Friday, May 30, 2008

Something is not right here.

One of the things that bugs me about the general office experience is people who have a completely distorted sense of how things work. The following story is not a first hand account, but a friend told me about it and I was immediately irritated for her. :-)

Setup: A new temp is hired when the person in her position is promoted, and starts on Wednesday. The position is one which often requires lots of overtime. She is responsible for assisting a department that has members in different California offices, as well as an office in London. They have a department meeting at 8am every Tuesday which everyone from every office attends.

Cut to this morning, when my friend gets an email from this new temp, requesting that the department meeting (which has been on the same day and time for over two years) be moved from 8am to 8:30am because she doesn't get in until 8:30am.

I'm sorry? How long have you worked there? Two days? And you're asking to move a long standing meeting that tons of people from different time zones go to, so you don't have to come in a half hour earlier once a week?

How are people that dense and self-concerned?

My friend responded with a hasty "no," to her email, and then received another email:

"On second thought, I'll do my best to attend the 8am start time."

Do your best? No! You will be there!! Or, you will work out with your boss whatever reason you have to NOT be there. But jeeze. You're BRAND new, you do not get to negotiate for a while.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Who CARES!?!?!

"Dunkin' Donuts pulled a television spot featuring talk show host and Food Network personality Rachael Ray this weekend after a Fox news commentator associated it with terrorists."

WHAT?

Wait, I'm sorry. (re-reads article, and finds different article.)

WHAT???

Am I the only one who finds this absolutely ludicrous??? It's freaking Rachael Ray! And while I'm not exactly a fan (the term "EVOO" irritates the bajeezus out of me), come on. Really? Is there nothing else going on in the world that some twit from Fox News (it would be Fox News, by the way) has to attack a SCARF?

Come on, people. It's not a "kiffiyeh." It's an ugly scarf that some costume designer pulled out of her Marshall's bag-o-tricks because RR had a flippin hickey or some crap. I read Michelle Malkin's actual article about this, and I can *almost* see what she's saying. But like I said before. It's a SCARF. There is no political message behind it. There is no "hate couture" movement. An ugly scarf is sometimes just an ugly scarf.

I can't believe that time was expended on this. I can't believe I'VE spent this much time on it. RIDICULOUS.

Don't take my word for it, though... what do you think?

Screenshot of Rachael Ray in Dunkin Donuts' commercial.

Friday, May 23, 2008

There is a strongly worded letter involved.

I was having a busy day at work, so I decided to put up one of my favorite black & white photos from Italy over on my other blog for my post of the day. I went to log into Media Max, where I had all of my backup files stored, and OH! LOOK! It's no longer Media Max! It's now some lame, ridiculous excuse for a "social networking site" called The Linkup. (I'm not even going to link these here, as I normally would, because I am SO mad.)

Apparently, they made the switch back in April, and, without my knowledge, ALL OF MY FILES WERE DELETED. I am so angry I want to scream and kick and hunt down whomever is responsible for this and poke them with a stick until they figure out a way for me to get my files back. Since they are located in San Diego, and I'm not leaving work for those pukes, I was forced to settle with writing an email. While I tried to sound mature and appropriate with my emails to American Airlines when they lost my luggage, I do not give a crap about Media Max, and therefore did not censor myself when writing.


To whom it may concern,

I just tried to log into my Media Max account to pull down some files and photos I had stored there, and guess what? I couldn't! I was a free Media Max user. Apparently, all of my files were deleted as of 4/25, without my knowledge.

I am LIVID about this. I was never notified there would be a switch in companies. I never received an email saying my account would be closed. I trusted your site to store my files and photographs so that I could free up space on my hard drive, and they were deleted without a word.

When researching this issue today, I found the blogs you have set up for both Media Max and The Linkup, neither of which I had ANY prior knowledge of. And, looking back, I found this passage:

"Current non-paying users: If you are not currently a paying subscriber to MediaMax, you need to upgrade your MediaMax account before April 25 to be included in the move. Otherwise, your account will be closed and all your files will be removed."

Badly done, Media Max. I should have been informed long before this occurred, so that I could transfer all of my files off of your site. This is a ridiculous betrayal of what you promised as a company when I signed up for your service.


Fortunately, I am paranoid of all things Internet, and backed up everything on an external hard drive as well. So, technically, I didn't "lose" my files. But STILL. What if that HAD been the only place I had them? What if there were important documents that I now never had access to again??? WTF is wrong with people!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Listen to my words.

