Temp Guy

JOURNAL ENTRY
Sooo.....
----They hired a temp to help out with orders, here at good ol' IPC. Why? I dont know. maybe they actually saw how swamped I got at the end(s) of the month(s) ((typical Sales Guy's waiting until the last minute to throw in as many orders as they can so they get their commissions)). He is a boob, a simpleton, a blockhead, a cretin, dodo, dolt, donkey, dope, dork dumbbell, dummy, dunce, fathead, goon, half-wit, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, knothead, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, numskull (or numbskull), a pinhead, a turkey a booby (different from a boob), a fool, a goose, a ... you get the point. He's studied the process guide for days but still doesn't get it. He's watched me do dozens and dozens of orders but still doesn't get it. I've watched HIM do dozens and dozens of orders but still doesn't get it. He makes the same mistakes over & over & when I gently point out the errors, he says "Ohhh, ok.. I get it" but then either makes the same error or asks a question wherein the solution to the error that we'd gone over DOZENS of times was, you guessed it... the answer.
----He talks, incessantly. And not just about anything in general, but .... ok, here's an example - not even an hour into knowing him, he gives me 3 different self-help acronyms for motivational living. N.O.P.I.B. was the first one... damn it.. I seem to have lost the piece of paper he wrote it down on (Yeah, he wrote them down for me). It was all about taking care of your needs (the N.O. part) & then being conscious of other people's needs (the P.I.B.) And then there were a few others about prioritizing your work and other oh so helpful little tools for life, ALL the while, I'm trying to work AND train him AND make sure he knows what I'm doing AND because I've been asked to train him, I cant email and surf the net and just generally mess around at work in between the stop-and-go flows of work.
----I'm really tempted not to describe how he looks for fear you'll crumble in pity as I am sometimes tempted to do. Seriously, not to be mean or anything (is objectivity mean or just.. objective?) - for F'n reals, he needs to shave the monobrow bridge attempt and use some lotion for dry skin and please oh god please get better at shaving... the new cuts every day has me wondering if he shaves in a washing machine while blindfolded. I wont even mention the beady lil eyes of rodentia nor the face to match. ok, i'm feeling like a judgmental asshole now.
----What? I'm being mean? sit right down... let me tell you a story........

So.... Temp Guy said to me the other day:
HE: Oh, so I was thinking... there's this musician
me: [silence]
HE: ya, he's really.. musical [makes piano motion with fingers]
me: [silence]
HE: maybe you know him...?
me: [silence]
me: [more silence]
HE: shoot, what was his...
me: [silence]
HE: OH! ya, I remember....
me: [silence]
HE: ya, his name is Yani
me: [silence]
me: [more silence]
HE: ya, so I was noticing.. 'cause.. his name is Yani
me: [silence]
HE: and your name is Dayani....
me: [ANGRY silence, if that's possible]
HE: .... is... is there any relation?
me: [silence]
...then.....
me: I am seriously gonna pretend like you did not just ask me that.
HE: Oh.. you're right... I just thought...

----I wanted to punch him and say "oh my god, i'm sorry... ya that has NO relation to what you just said to me.. it just... happened..! i'm sorry"
---Elizabeth's best friend's name is also Elizabeth & twice while growing up, people asked them "you're both Elizabeth? are you two sisters?" maybe that'd be worse.
nah. mine involved Yani.

----Today is a little bit better... maybe it's just that it's Friday. Though, with him outta my hair and in my coworker Taresa's business, I feel a touch of sanity returning. I'm feeling more pity than frustration today... I cant tell which is worse.

