Inappropriate for the workplace

At work, since I'm a graphic designer and spend most of my day looking at a computer screen, I generally like to have something to listen to while I'm working. 

Since there are two other people in my office, we all have headphones in. 

Most of the time I'm listening to music. 

Sometimes I listen to scriptures. 

Today, I listened to Harry Potter. Number 7. It's my favorite one. 

Apparently, I was also very emotional today. 

When Harry walks around Number 4 Privet Drive reminiscing about his childhood, I was choked up. 

When Dudly tells Harry that he doesn't think he's a waste of space, I was close to tears.

By the time they talk about George's ear, I was fighting them back. 

Luckily, no one in my office noticed this sad display of true love for J.K. Rowling. 

I think that would have been difficult to explain. 

sometimes you come home and realize you've had pen on your face for a while

and you don't really care.

The real question shouldn't be "is it the right length?" it should be "Carrie, do you know how to use a ruler?"

I subscribe to the school of thought (and may be the only subscriber) that there are two different kinds of rulers. (Not rulers of people or rulers of countries. But rulers that you measure with) Those with a void and those without. This is my word, void. Let me explain.

Some rulers start at the start of an inch, and some have a void before the inch starts. See?

So, today, when I was measuring paper and couldn't figure out why a quarter of an inch looked like so much more, it was not because I was stupid enough to not know what a quarter of an inch looked like. It was because I always forget how to use voided rulers.

Dang.

cleanliness comes with a price.

At my new job, my office is right between 4 bathrooms. Don't ask me why there are 4 bathrooms in one corridor. I don't know the answer. All I know is that it's weird.

Aaaaand it doesn't smell very pleasing. I don't know about you guys, but personally, when I *ahem* have more odorous things to do in the bathroom, I tend to try to not do them in public. This is not the case of everyone at my job.

The only problem is, I feel like I have to make sure everyone knows that that smell did NOT come from my body.

Therefore, when I left the bathroom today and made eye contact with a coworker, I felt the need to blurt out "I WAS JUST WASHING MY HANDS!!!!!"

Good thing I have a filtering system, so I didn't yell at her. I'm sure she appreciated that.

But she may think that I smell bad. I don't. I actually smell really good. I. WAS. JUST. WASHING. MY. HANDS!

Houston, we have a problem

Yesterday at work, I was talking to a supervisor about how to make my calls better. The topic was brought up that it is evident when I become uncomfortable in a call.

While trying to find how to mask that discomfort, she asked me, "Are you a people pleaser?" The automatic answer was a resounding YES.

We then went on to talk about how she is, too and about how we both have issues with confrontation (that's for real) and neither one of us wants to ever hurt anybody's feelings or make anybody upset. That is my life. I have no ability to confront people with my feelings. Ever. Ask Dana and Bianca. It's just not possible.

Today I realized just how far this little quirk had gone with the following anecdote.
While studying today, I was listening to my She & Him station on Pandora. So far, this station was fantastic. Every song that came on was wonderful. Then one song came on that was less good. I just didn't like it, so I clicked the thumbs down, you know, so that Pandora could better improve my listening experience. A note popped up from Pandora saying that they were sorry, would take my opinion into account, and would never play that song on that station again. Great!

Here's the problem:

For a split second, I was actually afraid I had offended Pandora. The website. Not a real person, not an animal, not even a life like robot. A. Web. Site. I was actually apologizing to Pandora in my mind and considering un-clicking the thumbs down before I realized that I was worried about disrespecting an online location.

Then I just felt silly.

go to work

I’m currently taking a course discussing management, and it’s made me think a lot about the jobs that I’ve held. My current job is awesome. It’s a really great environment, good pay, and I get to talk to some really awesome people on a daily basis. It’s a pretty sweet gig. However, I have had some doosies in the past.

(for protection, names of ridiculous persons have been changed)

My first job was at a well known national fast food chain. It was awful. I was on my feet all day long, I didn’t get breaks (no one did, unless they smoked), and I came home smelling like French fries.

Possibly the worst part about it, however, was the people employed there. Because it was such a horrible job, they had a hard time keeping people there. Especially the night cook staff. This was mostly comprised of high school aged males, and at one point, they were all stoners.

One young man in particular stands out. Let’s call him Stoney McStonerson. Well, in true cooks fashion, Stoney came to work one day very much…under the influence. This led good little Stoney to place his hand in the fryer. So he got fired. But Stoney had to come back. He had left his clothing in the back. He came back high as a kite. And insisted that they were going to give him his job back. How wrong Mr. McStonerson was.

Stoney had a girlfriend. We’ll call her Lou Ellen (mostly because I actually can’t remember her name, but I’m darn sure it wasn’t Lou Ellen). Lou Ellen had a tendency to overshare. She would tell you anything. Anything, even if you had absolutely no interest in knowing. She also said it in a high squeaky voice. And she was a close talker. She got right up in your face.

Then there was Doloris. Doloris wasn’t just fired. She was arrested. Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you. Doloris thought that it would be a good idea to steal money from her fellow workers (like me), the company, and the customer. The first two don’t take a ton of thought, you just take the money while they’re not looking. The last one, though, that took some strategizing. Doloris memorized a customer’s credit card number, then every time she would be paid in cash, she’d come charge that order to said credit card. Apparently Doloris didn’t think that the woman was smart enough to realize that she hadn’t spent thousands of dollars at a fast food restaurant when her bank statement came. Smart.

After I left my fry cook on Venus stint, I worked for a company that made big machines. For the most part this was a great job. I worked with great people that I love, and the kid who worked in the cubicle next to mine was extremely chivalrous and smelled amazing. But, there were some crazies there as well.

We’ll call the first one Brett Bretterson. That’s what we called him, even if it wasn’t his name. Brett Bretterson had a dislike of my sister and I. He didn’t like that we made noise during our break. But that’s alright. We didn’t like that we could overhear his phone conversations about “what to do with the dead body in the back of the truck,” or that he felt the need to give us constant math lessons on how “32+8=40.” And I’m sorry, Brett, but “you fool, it can’t be done” is not a question.

Then there was Rancher. A sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. From all of the stories that I’ve heard from other people about Rancher, I’m wondering why he lasted as long as he did. The man was probably at least 55 years old, had 6 teeth, and a chronic smell of cigarette smoke (poor guy, he should really get that checked out), and thought he was God’s gift to women. If you were female and you moved, he assumed you were incurably attracted to him. And he acted like you were. He was a charmer.

Lastly, there was Jeremiah. Jeremiah, despite the fact that he was twenty years older, had a LARGE crush on Kathleen (because she’s not ridiculous, her name is the same). He professed this love daily by leaving her a bag of peanut mm’s. Had Kathleen loved peanut mm’s, this would have been a beautiful gesture. But she didn’t. Now everyone we worked with there hates them with a fiery passion from overexposure. Bleh.

So, there you have it. Ridiculous jobs that I have worked. There are more, and I will share them with you at another time. But if this post gets much longer, I fear you won’t read it all.