Laziness Comes Full Circle

Some guy sitting at a computer behind me just said to me and Son, "I caught you." We weren't really sure what he caught us doing until he asked, "So what do you guys do here all day?" We realized we were both reading an article called "5 Guys to Avoid Dating" and discussing it loudly back and forth. Oops!

I have had to explain so many little discrepancies in our crappy website to customers today... I am thinking about lobbying to get it redesigned so that it's more user-friendly. And by user I mean moron. PS. Fun fact - Did you know that the terms idiot, imbecile, and moron were first used as "archaic terms for mental retardation" and not just insults? They were actual scientific classifications! Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Idiot indicated the greatest degree of intellectual disability, where the mental
age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard himself or herself
against common physical dangers. The term was gradually replaced by the term
profound mental retardation.

Imbecile indicated an intellectual disability less extreme than idiocy and not necessarily inherited. It is now usually subdivided into two categories, known as severe mental retardation and moderate mental retardation.

Moron was defined by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-minded in 1910, following work by Henry H. Goddard, as the term for an adult with a mental age between eight and twelve; mild mental retardation is now the term for this condition.

Now in no way am I implying that the people who annoy me at work are mentally retarded or anything like that - I am using the term strictly in terms of a lack of common sense that stems from laziness.

ANYWHO - I think the new system should be in the format of a Nick Jr show, with a bunch of brightly colored smiley faces asking simple questions and then waiting an inordinate amount of time for a response. You know what I mean - well maybe you don't.

I babysit two little girls, 3 and 5 years old, and we spend a lot of time playing in the living room with Nick Jr and Noggin on in the background... you know, all manner of mind-stimulating channels for children. The characters on the show sometimes ask their audience questions and wait for a response, assuming the children at home are screaming the answer into the TV, and then after about 10 seconds the characters say, "That's right!!!!!" even though they have no idea what answers are actually being given. Sometimes the character consists of a face that takes up the entire screen... which is a little creepy.

Way to go!

However creepy it may be, I think a face like this guiding our customers through our site would be a lot more effective and efficient than making me get off my lazy ass to answer the same question 80 times for 80 different people. Now it looks like the answer to my constant complaints on the blog may stem from my own laziness. Me oh my. That's a topic for another day.

PS. Shout out to Christal for having the 2 cutest little girls ever. :)

I'm a creep, yeaaa, just creepin on the down low

me: ps. oh my god this is the creepiest thing ever
oh my goodness
my skin is crawling
Sonya: he lives with his parents
me: yea
this is robins number one creep out guy
that makes her skin crawl
and shes always like... ughghhh
i refer to him as CH
for cowboy hat
and i went in her office and was like "howdy maam" and tipped my imaginary hat to her
and she was like eeeeeewwww
and then i just went in her office to tell her to maybe call your station
bc when he used to come in a lot more
Sonya: worse than dw
me: yes
to her anyway
but when he came in he would not stop talking to robin
no matter how she tried
so i called from my station
and pretneded i was on the phone w someone
and she did too
until he went away
and i was going to do that to you just now but i didnt know if you would pick up on it right away
bc i didnt know if you were getting as creeped out by him as we did
me: does he creep you out
Sonya: the guy with the hat
me: or are you impervious to his greasy doughiness
yes
thats what i think of
greasy sweaty face
ugh
Sonya: he's going to the grocery store now to shop for his parents
me: he wants to tell you his life story whenever he comes in
Sonya: maybe you can go hit it up after work
me: hit up the grocery store?
im avoiding all grocery stores after work today
Sonya: help him with his long list of groceries
me: yea. maybe ill do that
does he not creep you out?!?!
Sonya: is he mentally unstable
me: probably
lives w his parents
but who knows
he might just be weird
was that a situation that you would have liked to be rescued from
Sonya: yes please
remember that
me: well
thats why i was going to robins
to tell her to call you from her office
but you were so helpful i thought you might be enjoying yourself!
Sonya: haha you know it

Door Etiquette

Quick question: If you saw these doors while you were wandering in a grocery store, a hardware store, a pet store, or any other kind of store... would you go through them?

Would you assume that it was employees only, or would you require a big blaring sign to alert you to the fact? Me - I don't tend to go through these kinds of doors unless I actually work at the location or have been invited in by ... an employee... ok this is starting to sound a little risque, I'll hit the brakes. Anyway, we have a door kind of like this - but not as industrial or commercial, and it's only one... not two. But yea - it's just there for employees to go in and out of the lab. Not for John Q. Public! And yet people try to go through it all the time. It literally only takes you to the offices of the employees in my department... so there's no reason for anyone to go through the door without being summoned by an employee.

A woman walked through those doors today and when Sonya said, "Ma'am, are you trying to leave?" she replied, "No I just need to use the copier."

Defies logic, doesn't it?

A Fall Down Memory Lane

I am in the lab today with Sonya and everyone here keeps making comments like "Oh no" and stuff, like Son and I are going to wreak havoc. Let me tell you something right now - most of the jobs I have worked at have been pleasant and occasionally fun, even the ones the weren't supposed to be (aka. NOT the summer camp I worked at, which is supposed to be fun). So just because Son and I have a good time and laugh a lot when we are hard at work, that doesn't mean that work isn't getting done or that trouble is ahead.