6/3/05 UPDATE:
---The day before yesterday, my boss called the temp agency to tell them we no longer needed Temp Guy. Apparently, the message did not get through because he showed up to work yesterday. Fine. ok. the message just hadn't gotten through, right? Wrong. He showed up today, called Taresa and left a voicemail asking her to come down to the lobby and ok the guards to let him up (something we have to do for everyone without a security badge). Taresa ran this by our boss, asking him what to do. Boss says "ignore it. I'll call the temp agency again and tell them they need to call the lobby". He calls them, they say they left Temp Guy a message last night so... ya, why did he show up today? they say they'll call both him and the lobby to tell him he is no longer needed. Meanwhile, Temp Guy calls again. and again. Taresa meanwhile, tries to go down to the lobby to get some food, but there's Temp Guy, still. Two other ladies in the office used the freight elevator to avoid him. I know, I know... why didn't our boss just go down there and tell him, right? There's three ways to answer that question: 1) I tell you to go back and reread the parts of my journal that talk about my passive aggressive boss and what a schmoe he is. 2) I say "I dont know" 3) I say "he shouldn't have to. that's what temp agencies do. they hire and fire. or un-hire as the case may be".
---I find out later that Temp Guy may have just been ignoring the message(s?) from the temp agency and showing up just to see if he could work and not get told to go home by confrontation weary non-managers.
---Before you suggest it, I'll say "yes, I will be wearing my bulletproof vest to work on Monday"

Wanted Ad

JOURNAL ENTRY
Wanted: Hounds of Hell, must be felines
Last night, two hounds of hell escaped their fiery confines, took feline form and gave me a 4:30am hard sell on what a timeshare in hell would be like. Did you know a stay in hell involves two cats sprinting over you, fighting on you, wrestling at your feet then sprinting some more, crashing into and knocking over things in other rooms, then sprinting back to and over you to stare out the window with cracked out intensity for exactly 13 seconds before doing a classic FJ-&-HB-boundless-spastic-energy-loud-whimper and then trying to shatter their kory's-window-to-the-front-door world record time? seriously.
i said "BOYS!" in a commanding I'm-your-Master kind of way to which they both turned to me and gave me that British-flip-off index&middle-finger backwards peace sign go-to-hell move. It was actually pretty impressive. I dont know where they learned that - though I suppose it Would explain the JFK-to-Heathrow round-trip ticket stubs I found in the trash the other day. cheeky bastards.

Steve McQueen demonstrates what FJ & HB gave me this morning.

++ totally unrelated, but in case you were wondering how something like this might be accomplished... well.... pick the one that's right for you.

my fight with DM

JOURNAL ENTRY
So...
I got into a bit of a spat with DM. My second in as many weeks. The first was relatively harmless. And kind of confusing, actually.
Someone had asked me for a plastic bag so I reached into the filing cabinet at my desk that I stuff full of plastic bags. I use them to bring my frozen water bottles to work, saving my briefcase'y bag thing from being ruined by condensation on the bottles. (quick aside: California recycles plastic bags, New York, as far as I've been able to research, does not yet do so. This pisses me off to no end - recycling nazi that I can be. Sooo... I save them, here at work. Partly because I cant bring myself to throw them away, partly because I'm hoping I'll eventually run across a recycling service that'll take them and partly because I really want to leave a ... parting gift.. let's say... when I leave this Purgatorian way station) - Back to the story: Someone asks for a bag, I open my bag drawer, everybody sees bags, everybody comments on bags, everybody then STOPS commenting on bags, DM does NOT stop commenting on bags, DM continues to comment on bags, DM thinks she is sooo F'n funny commenting on bags, DM does not know that I DO like being joked with but do NOT like being ridiculed in a condescending manner, DM is about to feel my wrath, DM keeps commenting on bags.
Me: You know, I keep them here so when I quit this oh-so fulfilling job.. and all you suckers are still working here, -years- from now, YOU can clean them out of the cabinet.
Her: owwwkay. if you say so.
Me: (I lighten up a bit) that, and I hate that NY doesn't recycle them
Her: yeah, I guess not... you should collect more
Me: (ok. I HEAVY up a bit) maybe I will. maybe I'll start putting them all on your desk. Maybe your five cats would like to play with them.
......... it continued back & forth for a few more jabs but nothing of consequence.
....... ........ it's a battle of will's with nothing serious to argue about. She needs to be right or have the upper hand and at this point, I dont want to give it to her as a matter of principle, even though I dont at all know what we're arguing about. or IF we're arguing.

