Saturday, August 27, 2011

Who is it?

Most people at one point or another is going to have a crazy stalker Ex. I had mine when I was 20. He was a brief blip on the radar and when I discovered him for what he was, I gave him the boot. It was a pretty big boot too, as his parents had to pay for him to fly back across the country (pretty sad considering he was 27 at the time).

After this, he continued to harass me at all hours of the day and night calling. I called the phone company to see how to rectify this problem, they gave me a solution of blocking the number he was calling from. I had blissful silence for awhile.

But apparently there is a glitch with that system, if a person is smart enough to figure it out, all you have to do is block your number before you call, and voila! Stalker boy is back in business.

During this time I was working two jobs, one evening and one over nights. Which results in some 18 hour shifts and a lot of odd hours of sleeping. After one of these double shifts, I was catching some shut eye before I headed home with my Mom for a quick 48 hour turn around on Christmas.

I was awaken by my phone ringing, and I automatically answered it, as I was waiting for my Mom to call. However it was a male voice on the other end. As I was still half asleep, I was confused and didn't know who was calling me. So I asked, "Who is this??"

Stalker boy replied, "It's Stalker boy, your ex, remember?"

And do this day this is still my favorite hang up on a person ever, I said it without the slightest hesitation, "Oh, f--- right off." And I hung up, then I laughed to myself and went back to sleep. It would be 2 months before he started calling again. Which is a story for another time.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Justifiable I say

I'm going to pull back out a character I wrote about back in May. She was listed under "It's painful somedays".

For the blog sake, I will dub her Deb.  

To give an idea of a type of person I want you to envision here, I will have to share a few mini stories.

1) One day, while I was working on the data entry side of the job, I heard Deb on the phone, describing in detail all the ingredients that went into the Seafood Jumbo her fiance had created for their Easter weekend. She went on to ask the person on the other end, if they had "Gotten all buzzzzzzed up on chocolate?" She then said, "Ok, the reason I am calling is to check on your address..." 

At this point I put my head on the desk for a moment, because I just realized she was on a business phone call, and had just talked the ear off the person unfortunate enough to have answered the phone. I was so embarrassed that she was the one Management had decided to put on the phones to represent us. (This was after she had failed miserably at doing any other job we had, I guess they figured she was a talker, so the phones would be the best place for her).

2) Deb one day got it into her head, that her son, 21, should be set up with our resident blond waif, who had just turned 22. She was talking him up for quite sometime, and Sparky was doing her best to be polite, but after an hour, she finally asked if she could go to our mailroom to have a break (which had to be the most boring of all we did). We found out later, the "selling" point on the guy was that he had actually finished High School, but was still working on getting a job. Still trying to figure out how that was supposed to impress.

3) Apparently Deb must have taken it personally that Sparky didn't want to date her son (didn't matter that Sparky had a long time boyfriend), because one day when Deb was doing what Deb does best, talking and not working. Sparky, hit her limit as work was way behind, so asked her to "Please help with the data entry."

Next thing Sparky knows, she's been pulled into the office with the Manager, Supervisor, Team Lead and Deb. She's being told to "apologize" to Deb for asking her to do her work in front of everyone. Sparky was not allowed to defend herself during this time, however Deb was allowed to speak freely. Sparky spent an hour crying in a bathroom stall that day.

4) One day Deb, was trying to find out a few clients current addresses. However her method for acquiring this information was confusing the clients. Most of them were able to figure out what she was asking, but she had one place stumped for quite some time, by asking "What is your physical address?" When that did not get the response she was trying to elicit she tried asking, "If I were to drive to your location, how would I get there?"

Finally the client figured out what she was asking, but after 45 min of listening to this painful questioning, with no "coaching" coming form either the Supervisor or Team Leader in sight. I finally bit the bullet and gave her some advice, "Deb, instead of asking everyone for the driving directions to their businesses, why not ask them for their mailing address, might make things a little easier."

So after having been through all of that on a daily basis with this woman, I was not surprised to find a note one morning, from one of the nicest, most patient people I have met after having worked a night shift with Deb. It read, "If you had found her cold, hard, dead body in the morning. It would have been a justifiable homicide."

