Such an apt description of what I do, that I just had to quote it . . .

The following is an email chat I had with my coworker and fellow editor this morning after she was out of the office yesterday.


-----Original Message-----
From: E
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:42 AM
To: Sarah
Subject: Good Morning

Did I miss anything yesterday?


-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:44 AM
To: E
Subject: Good Morning

Nope, you didn't miss much. I had lunch with Matt, Iris and Erica. That
was,
eh.

-----Original Message-----
From: E
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:50 AM
To: Sarah
Subject: Good Morning


Whoa! Lunch with Iris and Erica? Was it a working lunch?


-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:53 AM
To: E
Subject: Re: Good Morning

Yeah, we had to discuss the 08 Conference brochure, which I'm writing and apparently it's a BFD (big f-ing deal). Matt said this will basically absorb all of my time.

It's just a brochure people! It's really small, so I'm kinda worried that I'm not worried about it. Y'know?

-----Original Message-----
From: E
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:57 AM
To: Sarah
Subject: Good Morning

Yes, I totally know what you mean. When they ask you to "work your magic" on copy I always cringe.


-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:59 AM
To: E
Subject: Re: Good Morning

Haha, you know those women VERY well. That was pretty much exactly what they told me to do, "just use your strengths to dazzle us" or something ridiculous.

I'm supposed to talk to some lady named Chee today or Monday


-----Original Message-----
From: E
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 11:03 AM
To: Sarah
Subject: Re: Good Morning

It's almost as if they are setting you up with all that "dazzle us," "work your magic," "weave your words into a beautiful tapestry" b.s. that they do, because I never really feel I know how to make something BORING interesting.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 11:03 AM
To: E
Subject: Re: Good Morning

It's all pretty damn funny how seriously these people take themselves.

-----Original Message-----
From: E
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 11:05 AM
To: Sarah
Subject: Re: Good Morning

Oh yeah. It's a good thing to know the Conference is going to rival the second coming of Jesus.

My Inner Artist Emerges In Push Pins

I call it Post-Postmodern Contemporary Pointilism

Why I simply MUST clean my car more often . . .

Below is the assembly of stuff strewn about my car when asked to provide transportation to both boss and cowoker for our team lunch:

1.) Leftover giftwrap from friend's b-day gift
2.) Cycling cleats
3.) Miscellaneous receipts dating back to 2006
4.) Tupperware container from two days ago
5.) Empty toilet paper roll . . . I seriously have no idea why
6.) Star Magazine (VERY bad form)
7.)Deflated soccer ball


Don't let this happen to you.

Office Monkey See, Office Sea Monkeys Do (exist!)

Don't try making sense of this post's title. That's like trying to justify the existence of Sea Monkeys, which (as we all know is the case with mystical beings like Fairies and Mermaids and Elvis) you must believe in, in order to see them, unless you're instructed by a coworker to to sprinkle nanoteaspoons of yellow sea monkey food into a "seamokarium" every other day so that they won't starve to death, or, better yet the fear that their possible existence partnered with your forgetfulness might result in dead mystical creatures floating around in a misty yellow monkey broth on aforementioned coworker's desk upon her return. Yup. That'll do the trick too.

I fed them yesterday. I'm covered till tomorrow.

Our "Process"

My boss created this work of art in order to describe for us the inner workings of our department. After a 35 minute lecture, I still have no idea what's is going on.

Note the impregnable "Walls of Separation" both major and minor. Those are my favorite. What they are separating exactly is still very much in question.

I HIGHLY recommend clicking on this picture to enlarge it and "appreciate" its bepuzzling intricacies.

I REALLY need to decorate . . .

That's all there is to say.

First week

Normaly, this is the anomoly week. Work is light, your disoriented, and you don't get paid. I don't think this is the anomoly week this time around.

Light work load: NO. I hit the ground running. Lot's of proofing and 6 campaigns that involved 3 aspects and they needed copy in wireframe format for all of them = 18 little projects in 1.5 days. Yowsers. I finished it but was concerned initially.

Disoriented: Not really. I'm used to confusing buildings (um Dwinelle anyone?, Lauel will know), but I have an almost freakishly normal schedule. I get in around 9 I eat lunch with my book in the courtyard from 12:45 to 1:45 I get a free cookie in the break room at 2:30. I leave around 5. I feel pretty comfortable.

Don't get paid: NOPE I do!!!!! They were able to get me into the system just under the wire. Like I've said, I'm lucky.

