I'm Going Crazy; Don't You Want To Come Along?

I am losing my mind. Seriously losing my mind. I don't know how it happened or where it started, but it's definitely getting worse lately.

A week and a half ago, the school nurse asked me to pick up socks and underwear and sweats for her, since she hadn't had time to buy the $100 worth the PTO buys her every year. I agreed and asked her to send me an email. She did me one better. She wrote the sizes and info down on a sheet of paper for me.

I went to W-M (her suggestion)and got the list out of my purse. Or tried to. It wasn't there. Then I looked on the seat of my car, where it must have fallen out. I hadn't left the car since she gave me the list. It had to be there somewhere. It wasn't. I took a deep breath and hoped I remembered enough of the sizes and items that she'd be happy with my selection and went shopping.

I chose the items - including finding the $3 sweats and $4.25 packs of 6 underwear and $5.50 packs of 10 socks. I loaded everything in my cart and started for the front. That's when I realized that I'd left my nice blue mini-accordion binder that has our tax exempt info in the car. I sighed, left the cart, prayed it would be there when I returned, and headed for my car. Amazingly, the cart was still there, and I purchased my $100 worth of items. Phew.

Then at the book fair last week, I ran into a mom who volunteered to do our ink cartridge recycling for us. She'd start doing drop offs immediately. Yay! I told her that I had everything in the car, and I left her with the cash box while I went to get the info for Office Max and Staples where I turn in our printer cartridges for recycling. I grabbed the Office Max folder that was sitting on the seat where I'd used it the day prior, but I couldn't find my blue mini-accordion binder that has all my school stuff in there -- including two $30 Staples vouchers I need to spend by October 31 and a $15 Staples gift card. And my grocery coupons (including some free items). And our tax exempt information.

Ugh.

It was NOwhere in the car, but I figured I must have brought it into the house when unpacking the car accidentally. I decided to look for it when I got home. When I got home, I looked for it on the island, but the island was (miraculously) clean. It wasn't in the office on my PTO table. In fact, it wasn't in the house at all. My stomach started turning thinking about everything in that binder that I needed. I never take it out of the console of my car, except when I'm using it to shop.

Oops.

I left it behind somewhere. I tried to think back to the last time I'd used it. Maybe at Dominick's? Or Trader Joe's? Or Staples? Or W-M? Then I started counting the days since I knew I'd last seen it and groaned.

On Friday, Little Miss and I ran errands after her gymnastics class as I continued to puzzle over where I might have last seen it. Then I remembered my disaster of a trip to W-M. Where I'd had to hand back some items to the cashier because I was over my $100 limit. Where we had a ton of trouble with my tax exempt card because he couldn't read what number it was and kept coming up with other organizations. Where I was so flustered by the time I walked out of there that I was ready to just go home and go to bed.

I bet I left it in the cart as I put the three bags of socks, underwear, and sweats into my car. And I bet it isn't there anymore.

Since we were headed to the town where the W-M is located anyway, I figured I'd stop in to ask if it made it to the lost and found. There were three people ahead of me, and they all had apparently very complex issues -- to the point where the woman working the customer service desk apologized to the woman in front of me. Fortunately, Little Miss was fairly fascinated trying to identify all the coins on the Coinstar machine.

As I started to describe my precious blue mini-accordion binder, the woman pulled out the lost and found bin. Amazingly, it was sitting on top. And nothing was missing from it. Hallelujah!

But it gets better. My work has an ID badge that we must scan to get into the building. We scan it to access the copier. We scan it when we want to print out anything. We scan it pretty much all day long. We had an off site event requiring our ID badges, and I put mine in my purse.

After that event, I didn't go into the office for a week and a half. As I got ready to go that morning, I realized that I hadn't seen my ID badge in awhile. I verified that it was not tucked into the corner of my car's console where it belonged. I searched my purse. I searched the purse I'd been carrying prior to that. I searched my husband's car. And I decided that I wasn't going to print anything that day.

Last night, I decided I had to find it. I didn't want to pay $15 to get a new ID badge made. I cleaned out my entire car. I searched my purse thoroughly again. I searched my husband's car again. I searched the outfit I'd worn the day of the off site event. I looked everywhere. It was nowhere to be found.

I decided to bite the bullet, and this morning I asked to have a new ID badge printed. The security guard mentioned how he always keeps his in the console of his car so he doesn't lose his. I smiled nicely and bit my tongue. A new one was printed, and for whatever reason, they didn't charge me for it.