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The thistle

So someone may have wondered why I choose a thistle flower as my photo. Few reasons:

a) my boyfriend is Scottish, and gotta love them for having a thistle as their national flower.

b) I can be prickly.

c) The thistle that grew in "my" (meaning my brother's) backyard last year was a thing of legends. It stood about 6 1/2 feet tall and 3 + feet wide. It was so huge that I had to do a video to bring into work so people would believe me. And considering what a thorn in my side my brother can be a times (e.g. for not ever mowing the yard despite owning two lawnmowers), I thought it apropos.

In case you are still wondering really how large this could be, I imagined it was only moments away from growing a personality, and taking over the backyard. I could picture it towering over the pool and throwing thistles and anyone who dare try and enter. Yes, it was that big.


I came across a picture of the thistle, this was not as large as it got, but it does give an idea. That fence is 6 feet tall.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

One of these things...

While on our way to the movies one day, my sister was really excited because she could play the new Eminem CD she had gotten, as normally she has her kids with her and the lyrics were too graphic for them.

A couple days later driving with my brother, he was excited to play the new Eminem CD he had just downloaded on his iPhone. I mentioned that one of our sisters had it but could not play it because of the kids and then he tells me that our other sister has the same problem...

And then I had the following song run thought my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FClGhto1vIg

"One of these things is not like the other...." as I did not know about this CD coming out until they talked about it and was not going to be downloading it for myself at any point.

Radio contest

Local Radio station had a contest to win a trip to the Big Apple. One of the morning qualifiers was a "motor-boating contest" in which you had to motorboat your partner. Now I was slightly puzzled by this challenge and a lot of guys were calling in and failing as they didn't have a partner.

Finally later that morning they had a winner, but because of what happened they decided to play it again the next morning. A girl called up with her girlfriend and proceeded to motorboat her. The guys on the station were drooling over this whole bit. I however was still puzzled, even after listening to the motorboat.

I broke down and asked my friends to please clarify the situation... and I'm still laughing about what it is!! For those of you who are puzzled:

Proper Motor boating etiquette dictates that a woman squeeze her chest together and upwards allowing ample room for another party to raspberry them vigorously.

It's painful somedays.

One of my friends has recently returned from a 9 month maternity leave and has discovered a few new faces amongst the people in her group.

She smelled one the other day when she went in the kitchen, actually his BO was so bad, she jumped as she was caught off guard by the odour. He thought this was really funny that she jumped (apparently he was oblivious to his stench).

And as he walked by her he gave her a "friendly" punch in the shoulder. But actually hit her hard enough to hurt. She said as much to him, he just laughed and walked away, leaving her standing there with a sore shoulder amoung the Eau de BO.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Where is your line?

A few of us decided to go on a shopping spree at lunch time at Walmart. Ok so it's not a shopping spree, more like speed errand running lunch. While we were there I decided to pick up a frozen pizza for supper, as I would be able to keep it in the freezer at work until it was time to go home.

As I carried my my pizza and other miscellaneous purchases to the kitchen, I joking was thinking, "No one better steal this pizza, 'cause it' my supper!"

Then as I was microwaving my lunch I noticed a sign posted in the kitchen with the title "THIEVES BEWARE!" It was warning us that someone has been stealing the coffee, milk, sugar, spoons and the coffee fund money.

I had to shake my had at the stupidity of people sometimes and chuckle because my pizza might actually be under treat of being stolen.

An hour later, I made a trek back to the kitchen to reassure myself the pizza was still in the freezer, and I wouldn't be taking home an empty box for recycling. It was there, safe and sound. However when I looked on the microwave, I noticed that someone had left their car keys.

I was laughing that someone really wanted to tempt this thief with leaving a set of keys around... and then I stopped. Those were MY keys!! With all my bags, I must have forgotten them in there.

I brought my keys back to the desk, wrote the girls about my idiocy of leaving them in there and one of my co-workers had written back. She had come down earlier to my desk to pick something up and had heard people discussing how someone had left their keys in the kitchen. I was a little mad about this, why wouldn't someone pick up the keys and bring them to one of the Admins and ask them to send out an email to the floor? Why did they just leave them there if they were so concerned?

24 min later, an email went around to the floor, saying someone had forgotten their car keys in the kitchen and please pick them up. I'm glad they were so prompted on informing everyone.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Technology, ain't it grand?

I'm an early to work person (do not confuse this with a early morning person, two different things!) and one day I was in the kitchen, waiting for my bread to toast. It was early, so no one else was in, and it was very quiet. As I was washing off my spoon, the kitchen was filled with the sound similar to a truck backing up. I yelped slightly and jumped before realizing this was the toaster.