I can't stand when people (1) don't pay attention to what you're saying, and (2) are complete boneheads.

Part of what I do for my company is ordering acquired films that we air from the production studios. We had another film come up that we wanted to air in two weeks, so I went through my normal channels and ordered it. This is the 6th film in the last three years that I have had to order from this woman, let's call her Angie. Yesterday, I emailed Angie with our formal request for the film. This morning, we went back and forth with emails. I'm just going to cut and paste our emails below...

Me: Hi Angie, Here is our formal order for the film (title). The DigiBeta can please be delivered to (my address). Please let me know if there are any issues."

Angie: Can you please forward me me you technical specs? (<-- yes, that is incorrect grammar in there... and she's asking for the same document I've sent her FIVE times before.)

Me: Here you go! Thanks.

Angie: Hi, I need your tech. SPECS. (<-- THAT'S WHAT I JUST SENT YOU, LADY!)

Me: This is the same document (updated more recently) as I have sent you for (other movie), (other movie), etc. Please let me know specifically what you are looking for if this document does not cover it. We will be taking care of formatting the film, as well as the closed captioning.

Angie: Hi, Please forward me the Specs file. Lab, cannot locate. (<-- WTF???? I consider this seriously rude because I literally forwarded it to her two emails ago.)

Me: Sorry for any miscommunication, it's the file I just sent you. It is titled Programming Specs, and it has the rundown of our deliverables. I have attached it again for your convenience.

Angie: (title) - is due to ship out tomorrow.


I want points for not saying, "YOU HAVE THE DOCUMENT, YOU FLIPPING MORON."

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Bugger off, counterfeiters!

On Sunday I went to our local Pavillions for some bread to make French Toast. I got $20 cash back, and the teller gave it to me in $10s. One was super washed out, and he commented that it must have gone through the laundry a few times.

Cut to today. I'm getting my car washed, and belatedly realize that I only have one single to tip the guys with. I go back into the gas station and ask for change for the $10 that I have left, the weird looking one. The guy goes to give me change, then looks at me strangely. Then takes the bill and runs it through some little machine. It was a freaking COLOR COPY of a $10 bill! WTF!!!!

The guy hassled me for a minute before warning me to be careful with the bill. I somehow convinced him to let me keep it... it took me a full 15 minutes to figure out where I'd gotten it - I had to literally retrace my steps for the entire weekend to figure out who gave it to me.

I am really mad, mostly at myself - how did I not notice this when the guy gave me the bill??? How was I so preoccupied to get home and make French Toast that I didn't notice a flipping piece of paper with a (very convincing) color copy of a $10 bill??? How did I not notice when I handed him the damn thing???

UGH! I shake my fist at you, counterfeiters!!!!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Tired, and it's only May.

I am tired of hearing about Obama, Clinton, and McCain, and it's only May. Can we just skip to after the Democratic primary, then to November, to see who our next president will be?

I hate so many things about politics - the half-truths, the smear campaigns, the empty promises. Maybe it's because the CA primary has been long over, I don't know. I just want to get to the part where I need to pay attention again, because this is serious overload.

On another note, I am really wanting to see the movie Recount, about the 2000 elections. Enough so that I actually wish I had HBO.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Snip, snip, snip.

Who needs to clip their fingernails this frequently??? Do your fingernails grow at some super speed? Maybe I'm just sensitive because I hate the noise that nail clipping creates, but come on. This is the second time this week! And last week, that was another occurance. If you're that obsessive about nail care, could you please do it at home?

"JOE????"

Hi, coworkers! It's me again. Just a friendly reminder - we all work in the same office, and just because your office is not remotely near the office of someone you talk to 20x/day, it is still rude to shrilly yell across our entire building to see if someone is at their desk. Go see for yourself, or better yet, CALL THEM! If they don't answer? Chances are they're not sitting at their phone. This knowledge will eliminate the necessity of you screaming at the top of your lungs to see if they're there, and will thus prevent me from wanting to punch you in the face.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Who are you, again?

I've had this issue lately, and it surfaced once again yesterday, urging me to rant about it. We know several people through our extended group of friends who are rude, self-absorbed jerks. I don't know that there are too many other ways to put it. One or two of them have the particular problem of not remembering people they have met (sometimes on numerous occasions). Or, rather, not giving enough of a shit to pay attention when they meet the person so that they recognize them later.

