The NonGift

I love my friends. I mean, LOVE them. That are fabulous, amazing, and al other good words. So, I am crafty and usually make them something for their birthdays as well as buy something that is perfect for them. I, unfortunately, have man-tendencies and occasionally forget their birthdays though. DANG IT! Oh, how bad I feel!

So what do I do? Admit the truth and tell them I am a horrible friend and that I forgot the day they were born?

I think we both know that is not what happens…

Yea, I play the “Oh, damn! I forgot your gift at home.” card. So now, I have not only forgotten their gift but I have also lied to them. Too add to that, I often forgot the give them their gift afterwards. Sad day!

So what do you think? How naughty, 1-5. Have you ever done the same thing?

Potty Dance

When I get home sometimes, I have not gone to the bathroom all day. Now, usually the first thing I do is let my dog out. She waits all day to go and does not have the opportunity to go by herself, obviously…

Since I have the chance to pee all day, theoretically, is it bad on the days I make her wait while I go?

1-5, how bad am I?

Erkel

At work there is a security guard who I have to interact with regularly. He is socially awkward, at best. Unfortunately, he never learned good ways to interact with others and, I’m sure, had a difficult life because of this.

Now generally I’m pretty understanding and don’t mind helping these folks practice, through positive and negative reinforcement, appropriate behaviors. Can you tell yet that I am a Psychology major?

Anyway, I have tried to push down the eye rolling and grimaces while interacting with this guy but it keep getting harder and harder. He has moved from just awkward to rude occasionally as well. I’m not sure that he know he is being rude though… So, while not with him, I have taken to calling him Erkel. Harsh, but pretty accurate (pants and all.) Well, this nick name has kinda taken root with the other staff and now he is generally referred to as Erkel now.

Woops! I think this mean spirited nickname may fall under bullying. Damn it! I HATE bullies! Even knowing this, I still can’t seem to stop calling him Erkel. It has turned into my way of venting about him.

Naughty Scale, 1-5. How terrible am I for continuing to call him that? Should I stop or keep this venting tool so I can tolerate him while face-to-face?

Watered Down Truth

So I have a super crappy apartment right? Well, when it rains hard my apartment floods. I don’t get home till after 10:00pm in the evenings so maintenance is definitely not still working and it has to be a life and death situation for them to come out to check on a problem.

The other night it rained hard, and I mean hard! For several hours. (So hard it actually collapsed one of our death-trap parking garages… Which after 3 months is still ½ standing with only one string of caution tape around it. But I digress.) When I walked into my apartment, I expected the normal amount of flooding, a wet window sill and couch which is near the window. Well, I walked in and my foot hit wet. You know that splat noise from freshly wet carpet? Yea. At first I though my dog had peed on the floor since I was in the middle of the room. Then I took another step, splat. Oh my dog was going to get a beat down! She peed in TWO different places?!? Then it hit me. Flooding.

I pulled my sectional away from the wall and water was still coming in from the window and in though the electrical outlet as well. DANGER!!! So I called the maintenance number. Surprise… no response. I left  message. After 10 more minutes, I called back explaining how dangerous the situation was in another message. Well, by the time, the water had quit coming in through the window and I had cleaned the window and wall mostly up with a towel, it occurs to me if the guy comes, he is gong to see a dry sill and not do anything about the problem till the next day.

So what naughty thing did I do… I got a cup of water and poured it on the sill. Shady, right?!? It did however aid my cause and the maintenance guy called in a emergency wet-vac crew out immediately.

So, one to five? I think my numbers might be a little more severe this time.

Office Games

Howdy bloggers! I work at a university in the student services department and mostly love my job. Don’t love the TERRIBLE pay and hours though. The campus director approached me about a job that would give me normal hours and a $7,000 min pay raise. Uh, Heck yea!

Well, because I had not been working a full year yet there was some HR fiasco and it took over a month before the actual interview. During that time, 3 people had been hired into that dept and one of the people from my own dept quit. I was now tasked with all of this person’s duties (which no one else in my dept was capable of doing… Can you guess where this is going?)

Anyway, interview day came and I bombed the interview. I have no idea what happened!?!?! Really, Jennifer… Interview EPIC FAIL. So, pair all of those things together and I did not get the job. Okay, so here we are, there is no hope that a position will come open soon at my current job which means I’m stuck with the God awful shift and pay for another year at least.

I’m now casually looking for other jobs. I want to work as an administrator with non-profits and with youth. Here is the problem: I have assured my leadership team that I am fine and am excited to keep after my current job. “I look forward to applying again when the opportunity comes up.”

I know that saying the truth is definitely a bad idea but they put me in a position where I had to give this feedback…

Naughty Scale… Lying to your boss, 1-5?

Starbucks and a Funeral

Today was a sad, hard day. My boyfriend’s grandfather passed, his last male, family role model. Today was the funeral so I asked my boss if it was ok to turn in some vacation time and go. Of course, he said yes.

So I had a pretty sleepless night worrying about my boyfriend and, in general, the whole affair was pretty exhausting. I went to the funeral, then lunch, and then headed off to work. On the way back, knowing it would take an extra 15- 20 minutes, I stopped at Starbucks for a venti salted, caramel, soy mocha at 130 degrees as well as QuickTrip becasue my tire was low on air and needed its weekly refill.

Here is the question, do you think those extra non-funeral minutes are ethical since I did not originally ask for the extra time? Perhaps only the QuickTrip minutes are ok since it was needed…? However, I sort of felt like that deflated, saggy tire and Starbucks can make even the worst day a little brighter… I’ll leave it to you.

Obviously an Idiot

If you have never heard of Ted Talks, I encourage you to Google and enjoy! Miss Kathryn Schultz gives a talk “On Being Wrong.” It is genius. Anyway, it talks about the assumptions we place on others when they do not agree with us. Since this is related, and funny, I thought I’d share.

So when people don’t agree with you:

1. Ignorant Assumption: Obviously they do not have all the facts. After you enlighten them with the “truth” they will change their minds.

When that does not work…

2. Idiocy Assumption: Okay, they have the fact but are too stupid to put them all together.

When that does not work it leads to the final assumption…

3. Evil Assumption: They have all the facts and are smart, so obviously they are, with malice, acting against the good and truth you are representing.

I find myself often following these assumptions. For instance: my aloof, slob, conniving, lazy co-worker. We both work in the same department and, unfortunately, since we work opposite shifts, have to share the same work space. Now, students who come in see this mess she leaves on the desk and I mean MESS… ALL THE TIME. I usually spend 10-15 minutes every time she leaves the desk cleaning up after her. (our shifts do overlap a few hours) This mess includes used Kleenex, dried noodles on the keyboard, random papers everywhere, chip crumbs, etc. You get the picture.

I have confronted her about this on multiple occasions and she says that she works best in this “environment.” OMG! Are you bleeping kidding me?!? Okay, I’m not sure if she is bright enough to make it to the evil assumption…

This leads me to my scenario. It is a little different because I have not done this potentially naughty act yet… I am thinking of taking a picture each time she leaves the desk and presenting irrefutable, photo evidence to my boss. Now this may seem drastic but I have gone to him MULTIPLE times about this issue to no avail. Mostly though, I want to get her in trouble though, rather than  the more important issue of showing a presentable space to the students.

Every day I think that there is no way I could possible like her less, but then it happens.

So, on naughty scale, 1-5? I will also take alternate suggestions on how to handle this problem. I hope b*tch slapping is one of my choices… just sayin’.