A light had light up on it as well, after about 5 seconds my toast popped out. I was now pretty grumbly that the toaster had scared the beejezus out of me. So I sent off a rant to a couple old co-workers about the toaster who's intent is to give everyone a phobia of toasters. (I imagine my cats would pee their pants and run if they heard this thing, and potentially take it out during the night so it could scare no longer).

My friends had a good laugh on my account and wrote, "I believe this to be a toaster model made for the new generation: shinier, louder and with useless features."

Testing this theory, I went back to exam the toaster as there were a number of buttons in it, however I had not looked at them closely. I came up with:

Snowflake symbol: Misleading symbol, I think a melting snowflake would make more sense, as the toaster heats things up, not freezes them.

Bagel symbol: Would be a nice feature if your bread were to turn into a bagel, in any flavour you should desire.Otherwise useless, I didn't notice and different when I tried bread on that setting.

The Doom symbol: AKA cancel (sadly forgotten to have written it's description).

Last symbol... a piece of bread with a wavy line underneath and a triangle inside. I'm still puzzled by this one, I figure that this one must have been created by someone forming in the construction business, as those signs hardly ever make sense.Couldn't even figure out a word to describe it. Useless symbol? Fill-in-the-Spot symbol?

Theory back on this toaster was now: this maybe an elite toaster military in origin from Bizaro World and to beware! (Well was actually told to RUN!).

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

To have or not to have?

I've found in the city I live in that people are somewhat conservative and it's a bit difficult to make new friends outside of work. I soon discovered two reasons why this was:

1) Everyone I worked with was from this city, so they still had their same friends from when they were in Grade School. No room for new ones.

2) I'm at the age where most people have children... and I don't. 

It's point #2 which brings me into my blog. I didn't realize my not having kids was really an issue, until:

There were 6 of us at lunch one day, all women, out enjoying sometime away from the office. During talks about the upcoming weekend, two of the women realized they were going to be camping at the same campground. They were pleased as punch to discover this, making plans to get the kids together. Another had planned on going camping but hadn't decided on a campground yet, so she decided to check the availability and join up as well. Then they turned to the other two ladies and asked if they wanted to come out for the day, all the kids can play and the adults can hang out.

If you counted the math, that's 5 out of 6. I was #6 and was not asked or included during this conversation. Pretty sure I could have walked away from the table and no one would have noticed.

The next time a large group of us were out, one girl was talking about how she was doing a Tinkerbell themed party for her. I happen to have a Tinkerbell cake pan, which I asked if she'd like to borrow. She was ecstatic to find a pan and happy that I had offered.

She then proceeded to invite the other six women at the lunch to her daughter's birthday party. Even though most of them had never met her daughter before and did not hang out after work with her.

I again was not asked. I was fairly shocked by this as the girl in question actually was a pretty good work friend and though we had not yet done anything after work, we were making plans to do so. Also I do have a lot of nieces and nephews that I could borrow on short notice if needed for any age group almost, so if that was a pre-req to go to the party...

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I didn't think not having kids would be held against me.  Who new it was the equivalent of almost being a leper?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Forget-me... what?

I'm not sure what happened when I left work today, but it appears my brain took a slight hiatus.

I got to the gym and it was of course down pouring. I grabbed my jacket, but dismissed my water bottle as I wanted to bring in my Gatorade I had with me... well I didn't bring in the Gatorade or the water. I only realized when I got to the elliptical. And there was no way I was going back outside at that point. Also realized half way through my cardio that I forgot to charge my iPod on the way, so it died and I was then forced to listen to very bad work out music that was provided.

Afterwards I stopped to pick up chicken, milk, eggs, mayo and bread at the grocery store. I left without getting the Chicken or the eggs (ironic it was those two). So I went to the next grocery store as I was too embarrassed to back into the one I left.

Wasn't until I walked into the house that I was like "D'oh" because I forgot the Mayo.

And as I was going to bed I grabbed the glass from the side table went to the kitchen dumped the left over water, then promptly returned to the bedroom with an empty glass.

It made me chuckle, and thought hey I should blog about that tomorrow, then realized I might forget, so better do it now! 

--- Discovered the next morning that I had forgotten to put the clothes I had washed into the dryer. Realized when I went to get my shirt I had planned on wearing. *sigh*




Me vs the Dentist

A co-worker brought her son in for his first dentist appointment today. He did amazingly well, I on the other hand felt a little nauseous just at the thought of the dentist.

