Happy Holidays!

During the holidays, many companies shut down their offices completely, giving everyone the time off. To do this, they trade off other holidays throughout the year (MLK day, Presidents Day, Flag Day, whatever) but they get major time off at Christmas.

My office doesn't do this. For which I'm grateful. I like having a random Monday off in February. And because we have a pretty fabulous vacation day policy, we have the ability to take days off at Christmas. So I took the week off before Christmas and headed to the east coast to see the fam. Taking the week off before Christmas is my usual practice and my favorite. I get home in time to do Christmas shopping (so I dont have to schlep gifts across the country) and I get to enjoy all the decorations and cooking and stuff. And my family does Christmas before Dec. 25 every year anyway.

For example, this year, on Dec. 20 was Christmas dinner with my parents' friends. Dec. 21 was Christmas dinner with my long-time friends. Dec. 22 was shopping, Dec. 23 was Christmas with The Family (all of 'em) and Dec. 24 was Xmas Eve at church, then dinner/party at mom & dad's with neighbors and church friends (and Chick-fil-A). So by Dec. 25 all that was left to do was to see what Santa brought and play with it!

I'm out of the office the week before Christmas....the rest of my team is out the week after....there's always someone here in case something needs to get done....it works out well.

But back to those companies that close for the holidays.....my clients belong to that group. Which means that there's not a lot going on in the office this week. Which is AWESOME. I've been able to catch up on all kinds of things: expense reports, invoices, old emails, etc.

Today I was cleaning off my PC desktop and "My Documents" folder, deleting old files, archiving files to our shared server and generally reorganizing things. I'm applying a very scientific process to evaluating the files I'm dealing with. Below are the questions I'm asking myself in deciding the fate of these documents:
- Do I need to keep the online dating profile of a guy I met on Match.com 5 years ago?
Answer: No
- Do I need to keep the IM conversation from when I "broke up" with my crazy bitch ex-roommate?
Answer: Yes
- What should I do with the mail merge email I wrote 3 years ago on behalf of a client, who is no longer a client and the mail merge source file is no longer able to be located by my PC?
Answer: Delete
- What about the Photoshopped picture of my former team eating french fries?
Answer: make computer wallpaper and put on Facebook
- The picture of a former co-worker's cat with a cast on his leg (because he broke it jumping off the counter)?
Answer: Keep
- An Excel grid titled "People The Tad Likes"?
Answer: Open to see WTH this is, then keep

- Graph on Rick Astley's planned activity frequency?
Answer: Keep and post on my blog

But then there's the stuff I don't know what to do about. Like the Yoda Dog picture, the three wolves shirt and a file titled "Bad Ass".

Sigh. Another tough day at the office.

Restroom Confidential

At work, we don't have our own bathroom in our office. Our bathrooms are down the hall and shared with the two other companies on our floor. To prevent weirdos or homeless people from getting into our bathrooms, the doors have punch button unlock codes that are changed every few months or so.

And we're on the 12th floor, so it's pretty certain that the only people using our ladies' room are on our floor. So any...weirdness or...trauma or....damage to the room was committed by the women on our floor and/or their guests.

Being the curious bystander (read: nosy busybody) I am, anytime there's a disturbance in the restroom, I try to figure it out.

For example: a couple of years ago, I noticed that upon entering the restroom, there would FREQUENTLY be a toilet seat covered in pee. I mean COVERED. I was perplexed as to how that happened accidentally....as were the other girls in my office. (Yes, we discussed it).

After some repeated stalking and observation, we finally figured out that the offender was a girl in the architectural office down the hall. (side note: she was also frequently seen in the hall on her cell phone and making out with her boyfriend. when she left the company, we didnt really miss her)

Anyway, since her departure, the ladies' room has been relatively drama-free. Until recently.

I've been noticing remnants of vomit in the toilet lately. (How do I recognize the remnants? I lived in the sorority house in college.) Which makes me wonder...what's going on!?

There are a few common causes of throwing up at work...other than stomach virus...: you're hungover, you're pregnant or you have an eating disorder. In my building, I'm betting on the first two.

