Kim Plaintive

Rest in Peace, Kim Plaintive.

2006-04-05T18:10:00.000-05:00

The Vulture Incident

2005-08-27T23:44:00.000-05:00

Surprisingly, we don't have many stories of interest from the road trip out West. We did get stopped by border patrol at one point, but they waved us on when we showed we were citizens. I'll let Quint fill you in on our one run-in with the Texas Po Pos. And then there was the vulture incident.

We were somewhere in New Mexico -- I was driving and Quint was sleeping. On the road ahead I spotted four vultures, just standing around on the shoulder conversating with each other. I started shouting for Quint to wake up, since he'd been disappointed with the paucity of wildlife on our trip thus far. The birds must have heard the car coming because they started looking over in interest. Quint woke up just in time to see one of the vultures flying directly at our windshield (I swerved to avoid it). And then I laughed and laughed and laughed at Quint's girlish scream. Maybe you had to be there. Please see my artist's rendering of the incident below.

Friday Foto Fun 3

2005-08-27T00:30:00.000-05:00

Study the image below and then respond to the questions that follow. Time limit: 10 minutes.

Part 1 (25 points): Truth or Dare?

Part 2 (100 points): If you chose Truth, do tell.

Part 3 (250 points): Multiple-choice. Which of the following is the name of an actual town in New Mexico that you will encounter on your Texas to California road trip?
a. Elephant Butt
b. Donkey Balls
c. Giraffe Boob
(Hint: see below.)

Answers to last week's Friday Foto Fun:
Part 1: $$$.
Part 2: White.
Part 3: I have four friends more than I should.

Price Check on Register One

2005-08-26T00:47:00.000-05:00

Since today was Quint's birthday and no birthday would be complete without some candles atop a piece of manager-comped cheesecake (which was given to Quint when he found a plastic twist-tie in his sandwich at lunch today), I ducked into the Walgreen's to buy some candles.

The Walgreen's had a fair selection of the usual pink and blue stripey deals, but a dusty box of lettered candles was what caught my eye. It contained all the letters necessary to spell "CONGRATULATIONS" but what intrigued me were the N, G, R, and O visible in the window of the box (almost spelling "NEGRO"). A quick survey of the rest of the candle section revealed that there was also a box of candles spelling "CELEBRATE." Not wanting to pay for two boxes of candles just to get the E from the second one, I decided to simply steal an E from the CELEBRATE box. But then, feeling bad about some poor guy decorating his cake with "CELEBRAT," I decided to swap in one of my unneeded letters. I slipped in an A, figuring maybe some fool would spell "CELABRATE" and never know the difference.

I got in the only check-out line, which was manned by the kind of kooky white woman that tends to work the check-out line at a Walgreen's at 9:00 p.m on a weekday. I listened as she informed the couple two spots in front of me that she was very happy to be single and not have any kids to tie her down. Then I looked on in horror as she flirted shamelessly with the greazy man in front of me (who was buying five boxes of Tucks hemorrhoid wipes and insisting he didn't need a shopping bag).

Finally I got to the front of the line. The barcode on the box of candles wouldn't scan. "Price check on register one," Cashier Lady sang over the intercom. A few moments passed. "I think they were $2.99," I offered. A lot of times the cashier will just take your word for the price when the price check doesn't come quickly and there are other people waiting in line. (The candles were actually $3.99, but I figured they were worth $2.99, tops.) Cashier Lady didn't seem down for that idea. "I still need a price check on register one," she repeated with some impatience.

Another minute passed (filled with her mutterings about something or other and my pretend fascination with the latest issue of TV Guide). Finally Cashier Lady threw up her hands in frustration and declared, "Well, if they're not going to give me price checks, I'll just have to start making up prices myself!" She studied the box of candles for a few seconds. "One dollar sounds like a good price to me!" She gleefully rang up the dollar with tax.

Just then the manager came over asking about the price check. Cashier Lady waved him on, saying she'd taken care of it. Maybe it was just the wine I'd had with dinner, but I suddenly found myself struggling hard to keep a straight face.

After I'd gotten home and proudly stuck NEGRO into Quint's cheesecake, I realized that (if one pretends O is the same as Q) I could also spell out QUINT. (That I'm starting to think of my own boyfriend as his blogger name as much as his real name is surely one of the warning signs on someone's "You know you blog too much when..." quiz.)

And so here is my dear Quint's birthday cake. Best $1.07 I ever spent.

Happy Birthday Quint!

2005-08-25T12:01:00.000-05:00

Guess Who's Bzack

2005-08-24T19:03:00.000-05:00

Made the Houston to Bay Area trek with no break-ins or break-downs. More later!

M.I.A.

2005-08-18T14:02:00.000-05:00

Internet is being cut off today.

When next we blog, Quint and I will be in Cali!

Nathan, My Guardian Angel

2005-08-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

Quint said he would come with me, but as it happened the only appointment I could get was when he was out of town. It couldn't wait until he got back.

I drove alone and with the radio off, as I usually do when I'm trying to follow driving directions. It was sunny and hot. I was uncharacteristically on time.

As I turned on to Fannin Street, my empty stomach dropped. I reached for my cell and dialed Quint. No answer.

There were about 20 or 30 of them. Some held picket signs and chanted, fists in the air. A small faction stood stoically, red tape over their mouths. And then there were the people holding the five-foot billboard photos of bloody fetuses.

I decided to park in the overflow parking lot around the corner. I turned the ignition off and sat, trying to gather myself. I started to suffocate. I turned the ignition back on to get some air. I flipped open the cell phone again -- Quint's voicemail.

Just then two men approached my car. I instinctively reached for the door lock -- but of course I had already locked it when I first saw the protesters. When the men got close enough for my poor eyesight to focus I realized they were wearing Planned Parenthood T-shirts.

I got out of the car. The older man smiled and introduced me to the younger one, Nathan. He was a tall white guy with wrinkled khakis and hair that was shaggy (not from Brit-rock coolness but from a defiance of neatness).

"I'll escort you inside the clinic," Nathan said. I wanted to hug this mess of a boy.

As we rounded the corner, one of the protesters approached me with some literature. I cut off his spiel with a polite "no thank you." He stepped closer and began ranting with heightened volume. Nathan pulled me along. Either the distance we put between us and him or the policeman's ready stance finally quieted the diatribe.

Nathan offered nervous smiles as we passed the long line of protesters. They stared me down in silence during my final steps to the clinic entrance. Nathan held the door open for me. I paused and looked back over my shoulder.

I just need to get my fu*king Pill! Can I live?

Haters

2005-08-16T23:57:00.000-05:00

I know my posts are crappy this week, I've been busy with some freelance work (no, not Legal Snooze) and getting in some "QT" with Quint (yes, he's taking that job -- we've been mentally preparing for our possible separation for a while).

If you'd like some entertainment, you can amuse yourself with my personal haters. This person is actually funny. This racist person...um, not so much (scroll down). And even though it's almost a month old, ignorant fools still be hating on me in the comments of this post. (And yes, "fools be hating" is a valid construction, although non-standard. It's a more succinct way of saying "fools are constantly hating." Ok...haters?)

Tears in My Fettuccine Alfredo

2005-08-16T11:26:00.000-05:00

Quint got a job...three thousand miles away from my school.

Friday Foto Fun 2

2005-08-12T20:48:00.000-05:00

Study the image below and then respond to the questions that follow. Time limit: 45 minutes.

Part 1 (67.99 points): How much money did KP drop on her new Phat Farm back-to-school kicks that finally arrived in the mail today?

Part 2 (25 points): Laces -- pink or white? (Hint: white.)

Part 3 (5 points each): Will you guys still be my friends if I paint my sneakers (see below)?

Answers to last week's Friday Foto Fun:
Part 1: The cube with the balloons.
Part 2: Nine.
Part 3: Here.
Bonus: See below.

Bus Stop Part 2

2005-08-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

Found the article below in the Chronicle.

Houston police are searching for the person who sexually assaulted a woman Sunday night at a northwest-side Metro bus stop. The attack occurred about 10:30 p.m., shortly after the victim, 26, got off the bus at the Metro stop near Little York and West Montgomery, officials said. The assailant struck up a conversation with the woman, then assaulted her at gunpoint. He then fled the scene, officials said.

Forget trying to be polite, I'm not conversating with those bus stop fools anymore.

Crash Landing from Office Space

2005-08-10T23:46:00.000-05:00

I suddenly realized that school is starting really soon. The good thing about temping is that you don't have to give notice.

So at the end of the day I shook hands with Bryan the wedding interrupter and hugged Amber, promising to keep in touch. Brent, the cute white boy who sits next to Amber, gave me a good-luck-in-school cookie. And then I walked down the funky hall of Regis for the last time, a ream of paper under my jacket and that crazy guy's Swingline in my purse. (No, I'm just kidding about the stapler. I did look for it on his desk but couldn't find it -- that fool keeps it on lockdown or something.)

As I waited for the bus, my stomach started to feel weird (and not from Brent's cookie). I realized that I'd just finished my last day of "work" for a long time. I am suddenly terrified about going back to school. I have no idea if I will like it at all. I have no idea if I even remember how to do school. I graduated a year early from undergrad because I was so anxious to get out -- why am I going back? The bus pulled up.

There are these two girls I usually see on my ride home who sit in two separate rows but always spend the whole ride chatting with each other. Yesterday I sat in the empty seat next to the more talkative one and smiled politely before opening my book (I know, I've been reading it for like a month and I can't get through it -- that doesn't bode well for school). The two girls saw my book and asked if I was a student. Turns out they are both studying to be medical technicians. Their eyes widened when I answered their question about how long I'd be in law school. Then they asked how much money lawyers make. I could only reply, "a lot."

We ended up chatting on and off for the rest of the bus ride -- about their babies, about the hourly wage they could expect to make when they get certified, about R. Kelly's parts six through ten. It was the first good bus ride I'd had.

Well, today I got on the bus and there were hardly any seats left. I saw my two buddies near the back -- both had empty seats next to them. So what did I do? I sat myself in one of the seats up front reserved for the elderly.

I felt immediate regret -- I wanted to have sat with the girls. They must have seen me board the bus, even though I had shyly avoided looking directly at them. I started glancing over in their direction, figuring that I would catch their attention and then give the "ohhh hi, I didn't see you there" wave. But neither of them looked over.

They got off at their stop and didn't notice my last frantic attempt at eye contact. I'll never see them again.

I'm worried about making friends at school. These past few weeks in the blogosphere have made me feel like one of the borderline cool kids -- I feel so popular when people leave comments and even come back on a regular basis. But something about my online charm gets lost in translation when I'm away from the keyboard.

Mirrors

2005-08-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

Some genius of design decided to put mirrors on the elevator interiors at Regis. Elevator rides are already so awkward, standing in close quarters with strangers (or worse, slight acquaintances) trying to mind your own business in the thick silence. But Regis elevator rides are even more excruciating because there's no safe place on which to rest your gaze. The entire front of the elevator is mirrored, so you can't look straight ahead or else you might get caught peeping at one of the other passenger's reflections (or vainly studying your own). You either have to stare at your feet or (my preference) the floor ticker. Come on, seven!