For example - one of my favorite jobs ever had to have been working at the cafe inside of Barnes & Noble. I often thought that filming a reality show of my work there would have made a looooot of money. I loved the people I worked with and we managed to have a good time without sacrificing our quality of work. My boss Steve was even in on it - he had a Polaroid camera that he would randomly drop off at the cafe so that we could snap a few fun pictures, which we would either put up in the break room or in the back room at the cafe. A lot of the time, the fun we captured on film was contagious - I remember a customer coming up to the counter and saying "Wow, you guys must have so much fun working here. I wish I had that." I mean how cool is that?! Sometimes we did get chastised for being too loud because our boss could hear us from the CD/DVD section, but our customers loved us.

It's not always the same story here though, since most of my horror stories focus on the clientele that pass through. I have fun in the lab because if I don't, my job will be boring, then my morale will suffer, then I would hate coming into work every day. I'm not exactly jumping for joy as it is when my alarm goes off at 6:30 am but I know I don't have a terrible day ahead of me. Now that Son is here we can relive our glory days from 3rd grade to 12th grade. Oh yea. Like that time I watched the Dawson's Creek finale at her house and everybody cried except me. Or that time we got abandoned at the Homecoming football game and had to call my dad out of bed to give us a ride... it was Friday the 13th... and Sonya tripped off the sidewalk and ripped her band pants. Ha! Oh man I just found a Friday the 13th in October of the year 2000 - it all fits. Ah hahahaha. I am laughing just sitting here. Those were the days. Back before we could drive, we were only 15 years old!! Oh man. Ok I'm done reminiscing for now. Back to painting my nails...

True Life: I'm Surrounded by Idiots

me: kendall made a good point
analogy i mean
about people calling us and getting pissy when they find out they have the wrong dept
and theyre like, its in the same building though
why cant you transfer me
its like... calling the mall
calling boscovs
and trying to ask for someone who works at macys
Sonya: lol
true
they are just mad bc 1. they are running out of minutes on their pay as you go cell phone or 2. they are calling from a pay phone and don't have any more quarters

Nice!

On a woman who says she loves her husband more than her kids:

Meredith: She had 4 kids!!! The damn world is overpopulated...if you don't love them that much.....why didn't you get a house plant

A Taste of New Orleans...

...but nothing close to what it tastes like down there! Ok I am back from my vacation and raring to go back to work... eh. It was really, REALLY hard to wake up this morning, and yet I did, and I made it to work on time - go me!

I got some really sweet new clothes down in New Orleans which has further inspired me to go through all of my worldly possessions and donate at least 25% to Goodwill. I can't imagine lugging all of my stuff up to Baltimore with me. Lordy lordy. Plus - I get a tax break for my charity - woo hoo.

So someone here is trying to e-mail their resume to a company to apply for a job. I asked him if he had an e-mail account and he did, so I asked him to sign into his account and let me know when he's done. He calls me over and minute later and says, "Ok, now what?" He had not signed into his e-mail address, all he had done was type his e-mail address into the address bar. I tried to explain that he needed to type in yahoo.com and then sign in. And he didn't. He just typed his e-mail address into the address bar again. Sigh.

So I missed the blog, and I'd like to think the blog missed me, but I had zero free time to write about the smallest detail of my trip! So I'll try to remember the best of the best.

Plane ride there:

• An atheist and a religious zealot have a heated discussion ending in peaceful resolution, until the atheist says he saw a rainbow and the zealot says "Well you know that's a sign..." to which he replies, "Yea, a sign of light coming through water droplets!"
• The flight attendant tells the obnoxious woman in front of me to quiet down because "the people in first class can't sleep"
• Dennis snaps a picture of me sleeping with my mouth open

First day of the fest:

• Woman so drugged up out of her mind she can barely stand, but still wants to sway
• Man who wishes he was in FlashDance and punch dances out his rage (which I got video of, booya!!)
• We find a place that has happy hour from 11am to 8pm!
• Red Fish Grill for dinner - the entire bar is distracted from dinner by the Bulls-Celtics game

Second day of the fest:

• We get accosted in the French Quarter by a guy (who ends up being a Meals on Wheels rep) who gives Dennis a ticket for having a hottie in a non-hottie zone... lucky me! I also got a free hat, stickers, and a book about Yoga. Weird goodie bag.
• We go to the New Orleans Bingo! Show, which defies words, so I won't put any, just a link to their site. www.neworleansbingoshow.com I might mention some fun details later on.
• We eat dinner at 10:30 pm - goodness. The bread is phenomenal.
• Oh yea, Darick falls in the Mississippi River.

Third day of the fest:

• We walk around the French Quarter for so long we don't make it to the fest until around 3 pm. We check out the Economy Tent with some brass bands and a second line made up of people dancing around with funky umbrellas.
• We check out the Bingo! Show playing at the Lagniappe Stage. Some doucher in a cowboy hat is standing up in front the whole time and won't sit down. My dad calls him a douche for wearing 2 bandannas at once.
• We have a bangin dinner at the Bourbon House. Dennis and Darick hit up Bourbon St. and I go home and get in bed... with Law & Order. :-)

Fourth day of the fest:

• Neil Young
• Neil Young
• Neil Young

Flight home:

• We get to the airport at the ass-crack of dawn for my dad's early flight then have an hour to wait for our flight, so Dennis and I lay down and sleep on the airport floor. Some huge flight to DC gets cancelled and people come pouring out of the area and are trying to step over us.

Some lady says - You know you guys are in the way of everyone.

Dennis - Well we have 6 seats for this whole gate.. so get over it.

Lady - Well it's just disrespectful.

Dennis - I'm sure it is.

• Flight attendants are so cheery Dennis asks what is wrong with them when one of them compliments my earrings.

So that's my trip in a nutshell, I'll write some more later. Peace.