Caterwauling

A Friday Five that doesn’t require thought. What a concept!

1. What was the last TV show you watched?

American Idol on Wednesday night.

2. What was the last thing you complained about?

Work. What a surprise!

3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?

I told the folks at the publishing house that my colleagues have their hearts in the right place, despite the fact that their heads are up their asses.

4. What was the last thing you threw away?

My dignity.

5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?

Shawn‘s page

Twenty-six straight hours of work went by rather well, and I was almost out the door when Demure trapped me.

She was none too happy about the hours I worked, the lateness of the paper, the fact that she didn’t see the final draft … blah blah blah. I was in no mood for her shit. Save the fucking complaints for when I’m not so frustrated that I would happily crack the nearest talking head off the nearest jagged rock. Grrr.

Kumquat stopped in to see me first thing this morning. Looked me up and down and remarked, “You never left, did you?” I said no and told him the final two items I was struggling with. I was distilling my Quark files into individual PDFs when I realized that Mac Guy had pulled an ad from the January folder, and as i was not overly coherent, I was trying to fix it myself because no one was in the office at that godforsaken hour. He at least slipped out and told me to call him if I needed anything.

He and Demure are pissed that they aren’t seeing the paper before it goes to press, and that’s the sort of control that Her Royal Pretentiousness at the last job demanded to the point of having things being sent out late so she could piss on it, somebody could shit on it, and somebody else could straddle it. What none of these ninnies can understand is that I am, if I say so myself, brilliant at the last minute. I had ingested four Ginsing iced teas, two liters of Coke, a pint of ice cream and two slices of pizza (hurrah for those who deliver beyond midnight!), so I was pretty much good to go … till Demure cornered me. Gaaah.

You know, I literally lost an entire day of my life, having spent it at work. I am certainly not asking for a gold medal, by any means, but what I do expect is a little bit of room and maybe even respect for working 26 hours in a sea of colleagues who take an eight-hour lunch break every single day. Now, I KNOW that they will be coming the paper with a fine-toothed comb when it hits the stands, so I have to be prepared to warn them that, when you increase the size of your publication by nearly half, then you’d better expect that many more boo-boos. But I’ve already been ordained to meet with Kumquat and Demure next week to strategize on how I will prevent this lateness from happening again. (Note that Demure threw so many roadblocks in my way about hiring an intern — free labor, BTW — that I gave up the idea and resorted to avoiding the issue at all costs.) How can we prevent this from happening again? Blow me.

At any rate, I did well, and I am the only person (next to Shan, of course) who will say that I — as usual — pulled off a mighty feat. And that’s too bad, because this is how morale at companies plummets.

I was snark-o-licious today with my barbs. But I’m too tired to write anymore, so I may update this entry if the mood strikes. At any rate, I canceled my nail appointment for today, I just took a nice leukwarm shower (no hot water, as usual), and I’m about to crawl in bed and hope to die … for a few hours, anyway, till the publishing house calls with a crisis. 😉 Again, weep for me.

More like the 14th hour … that I’ve been at work. And it ain’t nowhere near over yet.

King Kumquat and I have had a couple of late-night chats tonight. Pussy Demure had a problem with a last-minute story I wanted to drop in this morning, and because she flagged it, he told me to pull it. He all but admitted that he never lay eyes on the damn thing, so I explained what it was and why I thought it was a good article to fill a large gaping space in the paper. I grudgingly got his blessing, but then chaos with the layout erupted and I had to pull the fucking thing anyway. He was pleased when I called him back to announce the serendipity.

He seems to be concerned that I am submitting the paper with nobody seeing it but me. Fuck, I still haven’t even seen the whole thing yet myself! But to delay it even a day means it won’t be printed for a whole ‘nother week, so fuck that crap. They’re having such a hard time trusting me, but it would be hard for them to trust anyone in this position. I understand that, but it’s difficult to explain that I have the paper’s, as well as the association’s, best interests at heart. And besides, if the paper’s jacked up, it’s my professional reputation on the line as well, so I am not about to shoot myself in the ass. Ergh. Thank Demure and her ridiculous nerves of paper, which rustle constantly.

Kumquat slipped out at 2 p.m. today. Lucky him. I’ll be fortunate if I leave before the employees come in. But if the paper ain’t to press by 9 a.m., we’re all happily fucked. Personally, once I escape my office, I am going home and praying that the publisher doesn’t have any problems with my 65 files that I am transmitting electronically. *sigh* Weep for me.

Sweet Jesus.