So now, because I'm curious (see note above) it's time to figure out who and why. Stay tuned.

Emails I Wish I Could Send

Dear Douchebag,

When you say "I can't give you any information because you work in PR not Marketing" that does not really do anyone any good.

First of all, do you know the difference between PR and marketing?
Second of all, even if the topic being discussed is outside the typical scope of my line of work, there's a reason I'm calling you back. I might be interested in pursuing the thing you proposed.
Third of all, if I'm not actually the person you need to talk to, (because I dont have a big enough budget, because I'm not the right IMC discipline, because I'm not in the right time zone, because I'm a white girl, because I have an accent, because I'm a brunette, because I wear pearls and like to eat fish and chips and drink pink champagne.....whatevs) there's a GOOD chance that I know the person you need to talk to and could influence them, one way or another.

So your refusal to give me information may end up costing you some business. Just thought you'd like to know.

Thanks!
Me

Emails I Wish I Could Send

Dear Interviewer,

If you call and ask me to schedule an interview for you, please get the interviewee's name correct. Otherwise I might be inclined to believe that you are not, in fact, worth our time.

Thanks!
Me

My life is like a bad sitcom....or something

Pickle's on maternity leave but she stopped by the office today to just visit with people and have lunch with a bunch of us. While she was here, we were catching her up on the stories from around the office. After about 12 minutes of story-telling, it became clear that 80% of the stories were about me or somehow related to me.

1. My boss hosted the office at his house for a cookout/office party this summer. He cooked, we all brought sides and desserts and drinks to share. Well, apparently I didn't so such a good job at "sharing" my drinks...but I did great at "drinking" my drinks. So after a few hours of the cookout, I was wandering through my boss's backyard when I accidentally stumbled into the side of his house. With a thud. (at which point I interjected that I ran into a chair AND a concrete column in the office yesterday, to illustrate that I'm clumsy in general, regardless of consumption).
The other key factor to mention here is that while wandering through the backyard...and into the wall...I was holding a newborn child. One of my co-workers had brought his wife and child to the party and they let me hold the child. I guess when you have a 4-month-old baby you are willing to let anybody hold him so you regain free use of your arms, but I'd like to suggest that parents use a little more discretion than that and refrain from handing your baby over to the drunk girl. My current theory is that because the parents in this situation are teetotalers, maybe they didnt recognize the situation for what it was. Because I'm pretty sure it's a widely understood policy that you DO NOT let the drunk girl hold your baby!

2. I am a regular contributor to my office's blog. Our blog is separate from our corporate website, but still kinda official. We try to write stuff that's entertaining, insightful, cheeky and mostly random. Last week, I wrote a post about Halloween, going over some dos and don'ts for costuming this year. The original title of the post was "Are you wearing a douchebag costume?" (or something like that). I posted it one day last week, then on Tuesday of this week (5 days later) I got an email from the director of our office letting me know I needed to change the title.
Apparently someone had started an auto-feed from our office's blog onto our corporate site (run by our corporate office in NY) and "Are you wearing a douchebag costume?" had popped up on the main page. Whoops. Someone saw it and freaked and it got back to one of the big corporate directors, who called the director of my office and (laughingly) said "um....y'all need to change that....we need to keep it clean."
I apologized, changed it and then talked with the other editors of the blog about other questionable content. Like the painted butt pumpkin picture, "WTF" tag and ass-related comments.
But what's really funny about all this is that of ALL THE PEOPLE to get called out for "inappropriate blogging" that it was me! I am NOT the potty mouth of the group. In fact, "douchebag" might be the worst word I say. So, of course, as word spread through the office, people found this hilarious. And started calling me "Douchebag". And it stuck.

Add that to the stories that weren't told (like my bathroom counter that caught on fire, my Halloween hair, my couch-surfing, etc.) and I began to realize that my life is pretty much just a long drawn-out series of embarassing (yet hilarious) stories.

Oh well. At least I entertain myself.