Caterwauling

After visiting my money-hungry dentist for the final time today, I had full intentions on torching my old apartment building. But instead I stopped for an avocado smoothie (WTF) and proceeded to want to torch the new building.

So I ordered a key fob (gate key) a week ago. Paid for it. Waited for it. Asked every day for it.

Stopped downstairs today to ask where the F it is.

They gave it to the landlord. Who lives like 10 miles from here. But they had no proof that I live here (???) so they thought they’d give it to him to do what he wanted to do with it.

BECAUSE RANDOM WOMEN NAMED GODDESS SEND MONEY OUT OF THEIR PERSONAL FUCKING ACCOUNT FOR GATE KEYS.

So … nobody could have TOLD ME THIS?

In any event, I asked for and got a new key fob.

I got upstairs.

It was a garage opener.

This after listening to The Elephant Family tromping around upstairs for the past 10 nights. And the toilets running constantly. And the garage doors almost closing on my car. And the two-year-old house that looks like the Wreck of the Hesperus.

So, I did what I tend to do. I flipped.

I went back downstairs and said hey, the dumb bitch who didn’t clean my house broke my garage key anyway. Can I keep this one?

They said no.

They said by the way, you didn’t fill out your paperwork. I said I filled out 18 pages of paperwork for the HOA. They said no, there’s one more paper. And had I filled it out, they wouldn’t have sent my key to the owner.

I said again, no one could have TOLD ME THIS?!

I got the key fob I needed (gate key) and they did give me a less-broken garage key. But they kept the keyring that holds the garage and gate keys together.

I was so furious, I flew out of there on my mental broom.

Mom finally got brave and used the oven today. Even that’s fucked up. It continues to run long after it’s shut off.

I told her fuck the $1,750 security deposit. Let the cat scooch. I’m nailing things and people to the walls. Anyone need to host a ritual sacrifice? Bring Your Own Blood. I got key fobs for everybody. COME ON OVER.

Let’s wake up the fucking neighborhood …

I totally destroyed an article sent my way today. 

One of my people was having trouble with one of the images in the piece (I had rebuilt all the other charts) so I sent her the original file. 

She said holy shit, it was a whole new article after I got done with it. She said she had no idea what I do without anyone knowing. 

I asked if that was good and she said yes, a thousand percent better.  She said I am very fluent in speaking (language name redacted). 

I wonder what I’ll do then these (redacted) are gone. What has earth been like while I was off tending to them?

Editing a painful article in one screen, and editing someone’s edits of the painful article on another screen.

And trying to put helpful comments and edits in both.

One for publication and one to surely confuse, frustrate and annoy.

I wouldn’t need so much help if the original writer weren’t STILL arguing with me over how “I WRITE GOOD.”

No point to any of it. It’s just a shame that the “editing of edits” is the part that makes me the craziest.

I don’t care what everyone thinks about Gwyneth Paltrow’s $29/week food challenge.

You know what I think? I can’t get an ounce of help for my mother. Who has nothing.

SNAP is SUPPLEMENTAL. To whatever other aid they get. Sorry Mom has to be dependent on handouts from her daughter because she’s flat-out refused because someone who doesn’t look like her says so. That’s GREAT for her ego.

Not to mention I spend all my money on housing and can’t actually afford a safe car or healthcare for her too.

Fuck everybody.

So much for “no more negative on this page.” Fuck all.

So I moved into this place and got offended in three annoying ways.

1. The realtor who moved me in, has no fucking idea how to clean. All the windows, shower doors and stainless appliances are smeared and uncleanable. That is to say nothing of her hair everywhere and the crap she left in the drawers/cabinets.

I scrubbed the fuck out of my last place and can’t get the goddamned security deposit back. So this bitch has jeopardized the $1,500 I put down on this place. Not to mention the non-refundable cat deposit. And the first and last month’s rent. And what I paid the movers.

In any event, I politely wrote to the landlord and said “A” prior tenant left a bit of a haze on some sensitive surfaces. He seemed nice enough and offered some thoughts on cleaning products. He did say he’d send a maid if I can’t fix it.

I just dropped six grand on this goddamned move … and I’ve lived here a week … and now I have to do more manual labor? After I cleaned the shit out of Termite Towers for a whole week and didn’t get a DIME back?

I’m TIRED, PEOPLE.

So anyway, because I got in “early” (read I got the keys early because the bitch vacated ASAP and didn’t clean her snail trail out of this place), the landlord made me redo the lease with a due date of the 28th for my rent. So sure, that’s the day I am supposed to pay Amex. BY ALL MEANS let’s just fuck my finances up further. I INSIST.

2. I’ve been asking the twits in the management office for a new key fob for a week. I left a check over a week ago and they said they’d put it in my mailbox. I’ve e-mailed three times and stopped downstairs every day to look for it. They said it would be in my mailbox. Not so much. So a nastygram awaits them in the morning.

3. I feel like I can’t enjoy this place. It’s hard to clean and Kadie scooches on the Berber carpets 24/7. The paint is flat and I’m pretty much like Pigpen with the messes I make.

Mom is trapped indoors without a KEYFOB. She was trapped in the last dump too because none of the fucking doors worked downstairs and I got carpal tunnel using my key every day.

I can’t unpack because I keep finding messes in the cabinets.

The toilet in Mom’s room nearly exploded tonight. But after the landlord forwarded my “bitch didn’t clean” note to the bitch and she ripped me a new one by e-mail (yes, really), I’m afraid to make another peep.

Let the place flood. See if I care. I might as well trash the place if I keep losing big money at these goddamned places that don’t do a FUCKING thing to make my money worth spending.