Shan and I were just followed for three miles by some jackass in a burgundy Ford Expedition with Michigan plates. All we remember is that the plate had CT in it.

We were merging into traffic, and this asshole cut her off. So she got behind him and flipped him off. He waved at us. Typical motorist exchange, right?

Nope. We tried to merge into the lane next to us — to get away from him as well as to be in the right lane to get us back to work. So he drifted over with us, with no turn signal. We jumped over one more lane, and the same thing happened — he got over with no signal. So he kept driving and we were behind him before, once again, getting into the right-hand lane, which we needed.

So jagoff cuts straight in front of us, speeds up, throws the SUV in park across two lanes, and comes stomping over to our car. Shan was driving, and she threw it in reverse — we were fucking lucky that no one was immediately behind us. He was two feet from the car, at which point I thought she was going to go forward and hit him, but instead, she did a big fat U-Turn and zipped around to Van Dorn Station.

Wouldn’t you know that sonofabitch followed us? We weaved in and out of spots in front of Safeway before flying straight out into traffic on Van Dorn. We ended up going to her condo complex, which has amazing security. Asshole drove up behind us to the gate, but he couldn’t get in. We were safe. Whew.

John drove us back to work and is probably out hunting the motherfucker down. I decided that I need to stop playing around with skinny white boys and get me a big boy like John. If ever the guys I date would get in an argument with a guy like John, I would have a better chance of beating him up than my guys. 😉 Sad but true. Heh. I need somebody who can rescue me (*warning: Snow White complex surfacing!*), ’cause I’m already skilled at rescuing myself.

At any rate, our heart rates have calmed down, and I’m in for the long haul — looks like I’ll be here till 9 a.m. tomorrow, getting the fucking paper finished. And now Demure has a problem with a last-minute story I inserted into this gaping hole that I have in the paper. (God, I wish I had something to insert in my own *gaping hole.*) At least we had a few minutes of excitement in our miserable days!!!

Y’all have heard a million times that I volunteer for Ribbon of Promise, the National Campaign to End School Violence.

Y’all have probably heard about the school shooting in Red Lion, Pa., today, in which a 14-year-old boy shot his principal and then himself.

Have you read Dawn Olsen’s Blogcritics article on Kids Who Kill? If not, do so immediately.

And for your viewing pleasure, you can read my fabulous article on school violence and what I believe is its root cause, which is bullying, whether by parents or peers. It goes to press tonight. And it’s not that I think counselors can solve the world’s problems, but that’s my audience, so I have tailored accordingly.

Anywho, shit’s gotta stop. Look, all kids hate school — that’s acceptable. But what’s not acceptable is when these kids retaliate to the point where they make headlines. I was sometimes scared to go to school because I didn’t feel like being picked on, but I didn’t ever fear getting shot or having my school cafeteria blown up.

There’s something I forgot to put in the article … if someone walks into a crowded cafeteria and stands in the main entrance, shooting … run out a side door! Too many of these schools lock those so-called “emergency exits” during the school day. Um, don’t! People instinctively run toward the exit in which they entered … something these shooters count upon. Do you really want to get closer to the kid with the ammo? Wake up, people.

At any rate, I guarantee that it will turn up that the kid from Red Lion, Pa., was a victim of bullying. It has been noted in several news outlets that it is highly doubted that the kid even had a problem with the principal he shot, because he wasn’t known to be a troublemaker and therefore never actually got sent to the big guy’s office. My feeling is that the kid was ostacized or humiliated, and he went to the person whom he viewed as being responsible for everything that goes on at the school. We can’t let it get to that point. We just can’t — those are our kids out there in these schools. Those are people from our communities, our families going to work every day and not knowing when or if there’s going to be a bullet with their names on it in store for them on that particular day.

Now that I am rid of our customer service reps (exiled upstairs to a more contained area so I don’t have to hear their yapping), I also lost our little fridge.

Not a big deal, but today I go to have my late-morning snack of cheese and more cheese, and the fridge is gone. *Poof.* So I asked one of the reps where the hell our fridge is. She said snarkily, “Whose fridge?” I stressed, “Um, our fridge.” She noted that it only belongs to the three people in her department (um, did they pay for it? No, but it’s theirs. *sigh*), and that she unplugged it last night so that it could be moved today. So she adds, “Oh, was that YOUR food that spoiled overnight?” I almost ran up the stairs and throttled her. Gee, it wouldn’t have SPOILED if SHE hadn’t unplugged the fridge for 18 hours! DIE DIE DIE!!!!!