After I get off the elevator in the morning I head straight to the ladies' room to wash the bus germs off my hands. The mirror in the ladies' room is horribly unflattering. I guess it's actually the lighting in the bathroom, not the mirror -- but either way, every time I use the rest room I walk away feeling terrible about myself. Are my eyes really that bloodshot and baggy? Do I really have such simultaneously oily and dry skin? Is my make-up really so frightful?

I usually feel ok about the way I look when I leave my bathroom mirror at home in the morning. And I'm decent looking when I come home at night, albeit a tad worn. But at the office I'm confronted with unattractive-me in the ladies' room a good seven or eight times daily. (I drink a lot of water.)

Well, today it occurred to me that maybe the unsightly specter in the Regis bathroom mirror is the real me. Maybe my mirror at home is especially flattering and forgiving and in real life I look like crap.

I feel like there is some life lesson or grand metaphor that I could extract from this, but I'm too upset to think about it, hideous as I am.

Office Funk

2005-08-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

There's this one stretch of hallway in the office that occasionally stinks. Of body odor. Amber and I were returning from lunch a while back the first time we encountered the smell. As we entered the funk zone, both of us simultaneously looked at each other with scrunched up faces. "Oooh, girl...someone is musty up in here," Amber whispered. Indeed.

Well, today, as I was sitting at my desk, the funk spilled into my cube. I sniffed my armpits, momentarily worried that the foul smell might actually be emanating from me. It didn't seem to be. I crawled over to Amber's cube -- she was smelling it too. "Is that the BO?" I asked, pointing in the direction of the usually offending section of hallway. "No," she said, "it's the hot dogs."

Oh, right. Today was Hot Dog Day. Hooray! Hot Dogs! I'm a vegetarian! (Yeah, I'm a veggie...I know, it made the whole chitlins nonsense that much more charming). I had forgotten, but we'd gotten a memo last week saying there would be a free hot dog lunch today to celebrate some kind of company milestone. Regis underwrote its 20 kabillionth dollar and the employees get thanked with free hot dogs. But two per person only -- there was a strict limit, according to the memo. You would also get one bag of chips.

They had distributed a schedule of time slots for when you should claim your dogs according to last names (but the slots didn't go in alphabetical order -- it was randomized, to be fair). Just in case we had missed the memo on what time we were supposed to go to the lunch room, some woman sent mass emails to the entire company at 15 minute intervals. This is the actual header from one of her emails:

To: !Regis Houston
Subject: Lunchroom is ready for M-N-O. Please enter the lunchroom on the boardroom side and exit by the mailroom. Thanks. Jean
Importance: High

When my slot came up, I asked Amber to come with me to the lunch room even though it wasn't her time yet. She was more than happy to oblige ("Big girls gotta eat!"). She's never one for following Regis rules anyhow -- she was wearing jeans today, despite the memo's postscript reminder that the dress code would not be relaxed for Hot Dog Day. (She also wore jeans on the $3 Jeans Day two weeks ago -- but she didn't pay the $3, which was supposed to go towards the very charitable cause of the Regis Social Activities Committee.)

Inside the lunch room the hot dog stench was unreal. I went straight to the chips table to get the only thing I wanted. Some lady in charge of pedestrian flow pointed out that I was supposed to stand in the hot dog line first. I told her that I was vegetarian and just wanted to get my chips. I turned to the chips table and who was standing there but the great white wonder, Mike.

"Vegetarian?!" he exclaimed in a tone that conveyed confusion more than disbelief. "Yeah, I uh...don't eat meat," I explained. "You don't eat meat?!" He shook his head in disdain. Clearly I had shirked my duties as an American by refusing to eat a cylinder of re-constituted pork/beef/raccoon/mystery meat. Oh right, I forgot, I'm not an American. "They must not even have meat in her country," he was probably thinking.

I grabbed my chips and started heading for the door before too many hot dog odor particles clung to my sweater. Please understand, to a vegetarian, hot dog scent might as well be BO. Mike called after me. "Hey, since you're not going to eat your two hot dogs, can you get them and give them to me?" He gestured towards the hot dog line (which was now snaking outside the lunch room door, the S-T-U last names having joined in). I stared back at Mike -- this time I was the one in disbelief.

Oh...(excuse me, Mike, while I have a Whitney Houston moment)...hell to the no!

Friday Foto Fun

2005-08-05T19:47:00.000-05:00

Study the image below and then respond to the questions that follow. Time limit: 15 minutes.

Part 1 (10 points): One of the employees at Regis had a birthday today. Which cube is his?

Part 2 (30 points): How many balloons were harmed in the making of this Foto?

Part 3 (10 points): Identify one occurrence of "prairie dogging."

Bonus section (1,500 points): Spot my supervisor in the Foto. (Hint: if you're stuck, see the close-up below.)

I'm So Artistic

2005-08-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

Click over to The Quintessential Negro to see my latest portrait of Quint.

Slow News Day

2005-08-04T22:53:00.000-05:00

Not much to report today. No office supply scandals or ignorant comments or sabotaged nuptials. (By the way, Bryan said he saw the infamous couple last night -- in his apartment complex -- and they were wearing wedding bands. He was able to duck out of sight before they noticed him.)

Hmm...well, I almost bit it today walking down the hall. My stiletto got caught on a snag in the carpet and I tripped up pretty good. I didn't hit the deck, but I did do a nice little jig. You know, complete with the quick look behind the shoulder to see if anyone had been looking.

And...my friend Mark emailed a harrowing story about his cats, a cloud of locusts, and the devil's own dinner (boiled pork liver). I'm trying to get him to share this and his other stories in a blog, but he's resisting, claiming we bloggers are "crazy." Raise your hand if you think Mark needs to get a blog.

At the Exotic Zoo

2005-08-03T23:38:00.000-05:00

James, the "fake loan" supervisor, gave his notice today. Too bad, because James is a decent guy. Not the kind of guy I would normally befriend (he's a little too goofy and bug-eyed and in the habit of saying, "that's soooo Sex and the City!" for my liking), but he's nice and never gets mad when he catches me reading TQN or Amber chatting on BP. He's always good for a story too. (His claim to fame is that he used to date Brandi Stahr, the former Texas A&M student who got national news coverage a couple of months ago for faking her own disappearance. He said he's been trying to get in touch with her ever since the story broke but she hasn't returned his calls.)

Anyway, James came by in the afternoon to introduce Mike, the guy who will be taking over as our supervisor when James leaves. Mike is a short, sunburnt guy who moves with a slowness and talks with the drawl to match.

They stopped at my desk, peering over the cube wall while James made introductions. Mike's eyes fell on my ID badge.

"Hey, you have the same last name as Chad!" Chad is this guy in the office who's from the same country as my father.

"Oh yeah, I met Chad last week."

"So...are you [Chad's nationality]?"

"Well, my father is, but I was born here in the States."

"Wow, I never would have guessed you were [Chad's nationality]! You don't look it at all."

"Oh...yeah, well I'm uh...mixed." I made a swirling motion in front of my face, as I always do when I'm pressed hard enough to have to explain. It never occurred to me until just now how silly that is.

"Wow...you would really never know..." Mike shook his head and regarded me in disbelief; I could see him trying to do the math in his head. "I never would have guessed from the way you look...and the way you talk!"

"Well, I'm American -- I was born here in the States," I repeated.

"Yeah, I can tell," he said, "you hardly have an accent!"

Lunch at K. Roger's

2005-08-02T11:28:00.000-05:00

Whenever someone in the office has a birthday, his or her cube gets decorated with banners and balloons. The strange thing is that the balloons are always tied down to the edges of the cubicle so that they just barely peep up over the tops of the chest-high walls. It is so utterly bizarre-looking that I have to think it's the result of one of Mayor Matt's decrees. Thou shalt not fly balloons above cube wall height.

Anyway, all morning I was actually working because I kept feeling like someone was looking over my shoulder. When my phone rang, I took the opportunity to turn around as I picked up the receiver to see who this intrusive person was. Turns out it was just a birthday balloon that had come loose from one of the cubes behind me and was floating at an illegal height. I felt pretty stupid, but Amber, who was on the other end of the phone line, laughed and said she'd made the same exact mistake.

Yes, Amber and I sit directly next to each other, and yes, we use the phone to communicate (had you forgotten about the Mayor's prairie dog commandment?). Usually Amber just calls to tell me about her latest find on BP (if she says he's particularly fine I'll crawl over to look for myself) but this morning the topic was lunch.

"You wanna do the salad bar at K. Roger's?" she asked. (K. Roger's, for those not in the know, is Kroger Supermarket.) I said yes. We needed a new lunch spot after seeing something disgusting -- the details of which I'll spare you -- in the office cafeteria yesterday.

I was glad we were getting away from the office caf anyway. Amber and I always ended up eating near this loud table of guys who spend their entire lunch hour whooping it up over their "bball" skills (read: their ability to sink balled-up napkins into the giant garbage can a few yards away). One of them also had the charming habit of asking me, every single day, if I had brought chitlins for lunch. I simply didn't know how to respond to this.

So today Amber and I happily made the pilgrimage to K. Roger's. The salad bar was good and we were both duly impressed with the basket of free crackers (the office caf charges 7 cents per pack). We ate in the outdoor cafe area, the Texas heat thawing our office-frozen extremities. Being outside the walls of Regis got us talking candidly quick.

"This is one of the best temp jobs I've had," Amber said. "Shoot, we sit there doing nothing and they pay us $15 an hour!"

Wait. What? "I'm sorry, did you say $15?" Those bustas are only paying me $14!

We concluded that maybe Amber's rate was for software testing whereas mine was for the admin position I'd originally been hired for. But I talked to our temp agency and they assured me that $14 was the "correct" rate, even for software testing. I couldn't argue further without revealing that Amber and I had explicitly discussed our pay rate (a strict no-no).

So now they leave me with no choice but to take back the hourly dollar that is owed to me. Instead of working the usual 10 minutes per hour, I'm cutting back to 9 minutes 20 seconds. (I logged the time it took me to calculate that as "work time.")

I was determined to stick to the 9:20 plan for the rest of the afternoon -- but I found myself compelled to do too much work. That damn balloon was still hassling me.

The Wedding Interrupter

2005-08-01T23:47:00.000-05:00

There's this guy named Bryan who sits in the cube across from me. He's that guy in the office: the one who's hysterical and loud and full of energy -- the kid with ADD who never should have come off the Ritalin. He's divorced, maybe in his late forties (he told me that his natural hair color is the same as mine, but it's hard to tell with all the grey).

Aside from his physical appearance and the bass in his voice, nothing about this man tells of his age. He's the type that stands in his cube -- without fear of Mayor Matt -- talking loudly to anyone who will listen (often posing questions such as, "Who thinks I can fit ten Mr. Goodbars in my mouth?"). He is constantly breaking into song -- anything from B2K's "Bom Bom Bom" to "Cheese Glorious Cheese" to Snow's "Informer" (which, admittedly, was the jam back in eighth grade). He's told me countless times, in his best Gwen Stefani voice, how to spell "bananas."