Here's the deal, when I was 4 or 5 I was at the dentist, and they wanted to give me a fluoride treatment. However since they only had Grape and Bubblegum, my Mom told them not to give me any because I was allergic to the colouring in the dye.

Since my Mom wasn't allowed in the room, she did not realize that the Dentist decided to go against her wishes and gave it to me anyway. Of course I threw up, which upset me (as to this day throwing up is one of the worst things I can do). So when he tried to do something else in my mouth. I bite him. - Yeah I don't feel bad about that. He kind of deserved it in my mind.

My Mom had then to find a new dentist. And from then on I hated every dentist on principle. Even the one who was my neighbour. All the more reason for me to floss, less visits.


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

From Scratch or Store Bought?

A friend one day said she was going to attempt to make her own marshmellows that weekend. I must have had a odd expression, because she asked me if I didn't think this would be a good idea...

My thoughts were that, yes it would be interesting, however, how much time, money and energy goes into making marshmellows from scratch? When you can just buy them for like $1.50 at the store?

That made her stop and reconsider the idea as she didn't think about the cost of ingredients to make it herself vs the store bought ones before.

And based on the ingredients, it appears I was right in this case, home made marshmellows would cost more... and I'm not certain how they would turn out...

  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp light corn syrup
  • 1.5 cups water, divided in half
  • 4 tbsp unflavored gelatin
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 2 egg whites, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup cornstarch
  • Additional flavoring or coloring, optional
  • candy thermometer

Monday, August 8, 2011

Blog-less

Sadly I seem blog-less today. Which is surprising since I had to deal with an upset co-worker, go to the gym, talk to my Mom and deal with my brother for a little while. You'd think something would either make up a good blog or at least churn up something in the old memory bank.

What a disappointing day. Even my cats were boring!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Communication is key

At one of my jobs there was a serious lax in communication. On my last day the director rushed up and thanked me for all I had done and wished me well. She was a little dismayed when I said I didn't expect much of anything in way of a going away from the supervisory staff (as they had been lacking somewhat of late of being support of the staff, it was actually co-workers who had been arranging all the goodbyes recently). She again thanked me and rushed off.

During my exit interview, surprisingly the manager gave me a "gift" from the company. I was pretty taken back as I had not yet heard of someone getting a gift from this group, or at least not in our section. I thanked her very much for it (and wondered what the heck do you do with a glass plate with Inookshook's surrounding the outside).- no offense to the Inookshook, they are cool, I just don't like dust collectors.

Near the end of my shift the Director ran up to be very excited, as she had called our sister company in another city and had them rush me down a gift as a thanks. I had a pit of dread in my stomache as the box she was holding looked very familiar. She insisted I open it... and what do you know. It was a duplicate of the gift I had opened earlier.

Now, debate time, do I tell her thanks, but I already received such a gift and embarrass her. Or do I take it and let them figure out they gave me two. Or do I accept it then leave one behind when I leave with a note?

I took both. I figured, well, they proved my point on the lack of communication (which I had discussed in length in the exit interview).

Side Note: That night one of the girls who had previously worked at the company longer than I did was very bummed that she never received anything from them during her time there. So on her next birthday, as a joke, I gave her one of the gifts (still in it's original packaging, imagine that!!).

Then three weeks ago I get a text message from an old co-worker at the company, someone was about to retire and they wanted to know if they could buy the last gift off me. I laughed, I'm like pay me?? No way!! You can have it! And it was shipped the very next day to it's new owner. Who laughed long and hard about his gift...

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Where is your line?

While driving home tonight I had a sports car cut me off, then weave back into the other lane. He had no compunction about speeding, cutting people off. However the far lane from me was the bus lane, which was empty. This guy preferred to speed, weave in and out of traffic, narrowly missing causing car accidents, yet he somehow felt that abusing the bus lane was beyond what he was comfortable with.

In the end on the highway, he had gained himself 3 car lengths and about 10 seconds time. But had caused almost 5 accidents to get it.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Canasta players

Everyone once in awhile I like to play cards online. Canasta is one of the games I enjoy, especially playing a 4 player game (partners). One day while playing, 1 person from the other team accused my partner and I of cheating.

Now lets get a couple things straight, this a free online, unranked game we are playing, no money exchanging hands or anything. And we are being accused of cheating. A lot of effort to go through if you ask me.

Kicker, my team was losing at the time we were accused of cheating!! Apparently I am evidently a very poor cheater, LOL.