if she should still be compensated.

I think it’s situational – it depends on how much time the sitter has to find something else to do or some other job to take.

If you cancel up to 24 hours in advance, I think that the sitter should NOT be compensated unless, 1) you have an agreement that states otherwise, or 2) it’s a frequent event (in which case the babysitter should have an agreement that states they get 50%, 25%, etc. of what they would have made).

If you cancel day of, I don’t think you owe the total amount, but probably 50% of what the person would have made or 100% if it was a teenager for $7 an hour and you were only going to be gone 3 hours. That wouldn’t be a huge hit to your wallet.

If the sitter is standing in your doorway when you cancel, you are an asshole and that sitter should not only REFUSE to work for you again, they should tell all of their friends that you are a damn awful human being. This happened to me. I cried. True Story.

I used to babysit the younger brother of my brother’s friend – he was one of those children born much later than all of the other siblings…so all of the other kids were in college or high school when he was still in diapers. I didn’t babysit him very often, maybe once every few months, since there were so many older siblings who could watch him.

One day I got a call from his mother asking me to babysit on a particular afternoon after school. I looked at the calendar and hesitated, because it was the anniversary of my dad’s death and I knew that was a day that my mom would keep my brother and I out of school to have a family day together and go visit the grave.

“Zoogie2, this would REALLY help me out. My elderly mother is flying in and it’s only for two to three hours when I pick her up and take her out to dinner so we can catch up.”

I needed the money and I figured that by that time in the evening I’d already want to escape my depressing family, so I agreed.

After a long day of grave visiting, family meals and going through countless photo albumns (along with sniffles from my mom about how proud my dad would be of us if he was here, he’s our guardian angel looking at us from a cotton-like cloud while playing a harp and smiling down on us serenely, etcetra) I showed up at the house a bit sadder and more emotional that I thought I would be.

I knocked on the door and the mom opened it. Barely glancing at me, she said, “Oh, I decided to take my son to the airport and dinner with me. Sorry.” Then closed the door in my face.

Should I have gotten a better apology? Yes! Should I have been compensated for my time, regardless of what memories the day held for me, but definitely consider what kind of emotional hell I was ignoring to help her out? Fuck yes!

She didn’t just cancel on me, she let me drive all the way to her home and knock on the door. She didn’t even have the decency to give me a call or attempt to cancel. The disrespect of her  actions is galling. At the very least, I was out gas money and my time; when I came home and told my mom what happened we were both pretty pissed.

So I called all of my babysitter friends (because at 10 cents a pop, texting was too expensive and I had a limit) and let them know what happened. For the rest of my time in high school, that mom had an incredibly difficult time finding a sitter and when she called me I always said the same thing, “Sorry, I’m busy that day. Goodbye.” I would have confronted her but I was afraid of losing other clients. She certainly suffered for a few years being blackballed.

I’ve been on the other side of the coin as well – one time I was supposed to babysit a family’s two little girls at 6pm but around noon of that same day I started throwing up. My mom attempted to call the family, but they never answered their phone (this was pre-cell phone era). She tried every few hours, leaving numerous messages, so what could we do when they showed up at my place to pick me up? I had to tell them I was too sick to babysit and YES, I felt really badly. I’d called a few friends to see if anyone could cover, but no one could. Because I was apologetic, had clearly tried my best to alert them and find a replacement and because they were the forgiving type, I still babysat for them for another few years. So I understand that sometimes, shit happens.

If the columnist were me, I’d ask myself how important this client is. If we part on unhappy terms, will they tell everyone in their Mommy & Me class and will that negatively impact my ability to get other work? How close are you to the parents? Are you their main babysitter or just a backup? That will defnitely determine how much weight you hold with them. Maybe the problem is that you’ve become ‘part of the family’ and you must love their kid as much as they do, which means you’ll be flexible in seeing her. There needs to be a distance between you as an employee as them as employers.

Can you sit them down after your next babysitting gig and explain how this is affecting you and that as much as you love babysitting for them and spending time with their little sweetpea, this is a job and as such, you think the last-minute cancellations either need to stop or you need to be compensated. Figure out what points you want to make with them, and if they dump you for some 17 year old who needs money to bedazzle her phone, that’s the breaks but at least you won’t feel used or disregarded.