She did offer to replace my items (one was a specialty food item, but I digress). I just said, look, I could give a shit about it — I just wondered where my lunch might be. We’ll see if she replaces the stuff. I really don’t care, but if she hadn’t been so fucking rude, I might have let go of it. Glad those assholes are out of my sight and earshot! But now I have to share a dorm-sized fridge with 14 others, which translates into me reverting to eating out every day again. Bleah.

Bored senseless today at work. Paper’s supposed to go to the publishing house by close of business … yeah, like that’s gonna happen. We added 24 pages on top of what we usually produce, and we overcame boatloads of obstacles to even get this far, so I’m happy with where we’re at. But unfortunately, I have little to do until about 4 p.m. — that’s when my day should begin, but no, I have to sit here like a princess until I have work to do, just so Pussy Demure can be happy that I even showed up. Oh well. I do have some paperwork I’ve been neglecting — perhaps that will be my afternoon project until I get my paper into my hands for final layout and edits.

I don’t care when the fucking paper gets done, as long as I make it to my nail appointment tomorrow afternoon. My nails look like hell, and for the record, I ain’t so spiffy myself, of late. 🙂 I should probably try to clean poor Samantha Jones before my nails become beautified again — she’s all covered in pollen and it’s a wonder she (and I) aren’t sneezing and bitching from allergies.

The house is so very overdue for a spring cleaning (or any type of cleaning, for that matter). Perhaps I will get my boo-tay to the laundomat on Saturday to wash all of my bedclothes and shower curtains. And I spend $50 per month on cleaning products alone (I could open up a maid service with just what’s in my trunk) … perhaps it is time to actually use them … or hire a maid to use them instead. 🙂

I am going to develop some more comprehensive writing guidelines for those who submit shit to me. Honestly, I have been bashing my head against my keyboard today for nearly three hours, straightening out one story that I already asked the writer to rip apart and re-write. This is her second and final version, and deadline has long since passed, so you know what kind of mood I’m in. 🙂 She’s not a bad writer at all — she’s just too academic in her writing, not journalistic, so I committed myself to just making the transition for her, only under her name. Isn’t she lucky. LOL.

At any rate, my final comment is that, when you’re submitting a story to me and you reference a number of Internet sites, please dear god PLEASE be sure the links work!!! I keep clicking on her links to check their validity, and the sites don’t exist. And they’re all fucking Geocities sites, too, which just suck as a general rule. (Doug? Do you hear me? Use Blogger or MT, fer crissakes!) Ugh. At any rate, I am now trying to either find these fucking sites or re-write the sentences to omit the original source.

One last note about people — Ethics Boy here at work is one of those many who finds subtle ways of deflecting work back to you with creative ways of saying, “It’s not my job.” Fuck you. Fuck all of you who can’t help a sister out, especially when y’all want me to do YOU a favor but can’t HELP me to HELP YOU!!! I asked him to caption a stupid photo he sent me of some dipshit holding a plaque. His response? “Here are two people’s e-mail addresses — you contact them for information, as I am not comfortable writing a caption about the award.” What the bloody hell fuck? I zipped back a big-fat-meany response to the effect of, “Not going to make this a production, and the photo sucks anyway, so if you can’t tell me the name of the award, bite my big fat white ass.”

Of course, Ethics Boy pales in comparison to Mailroom Boy, who has officially dumped his lone remaining duty (distributing the mail) onto the receptionist. We won’t talk about how many tens of thousands of dollars he takes home each year more than I ever will. He already makes us do our own UPS and FedEx, and he refuses to take interoffice mail, even though he clearly hands me Shan’s mail, hands her mail for the MIS and Accounting departments, and managed to lose a $75,000 check for three days, even though the receptionist — who can’t leave her desk except on designated breaks — asked him to please hand the money directly to Shan. Grrr. Idiocy, plain and simple.

Okay, bitch fest over. Back to work, if I don’t slit my own throat first. 🙂 Calgon, take me away!!!

… one that’s lacking all the hotties, that is. 🙂

May 11 will bring us a reunion of everyone’s favorite overprivileged teen-agers (and yes, I didn’t miss an episode. For shame!), but my favorite characters — Brian Austin Green and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen — won’t be among those doing some reuniting. Bummer. I loved those two — never figured out which one I’d sleep with, if I had the chance, but I am certain I wouldn’t have turned down a threesome, if ever it came up.

So, to watch the special or not? At least that dipshit Tori Spelling won’t be on it, either. That, my friends, is great news, if I do end up tuning in.