I went upstairs. As I was waiting for my computer to turn on, I saw a receipt that had my credit card in it sitting in my purse. Not wanting anything else to get lost and/or stolen, I decided I'd recycle it while waiting. I pulled out another three or four receipts and other papers that I no longer needed. As I poked through my purse, I felt something in a side pocket of my purse.

You'll never guess what was nestled in there. Of course, it was my old ID badge. How I didn't manage to find it the other thirty times I looked in my purse, I'll never know.

Ironically, my new ID badge swipes me in and out of the building, but it asks me for some unknown PUK code when I try to print or copy anything. Fortunately, my old ID badge still works. So now I have two ID badges. How long before you think I lose both of them at this rate?

Does anyone have any good memory drugs? I can't afford to lose it like this!

Is That How She Sees Me?

When I look in the mirror, I see a lot of people looking back at me. I look at the working woman who has the respect of her colleagues. I see the PTO president at the wee ones' preschool who takes on all the roles no one else can or will. I see the mom of two small children who does everything she can to make the best lives possible for them. I see a wife who helps her husband out wherever she can. I see someone involved in a babysitting co-op, a friend, a daughter, a cook, a cleaner, an organizer, a reader, and more.

I see it all in one face. I see it all happen, even when some aspects are more prevalent than others.

I've known for awhile that the working woman has been getting bigger. My hours have been increasing, and I've been spending more time and effort on my job than I'd like. There are many reasons for it, and I've come close to quitting a few times in an effort to better balance my life, but I keep telling myself, not now.

Not in this economy when so many others have no job.

Not when I work part-time and mostly from home.

Not when I have a job that challenges my brain and is well respected.

Not when I receive a paycheck that keeps me from hyperventilating when I open the bills.

Today, Little Miss came home with an art project from school.



My four year old daughter drew her family, and her teacher labeled the pictures for her. Little Miss is there, as is Mister Man. She drew daddy, and she included our two cats (although the teacher obviously misunderstood "Roar" as "Roy"). And she included "my grandma who likes to shop a lot."

But there's no mommy.

I didn't make it into my daughter's view of her family.

When I saw the picture, I asked her where Mommy was. She looked at the picture and was confused. She tried to say that Roar was me. And Meow. And my husband. And Mister Man. Even herself and grandma.

But I'm not there.

When Mister Man was two and a half, I quit my job because he cried and screamed "no" when he saw me on the weekends. It was obvious that my full-time account management role that kept me on the road or in the office throughout the week didn't work for my family.

And I think it's time that I faced up to the fact that maybe my job isn't working for my family now. And that? That is more important than keeping my brain challenged, the bank account full, and myself marketable.

I just need to screw up my courage and talk to my company. And maybe show them the picture Little Miss drew. As unskilled as it is, it's one of the clearest pictures I've seen in a long time.

Step Away From Your Food

Trust me on this one; you'll be glad you're not eating when you read this.

I've mentioned before that my work has a ban on food except in the cafeteria and in the break rooms on each floor. The thought behind this (to my unknowing mind) was to avoid having the smell and crunch of food when the workspace is so open and every sound and smell is hugely magnified.

I was wrong.

I noticed a few weeks ago at work that there were fruit flies or some little pesty guys flying around. While I don't eat at my desk, I do hold food that doesn't get refrigerated there. I'm not putting my apples or tomatoes or grapes or whatever into the fridge, as I don't like the feel or taste of cold fruit like that. And those little pesty guys zoomed right on in.

I mentioned this to some friends who explained further. One of them explained that he had a banana in a drawer that ended up covered in them. They all put things in Ziplocs now if they keep them at their desks.

So where did the pesky things come from?

Well. My workplace wants to be green. They really do. We'll pretend the eight kajillion plasma tvs everywhere that are on 24/7 don't count.

All of our food gets composted. The food waste is put into great refrigerated units in the basement somewhere. Every week, trucks come and haul it away to be composted. In theory, that sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, the refrigeration units broke at some point (or so the story goes ... I'm sure this is twenty-fifth hand). They were broken for almost two weeks before the right parts could be procured and put in place. Think about what that much food looks like after two weeks. And how many fruit flies are hanging around.

Have you ever had fruit flies in your house? The little buggers are impossible to get rid of.

And now, a couple months later, we still have them flying around. I'm on the top floor of the building, as far from the pre-compost matter as you can get, and they are still hanging around. I go eat lunch in the break room, as prescribed, and they fly around and try to land on my food.

I'm almost to the point of bringing in dry crackers and nothing else, but that just won't do. This is where I get really thankful that I am only in the office one day a week. And hey, if anyone's having a bad day, just think about the fruit flies we have. It could be worse.

Advise Me

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

If I keep repeating that over and over again, do you think it will magically appear? Me neither.