The second run in happened yesterday:
DM: "kory... what's this?"
me: "what's what?"
her: "this email"
me: "what email?"
her: "this email YOU SENT"
me: "which email I sent?"
her: "this Eee - M A I L" (she says all slow, like how stupid people talk to blind people)
me: "yeah, SORRY, i dont know WHAT you're talking about"
her: "pssh"
- ... so i go over & look. Turns out, she was cc:'d on a RESPONSE from someone else regarding an email i had sent THEM, not her. she then kept talking to me like a child (a lot more than the above, for a lot longer, you'd really need to hear her inflection to know) & i just shut her down, saying:
me: I'm sorry I cant do everyone's job for them. (in this case, extra research and a repeated summary of what's already detailed in the email)
her: I - wasn't - asking - you - to - do - anyone's - job - for - me.
me: well... you WERE, actually. you want me to go through an entire issue addressed to someone else - For You, as a quick summary, when it's all detailed in that email right there.
her: [silence, ..then..] unintelligible-passive/agressive grumble, grumble, grumble
me: if you say so
her: that's TWICE, Kory (meaning our two run-in's)
me: [silence]
her: you know that, right?
me: [silence]
her: unintelligible-passive/agressive grumble, grumble, grumble
me: [silence]

what's funny is, if you've worked with me or know me at all, you'll know it's a fact that i'll do about 10 times more than I'm supposed to for nice people... I just will. without question. without wanting anything in return down the road. I will, however, go out of my way to make more work for not nice people. why? because it's sooo damn fun to. This would be Judge Kory doling out small samples of justice and revenge on the imbicilic dullards who do not play nice. It's the little things in life.
I still really like DM, believe it or not. Well.. maybe "am highly amused by" is more accurate than "like". I like her sass, the feisty spirit & how she somehow manages to run an overly disfunctional family. I realized with the above two spats though, that while she speaks to -everyone- like that, that I ... umm... do not respond so well to be talked to like that. And by "do not respond" I mean "prepare for battle to the death". proverbially speaking, of course.

DM Overheard's

JOURNAL ENTRY
DM Overheard's
++ Lauren, I dont ... Lauren, I dont know... Lauren.. do you REALLY think i HID your jacket? Why would I do that? Lauren... Lau-ren.. is it on the back of the ... ok, is it in the clos... LAUREN, stop screaming at me!

++ I thought to myself.. who is this kid walking with just her jeans in her hands..?

++ you needed $100, I gave you $100, you needed clothes... you.. bought something else. I DO understand. Lauren, Lauren, listen to me. I know that, but I'm telling you... Lauren, are you at school?

++ Lauren, stop making a mountain out of a molehill. if something is gone, we can replace it. NO I DO understand! And I told you 7 times... you want to go pick one up tomorrow?? It's ok, you can go get one. I need one too, I'm tired of wearing the same....

++ not only are you killing me with the smell.. but. your body odor is.... water is your friend, Dave. I have to shampoo the furniture because your body odor stays in the furniture. I do everything for you, you can do this thing for me, Go Wash.

++ I have Lauren screaming over coats. A coat I haven't seen in weeks. it's like: 'Lauren, maybe you shouldn't get drunk, pass out at other people's houses & lose your coats.' Ya think? So I have her complaining that her father is stealing her coats.. or -I- am. Her father smells worse than a sewer and I.... woah. I dont know.

++ Lauren, you need to stop talking to me like I'm your child. Lauren, I am the parent and YOU are the child. Yes, you are. Yes, Lauren. you are talking... Lauren it comes out nasty. Lauren, it's NASTY. and the tone in your voice comes off as condescending. you need to listen to you voice 'cause there's nothing nice in it. AT ALL.