Tag Archives: office job

life, martial arts, work

Pity party

nectar of the gods

It occurred to me recently that I’ve become a very busy person.  I don’t particularly like being super busy; I’m not one of those people who has to be doing something all the time to feel useful.  I’d like to sleep in at Boyfriend’s house, read, have some eggs and tater tots with Cholula and ketchup, take a walk, lay out in the sun (finally finish that last LOTR book), maybe have some sex, take a nap, watch a few episodes of Buffy or The Office, try to cook a delicious meal from that recipe app I just got (go get phở after probable, massive failure) or go have dinner with friends, followed by 5-hour table-top gaming session.

THAT is a perfect day.  Here’s what I do instead:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Office Job: Alarm goes off at 7:21am, snooze until 7:45, get dressed, make PBJ sammiches, leave by 8:15, chastise self for being late so often.  Park car in giant parking structure, take tram to campus, walk to building, attempt to work until 1:30pm.  Drive to Redondo Beach to teach a few karate classes to kids who either:
a) Love it, and love me
b) Have a great attitude, even when I tell them to do something hard
c) Love having fun, but therefore must be entertained, lest the unhappy face make an appearance (I call it “The Crank”)
d) Didn’t get their nap, and are close to flopping on the floor and giving up every second of the class
e) Don’t want to be there at all.  Want to go home.  Now.  Home.  Home!  NOW!

pictured: option D

Fridays I go to Santa Monica to teach karate, where the kids tend to have nannies, a stronger sense of entitlement, and parent who tend not to want to hear anything that might resemble criticism.

Tuesday
Repeat above Office Job portion.  Go home to the Westside, eat ramen (or broccoli omfg I love it so much), relax for a few hours, change into Kung Fu clothes, leave by 5:15 to help with beginner’s class, take cardio class, take intermediate class.  Five hours after I left for the studio, I arrive home to eat something easy, shower, and go to bed by 11:30.

Thursday
SLEEP IN!  Repeat above Kung Fu portion.

Saturday
SLEEP IN!  This is the only day I truly have completely off.  I spend most of it sleeping, eating, gaming with friends (poker!), and generally not standing up.

Sunday
Alarm goes off at 9:21am.  Must leave by 9:45, but snooze until 9:39 most of the time.  Drive to Redondo Beach dojo, stop by McDonalds for two egg mcmuffins (eat both in car), park car at dojo, walk across PCH (scary!) to Starbucks (grande iced mocha with whip cream).  Teach four classes, and maybe a weapons workshop.  Done by 3 or 6.  Go home, repeat Saturday plan.

Most of my fellow Sensei’s are actors, so they all need time off at the drop of a hat, and refuse to cover for anyone else too far into the future for fear of double-booking on the day of their yet-unbooked big break.  I’ve been covering a bunch recently because of the incoming car purchase, meaning I haven’t had a full day off in almost three weeks.  I drive almost 200 miles per week just to get to my jobs on my own shifts (not counting Kung Fu which adds 20mi).  Monday comes zooming up on me since Sunday is a work day, then I’m sleep-deprived until three days later when I get to sleep in on Thursday.  I look forward to sleep more than I look forward to food at this point.  Which is sad.  Maybe that’ll change if I make one of those amazing pumpkin dishes!  🙂

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humor, work

Haiku distraction: le food

My coworker (let’s call her Lisa) is really good at talking, and I don’t mean that insultingly.  It’s what makes her good at her job.  She’s a networker.  She can hold thousands of tiny details in the front of her mind, and uses a hundred words to get a simple idea across.  It wears down the other guy, and makes whatever she’s talking about sound more convincing.

I went to a  meeting yesterday with Lisa and our boss (let’s call her Ruth) regarding food for a big event we have coming up.  Lisa said this meeting would consist of Ruth and our contact (the Manager and Chef) discussing pricing, etc., and Lisa would spend the meeting listening and taking notes.  I thought, There’s no way you’re not going to say anything.  No.  Way.

Lisa said she would
sit and listen.  I think we
both knew that was false.