*sigh*

My boss is driving me batty. I was working from home today. After a meeting, he called me. Of cousrse, this was during the two minutes I was up to get a drink, and I missed him. I called him back within two minutes. First I called the desk he sits at that he isn't supposed to sit at because it's an SVP desk and, like me, he's a VP. No answer. I tried his real desk which he forwards to the other desk and left him a message there.

I never heard back from him. At 5pm, I IMed him asking if he still wanted to chat. My husband came home sick around 4:15 and was upstairs in bed, and my dad needed to get home to a meeting for his neighborhood soon. Five minutes later, he IMed me back and asked if I was still there. I responded in the affirmative, and my phone rang a few seconds later.

He asked me a question about a meeting that I'd scheduled for next week when I'm on vacation and I answered it. He asked me to give him two minutes, and he'd call me back.

At 5:22, I IMed him and asked if he could call me sooner rather than later, explaining about my husband and dad and needing to feed my wee ones.

No response.

My dad left, and the wee ones played nicely in the basement. I took my laptop downstairs to inform them that I was making dinner and in three minutes they needed to come upstairs to eat (can you say "leftovers"?). I then fed them.

At 5:52, my boss IMed me and said he'd talk to me tomorrow.

Dude, you said you needed to talk to me immediately. I called you back. You called me and asked for two minutes. I IMed you twenty minutes later explaining my situation. Almost forty minutes later, you IM me saying you'll talk to me tomorrow and that's it?

Ironically enough, he did call me thirty seconds after that to fill me in on the two things he wanted to talk to me about tomorrow. He apologized for not seeing my IM, but not for the rest of it.

I've had conversations with him before about how he needs to respect me and my time better. This is by far not the first time that he's blown me off, and I've explained that when I'm working from home and have two wee ones and it's past 5pm, I'll work when needed. However, having me dangling and then just deciding you don't have time is not ok.

And he keeps doing it. When I'm in the office and we have 1:1 meetings scheduled, he'll call me ten minutes before the meeting to tell me he hasn't eaten yet and needs to get lunch and we'll skip our meeting. Or I'll call him five minutes into our scheduled meeting to find out where he is only to discover that he's in a different meeting and is completely blowing me off.

Apparently explaining kindly that he needs to respect my time doesn't cut it. Remember, this is the same boss who gave me the highest rating possible at my interim then ended the "review" session that lasted all of two minutes that I should know that even though I got the highest rating, it isn't guaranteed at the end of the year and that I shouldn't slack. It took all my effort not to reach through the phone and strangle him.

How exactly do you handle a boss who absolutely does not get it?

As a side note, I work three days a week. Two of those days, I work from home. I have an interesting job that has responsibility and makes me use my head and pays pretty well. Oh, and I now have a direct report. I can't recreate this job elsewhere, which would otherwise be my first inclination.

The Sandwich Bandit

We have a new issue at work. In fact, when I discovered this my mouth hung open wide enough to let all the flies congregating at the local horse barn to fly in and set up residence.

Someone in my workplace has been stealing sandwiches.

At first, it was thought that this was a practical joke (and in poor taste) on one particular fellow, as he would go to the kitchen to get his lunch from the fridge and discover a bite taken from one half of the sandwich.

But we've since discovered that this is happening to others, as well. Someone has the gall to steal other people's lunches. And not only that, they taste test them first. If the bandit likes the sandwich, half the sandwich will disappear entirely. And if the bandit doesn't agree with your culinary selection, he will take a single bite and then return the sandwich half to the Ziploc bag and the Ziploc bag to the lunch bag.

Seriously, who does something like this?

I am quite disturbed on a number of levels.

First of all, we can have no food at our desks (more on the issues behind this in another post), so we can't protect our lunches by keeping them with us.

Second, someone thinks it's OK to steal from coworkers. And not that I really understand, but I sort of understand the attraction to stealing purses and the like, but stealing people's food? What on earth has to go through someone's mind to think it's OK to steal food? That's somehow even more personal than a purse.

Third, who tries out the sandwich and puts it back if they don't like it? The sandwich is ruined anyway -- at least it is for me. There's no way I'd be able to eat any of my lunch knowing that some unknown person has been pawing through it. But to put it back? Dude, if you don't like it, just toss it. Seriously.

Lucky for me, I pack leftovers that aren't easily stolen. I bring in my extra chicken briyani or homemade chicken noodle soup or lasagne or whatever I've eaten the night before. It's not really in the Sandwich Bandit's wheelhouse. Unless they're using a spoon to try it and then not taking the rest of it. Now I'm grossed out.

Next time I go in, I'm putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat and staking out the kitchen area.