Take, for example, the encounter my boyfriend had yesterday with the almost-ex-wife of a friend of a friend.

My boyfriend has met this gal numerous times over the last few years. Parties, get-togethers, group dinners out. He has had boys nights with her almost-ex-husband. He's played video games at their house. We've sat across the table from her at dinners.

So, when he ran into her at a local restaurant yesterday and gave her a polite "hey," he expected at least a vague recognition of familiarity. And got nothing. She did not recognize him. And she gave him a not-quite-polite brush off. (Or, maybe she did recognize him, and is just more of a bitch than we thought.)

Which is fine, actually. Because it's not like we need to expend energy on trying to be nice to her. But still. It's more than a little rude, if you ask me.

Here's a hint.

Hi, sweetie?

It's one thing to announce a divorce a week and a half before your close friends' wedding. It's worse when you're doing the bride's hair, and your soon-to-be-ex-husband is the best man. But life is messy, and sometimes the timing is off, so we'll let that one go.

But it is unforgivably rude to show up nearly two hours late to do the bride's hair on her WEDDING DAY. It is tasteless to latch onto the single guy at your table and make it your first date together. It is even less classy to be easily discovered making out with said single guy approximately 30 minutes before the best man's speech.

You should have checked your so-called pride and ego at the door. This day was not about you, and you wasted precious moments of your friends' wedding day drawing the attention away from them and towards your need for drama. Their wedding? Not the time, or the place. Grow up, suck it up for a few hours, and pout about it later when no one else has to see it.

Friday, May 2, 2008

I am not a fan.

I was really excited for my lunch today because I found a new product at Trader Joe's (yes, we've already established that I am a flippin nerd and lead a fairly boring life) - it's called Spicy Thai Style Pasta Salad and it has the long yummy Thai noodles. And chicken. And peanut sauce! So I was totally looking forward to it because I love all of these things. And then I opened it.

And it had dirty, dirty cilantro EVERYWHERE.

I hate cilantro. To me, it tastes like someone grabbed something that tasted maybe once tasted ok, threw it down in some dirt, poured liquid soap over it, and stomped on it until it was a paste, and then reconstructed it into leaves. Ew.

I'm sure there are people out there who like cilantro. In fact, my friend Val loves the stuff. But I'm also fairly certain that there's something that you hate that I enjoy, like artichokes. Or green beans. So you guys can jam if you like cilantro, cause this is my blog and I hate it.

It took me a good minute and a half to remove the piles of cilantro from the salad. And then I spent another good thirty seconds poking through it to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I shake my fist at you, cilantro!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

That's not my name, ok?

I was reading a random blog I found today and came across a post called "My name ain't Lexi." I read it, laughed, then went to comment on it, and discovered I had quite a few things to say about the topic! See, this girl's name is Alexa, and people she works with call her "Lexi," which she doesn't like. I identify, of course, because my full name is Adriana, and I hate when people I don't know call me "Adri."

It's a fine line - I have lots of friends who call me "Adri." It's a nickname from high school, and I get it. You shorten my name because it's long and weird and whatever. I'm totally cool with my good friends calling me this, because they KNOW my full name, and use it when necessary.

I don't like when people I don't know call me "Adri." I also hate being introduced as "Adri." But again, if it's my friends, I'll deal, because I'm not a raging bitch and at the end of the day, it's just a flippin nickname.

But at work, I don't go by "Adri." I go by my full name, "Addy," or "Ade," as my friend Desi sometimes calls me. But there is one girl, Jeanette, who insists on calling me "Adri."

At first, she was new, so I didn't know how to correct her, since I'm actually a pretty nice person who doesn't like correcting people when they don't know any better. But it went on and on, and eventually I figured out a way to jokingly bring up how I don't go by "Adri" at work. I explained to her how I go by Adriana at work, and how her calling me "Adri" is similar to me shortening her nice, pretty name to "Jean," or even "Net" or something. (my mom's name is Jean, by the way, and it's a very nice name, so please don't be offended if your name is Jean)

We had a nice little conversation, and I thought she got it, but she continued to call me "Adri!" I finally just gave up, because obviously it's not something that's going to change anytime soon. She has since left the company for bigger and better things, so I guess sometimes there are things you just have to ride out. But today I'm feeling particularly cranky, and after reading Alexa's blog, I just had to mention it.