Lisa will not stop talking unless she hears what she wants to hear.  She can be pretty pushy, but again, we depend on that side of her to get her job done better than anyone else in the office could.  Having said that, there are some words that are such an affront to the English language (on which, as you know, I have a pretty serious crush) that infuriate me to the point of spontaneous haiku.

“Guestimate” might be
worse than the manager-chef
dynamic.  Awkward!

When we sat down for the meeting, Chef was AWOL.  Manager was very professional, and clearly quite experienced with the price points and practicalities of each dish for the location of the meal, the number of people we wanted to feed, etc.  He’s the right man for the job.  Very professional and reserved.  Then Chef joined us.  Chef is a hulking, overweight, laid-back possibly German man with a thick accent and some good ideas, all of which were shot down by Manager.  Manager had trouble hiding his displeasure for Chef.  At the end of the meeting, Chef wanted to go back to the kitchen while Manager finished up with us.  Manager disapproved.  He asked Chef to wait.  Chef did not wait, lol.

He’s so straight-forward.
I really like this chef.  I
bet he spreche Deutsch.

Chef came to the table eating a brownie, then got up and brought us a plate of them.  Score!

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badness, work

The runaround

Innocent bystanders at my office job are unwittingly turning me in circles, and it’s starting to make me dizzy.

I’ve been trying to get in touch with someone who can tell me who is in charge of reserving a plaza for a reception before a theater production.  I’ve been sent in a hilarious series of circles, and I’m close to losing my patience, so I’m letting off steam by posting the process.

it's a crazy machine; your voice goes in, the crazy comes out

-Email scheduling office, no response.

-Call scheduling, leave message, no response.

-Call scheduling back, told to contact athletics, maybe they’ll know what to do.

-Get athletics email contact from Nice Scheduling Lady I’ve worked with before.

-Email recommended athletics contact.  He recommends I contact the scheduling office.  Ugh.

-Search for the plaza on university main page.  Notice it was advertised for a reception for a previous theater production.  How did they do that?

-Email Nice Theater Lady re: previous use of plaza for theater reception.  She recommends I contact the scheduling office, and gives me their general office email.  Thanks, Nice Theater Lady.

It’s taking all my self-control not to walk over to the plaza and yell “WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE OF THIS LOCATION?!”  Just about everyone I’ve interacted with has been nice, but ignorant of anything relating to that damn plaza.  Should we just show up that day and hope no one’s there?  Odds are it’ll be empty, but I wants it for mine ownsssss, the preciousssss.

UPDATE: 10:18am, April 1

Turns out it IS the athletics department that’s in charge of the plaza.  Thanks, random guy from athletics who told me otherwise.  Thanks.

I just called to confirm with them, like a responsible adult would.  The first lady I spoke with said, “We don’t reserve that space.”  I said, “But I already reserved it with you.”  When?  “Over a month ago.”  Who did you talk to?  I give her the name (let’s call her Romilda, and thank god I made note of her name).  I’m put on hold for five mins until a woman answers, “Hello?”  I say, “Hi there.”  Silence.

Her: Hello?
Me: Hi… Did she not tell you why I was calling?
Her: What?  This is Romilda, can I help you with something?
Me: Ok, I’m calling to confirm my reservation at the Plaza.
Her: Ohhhhhh-kaaaaaay… hmmm, that isn’t here… Who did you speak with?
Me: I spoke with you.
Her: OH.  Uh, ok.  Did I get back to you?
Me: We spoke over the phone.
Her: Ohhhhhhh, ok.  I must have not put it in here…  What is the event?

I give her all the information she asked me for the first time, hoping she’s actually writing it down instead of whatever she was doing last time for CHRISSAKE.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a heartless, unforgiving bitch.  People make mistakes.  I make mistakes.  It happens.  It just seems to be happening a lot with this one event.  Scheduling thought I was hosting this event in another location, and demanded a ton of paperwork under threat of canceling my event.  I stayed late and filled it all out in a flurry, sending various copies to five different departments before someone from scheduling asked for a form I had already submitted, and randomly said, “Sorry I didn’t see this the first time, it has a different location on it.”  I said, WHAT?  Hence, all the paperwork I filled out was useless.  Awesome.  Thanks, team.  Way to go.

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