Tuesday Morning Randomness

As I was handing my car keys off to the mechanic so that he could take my car in for an oil change, one of our technicians walked up to me.   

Him: You eat healthy, right?
Me: Ummm, I guess.
Him: I mean you eat vegetables, right?
Me: Yes, I definitely eat vegetables.
Him: (pulling up his sleeve) What’s this rash?
Mechanic: Dr. Lynne.  Paging Dr. Lynne.
Me: How does eating vegetables equate to being an expert on rashes?.
Mechanic: I eat vegetables.
Me: I can’t even see it.  Does it itch?
Him: I woke myself up scratching.
Mechanic: It’s probably poison oak.
Him: What’s the best way to cure it?
Me: Calamine lotion.  Were you out in the woods?
Mechanic: And it’s not contagious.  I had it really bad and my wife made go to the emergency room – I had warts that were oozing pus.  The doctor said that that’s not contagious – you could rub it all over her (pointing to me) and she wouldn’t get it.  You can only get it from something that has the oil on it – the plant or the clothes.

At this point I left the conversation.  The idea of rubbing poison oak pus all over me was not an image I needed first thing in the morning.  And the vegetable-eating-but-not-vegetarian mechanic seemed to have the situation under control.

Upgrades/Downgrades

The following is a list of my responsibilities at work:

accounts receivable (money people owe us), accounts payable (money we owe vendors), payroll, human resources (and all the legal intricacies), month-end financial reporting (where all of the above come together), software training, on-site computer issue person/liaison with off-site IT company.

In addition, I also act as the property manager for the building which two of the business principals own (at the time it seemed easier that way).

As you can imagine, this is more than one person can hope to handle.  For the past several years, I’ve had an assistant.  The market being what it is, though, we’ve been steadily downsizing in order to survive, and I was informed this week that the full-time assistant position will be eliminated.  In effect, this has already happened due to our receptionist’s leave-of-absence that became permanent: my assistant has become the receptionist, and has only been able to do about half of the normal job duties.

I was prepared for this.  Over this winter, I’ve been practicing how to essentially go alone.  I’m barely keeping my head above water (my filing is at least two months behind), and it’s winter.  The thought of what spring will bring makes my stomach knot.  So, I’ve been looking at where I can trim, and the first thing that popped into my head was the property management side (partly because that’s been causing a lot of aggravation recently).  Today, I informed the owner that I needed to drop those responsibilities.

He thought a minute.  “Can you do it at night? We can just pay you directly” Up to this point, I’ve been deducting my hours from my payroll cost to the main company.

“I can, though I would need to get into our network remotely, and in order to do that I’ll need to upgrade my internet service.  I don’t actually mind taking on extra work; I just want to be able to go home and change into my pyjamas after 8 hours.”  Which is true – I will happily work 12 hour days as long as I can do 4 of those from the comfort of my living room.

“I can see that.  Well, what are your thoughts?”

“Do you want to pay for my internet upgrade? It would probably be cheaper than paying a professional company.  We’re such a small property I’m not sure anyone would want us.”  Even as I said this, I cringed.  We have had people who have “worked from home”, and I have consistently thrown fits over this policy.  Part of it was from a network admin policy: invariably the people who got the privileges were people who really didn’t know what they were doing and it always involved a lot of headaches because they would get their computers all gunked up.  Which, of course, meant I had to try and fix them.  The other problem was from an HR perspective.  The privilege would be granted, but then I was put in charge of ensuring that the people were working the hours they claimed.  How was I supposed to do that? Go to their house and knock on their door? And, yes, I was jealous.  It seemed monumentally unfair to me that some people were granted permission to work from home (and have their internet upgrade paid for and maintained by the company) to help fulfill their eight hours when I routinely put in 10 hours and if I wasn’t at my desk when the owner was looking for me (even if I was in the restroom) would cause him to bellow “Where the hell is my accounting department?”  It was this last reason that made me feel such the hypocrite.  I had sworn that I would never be one of “those employees” and here I was not just asking but issuing an ultimatum: upgrade my internet or I walk.

I don’t know what the answer will be – my suspicion is that they will agree, which will mean I will finally catch up with the rest of the world with regards to my internet technology.

I just wish I didn’t feel like such a manipulative heel.

Stuffing Saga, the Assemblage

OK, so the stuffing has been completed.  Doubling my mom’s recipe makes a TON of the stuff.  I didn’t have a bowl big enough to mix it (even my two biggest mixing bowls couldn’t handle it), so I ended up mixing it in the pan, by hand (literally).  Even still, there’s just barely more stuffing in the pan than there is on my floor.  What a mess!

Tasting revealed that something was missing; but I could not figure out what.  I added spices and salt, and finally, when the answer was not leaping at me, gave up and put the stuffing in the oven.  Poultry seasonings (sage, thyme, marjoram) are not herbs that I cook with often (another reason for my unease with this assignment), so I have a difficult time discerning their flavors.

So, tomorrow is the acid test.  Maybe I can turn the remainder into a bread pudding or something.

A reason that I adore my mom

So sorry for the long absence.  I’ve been totally bogged down with work and holiday prep.  I’ve been wanting to write for days particularly since my last post is so incredibly Pollyanna-ish that I want to puke every time I read it.

I had an incredibly bad week at work.  My assistant has been replacing the receptionist who was on a leave of absence (she officially quit this week).  Over the past month the data entry has been rapidly piling up (there are just not enough hours in my day to get to it), and now I am frantically trying to close November with almost none of it done.  My office is responsible for anything money related: A/R, A/P, Payroll, Human Resources.  November is open enrollment, which means a huge chunk of my time that month was devoted to dealing with that.  December means Christmas and work slow downs, which means many, many requests for salary advances to be processed, and mounds and mounds of workshare claims.  The huge number of balls that I normally juggle have been increasing at an astronomical rate, and the end result is that some are dropping.  This week was the week to take the fallout.  It seemed like every hour someone was informing me of something that I had neglected to do, or done badly, or done incorrectly.  I started losing sleep, which caused me to make more mistakes, with the predictable results.  To top it off, my printer at work is starting to crap out, requiring me to print things multiple times to get a legible copy.  In short, my job has been very, very hard, and by today I was feeling that a monkey could get better results.  I’ve been coming home absolutely exhausted every night, with no energy to finish the holiday gifts that need to be mailed.  I’ve been snapping at everyone, including my boss.  When he confronted me about my attitude yesterday, I explained what was going on, and by the end tears were welling in my eyes (so professional, I know).  He looked at me.  “I appreciate the job your doing.”  He patted me on my back and continued down the hall.  I, meanwhile, dried my eyes and mentally kicked myself for acting like a two year old.

So, this afternoon, I was glued to my computer imputing receipts, feeling totally worthless, wiped, and more than a little blue when the mail was dropped on my desk.  I immediately recognized the writing on the small package as my mom’s.  Curious, I opened the package.  On a tiny card envelope, she had written, “Mom Open Now.”

This threw me.  Had she accidentally sent me my grandmother’s present? My hands hovered over the soft package.  Should I open it? I slit open the envelope.  Inside was a tiny card with three caroling cats (cats that remarkably resembled my felines).  Inside were the words “Merry Early Christmas, Goblin, Imp, Daphne.”  I opened the package and found a pair of slipper socks with three caroling cats on the cuff, complete with the words “Fa La La.”  I laughed for the first time in what felt like days and excitedly showed the gift and card off to my co-workers, who immediately muttered, “So that’s where she gets it.”  I laughed at their ribbing, and they were so relieved that I wasn’t grumpy they even conceded the idea was “cool.”  I walked out of the office into the dusk, smiling.