So now that the mystery is gone and most of the stress has abated. You can say goodbye to those morose pensive things I've been writing and look forward to some peppier prose. :-)

Me: To be continued

Next time I write here, I will be somewhere else. I might even be someone else. A new home, and a new job, and lots of things I don't even know I will have and be. Behavioral psychologists claim that your outside actions influence the inner self? Say you want to quit smoking and you always smoke after work in one particular coffee shop, behaviorists will tell to you stop going to the coffee shop altogether so that you disassociate with the behaviors you had there. To take yourself away from yourself.

Change happens from outside and travels inward. Pretty simple idea. So my environment here is part of my identity. When I leave, I will eventually center myself around different things and different places. Things and places that will become the everyday fabric of my life. Patterns and people will work their way into me and slowly I will be a corner at 7:45 am with a sharp turn, and a long walk from a parking lot across campus, a local park, a late night haunt with live music and a little perch on which to sit and watch, to absorb the life into me.

I will still be me. Obviously. I will still be the same. But changing and different. I will be just like the word "still," which in one place can mean "to remain the same" and somewhere else can mean "to continue on." Still and still moving. Still and still changing. Still and still becoming. Still myself.

Last Words

Tomorrow is my final day here. I've packed up all my trinkets and taken all the personal and blackmail-worthy matieral off my office PC. I've started to do all the required motions but I just can't seem to write my office Farewell letter. They really just make me sick. So many people have left this place that I've become well-versed in the farewell epistle, that which chronicles the "valuable and unforgettable" experience each person has found here and how much "we will be truly missed" and yadayadahyadah. These "sincere" employment eulogies make my literary sensibilities wretch from sugared emotion overload and are the single last thing I want to leave here with my name attached to. I want to be truthful and direct and appreciative of all the time I've spent here expending this company's internet resources and free soft drinks.

I could be cheeky:

All good things must come to an end. And this my friends is the end.

I could be boring:

This is my last day. I wish you all the best.

I could be silly:

Sarah has left the building. I repeat. Sarah has just left the building.

Or I could be a bitch:

I'm getting out before the boat sinks. You best do the same.

All of which I will not (try to) be of course because I do want to leave a good impression here, and I have valued this experience, and I really and truly goddammit will miss working here. I just hate having to say it because it always sounds so lame and artificial since what I'm doing I'm announcing to every one of my coworkers that I am officially blowing this popsicle stand for supposedly bigger and better things and underneath whatever gobbeldey-gook I end with, what they hear is, I'm off to something better than what you have . . .

You know what, I really hope they're right.

I got it. I just don't want to think about it.

I really was job. A week later they offered it to me and I took it, and since then I have successfully signed a new employment contract, rented a new place, and started to move. I have also become one giant ball of nervous energy. I'm stressed and spastic and irritable. Why is it that I can be such and unstressy person about so many seemingly stressful things and then get all stressied up about about this junk, specifically all my junk, not in my "trunk" but scattered across my bedroom floor, that junk.

So I hired movers. Movers to move my junk. Does that help with stress, yes, but it's not enough. My solution - diversionary alternative stress therapy (should I copyright that phrase and send it to Websters?). What is DAST - In short, doing as much shit as I can to snap myself out of my stressfilled universe by throwing myself into another one of equal but opposite stresses. I started cycling with the LA Triclub (nerve-wracking cuz I suck as cycling) and swimming in the ocean (nerve-wracking cuz I suck at swimming). I was so nervous before getting into the open water that my hands were turning blue, but you know what - I sure as shit wasn't thinking about moving! And when I was floating in the water and diving under the waves I was feeling good, feeling like I was getting something done by putting myself out there and trying something new. Giving myself something to be proud of myself for, since the satisfaction of moving can oftentimes take months to finally settle in and satisfy. I'm sure it's the same reason we start alphabetizing our bookshelves and doing the dishes when we should really be writing a final paper, or doing our taxes -some little distraction that makes us feel "good" and productive while we are being "bad" and procrastinative (new word too?).

So there's my life for ya, one diversion after the next until I finally decide to look my move in the face and say, "You don't scare me anymore."

Next diversion: Cinco De Mayo in Sacramento with lots of drinks and wakeboarding. But I might need to throw something more stress-inducing into the mix to really get the job done. Blindfolds?

I AM JOB: The Epic Trilogy

Episode One: The phone interview, which was followed by a pleasant, face to face interview, followed by my polite check-in phone call, followed by silence.

Episode Two: Weeks later, a Spec Assignment is requested to prove my skills of writing and revision, followed by a second Interview with two more people and the request for a paper portfolio (and a thank you note to Interviewers). And a third interview a week later followed by a week of silence . . .