I'm quite amused by him, perhaps because I like being distracted from the work I (pretend to) do and because he's taken a liking to me and always includes me in on his jokes. On Friday, he loudly made fun of a lady a few cubes down whose cell phone was going off while she was away from her desk. "Are you going to get that? No, that's not annoying, leaving your cell phone at your desk on full volume." The lady scurried back to her desk and fumbled with her phone, trying to answer it. "You need some help over there? Because the phone is still ringing..." I laughed along with everyone else, but I did feel bad for her -- I can imagine being on the wrong end of Bryan's jokes. It's rumored that a woman once requested a transfer to another department just so she wouldn't have to sit near him. (By the way, Bryan leaves his own cell phone on full volume all the time -- and his plays some sort of weird porn music.)

Anyway, the point of this story is that Bryan had told me Friday that he was planning to interrupt a wedding. Apparently last week he had met two girls in his apartment complex -- one was getting married on Saturday and the other was the maid of honor. The girls were both very upset because the bride didn't want to go through with the wedding but felt she couldn't turn back -- Daddy had already shelled out 20 grand for the shindig.

I was surprised at how passionately ADD-Bryan had spoken about this wedding situation on Friday (it made me wonder about the back story on his divorce). He said he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try to stop this girl from entering into a bad marriage. And so he decided that when the priest asked if anyone objected to the union, he would be that fool who stands up and says "I do."

I didn't even think people did this kind of thing outside of the movies, but then again, Bryan is larger than life. I admired his convictions about marriage, but I don't think I would have ever meddled in a stranger's business like that. I thought about him at 2:00 on Saturday, wondering what was going down at the church.

This morning he came in to the office his usual jovial self. The twinkle in his eye told me he had done the deed -- as did his fat lip. He said we'll have to stay tuned because he wasn't sure what happened with the wedding after his interruption. The only thing he saw was one of the groomsmen introducing his face to the church steps.

I just hope, for Bryan's sake, that the unhappy couple is moving out of his apartment complex.

Please. Do Not Hit on Me at the Bus Stop.

2005-07-29T21:13:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with bad hair. I should have just gone back to sleep.

I was struggling with my third attempt at a hairstyle (a messy top-of-the-head bun that made me look like a pineapple) when Quint grabbed my elbow and pulled me out the door -- we were running late.

You see, we're down to one car right now. The other one got totaled in the flood a few weeks ago. (Don't even get me started...a completely flat city with no drainage system -- good one, team Houston!) Since Quint works farther away, he drives me the mile and a half to the bus stop on his way to work and then I take the bus.

Well, I missed my bus and then ended up getting on the wrong bus, realizing this only after riding for half an hour (I was reading my book). I had to get off, take a bus in the opposite direction to backtrack nearly to where I'd started, and then wait for the bus I should have taken in the first place.

A young guy in a track suit had gotten off the second bus and was waiting at the third stop with me. "Hello, how are you?" he asked. "Good, thanks," I replied, as I usually do unless the greeting is accompanied by inapproriate staring. But understand this: after my quick response -- which I feel is only polite -- I keep it moving.

This fellow had other ideas. "Where are you from?" he asked. Still no objectionable behavior that could excuse me from the conversation (except the annoying use of "where are you from?" as some kind of euphemism for an inquiry into my ethnicity). "New York," I replied and opened my book.

He told me his name and then stuck his hand out for a handshake. I looked up from my book. There it was, hand in mid-air in front of me. Can you leave someone hanging like that? Of course you can -- but since leaving New York I've lost some of my hardness. Here I was, alone at a bus stop with this guy, and the awkwardness of leaving him hanging seemed to outweigh the cost of shaking his hand. So I shook it -- meekly, without offering my name -- and then returned to my book. (I scolded myself for having gone too far down this slippery slope -- but where was I supposed to have stopped?)

"What's your name?" he asked. I responded with, "Do you know what time the bus comes?" He didn't. I alternated my gaze impatiently between my book and my watch.

After a minute, he said,"It was nice meeting you." Success! He's going to leave me alone! "You too," I said, thinking I'd nailed the lid on the conversation. But no.

"I'd like to get to know you better -- can I have your number and call you sometime?" Ok, I think we women all know where this conversation is going, but let me break it down for the fellas.

1. When I say, "No, you can't have my phone number...my boyfriend wouldn't be happy about that," I'm giving you the easy out. Go on your way, now, quietly, unscathed. It's not that there's something wrong with you, it's just that this woman is spoken for. No feelings hurt.

2. No, I do not want to take your number. Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe. I mean, I didn't want to give you my number, but I can understand why you'd think I'd want to take your number. (Seriously, guys -- someone explain to me the logic behind this one. Has this tactic ever resulted in a phone call from a girl? Do you just try to get the digits to save face with yourself? I wouldn't think so because I already gave you the easy out.)

3. No, I still don't want to take your number. I told you, I have a man. (And trust: Quint is a big dude and he will mess you up.)

4. No, I do not want to be your friend, Musiq Soulchild. It's not that I'm not open to making new friends. It's that I try not to make them at bus stops with strangers who have been hitting on me.

5. No, I still don't want to take your number.

Finally, after having to resort to completely ignoring this guy, which is what I should have done in the first place (look what I get for trying to show some civility), Track Suit decided to leave me alone. Yeah, he wasn't even waiting for my bus in the first place -- he crossed the street and stood at the stop to catch a bus in the opposite direction.

I buried myself in my book for a few minutes and then looked up, just to see if he was gone yet. I caught his eye. He started crossing the street back towards me. I can not deal with this crap first thing in the morning.

And just then...I was saved by the bus! Never was I so happy to board a city bus.

"Hello, how are you?" the driver greeted me with a friendly smile. "Good, thanks," I mumbled quietly as I scurried to my seat.

Mayor Matt

2005-07-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

This morning Matt told me that when I'm not busy with his administrative tasks, he's going to need me to...go ahead and...continue doing mock loans for James.

This was terrible news. The whole point of being a temp is that you're not supposed to actually have any work to do -- but here Matt devises this diabolical scheme to keep me busy throughout the day. It wouldn't be so bad if James had an actual pile of real loan applications that I could look forward to finishing. But there are an infinite number of "fake" people waiting to apply for a Regis mortgage, so there is no tangible end to the tedium (although at least now I have some good suggestions for mortgagees.)

I soon realized, however, that I could work this double-boss situation to my advantage. Whenever James came over to check on me, I pretended to be busy with admin stuff for Matt. Meanwhile, Matt didn't say boo about me taking three hours to complete a 20-minute task because he assumed I was busy making fake loans. I think I only did about 40 minutes of actual work today.

One of the pieces of work I did do was an expense report for Matt. I'll let you in on my keen observation about this Matt character: he's kind of a prick. He always takes a very condescending tone with me, but meanwhile I don't think he's any great shakes himself. He's one of the top guys in the company, but blood relation must have gotten him there because as far as I can tell he doesn't do any work. He spends the entire day walking around the office chatting it up with the cubical drones like he's the Mayor of the Office.

Yet in the middle of campaigning with the office peasants he'll randomly wield his iron Mayor-fist. "Too much prairie dogging going on!" he'll shout like a high school study hall monitor -- and silence will fall on the office as everyone slithers down in their seats. ("Prairie dogging" is Matt's ultra-hip way of referring to the phenomenon of people popping up above the wall height of their cubes to socialize. Some folks actually crawl around the floor like Viet Cong just so they can chat with neighbors without getting caught.)

Anyway, so this expense report I did for the Mayor included about six receipts from a recent business trip of his. One was a dinner receipt for over $2,000. Another was a receipt from an airport candy store for 99 cents. Ok, if you're coming two grand out of pocket for a dinner, do you really need to be expensing the 99-cent candy? Is it even worth the space in your wallet to store that receipt? Is it worth the 30 seconds of the temp's time (or 30 minutes, realistically) for this receipt to be keyed into the expense report system?

As I was leaving at the end of the day, I overheard Matt in his office (on one of the rare occasions he was actually in there) yucking it up with the CEO. "We've got to treat the loan officers like frogs," Matt said. "If you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, he'll jump out. But did you know that if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and heat it up slowly, the dumb f*ck will swim around in there until he boils to death?"

What disturbs me the most is that he seems to truly believe his own hype.

Staplergate

2005-07-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

If you've seen "Office Space," you're not even going to believe the following story is true.

Just before lunch, Matt came over and told me that my computer login was all set and that I should now sit at the secretary's desk by his office (which is what I had originally been hired to do). I set up shop in my new cube and quickly finished Matt's first admin task, which was to "pretty up" (his terminology) a memo he had written -- by changing the font colors to official Regis blue and gold shades. (I also copyedited his sloppy writing while I was at it, but he didn't seem to notice). Then I just chilled.

A little while later, this guy meandered over and seemed to be kind of casing out my cube. He retreated to his own cube and then came back a few minutes later and lurked some more. Finally, he approached me.

"Hi...I'm Ken. Where did you get that stapler?" I tried to hide my amusement that Ken, a flamboyant and well-dressed 30-something guy, wore braces.

"Uh...it was just here when I got here. I'm a temp."

"Ok, see...my friend Clayton over there," (he gestured wildly in the general direction of a mass of cubes), "he's over in his cube crying because someone stole his Swingline stapler...and I happened to notice that you had one that looks just like his...so I was wondering if I could take it back to him."

"Ok, well, I didn't take it in the first place, but go ahead..."

He took the stapler (which was admittedly cool looking -- the outside was blue and kind of rubbery and the design looked ergonomic), and gave me a regular black Bostitch stapler in exchange.

After lunch, Matt gave me my second task. He dropped two 4-inch stacks of paper on my desk and told me to staple each page from stack A with the page it matched in stack B. Stimulating.

After about 20 minutes of stapling, my hand started to hurt. Damn, I could really use that ergonomic Swingline stapler now. I walked over to Ken's cube and asked where I could get one of those special staplers, explaining that my hand was getting raw from a big stapling project I had been assigned. He took me over to Clayton, the owner of the Swingline.

"This is the girl," he introduced me to Clayton, "she has something she wants to ask you." (The girl? As in, the girl who stole the stapler? It was already there when I got to the damn cube!)

Clayton, a skittish 40-something white guy with Jon Stewart hair, eyed me suspiciously as I talked. "Um...hi, I'm a temp. Do you mind trading staplers with me just for the rest of the afternoon?" He regarded the black Bostitch in my hand with horror. "I promise I'll give you your Swingline back, it's just that my hand is getting raw because I have like 800 things to staple." I showed him my reddened palm.

Clayton gave me a dubious up and down once-over, then looked me dead in the eye and delivered this gem of a question: "What can my stapler do that your stapler can't?"

Ok...just forget it. What is it with crazy people and their staplers?

Carlton Banks: Yes, Eazy-E: No

2005-07-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

Today was the second day of software testing at Regis Mortgage for me, Amber and Courtney. Basically we just enter mock mortgage applications into the system all day and document the errors we get. We have specific parameters for the numerical parts of the application, but James told us to just enter jibberish for the freehand info like name and address. But in order to introduce some spark of interest to our day, we put in celebrity names instead. For instance, today Allen Iverson applied for a mortgage for a house at 76 Alley-oop Alley (I know, I'm so clever). Chances of getting approved are improved if you have a co-signer, but inspiration for dynamic duos is a bit hard to come by (suggestions please!).