I’m goddamned sick of everything being a struggle.

I got to thinking about “kids today.”

I don’t mean to lump together people in the newest generation in the workforce. Because they are all the individual snowflakes their parents told them they are.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to think about how I personally was. Or tried to be, anyway. And it is in that context where I wonder why others can’t be more like I used to be.

When I was starting out in this particular business, I spent very long days with little to do, and then suddenly a rush of shit would hit my desk after 5 p.m. We would work late and oftentimes my boss wouldn’t use all my edits.

I would be crushed. But I would study the final product and understand why.

Mostly I just didn’t understand the subject matter. We really do speak a foreign language here. But at least my English and AP Style were always impeccable. And I could build upon that.

When kids don’t have that minimal foundation, I don’t think they can learn the “foreign language.”

Math plays a big part in my life. Now, I went to J-school so I wouldn’t have to use math. But with the world of online calculators, I’ve found an easy way to beat my fears of fucking that shit up.

I remember stopping by my boss’ office nearly every night (always past 7 p.m.). Even though I had arrived at 7:30 a.m., I always, ALWAYS asked if there was anything else I could do to help.

We would talk about fun stuff, too. Both of us were very into pop culture and we bonded easily.

And it was within those light moments that I could ask what I did right or wrong or could do better. I also got a line on what might be happening tomorrow. So, I could be ready.

I used that downtime to take online courses, catch up on the news, and go bug EVERYBODY in the building.

• I went to marketing and asked what they wished editorial knew that could help them better.

• I went to IT and asked why the processes were what they were. And how I could do more so I could bug them less.

• I went to advertising and copy and said what is it exactly that you do. I thought maybe I could pick up a few interesting tips.

I use all of this knowledge today.

I soon ran my own department there. I run my own department today at a different company.

And I guess if I could look at the next generation and shake up their lazy asses, I would tell them to master SOMETHING. For me, it was stock options. And then I would tell them to ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS.

I meet people who can barely keep three thoughts in their head. If new information comes along, something falls out.

These kinds of people shake out of this field, usually sooner rather than later.

I remember last fall when one of my favorite people (copy) met one of my least-favorite (three thoughts). And my friend said, “Yeah. That one isn’t going to last.”

He said it after 10 minutes of being in the same room with the other person.

At some point you just know.

You don’t always know, though.

I have a situation where I had bad, bad vibes. Yet for the most part, it turned out to be a good relationship. However, it will soon screech to a halt. And maybe my gut was right all along.

I don’t know. I’m all jumbled right now.

I keep reading about how it is more important to hire people who offer a better cultural fit than a list of credentials.

Two years ago we parted with some credentialed kids (and they were kids in all senses of the word). Too smart for their own good. And not willing to use it.

Capable and unwilling, I call it.

Then we found some perfect cultural fits. That was hugely important to me.

Now it’s incapable and willing.

But when you put incapable people in a pod of overachievers, something happens.

Luckily it isn’t that the overachievers get pissed off and quit achieving.

But the incapable find themselves becoming unwilling.

Even if they don’t see it, the capable and willing sure do.

My friend E used to say of an incapable and unwilling type: “You can be nice and dumb, or you can be a bitch who gets things done. But don’t be a dumb bitch.”

I will leave it there because I have work to do. But I will hope and pray that some more capable and willing types come along … and that there is salary money free to snag their capable and willing selves when we find them.

I called this an “easy” week yet I left after 8 p.m. three nights in a row.

It’s just been “not psychotic.” Big difference.

However, psychotic is about to kick in.

I’m still really run-down from the move and I think I’m getting sick. Which, perfect timing, eh?

There’s a festival being set up outside my office. Not that I have any plans to be able to escape to it. In fact all I want is some matzoh ball chicken noodle soup to settle my nerves.

Here’s to getting good help, soon! And maybe “easy” will become a more-permanent state of mind. Even if it means working past 8 p.m. every night, it will be because I WANT to stay.

High point of the day: potentially being able to hire an old colleague who’s intelligent and competent and kick-ass.

This could possibly make up for those who couldn’t find at least one ass cheek with both hands.

No erasing my mistakes. But damn to be able to get the money back to fix them …

Did you ever delegate a fifth-grade project and have it come back with second-grade results?

And did you ever forward it to the interested parties who requested it without checking it, because you figured how could anyone muff it up? Especially when there were exactly two details to know and you provided both?

Now I’m the one who looks like a moron.

My friend upstairs just posted an amazing job posting. Not for me . But if I had to measure us against that job posting today, we would be the new picture of failure in Wikipedia.

I was fortunate to have a slow day today. It’s been three years since I’ve had a slow day. I’m using it to be 23rd in line at Comcast. 

I wish I had someone great to cover me. Great, mediocre, breathing. Whichever. Not picky as long as they have a basic grasp of English. Or something. 

In any event I’m hiring again. I have seven out of 30 resumes looking varying degrees of promising. 

One candidate has a killer resume. But did not send clips. So, strike one. 

Anyway, desperate times and all. And a-Googling Goddess went. 

I cannot put into words the perfect shitpile this person’s first article was. 

Do you blame the writer … Do you blame this major publication for not putting an editor on the job … Or was the original copy fine and they put an incompetent kid on it who thought he made it “gooder”?

I’ll have to look at more clips before I can make an assessment. But if anyone asks why I don’t take a day off even when my body is screaming and my house is in tatters, this is Exhibit A. 

Now I have to wait behind some dipshit calling himself White Chocolate who is breakdancing in his suit to pass the time.  W00t. Is this what I miss when I’m cooped up?