Episode Three: An email is recieved by yours truly commanding yet another spec assignment, a long and annoying one, to be completed over Easter/Spring break weekend, which, for good measure I complete very thoroughly, and return quite promptly. This is all, again, followed by silence.

And here I sit, waiting. If I don't get an offer, I'm gonna be royally pissed.

The Wonderful Thing About Birthdays is That Birthdays Are Wonderful Things

They give you excuses to goof off
And take breaks that last extra long,

so that you appear to have been lost
or just sit writing blogs that are songs.

I left I left I left at 4:15!!!!!!

The wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful thing about Birthdays . . .

is that Birthdays are wonderful things!


(to the "Tigger Song" Melody)

Conclusive Summary of Results

I returned to my desk this morning to find 5 emails in my in-box, 2 of which were junk (ads from Itunes and Yahoo DSL). The other three were general notices sent out to the entire company about a lost cell phone, a help desk issue, and today's lunch. No instant messages from any coworkers. No messages from the Boss Man.

I think it's a fair to conclude that I have developed some sort of built-in invisibility cloak. I am Sarah the friendly office ghost. Boo.

Professional Research

Today I will be conducting an experiment to determine the "occupational absence awareness" of my coworkers and supervisors.

The plan: I'm leaving at noon and I'm not coming back and I'm not telling anybody. Except for you, my faithful and few blog readers.

I've conducted a few variations of this experiment before (showed up for work 2-4 hours late, taken 2-3 hour lunches . . . repeatedly). Based upon these, I predict to return to the office on Friday morning with a total of 2 emails in my inbox (one of which will be unnecessarily CC'ed to me and the other will be some kind of ad asking me to buy something). No one will ask any questions.

I'll report the results tomorrow.

The Early Bird Catches the Phrase

Because if you get to work at 8 am like I did, you're exhausted and fed up with doing work (or just existing in your cubicle as I do.) by the time 3:30 rolls around. Your brain is primed for spelling errors and misused sayings that are sure to bring a smile anyone's day. For example, here's the new phrase a friend and I came up with today during an IM chat:

****
Sarah: awesome
I'm so excited about my bike
having a bike that goes fast
my hybid has great shocks
but it suck a clunker
I mean such

Laurel: i like "it suck a clunker" better

Sarah: Maybe I should add that to my phrase book?
DUDE that sucked a clunker

Laurel: or you could just tell someone to "go suck a clunk"
****

Another such happy accident is the addition of LooL to my IM chats.

Who needs LOL when you can LOOL, just say the word LUUUUUULE. It makes you wanna lool.


There you have it. Creativity at its most careless.

Honestly, this is what gets me through the day.

There's a party in my post!

More like a celebration/congradulatory event hosted by me, honoring myself, and attended by yours truly (and perhaps the 3.5 people who read this thing).

Rarely do I feel like a valuable employee or a talented writer doing what I do. And doing so little, especially compared to people like my father, my boyfriend, many of my friends who have to work incredibly hard day in and day out, sometimes happily, and other times miserably. When I think of my job, my contributions, I feel very neutral, very lucky, and very small in comparison to everything thats going on. In short, I feel like Switzerland.

But today has been different. Today for one reason or another, through one project or another, I was reminded that what I do with words is valuable and can be really rewarding, and even fun. Nothing earth shattering took place. I didn't compose the greatest paragrpah to hit the world wide web or anything, I just felt for the first time in a while, the love I have for governing words, for dictating their reach and their boundaries, and seeing to it that words make people happy. I am a peacekeeper of language, and today I am very proud of that.

How do you do Mr.Not New But Yet Unintroduced Co-worker?

I still have not figured out a good method for dealing with this issue. Maybe someone else can shed light on this unexpectedly awkward problem . . .

You never get introduced to everyone in a large office. It's not exactly an issue when you have the type of boss who introduces you to everyone you will be working with and then rest of your massive company exits on some exterior corporate plain. It is an issue when you get introduced to, say, the 12 people you generally work with in an office where you're constantly coming into contact with people you don't know who also work in the same office. The breakroom, the bathroom, the printer and the like present high risk locations for running into these people. And going up to each and everyone and saying,"Hi, we haven't met. I'm Sarah. I work in the creative dept," had once seemed like the obvious choice for dealing with these situations and decreasing them (more introductions = fewer unknown coworkers). But sadly, I learned early on that my amicable instincts were wrong.