Following is a partial list of applications I've input over the past two days.

Mortgage Application Approved:
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Marty McFly
Afeni Shakur
Magic & Cookie Johnson
Charles Barkley & Kenny "the Jet" Smith
Mike Jones & Swisha House
Wham. Wham. Wham.
R. Kelly & Chuck/Rufus/Cathy
Russell & Kimora Lee Simmons
Peanut Butter & Jelly
Diet Pepsi & Canada Dry
Raggedy Ann & Andy
Miss Cleo
The Blob

Mortgage Application Denied:
Color Me Badd
Ghostface Killah
Too $hort
Theo Huxtable
Grumpy Bear
Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown

*** UPDATE: Chicken & Waffles were just approved for a refinance on their condo. However, Aunt Jemima's credit score was not high enough to get a loan for that dream house in Pancake City. ***

Mortgage Space

2005-07-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

I know I'm not the only one who sees life through "Office Space" spectacles. But I started a new temp job today, and I'm telling you, this joint is "Office Space."

My assignment is an admin gig at a mortgage company -- let's call it Regis Mortgage. Never mind that my temp agency told me to go to the wrong floor in the wrong building at the wrong time and then had no idea who I was when I called them for help...I eventually managed to get to the right location. Since there was no receptionist on that floor and the doors were locked, I sat out by the elevators and dialed the extension of Matt, the person to whom I was supposed to report (whose last name sounds a lot like a certain racial slur). I left Matt a couple of voice mails and then decided to just kick it.

After about 40 minutes of reading my Law School Without Fear book, a jittery woman who had passed me two or three times to go outside for cigarette breaks asked who I was waiting for. She took me inside to find Matt, but he wasn't in his office. As we were standing in his area, this guy James popped out of his cubicle and said that he'd been waiting for his temp.

So off I go with James. He sits me in a conference room and erases the white board (which I swear had been crammed with "Planning to Plan" flowcharts). He asks what mortgage experience I have (none). He asks what programming experience I have (none). Eager to quell his visible frustration I assure him that I'm a quick study -- and so he launches into a white-board-aided explanation of the new mortgage software they're developing. My job will be to test it for bugs.

A good 20 minutes after my eyes had rolled back into my head, the infamous Matt passes by the conference room and asks who I am. Turns out I am not supposed to be working with James on the software -- this girl Amber (who Matt had in tow) was the software temp. So Amber and I switch places and I follow Matt to my new cubicle, where the IT guy who's tinkering with my computer informs us that it will be several days before they'll have my login set up. Matt tells me to have a seat and says he'll think of something non-computery for me to do. So I get back to my book. Ambient noises include the repetitive phone greeting of a too-chirpy customer service rep and a persistently beeping printer or fax machine.

An hour or so later, James hops back over to my cube and announces that I should follow him. As we pass Matt's office and James gives him the "thanks for letting me poach your temp" wave, Matt asks me if I mind working with James for a few days. "Uh, I guess not," I shrug. "You don't care what you're doing -- as long as you're getting paid, right?" "Uh, yeah, I guess so."

So I spent the rest of the day testing the mortgage software with Amber and another temp, Courtney. It was pretty boring, but James didn't check on us much, so I got to do a lot of emailing and blog-reading (activities that still arouse a certain titillation after my computerless two months in the dark ages of the law firm).

Matt stopped by at the end of the day to inform the three of us that Friday was "jeans day" and that for a $3 fee we could...go ahead and...feel free to...wear blue jeans to work. Hmm.

I Quit Today

2005-07-22T17:48:00.000-05:00

I quit The Legal Snooze. I don't think any further explanation is needed.

In keeping with the theme of my relationship with Boss, I quit via a long email that started with, "I will no longer be working on the magazine," and then went on for eight or ten paragraphs detailing his many shortcomings as a magazine publisher and his many ethically questionable actions.

Also in keeping with the theme of our relationship, he replied, "Great, thanks for your input!"

I would venture to say he didn't read past the first sentence.

Comments

2005-07-21T17:01:00.000-05:00

Back by popular demand.

Priceless

2005-07-21T16:57:00.000-05:00

The The Legal Snooze immigration issue hit the streets today. I am livid.

Last month we ran an interview with conservative radio talk show host Pat Gray. When Boss first forwarded me the write-up to edit, I told him I didn't think we should even print it. Gray's views were racist, inflammatory and nonsensical. Of course Boss insisted that we run the piece. So I offered to write a response article so that at least there would be some balance. Boss said ok, so I wrote it up -- and then at the last moment he emailed me to say he'd pulled the piece but we could print it in the next month's issue.

So for this month's issue I re-wrote my response article so that it would make sense being printed a month late. As the art director and I went back and forth with corrections to layout drafts, my article was there, at the front of the book, looking good.

Two days before press time, I got what should have been the final version of the issue. Without any notice, my byline was suddenly missing from my article. In its place was, "A concerned ciizen [sic]" -- Boss was trying to pass off my article as a letter from an anonymous reader! This was wrong on so many levels. First of all, I wrote the article and I wanted my name on it. Secondly, it would be deceptive to our "readers" (if there are any) to pass off an editorial piece written by a staff member as anything else. Thirdly, it didn't even make sense that someone who had a strong enough opinion to write a whole article would want to be anonymous. And finally, my agreement with Boss was that I would get "full credit" for all my work since he was not paying me.

I called Boss and demanded an explanation. He told me that he had kissed Pat Gray's ass in order to get the original interview and it would be an insult to Gray to run a staff article that opposed him. I argued that Boss should have thought of that before trying so hard to get an interview with a figure that was sure to say something inflammatory that would require a response. And my piece did have a disclaimer saying that it did not necessarily represent the opinions of The Legal Snooze. Furthermore, Pat Gray is the kind of pundit that would probably relish the controversy. (I withheld my most compelling argument, which was that no one reads the magazine anyway, so Gray would likely never even see my article.)

We went back and forth arguing for some time. Then the day before going to press we came to a compromise -- we agreed to print a pseudonym of my choice on the piece, that way I would feel like I got credit, but Pat Gray wouldn't know it was me. (This was not at all a satisfactory solution, but the alternative was for Boss to pull the article altogether -- and I hated the idea of the Gray interview hanging out there without any response.) I viewed a final PDF of the issue before it went to press and made sure my pseudo-byline was set.

And now I get the printed version and my entire article is gone. It's replaced by a full-page advertisement for the Boss Law Firm. No intelligent opinion, no healthy debate. Just solicitation in 40-point font for victims of "18-wheeler accidents."

Oh yeah, and remember that inane article about the new courthouse (the one that I didn't want to print because it was written in 2002)? Boss added it to the cover. The headline reads, "The New Courthouse: a Legal Snooze Exclusive!" (It appears just under the "PRICELESS.")

This man is so spiteful that he put something stupid on the cover of his own magazine just to piss me off. Or maybe he's just that dumb.

I Plagiarize Allegiance to the Flag

2005-07-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

Well, the proverbial can of worms has been can-o-maticked. And so I provide for you more reasons to be thankful that Bill Boss is not who you report to at the magazine for which you are the freelance editor.

For this issue we've been working on, Boss forwarded me a short article about the new courthouse that is being built in Houston. It talks about construction cost forecasts for 2002-2003. Is it my imagination, or are we in 2005? I did a google search and found that he had gotten this article from a court document dating back to early 2002. I emailed him and said that the article sounded outdated and recommended killing it. He responded, "This is the most current information we have. We will be moving forward with it."

Even more pathetic than his stubborn insistence on running the article was his feeble attempt to bring it up to date: the 2002 court document had ended by saying "Construction is expected to be completed by April 2005." Boss changed his version to read, "Construction was expected to be completed by April 2005. At time of press there was no word from the City on a new completion date." Is he kidding? There was an article in the Chronicle several weeks ago talking about how the courthouse was now scheduled for completion in 2006. I found the Chron article online and forwarded it to Boss, advocating again for killing his outdated article. He insisted we keep it.

Perhaps at this point you're wondering about who exactly this Boss character is -- I know I was. I did some research and found out that he was just admitted to the bar last year. Interesting, considering that his slick, flash-heavy website boasts of his case experience in over 50 areas, including "brain injury," "angina mistakes," and "amusement park injurys [sic]." (Yes, he's a personal injury lawyer and yes, he spelled "injuries" wrong.) According to the magazine's art director, Boss has yet to actually win a case (she gives me the dirt on Boss because she hates him too -- he advertises that he speaks Spanish but doesn't, so whenever he has a Spanish-speaking client she gets pulled in to translate).

The most revealing Boss incident went down a few months ago during the first issue I worked on. Boss forwarded me a "letter from the publisher" that he wanted me to copyedit. As I read it, I thought to myself that it was well written and that perhaps I had underestimated this guy. The letter eloquently wove together statements about the mission of the magazine with rhetoric on the freedoms of America.

Then I came across this odd word pairing whose meaning I wasn't sure of. I did a google search on it to see if I could read it in the context of some other articles. Only one page came up on google: a letter from the editor from a 1999 issue of a law journal in Ohio. Yes, Boss had attempted to PLAGIARIZE someone else's entire letter.

I didn't even know what to do with myself. This was the kind of offense for which I chastised friends in the third grade, when someone would try to copy a passage from the encyclopedia. For an adult who is educated and supposedly practicing law to be plagiarizing boggled my mind. This fool should have been booted from law school.

I considered walking away from the magazine at this point, but I really wanted to stick it out (for resumé considerations). I couldn't, however, let this plagiarizing thing slide. I emailed Boss and recommended not printing his letter as it was "far too similar" to another published letter -- and I included a link to the original Ohio letter.

He wrote back, "Good work!"

Huh?

The Legal Snooze

2005-07-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

Since I'm unemployed (again) I think I'll take some time to vent about the magazine I feelance for. We'll call it The Legal Snooze.

I am the "Editor." I am not at all qualified to be the sole editor of a quality magazine, let alone a legal one (I don't think getting in to law school really affords me any real legal expertise). But for this piece of crap, I am apparently more than good enough. Here's how I got the gig: I saw that the magazine's articles were terribly written and riddled with copy errors. So I wrote an email to the publisher (there was no editor on the masthead) including a list of things I would have changed in one of the articles from that issue. He called me the next day and said I could be the editor, but he couldn't afford to pay me. Fair enough.

I've since realized that there's a reason there was no editor before I came along. The publisher -- we'll call him Bill Boss -- doesn't give a damn about journalism. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with publishing something that is merely a vehicle for advertising (for instance, I enjoy reading the weekly supermarket circular, and I don't mind that the food articles and recipes are poorly written and/or thinly veiled advertisements). But if your magazine is positioned as a source for news about legal issues, you can't just be printing any old crap.

Oh, but apparently you can.

Boss insists on filling the bulk of the magazine with articles -- but there is a dearth of quality editorial because I am the only "writer" on staff (and I am no more qualified to be a writer than I am to be the editor). So Boss finds filler material. For instance, for the immigration-themed issue that we are wrapping up now, he forwarded me an "article" he wanted to run and asked me to edit it. As my printer coughed out about the thirtieth page I realized that what he had forwarded me was text from the INS website that he had copied and pasted into a Word doc. It was extremely repetitive, not at all interesting, and peppered with CLICK HERE's. I called Boss and asked if perhaps there were some actual articles from somewthere that we could re-print instead. He insisted I work with what he had given me -- he had, after all, spent all that time copying and pasting.

(Maybe I shouldn't have expected too much from a free magazine that prints on its cover not "Free" or "Take One" but "PRICELESS." I've tried several times to explain to Boss that "priceless" does not mean "free." Don't even get me started.)

Boss clearly doesn't care about the content of his magazine because he never even reads articles that are submitted before fowarding them to me for editing. For this immigration issue, he forwarded me a Word doc from an attorney named Port with only "See attached" in the text of his email. I opened the doc and it was a six-page personal biography of this guy Port, chronicling his early days as a six-year-old door-to-door coal salesman and other relevant topics. I wrote back to Boss, "What's this for?" He replied, "The immigration issue." Always the diplomat, I responded, "Did you mean to forward a different doc? This is not an immigration article -- it's a six-page personal bio of Port." He retorted, "Yes, I DID mean to send it to you, I want to include a personal profile of this attorney. I want you to edit it to highlight the immigration parts. Make sense?" Again, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I read the bio for the second time. Nope, no mention of anything vaguely related to immigration. I wrote back telling Boss as much. No response for several minutes (I assume he was actually looking at the doc at this point). Then, "Edit it to 1,000 words."

I wish there was some funny punchline to this story, but unfortunately this is just the sad state of affairs.

Ok, here's the punchline: Boss is a member of the ranks to which I will soon belong -- he's a lawyer. Groan.

Chokeulation

2005-07-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

Angelina burst into the office this morning and announced that her 10-year-old son had come home from summer school Friday complaining that his teacher had tried to strangle him.

Sadly, given what I know of the Houston school system, this actually didn't surprise me much. The great part of this story is that she called up Channel 13 and got them to agree to an interview. She left work early this afternoon to meet them outside her son's school (where he's been placed in another teacher's class).

Sure enough, I flipped on the 6:00 news when I got home and there the story was, complete with reporter commentary about "pending investigations" voiced over looped footage of Angelina's son making a googly-eyed strangling motion on himself.

Unfortunately I won't get to congratulate Angelina tomorrow on her local news fame -- seems our "lowball" scheme backfired a bit. Me and the other two temps had agreed to input about 60 surveys apiece per day. From the looks of the three mailtrays overflowing with stacked yellow surveys, we figured we'd secured our employment for two to three weeks, easy. But apparently our supervisor was under fire to get this project done and she was none too pleased with our dismal performance last week while she was out.

So this morning (as the three of us were sitting idly at our computers waiting for someone to log us in -- why would we have actively searched out the IT guy?), a handful of regular staffers stormed our room and snatched most of our surveys, eyeing us disdainfully. (The IT guy showed up shortly afterwards, having been alerted by the staffers, I'm sure. I guess I would have hated on the lazy temps too if I were in their shoes.) The staffers worked on the project all day and the surveys were finished by the afternoon.

And so ends my do-si-do with the Houston Rodeo. Oh well. I had my big purse with me today, so I stopped by the free Dasani/soda fridge on my way out and stocked up.

Follow-up to Alicia Keys

2005-07-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

Thank you to everyone who emailed, blogged, and bitched about Aliciagate. I hope that we three temps were able to skew the survey results enough to bring Alicia back to the rodeo for an encore.

Just to clarify, I was at her concert myself and the arena was filled with enthusiastic (mostly black) concert-goers. So it's not like there is no audience for Alicia Keys or any black artist -- it's just that we were not the people who were surveyed (rodeo volunteers and season ticket holders were). The fact that many of the negative survey responses for Alicia were racially motivated made me feel justified in throwing the results.

Alicia Keys Is Too Black, Apparently

2005-07-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

Today was my second day of data entry at the Houston Rodeo. After the rodeo (a three-week long affair held in March), surveys were filled out by the rodeo season ticket holders and volunteers. This is what me, Latasha and Angelina are "data entering."

First, survey respondents are asked to use a 10-point scale to rate their experiences on a number of items. For each rating, they can also write a freehand comment about why they chose that rating. In order to facilitate analysis, we don't actually type these freehand comments; we code them based on a list of about 300 common comments.

Unfortunately, whoever put this comment list together was woefully disorganized and misguided. There are about five different codes for "parking sucked" but no codes at all for other very common complaints (like "the cops don't know how to direct traffic"). At first I was spending a good deal of time trying to code comments (some of these folks wrote whole paragraphs and attached separate pieces of paper). But then I realized that I didn't care. So most of my comments boil down to code 5, "Needs improvement." (I do enjoy paging through to find some of the more colorful comments though. For instance, code 130 = "Where are the people with sticks to help livestock flow?")

On the reverse side of the survey is a list of the two dozen or so musical acts that performed during the rodeo. Respondents were asked to rate each artist on a 1-to-10 scale as well as complete a complicated check-box matrix indicating whether they attended the performance themselves, whether they knew someone who had attended, whether they gave tickets to someone else, and whether they wanted that artist to return next year. And of course there is room for freehand comments.

Country acts were the meat of the show. There were a handful of pop/rock groups (like Maroon 5). And then there was Alicia Keys (the only concert that Boyfriend and I attended -- she was fantastic, by the way...woman can sing).

A disappointing pattern emerged early on. The country acts got varying scores in the high range. Opinions were split on the rock groups. But people were unanimously hating on Alicia Keys. Even people who marked that neither they nor someone they knew had been to the concert were rating her as a one (she also got a few zeroes and a handful of negative numbers). Freehand responses included, "Too many black performers," "This is a rodeo, for God's sake, no more black artists," "Spanish artists are ok, but not blacks," and, most apropos, "NO MORE RAP MUSIC!"

It's no wonder the conversation among us three temps soon turned to race relations in Texas. And then the three of us colluded again and started stuffing the ballot box for Alicia. From now on, she gets a 10 on every survey keyed by me.

The final part of the survey asks you to name a wishlist of performers you would and would not like to see at next year's rodeo (regardless of whether they've ever performed at a rodeo). Of course Alicia Keys was at the top of many "no" lists. Instead of her name I've been coding in various other artists like Elvis and Sinatra.

One anti-Alicia respondent was also strongly against "M&M."

Yee Haw

2005-07-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

The temp job I started today was at the Houston Rodeo. No, I wasn't stomping around in the mud lassoing animals, I was in the corporate office, doing data entry. Forget Acewell & Julius, this is what temping is all about.

First of all, the office is palatial. The amount of money spent on the office furnishings was actually a hot issue in the editorial pages of the Chronicle a few months back: the rodeo is a charitable organization, supposedly raising money for scholarships -- but they spent exorbitant amounts of money decorating the corporate office, like $35,000 on a conference room table.

Besides the cushy furnishings, the office also boasts a grossly excessive amount of unnecessary space. For instance, in order to get from where I sit to the break room, I have to pass through about four enormous lounge-type rooms with couches, plush carpeting and paintings of horses that I imagine you otherwise only find in country clubs. At the end of my long walk I'm rewarded with free sodas and Dasani waters in the fridge, courtesy of sponsor Coca-Cola. F that hot chlorine mess in the Acewell water cooler!

The job itself is alright. There's actually work to do, unlike at the law firm, and data entry usually makes me want to kill myself. But having access to a computer makes up for that. Plus there are two other temps working with me -- Latasha and Angelina -- and we chatted all day and listened to music. The three of us are entering data from the thousands of surveys that were filled out after this year's rodeo.

We colluded early on. A ticker on each of our computers tracks how many surveys we've entered, but we all agreed on a lowball number to work towards for the day. This way we could goof off all day with the appearance that it was just honestly taking a long time to do the work. Our supervisor hardly checked on us and she said she won't even be in tomorrow or Thursday. These fools have no idea.

Now if I were hiring temps to do a project like this, I would implement some kind of incentive program. Like a $50 bonus to the temp who logs the most surveys. Or permission to leave early with full pay as soon as you hit X number of surveys. But I guess when you spend $2,600 per desk chair, you're not really sweating the $10.50 an hour for the asses that sit in them.

Life After the Firm

2005-07-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

Kim Plaintive leaps into the '90s! I started a brand new temp job today, and I actually get to use a computer. More on the new gig later...

As a follow-up to last week's drama, I've decided not to print my Judygate article. I would only be doing it to spite the firm, but the article wouldn't actually harm them. The only damage would be getting Judy in trouble with the PR crazies, and I wouldn't want to do that. I'll look for a more subtle form of payback. Attorney recruiting is handled by a different department than the one that fired me -- maybe I'll come back next year as the summer associate from hell.

I Got Fired Today

2005-07-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

Well, this is some shit.

Joan was out of the office today, so I was working her relief schedule (this meant bouncing from floor to floor all day to give receptionists their breaks). I had my fake "Judygate" notes with me, so I left a voicemail for Madeleine in PR to tell her which floors I'd be on. She caught up to me on the 19th floor when I was covering Mary Martha's lunch hour.

"Do you have the notes?" she asked in her fake-nice soprano. I handed her the three pages of Judy information I had forged last night along with a typed draft of the article. "I had already drafted this the day of my interview with Judy," I told her, "so if you guys want to read it you'll see that it portrays her in a positive light, and it doesn't mention the firm at all." Madeleine regarded me smugly: "Well, I don't see the article being published at this time."

"Ok," I replied, "I'll check in with you later to see if you guys have reconsidered." Her patience thinned: "We can't let the article run at this time."

Perplexed that these PR folks continued to use the phrase at this time, I replied, "Ok, I'll call you next week to follow up."

"No, we'll call you!" she retorted, her tone suddenly not even fake-nice and her cheeks pink with either anger or embarrassment.

Half an hour later, Shandace from HR got off the elevator and approached my desk: "Today will be your last day." She spoke quietly and plainly. "It's not a reflection on you, we just don't have a need for you anymore." I stared back at her, shocked. I struggled to find a response and a tone in which to say it that conveyed the right balance of incredulity and nonchalance. All I came up with was a meek "Ok."

I considered just walking out after Shandace left, but then I realized that I still needed to get my timesheet signed. My pride wasn't worth three days' pay.

At 4:00 the relief schedule ends. You're supposed to check in with Susan in HR so that she can send you to help a secretary for an hour -- but Joan says Susan usually just lets her go home early. So at 4:00 I went down to HR, gave my timesheet to Susan, and asked if she needed me to help on anything (figuring she would just let me go home). Misunderstanding my question, she ran her finger across her July/August calendar, looked at me with a smile of superiority and fake pity and said, "No dear, it looks like we won't be needing you to come back at this time."