An office is just like a box of chocolates . . . I've learned many are filled with extremely unfriendly, super shy and perhaps socially inept "chocolates". When I first started my job here and being introduced to about 1/3 of my co-workers, I did my best to be friendly and say hello and ask people who they were and their positions. This went on for about 2 days, before I simply gave up. Usually I felt like I was interupting the peoples' regularly scheduled programming as they were rushing back to their desks. I started up a conversation with one coworker only to be barraged by other fully aquainted amongst themselves (yet still unknown to me)coworkers coming in and me, being unperepared for the onslaught, decided to quickly tidy up my introductory chat and scurry away instead of going up to 5 new coworkers at once and proclaiming my newness and my position and inquiring the same. Bad idea? Still not quite sure, but since I failed to introduce myself to everyone else in the break room, the one guy I did talk to felt I was coming onto him, and avoided all contact with me. Don't flatter yourself bub; I was just trying to be nice! Sheesh.

So I adopted the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours first" policy of inter-coworker mingling. If an unknown coworker seems talkative and friendly, then I can go ahead and reciprocate. This was a successful strategy about 25% of the time. The other 75% of the time, I think the everyone else adopted the same policy and so it was just a Mexican Standoff, or timing was just off. People don't seem mean, or anti-social, but just busy going about their days, leaving as I was entering, in conversation with someone they already knew, bobbing while I was weaving, and vice versa. I resolved to stop taking things into my own hands and let the forces of corporate culture (meetings, comittees, in office lunchs at big communal tables) do the work for me. This task was greater than myself.

Flash forward to now- our office merges with the Tech Dept downstairs. New office, new desk, new people to not know, and yet, no introductions for anyone! Since theoretically we've all been "working together" this whole time. So I find myself right back where I started.

What do you think? Name tags? :-)

While I was at work today . . .

My extremely wonderful friend Laurel, with whom I just spent aforementioned 13 day vacation, extended an invitation to be a guest blogger on her webpage. I was very flattered and spent the better part of my day accepting this welcome invitation - below is a link to the fruits of my labors:

Click Here

Reflections on Returning

I've been away from work for 13 days, enjoying the British and Netherlandish countryside. My vacation was sigh worthy (when you think about it you get all those warm fuzzies about all the good times and then you take a deep breath and . . .) and yet I am kind of comforted by being back in this little box typing messages to my friends and avoiding the meager amount of work I have, even after a long absence. I've been here for 7 hours and about 25 minutes of work was required of me today.

I guess that even though I loved being gone from here. It's really nice to come back and realize that it's not so bad. That my "big kid job," as one of my friends has affectionately deemed it, is part of a life I enjoy leading.

I was on my way to grab a bite at lunch and two of my bosses were walking toward me and I prepared myself for the obligatory wave and smile and as they came closer and then as they were directly in fornt of me, they passmed me by without any acknowledgement. I felt totally invisible and it felt kinda good. Since the pay check I got last Friday while I was gallavanting though London was definitely not invisible. I must admit that being forgotten at a company truly has its advantages. For a little while.

I'm thinking about writing a story about a small subsidiary that is completely overlooked by its monopolous conglomerate owner until the company disappears into oblivion and all the employees continue to get paid due to the oversight ad infinitum.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps . . .

What My Job and the Mickey Mouse Club Do Not Have in Common

Besides the obvious . . . as dumb and relentlessly cheese ball as the Mickey Mouse Club was (Is it still on?), things that both it and my job share, everyone on the MMC could spell. M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-EEEEEEE. That Last letter sonorously ringing out its correctly placed ending vowel. Way to go mousters, you can spell someone's name better than the upper management of my company!

I know that it's the New Year and I should be writing a list of pensive reflections on my life and times, but it's hard for me to think about when I keep receiving emails for "Sara" from one of my bosses. I figured it would have stopped by now, having been employed here for almost a full year (11 months, 5 days, and 16 hours), but as surely as the sun rises in East, does the setting down of "Sara" wash over the electronic pages of my inbox.

Maybe I'm being too harsh? Maybe the correct spelling of my name, which appears as twin bookends at the top and bottom ever every email I've ever sent ever is just too subtle? Maybe she's dyslexic (which would explain SO much more)? Why does this bother me so much!!!!

Ultimately the total lack of observation required to completely ignore the correct spelling of my name time and time again triggers something deep within my to get royally ticked off. It must be some essential question of the self, for its right to be recognozed as wholly its own. I am one of approximately 50 millions Sarah's in the world, but I am Sarah Haufrect and there's only one of me and I spell my name with big fatty-ass H on the end, thank you very much.

This is my New Year's Resolution- I resolve to find some way, any way, to get my crazy, oblivious, possibly dyslexic boss to spell my name S-A-R-A-HHHHHHHHH by the time I quit or are fired and if not, upon my departure, I will kindy shake said boss's hand and candidly state, "There's an H on the end BITCH."

I think 2007 is off to a very healthy start.