I sighed. "I meant: do you need me...for the next hour...to help a secretary?" Her expression didn't change; perhaps she had understood my question in the first place and was taking pleasure in my humiliation. This must have been the highlight of the month in her small life.

I still expected her to let me go home at this point, but she actually picked up the phone and called a secretary who she said needed help closing out files. When the call went to voicemail she hung up and started scanning her phone list, asking herself who else might need help for an hour. She must have heard the "are you kidding me?" that I screamed in my head (or maybe I said it under my breath) because in a final moment of mercy she decided to let me go.

I bolted from the HR office (clank!) and punched impatiently at the elevator button. Once downstairs I slipped into my Nikes and headed outside to the bus stop. Do these fools really think I would give them my "notes" from the interview without keeping a copy for myself? What was that supposed to accomplish? And if they were worried about getting bad publicity from me, did they really think firing me would help the situation? Would they have fired me yesterday if I had given them my "notes" then?

And what is to stop me from printing the article at this point?

Judygate

2005-07-06T20:07:00.000-05:00

Judy showed up at my desk this morning and said hello in that slow, "I have bad news" way.

Apparently she had mentioned to another associate (Todd Amstead, incidentally, of cookie package infamy) that one of the receptionists does freelance work for a local magazine and had interviewed her for an article. Todd reminded her of the firm's policies about talking to the media -- she was supposed to have cleared the interview with PR before doing it. This had actually occurred to me before our lunch, but I didn't mention it because I figured it would be a non-issue -- it's not like there's a good chance anyone at the firm would actually happen upon my little magazine and notice the article. But when Judy talked to the PR office they told her to call off the article altogether. I told her I wanted to talk to PR myself.

Judy left and I looked up the extension of the PR woman she had named. I was definitely nervous, but in moments like these I project an uncharacteristic calm in my voice and face (too bad this PR woman wouldn't be able to appreciate my deadpan facial expression over the phone). I perfected this steel demeanor during the tirades of my old boss up north. The first year I worked for him, my eyes would water whenever he yelled and I'd start babbling apologies or excuses. But by the second year I had learned to just stare hollowly at him, answering any questions he posed in a cool, even voice. I could tell that my manner freaked him out and always left him a bit confused as to whether he was sorry about the yelling or more angry than he'd been before. By the third year he had stopped yelling at me altogether.

After two rings, the PR woman -- Madeleine -- answered the phone. I introduced myself and she immediately knew who I was. She had one of those overly melodic receptionist voices and she cheerfully told me that they were sorry but the article could not run "at this time." I explained to her that this was not some investigative, exposé piece or anything -- I intended it to be a personal story of one immigrant's success. I didn't even have to mention the firm's name if that would help. She repeated that they could not let the article run at this time. I asked what I could do to make the article happen. "I don't see the article running at this time."

I hung up but didn't give up. I continued working on my article, figuring that I could type up a draft tonight and give it to PR tomorrow. Once they see how innocuous the article is, I thought, hopefully they'll change their minds.

Late in the afternoon, one of the secretaries on my floor stopped by and said she was there to cover my desk. I eyed her with confusion and told her Joan had already given me my break. "Oh, Shandace didn't call you? She told me to cover your desk because they need you in Human Resources right away." My stomach immediately took flight. In my many years of schooling I had never gotten called to the principal's office, but I imagine that this was what it feels like.

I headed to the 23rd floor and opened the HR door (clank). "Hi dear...they're waiting for you in Virginia's office." I hated that Susan was in on whatever was about to go down.

Virginia, who is Shandace's boss and the highest person in HR (damn, they're really pulling out the big guns), was standing at her desk. Two other women were already seated in guest chairs. Virginia motioned for me to sit in the third chair and then motioned for one of the other women to shut the door. I was introduced to the two women -- one was the sing-songy Madeleine and the other was her boss, the director of PR.

Madeleine was younger and less pretty than I had imagined. She wore lipstick and jewelry and a stylish maroon suit, but her face was ruddy and she was too pudgy for her clothes. I realized that she might have interpreted my "steel" front as hostility; she slumped slightly in her seat and gazed deferentially towards her boss. If this was the principal's office, she was the mildly-teased kid who had tattled to the principal -- and then showed up to his office with her mommy.

Virginia handled the talking. She said that while they realized my intentions were innocent, Judy should have cleared the interview with PR first. I apologized and assured them that I had not intended to skirt procedure. I then reiterated that the article would be a heartwarming personal profile and that I didn't have to mention the firm's name at all. Virginia said that this was an unfortunate situation but that they could not let the article run at this time. I said I would check back with them closer to press time to see if anything had changed. The three of them exchanged glances for a moment and then Madeleine's boss addressed me for the first time: "You'll need to turn over all your notes from the interview."

Are they kidding me? (p.s. Boyfriend is actually a real journalist and he is equally incredulous about this.)

I told them I didn't have my notes on me (a lie), but that I would bring them to work tomorrow. They instructed me to call Madeleine in the morning and she would pick the notes up.

So tonight I have to write up some fake notes. I did jot a few things down during Judy's interview, but I didn't write enough to prevent the PR folks from suspecting I had used a tape-recorder. And there's no way they're getting my tape.

Bathroom Breaks

2005-07-05T19:31:00.000-05:00

Today was my big interview with Judy. I anxiously called her to confirm first thing in the morning (well, I dialed into her voicemail and left a pre-rehearsed message -- of course I didn't just call her). I had told her that I would stop by her floor around 12:00 but that I might be a few minutes late because the relief schedule sometimes runs a bit behind. Joan is actually usually on time to relieve me for lunch, but I wanted to have a few minutes to use the ladies' room before I met Judy. Of course, today was the one day that Joan actually was late. And at 12:04, while I was still waiting for Joan, Judy appeared at my desk. I made awkward chit-chat with her, not wanting to talk about anything substantial until we got out of the office and I could turn on my tape-recorder.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (but was actually three minutes, according to the clock on my phone that I had been nervously glancing at) Joan arrived. Making Judy wait further while I went to the ladies' room was out of the question at this point, so I just sucked it up and we went downstairs to La Madeleine.

All morning I had debated in my mind whether I should offer to buy her lunch -- she was doing me a favor by agreeing to the interview, after all. But it was also against the natural order of things for a receptionist to be buying lunch for an attorney -- I actually feared that she would try to buy my lunch.

Luckily we ended up reaching the cashier at different times so we just paid for our own meals. Judy suggested sitting at a table in the back, where it was relatively quiet. I never actually eat inside La Madeleine because of all the flies (big buzzing ones and little fruit-fly ones) that linger around the not-wiped-often-enough tables. Under other circumstances I would have suggested sitting elsewhere, but I didn't -- as in most instances where I'm asking someone for a favor, I was overly concerned that Judy would suddenly decide I was being too difficult and call off the whole interview.

Of course she never would have done such a thing -- she was nothing but friendly and enthusiastic throughout lunch and the interview went great. Judy was passionate about all of the issues we touched upon: immigration policies, racism, education for young immigrants...I got some great quotes from her.

On our way back to the office, Judy graciously offered to answer any additional questions I might have by phone or email. I thanked her for about the third or tenth time.

I arrived back on my floor a few minutes late -- again, no time for the ladies' room. I hardly cared though. I started scribbling away on a legal pad, weaving together background information about Judy and her family with paraphrases of quotes in my head that I'd later extract from the tape-recorder. I worked on the write-up throughout the afternoon, even ducking into an empty conference room during my break to continue writing. It wasn't until I was outside waiting for the bus at 5:00 that I realized I still hadn't used the bathroom.

Desperately Seeking Diane (Part 2)

2005-07-01T18:24:00.000-05:00

Today was my last day on the 19th floor. Turns out Mary Martha didn’t have SARS after all -- she’s just been on vacation.

Just as well that I won’t be back on 19 because I had to abandon my illicit computer hook-up. One of the older-looking associates stopped by on his way to the elevator this morning and asked me to email a quick message for him since he didn’t have his Blackberry. I told him I couldn’t because I didn’t have a computer login. He looked at me incredulously. I pointed to my black computer screen. "But I thought I saw you using the computer earlier…" he protested. I figured I might get Tina in trouble if I revealed that she occasionally logs me in, so I just shrugged and shook my head. Hopefully he walked away thinking that he was mistaken, not that I was an idiot.

So I had to spend the rest of the day amusing myself the old-fashioned way, with my head in a book (no napping today -- I’d had my coffee chocolate in the morning).

I was deep in the angst of a teenage prep schooler when Diane suddenly emerged from the elevator, poofy blonde hair bouncing with every step. She wore a black pinstripe skirt suit (with stockings too light for even her pale complexion) and she carried a take-out bag from Panini. Her face bore no sign of the stress it had revealed during our last encounter.

Emboldened by her more welcoming appearance (and by yesterday’s success with Judy), I blurted out my now-standard pick-up line: “You’re Diane, right?” (I hoped my breath didn’t smell like peanut butter from the PBJ sandwich I had just eaten for lunch -- why was I feeling like some awkward adolescent boy trying to talk to the pretty girl?)

She confirmed she was Diane and paused by my desk, but just then the phone rang. The phone literally never rings, but it rings now. I answered it and took care of the call, giving Diane the “sorry this is taking so long” widening of the eyes. When I got off the phone I introduced myself and quickly told her I was going to law school in the fall -- her law school. Her face brightened.

A happy relief washed over me just as it had the previous two times the attorney/receptionist barrier had crumbled (yesterday with Judy and last week with Crazy Hair Barry). Diane talked to me enthusiastically about the school, which she seemed to have loved; she offered tips about housing and extra-curriculars and was nothing short of friendly.

As she left, she told me to call her if I thought of any more questions. I thanked her and said that I would…but I know well enough to quit while I’m ahead.

Optimism Is Percolating

2005-06-30T21:11:00.000-05:00

This morning I thought to myself, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mary Martha has already returned to work, but Susan has her working at another reception desk just so that I can continue experiencing the misery that is the 19th floor.

But it ended up being a good day; no run-ins with Rude Partner or Snotty Secretary anyway. The big news of the day actually happened downstairs at the Starbucks before work (I was getting a fruit bowl, not a coffee!) when I ran into Judy (Harvard, 2004). Getting advice about law school isn't the only reason I wanted to meet her. I do freelance work for this local magazine (it’s a piece of crap, otherwise I’d link to it here), and for the upcoming issue focusing on immigration, I pitched the idea of an interview with a successful, young attorney who is an immigrant herself. Enter Judy, who’s from Mexico.

I approached her in the Starbucks line -- luckily she was alone (and not one of those crazy-without-coffee people). “You’re Judy, right?” She seemed to vaguely recognize me. I introduced myself as one of the temp receptionists from the firm and then asked her if she was from Mexico (prefacing it with, “this is a random question, but…”). She said yes, I told her about the magazine interview idea...and she agreed to have lunch with me next week! As she ordered her coffee, my mind was already racing ahead to the opening of my article: You might not guess that the American accent ordering a Venti Iced Mocha Latte at Starbucks is that of a Mexican immigrant. But it is. It belongs to Judy Rodriguez, a recently naturalized U.S. citizen and a successful, young attorney at Acewell & Julius… Or something like that.

Well, for once I don't have a woe-is-me conclusion. Things might actually be looking up!

The 80/20 Rule

2005-06-29T18:48:00.000-05:00

Today I was on the 19th floor for the third day in a row; Mary Martha must have the bird flu. I’m starting to miss the comforts of my regular floor -- like my visits from Deborah, the lady who’s in charge of stocking the refreshments in the conference rooms. She always sneaks me free bottles of water (which I stash in my purse and take home -- I have to ration my water intake during the day because I only have limited bathroom breaks). And I miss the attorneys on my floor, who seem so nice in retrospect. Sure, most of them never talk to me, but they also don’t actively seek opportunities to be mean to me.

I got another call from That Partner today. It was a roll-over call, meaning he had called an attorney’s extension, but after a certain number of rings of neither the attorney nor the secretary picking up, it rolled over to me. “Is Pat Thompson there?” he barked, cutting off my “Reception desk, may I help you?” greeting.

“It looks like…uh…Pat Thompson is not in right now.” (Receptionists and secretaries are supposed to refer to attorneys at all times as Mr./Ms. Attorney, but I was unable to shuffle through Mary Martha’s phone list in time to find Pat’s picture and determine his/her gender.)

“What do you mean it looks like he’s not in?” he asked, with (continued) impatience. Does this guy not understand how the whole roll-over system works? If you’re speaking to the receptionist, it’s because no one answered the attorney’s phone. So to me, it looks like the attorney is not in his office, but I’m not his secretary -- I’m out front in the reception area, so I have no way of knowing for sure. He might be in there and just not answering his phone.

I started to stutter a response but he cut me off again: “Just tell him I called.”

“Sure, and your name is?”…but he had already hung up.

I left a message for Mr. Thompson that he had missed a call and named the rude partner from yesterday as the caller. I’m 80% sure that’s who it was, but there’s also a 20% chance that there are multiple attorneys on the 19th floor who are complete assholes.

Sour Cookies

2005-06-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Mary Martha was sick again today, so I was back on the 19th floor. One good thing about this floor is that the relief receptionist is Tina, who, unlike Joan, is a permanent employee and has a computer login. She logs me in when she goes on her breaks so that I can have a few minutes to check my favorite blogs and email with my man. The bad thing about 19 is that being there gives me a general feeling of incompetence.

This morning a partner called from his cell phone asking if his secretary was in yet because she hadn’t picked up her extension when he'd called. First I had to ask who he was (was I supposed to know from the sound of his voice?) and he seemed genuinely annoyed about having to tell me. I looked him up on the phone list and found his secretary. Unfortunately, even with Mary Martha’s handy pictures on the phone list I still wasn’t sure if I’d seen his secretary. There are a whole bunch of them on this floor that kind of look the same; to me the morning rush is just a parade of nondescript, older white ladies. The only secretary whose face I have registered in my brain is Diane’s secretary Monica (who appears right next to Diane’s picture on the phone list and who twice yesterday complimented me on my “complexion,” whatever that means). So I told the partner that I was sorry, I wasn’t sure if his secretary was in yet. He sighed and asked to be transferred into her voice mail, at which point I hit the wrong button and dropped the call.

A little later in the morning, a salesman from one of the copy centers stopped by to leave a package for Todd, one of the second year associates. It looked like some kind of give-away and the box wasn’t sealed, so I peeked inside – cookies. Figuring an associate would be too busy to worry about a box of cookies, I called Todd’s secretary and told her (cheerfully, since it was cookies) that Todd had a package. She was silent for a moment. “Ok…can you hang up, call his extension and tell him yourself?” (If receptionists’ pictures appeared on the phone list I guess they would be even smaller than the secretaries’ pictures.) So I called Todd’s extension and after four rings it bounced back to the snotty secretary. “Todd Amstead’s office,” she answered. “Yes, hello, this is the reception desk, Mr. Amstead has a package.” And I hung up.

Maybe I really am just a lousy receptionist. At least I avoided another run-in with Diane today.

Desperately Seeking Diane

2005-06-27T21:37:00.000-05:00

Joan was sitting at my desk when I arrived to work this morning. She said Susan had told her to cover my floor for the day and I was supposed to cover 19 for Mary Martha, who had called in sick. (Yes, it would have been easier to just have Joan cover Mary Martha. If Susan ever showed a flicker of intelligence I would think that she was moving us all around just for her own amusement, like the guy who came up with Daylight’s Savings just so he could watch the whole country change their clocks twice a year. But I’m pretty sure this was just a failure to figure out the simplest solution.)

As I got back in the elevator to head to the 19th floor I suddenly realized that today could be the day I meet Diane (My School, 2004). Any glimmer of hope for excitement will do on a Monday morning.

I settled into Mary Martha’s desk on 19 and discovered that she had hand-made her own floor directories. Every floor has a standard phone list and map of attorney offices, but Mary Martha had added photocopied pictures from the firm directory to hers. What was especially amusing is that she took the time to enlarge or reduce the size of each person’s photo based on their “status.” Partners were large, associates were medium, and secretaries (who appeared next to their bosses) were small. Diane’s picture was on there -- it was already familiar to me because I’d studied it so much in the firm directory.

Around 10:00 Diane-in-the-flesh came flying through the reception area from her office on the West side of the floor (I had looked her office up on the map so I’d know from which direction to watch for her). It’s always strange the first time you see someone in person after seeing only their picture -- it’s hard to know what they'll really look like. I was sure this was Diane because of the poofy blonde hair -- but it was in a ponytail! In her directory picture her shoulder-length hair was down, so naturally I had imagined that’s how it always was.

She seemed to be in a hurry as she passed the reception desk, so I didn’t try to get her attention. She approached the double doors that lead to the east side of the floor and I heard her punching the access code into the number pad. It wouldn’t let her in. She tried again but the door was still on lockdown from her previous miss. She looked at me and asked if there was some way to clear the number pad so that she could get in. I looked back with my “I’m just a temp, I don’t really know anything” look.

I started to pick up the phone (for what -- was I calling someone for help?) but Diane scurried past me, having decided to give up on the double doors and take the long route around to the east side. She was mumbling about being late and the damn door never working and I think I apologized and reached for the phone again.

I hope Mary Martha isn't sick again tomorrow.

BBQ and Beer, with an Exclamation Point

2005-06-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

Friday is coffee day for me. Not that I’m not sleepy every other day of the week (Joan and I recently discovered that we have the same trick for sneaking naps at work – laying a book flat on our desks and hanging our heads down as if we’re reading), but I only allow myself to drink coffee on Fridays because the caffeine keeps me up at night. Even on Fridays I don’t drink a whole cup, I just mix a little in with my hot chocolate. One time an associate saw me in the kitchenette making my Friday drink but he missed the first step, where I put the hot chocolate powder in the bottom of the cup. He looked on in horror as I poured a quarter cup of coffee and then filled the rest of my cup with hot water. I wanted to explain the hot chocolate part but he must have sensed that I had noticed him staring at me because he quickly pulled out his Blackberry and started acting busy.

Anyway, this morning I was sipping on my coffee chocolate and turning to the editorial section of the Chronicle when a woman who I vaguely recognized as being on my floor stopped by with an armful of small boxes. “Will you do me a favor and stuff these envelopes for me?” I must have given her some kind of dirty look because she quickly added, “It’s not a rush, you can finish reading your paper first.” She stacked the boxes on the edge of my desk and thanked me in advance. “Just call me when they’re done – no rush…I’m Jana, by the way, extension 3730.”

I suddenly regretted whatever mute attitude I had given her. This is Jana Strummer, Manager of Attorney Recruiting. The reason I hadn’t recognized her face was because I only ever study the attorney section of the firm directory – but I had spoken to Jana on the phone before, during my first week at Acewell. At the time I was filling in for Mary on 26 while she was on vacation, and in a rare moment of boldness I had called Jana and introduced myself as a temp from another floor who was going to law school in the fall. She was a little dismissive until I mentioned My School. We then had a 10-minute conversation about the attorney recruiting process and associate life in different kinds of firms. It was exactly the kind of interaction I had hoped for when I took this $11/hour job.

I jotted down Jana’s extension and she left my desk without asking my name. I couldn’t decide if I wanted her to know who I was at this point…she might not have remembered our phone conversation anyway.

Although I was told the envelope stuffing job wasn’t “hot,” I folded up my Chronicle and grabbed Jana's boxes -- I can never enjoy leisure activities when I know there’s work lurking in the wings. (One time I was asked to help a secretary with “closing out files,” which entails punching holes in stacks of documents and securing them into manila folders with metal tabs. I devised an efficient assembly line process and finished her box of files in less than an hour, expressly so that I could get back to my book – I think I was reading Wonderland at the time. I called the secretary and told her I was done so that she could collect her files. “Terrific, you’re so quick! I’ll bring over the next box.” Turns out there were over 50 boxes of these files and there was no chance I would finish, ever. I spent the rest of the afternoon punching holes one paper at a time, my motivation destroyed. Luckily she got her own temp a few days later and I was able to get back to my book.)

I removed the plastic lids from Jana’s eight-or-so boxes. Each one contained 10 envelopes with fancy colored linings and 10 one-sided cards.

You are cordially invited to:
“BBQ and Beer!”
hosted by Helen and Thomas Mansfield
Thursday, July 21st, 6:00 p.m.
Casual dress

Tom Mansfield is a partner -- I knew right away what these invitations were for. I can't wait until I'm a summer associate.

I got to work stuffing and stacked the completed envelopes in an empty file folder box. By the time I'd finished I had decided that I did want Jana to know I was the future law student she had talked with on the phone. I called her to say that the envelopes were all set and she came by to pick them up. As she thanked me again, I struggled to think of an opening.

“Are there going to be a lot of events for the summer associates?” I asked, hoping to start a conversation about summer events which would turn towards summer associates and then law schools and then me.

But Jana was already walking away, the box of invitations tucked under her arm. “Yeah, there are, thanks -- I’ll have some more stuffing for you to do next week.”

Garden of Eden

2005-06-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

A client came in this morning to see Eden Shoal, an unusually young-looking partner who I always see brushing her teeth in the ladies’ room. I asked the client to take a seat and then dialed Eden’s extension. Usually when you dial an attorney’s extension, their secretary picks up and you say, “Mr. So-and-So is here to see Ms. Attorney,” and the secretary tells you that the attorney will be right out. But Eden’s secretary must have been on the phone or something because Eden picked the line up herself. The Acewell receptionist manual states that even if the attorney picks up the line, you should still say, “Mr. So-and-So is here to see Ms. Attorney.” This gives the waiting client the impression that there’s a secretary on the other end of the line.

So I said to Eden, “Mr. So-and-So is here to see Ms. Shoal.” To which she replied, “That’s me.” So I said, “Shall I tell him that Ms. Shoal will be out shortly?” To which Eden replied, with some annoyance, “I’ll come out to get him in a minute.” I don’t blame her, I must have seemed like a fool – but if I backed out of the charade at this point, I’d only seem more foolish, as if the light bulb had suddenly gone off only after her second statement. “I’ll tell Mr. So-and-So she’ll be right out.”

A few moments later, Eden came to the waiting area and approached the client. “Hi, I’m Eden Shoal,” she greeted him (the extra loudness and clarity for my benefit, I can only assume).

I considered trying to explain myself when I saw her waiting for the elevator later on in the day. But I didn't.

Little Black Book

2005-06-22T19:02:00.000-05:00

The “firm directory” is a little book that shows pictures of all the firm’s attorneys along with their contact info, their degrees and institutions, and the names of their spouses. The photos are yearbook-style. I imagine there’s a photographer that comes to the office once a year and sets up his lights and reflectors and marbled-paper background in one of the conference rooms. Some of the more senior partners have clearly become exempt from the annual photo update (although the year of their undergraduate degree belies their true age). One of the oldest-looking guys managed to avoid listing his undergraduate degree altogether – or maybe he’s so ancient that he went to law school back in the day when you could go straight out of high school.

Perusing the directory never gets old to me. At first I used to just look for the attorneys on my floor so that I could start to match names with faces (faces that look the other way while they wait for the elevator). I learned that Edgar is the name of one of my floor favorites – an old, eccentric partner who wears a bow-tie and a pink seer-sucker suit about three times a week. At first I thought maybe he was traveling and living out of a suitcase for longer than he had anticipated. But I later realized that he just owns several of these pink suits.

Recently I’ve used the directory to set my sights on a handful of first year associates that I want to meet so that I can pump them for law school and firm life advice. There’s Judy (Harvard, 2004), who I've seen in the elevator and is much shorter in person than I would have guessed from her photo. Then there’s Barry (Georgetown, 2004) who works on my floor and who (in my head) I always call “Crazy Hair” because of the cowlicks in his directory photo. In real life his hair is neater, although still a bit long and wild for a buttoned-up law firm (think, Manu Ginobili, but without the sweat). The biggest coup would be to meet Diane (My School, 2004) – not just because she went to the school I’m going to, but because she works on the 19th floor, which is in a separate elevator bank (greatly diminishing my shot at a chance encounter).

This morning, as I was stirring my hot chocolate in the kitchenette, I finally got my opportunity with Crazy Hair Barry. He’s one of the few attorneys who sometimes smiles at me, so I didn’t feel too nervous approaching him. “You’re Barry, right?” (I considered adding, “Georgetown, 2004, right?” but worried that might scare him off a bit.) He shook my hand and asked my name. I told him I was starting law school in the fall and he enthusiastically talked to me about school and his experience at Acewell so far. Turns out he’s also from New York, so we chatted about how funny Texans are and how neither of us realized there are folks who still display Confederate flags.

Back at my desk, I felt an almost giddy enthusiasm, not uncommon for me after successful social encounters. But there was something extra good about this post-chat high that I didn't quite put my finger on until later. I guess I’m hoping that Barry will tell all the other attorneys that the receptionist is a delightful young lady who’s going to law school in the fall.

Joan of Acewell

2005-06-21T18:53:00.000-05:00

The person I talk to most at the firm is Joan, one of the relief receptionists. She's usually the one who covers me for my breaks and lunch hour, and she also comes by my floor every afternoon to re-stock the conference rooms with pens and legal pads. (Last month, after stealing pens from the conference room for several days, I discovered that none of them had ink -- another detail that delights the attorneys, I'm sure.)

Joan is a slim, white woman who wears short skirts and colorful chandelier earrings that would be too teenage for someone of her fifty-something age if she didn’t have the personality to pull them off. She always carries two purses plus a paper fan, a huge cup of ice and a fleece blanket (weapons against her alternating hot and cold flashes). She is deeply Catholic; she cried the day news broke that "Joan of Arcadia" was being canceled from the CBS lineup.

I'll openly talk to Joan about whatever she asks me (although once when I mentioned that I was living with my boyfriend she disapprovingly asked if he “intended to marry" me), but our relationship is largely based on my listening to her life dramas. The latest is about her 22-year-old stepdaughter who was in a car accident over the weekend and subsequently taken into custody for drunk driving. Today I was going to suggest that she start her own blog to chronicle her family soap, but she wouldn’t have the time. Evenings are busy with Bible study and, like me, she doesn’t have a computer login to use at work (she has been at Acewell for about a year and a half, but she is still officially a temp).

Lately Joan has been offering to take my timesheet down to HR for me on Fridays and for that she is my best buddy.

The Light Bulb Man

2005-06-20T18:56:00.000-05:00

Mary from the 26th floor called me early this morning asking if I had seen Eduardo. "Eduardo who?" I asked. "You know, Eduardo the light bulb man." Riiight. There's this little Mexican guy named Eduardo whose sole responsibility is to replace light bulbs. When an attorney notices an outage in one of his reading lamps or overhead lights he tells his secretary, his secretary tells me, I call Eduardo's supervisor, and a few minutes later up pops the light bulb man, wheeling his stepladder and case of assorted bulbs behind him. No, I hadn't seen Eduardo yet today.

Fifteen minutes later Mary called again asking for the light bulb man. Apparently someone kept calling her saying he had an urgent message for Eduardo about a closing and she couldn't get a hold of his supervisor, so she just kept calling all the receptionists to check if they'd seen him. Still no sign of Eduardo.

An hour later, Mary phoned a third time to call off the search party -- everything had worked out, she said. I found out later from Yvonne on 24 that the urgent caller was not looking for Eduardo the light bulb man at all. He was looking for Eduardo the visiting attorney from Washington. That does make more sense, in retrospect.

Susan Strangebird

2005-06-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

I had yet another run-in today with Susan, the HR secretary who I can only describe as both cooky and bitchy. My official supervisor is Shandace, the staff manager, but the person I usually have to deal with is her secretary Susan. This morning’s incident resulted because I arrived to work late (I was getting my Texas plates at the DMV). Work starts at 8:00 and I had previously gotten approval from Shandace to arrive as late as 9:30, but I actually got there at 8:30. I dialed Shandace’s extension to say that I had arrived (so they wouldn’t be trippin come timesheet day). Susan answered, so I told her I was in. An hour later, my phone rings and it’s Shandace, wanting to make sure I was at work. Apparently Susan never gave her my message.

I was delighted to detect a hint of annoyance in Shandace’s voice when I explained to her what happened – it was as if she and I tacitly acknowledged we were on some higher level than ditzy Susan. Shandace knows that I’m going to law school in the fall and I think she views me as someone who is smart and only doing this job as a temporary gig.

For some reason it’s important to me to have my intelligence recognized, although I’m (just) modest enough to not go around advertising it (in person, that is – not here, obviously). Even though I like to think I don’t give a damn about dolts like Susan, I still find myself wanting them to know that I'm smart. And Susan seems to have the impression that I'm a bit of a dimwit.

Part of the problem is the confusing glass door in the HR office. Handles are supposed to be vertical on the side where you pull and horizontal on the side where you push, but this door has vertical handles on both sides. Even though I consciously try to remember when I should pull or push on the HR door, I always choose the wrong way. It's like when you always misspell a word that you know you always misspell. I can never remember if “separate” or “seperate” is the correct spelling and every time I go to write the word I stop and consciously think about it. But all I can think about is how I always choose the wrong spelling. Sometimes I even try to fool myself by picking the one I think is wrong so that I might actually choose the right one, but it still always ends up being the wrong one. (You would think the immediate reinforcement of spell-check would have helped me learn it by now, but it has only eliminated my need to care. All I have in my brain under the category of “separate” is the knowledge that I don’t know how to spell it.) Anyway, I can never open this HR door correctly and it makes a loud “clank” when it wobbles from being pushed or pulled the wrong way. So every time I go in or out of HR, it’s “CLANK,” followed by, “No...push, dear,” and I know Susan’s thinking that I'm a moron.

Every trip to HR is comical like this. One time I was dropping my timesheet off with Susan and I asked if I could use her stapler for a minute for a few personal papers. That’s not really a question so much as a courtesy statement: “I’m going to borrow your stapler right now, please pass it to me.” But Susan didn’t have the normal reaction (handing me the stapler). Instead, she looked at me strangely and asked, “How long do you need to use it?” What kind of a question is that? I'm just asking to use your stapler, not to sit in your chair or use your phone or filter my blood through your kidney. “I just need it for a minute,” I said, “I have three or four personal things I need to staple.” She handed me the stapler – reluctantly – and told me, “You know, people don't usually hang around here in the HR office.” I quickly stapled my stuff and got out of there, clanking the wrong way through the door, of course.

Hourly Waged

2005-06-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

Without fail, every morning when I get in the elevator, someone makes a remark about my sneakers. “Those are nice sneakers,” they’ll say, but I know what they really mean is, “Why are you wearing sneakers with a suit?” I guess it’s a New York thing to wear sneakers when you’re in transit to and from work. Why should I dirty up my suede Stuart Weitzman stilettos on the bus when I can just throw on some Nikes and change shoes when I get to the office? I guess most folks in Texas drive to work.

This is my sixth or so week temping at this law firm – let’s call it Acewell & Julius. It’s a prestigious (that’s what my temp agency told me) downtown law firm, taking up seven floors in one of the handful of Houston skyscrapers. The name actually changed a few weeks ago when Julius was taken on as a partner. The firm used to be called Acewell & Patrickson, but old man Patrickson got booted off the letterhead when Julius showed up. Patrickson is actually dead, but I still felt kind of bad for him.

I’m “working” here as a receptionist. Basically, my two duties are to answer the phone and to greet visitors. The phone rings maybe three times an hour and a visitor arrives maybe three times a week. There is a receptionist like me on each of the seven floors, plus there are two “relief” receptionists who rotate throughout the floors to give us our morning, lunch, and afternoon breaks. I’m still in disbelief that the firm employs nine people to basically do nothing, but I guess it’s not like they’re paying us that much.

I make $11/hour. Mind you, a few months ago I was making a very nice salary, living in New York working for a Connecticut mail-order company. The money was nice but it was a miserable job and I’m happy to be free from it, despite the sudden quartering of my salary. I’m just content to be in a job where I have nothing to do. When I was at the CT company, stressfully slaving away for 60 hours a week, I often daydreamed about having the kind of job where you goof off all day and then leave right at 5:00. That’s exactly what I do at Acewell. My routine is to read the paper in the morning and then talk on the phone or read a book in the afternoon. And they pay me to do this. Sometimes it does get boring, and I find myself counting the hours (or the dollars – “you’ve already earned $22 this morning!”), but I’m not complaining.

And no, I’m not planning on becoming a career receptionist (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I moved to Houston because of my boyfriend's job, and it didn’t make sense for me to find anything permanent because I’ll be starting law school in the fall. So for now I'll just chill and read the paper for $11/hour.

The one bad thing about this assignment is that I don’t have a computer. Oh, there’s a computer on my desk, but I don’t have a login for it. I was told by HR that temps are not allowed to use the computers. I guess they don’t want regular folks off the street looking at the private legal documents on their server. Or they could be afraid that I’m a paralegal from a competing firm here to spy on them (I’ve heard that really happens).

KP

2005-06-16T00:00:00.000-05:00