Archive | Work RSS feed for this section

Sleeping with the fishes and a spelling lesson in the Big D.

22 Dec

This week I’ve been working in our Detroit office so I can spend time with my family leading up to the holiday. The office is in a large office park in a place called “Bingham Farm” which I think is actually a fancy name (ironically) for Southfield.

Everyone had to work from home for a week last month because the suite next to ours caught on fire. I never heard many details, so on this visit I was poking around being nosy. Turns out, the fire was caused by a massive fish tank.

Really? Something filled with water almost burns the building down? What are the odds?

Or – as I would like to think – maybe it was the fish themselves. When I was a kid, I had a goldfish that had a death wish and routinely flung himself out of his bowl. Maybe these fish were part of a larger sleeper cell and were willing to sacrifice themselves to wipe out some humans. Maybe the head goldfish promised them 72 virgin fish would be waiting for them in heaven.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , ,

I hope the closet isn’t as hot as my office.

11 Oct

Today is Columbus Day. It’s also National Coming Out Day. I chose to celebrate the latter with my Facebook Status today, and one of my friends commented along the lines of, “Ah, Christopher? Was there something you wanted to tell us?”

To which I think the appropriate response is, “Duh. He goes by ‘Christopher’ and not Chris. What do YOU think he’s trying to tell us?”

Anyway. It’s a Federal Holiday, which means Yours Truly still had to work, because I’m one of five people inside the District limits NOT employed by the government.

(Which also means that I’m one of five people who doesn’t get every other Friday off for working more than 10 hours in a day. On the contrary: know what I get as a reward for working four ten-hour days? A fifth ten-hour day! Actually, I don’t mind, but I rarely have sympathy for hearing government workers talk about “long” hours.)

This morning I went to work, completely forgetting that our building won’t heat or cool offices on Federal Holidays. It’s an unseasonable 87 degrees outside today. And our office has a wall of windows that spectacularly catch the morning and mid-day sun. Needless to say, it was HOT in there. We were all pitted-out and I swear I saw sweat drops hitting one of my colleague’s keyboards.

I finally cracked around 1pm, deciding to hoof it home and work in the comfort of my air conditioning. Which was a good plan, but I was so over-heated, I had to strip down to my underwear to cool off after my walk home.

No sooner than I had settled in at my desk, someone knocked on my door… forcing me to run around, find pants and make myself presentable. It was my neighbor, Michael, stopping down to tell me he’s having his floors replaced tomorrow. (HOORAY!)

To explain why I was home, sweating and looking a bit crazy, I said, “Wow. You’re actually lucky you caught me at home. Our office is hotter than hell because  of the holiday.”

This comment could’ve completely derailed the conversation in about five different directions. Fortunately, he just looked at me and said, “What holiday?”

Tags: , , ,

When multi-tasking goes wrong.

6 Oct

I pride myself on efficiency, but today I realized that it’s not always desirable to be efficient.

I realized this on my way to the bathroom at work, when the latest issue of People Magazine caught my eye on the reception desk. Without thinking, I grabbed it so I could skim the photos on my walk to the bathroom. It only occurred to me as I opened the bathroom door and encountered a co-worker what it might look like:

Oh, there goes Alison, disappearing into the bathroom with a People Magazine. Guess we won’t see her for a solid 20 minutes. (Like the use of solid there – impressive, no?)

Continue reading →

Tags: , , ,

TIP: If it really was a partnership, you wouldn’t need to tell me.

13 Sep

"You might be a more effective negotiator if you didn't use the 'f' word so frequently."

I can’t provide too much back-story here without compromising the anonymity of the other party (and no, it’s not Alan!), so I’m just going to offer some seemingly obvious bits of advice that  occurred to me in the midst of an unfortunate exchange with another person today:

  • When negotiating, it is generally best to NOT let the other party know they have nothing left to lose before you’ve arrived at what it is you’re seeking.
  • Try not to shriek – unless you would like to perpetuate the notion that women are too emotional to be trusted in Corporate America.
  • When I’m in the middle of summarizing my understanding of the situation and on my way to proposing a solution, don’t interrupt me unless you don’t want a solution.
  • Don’t say “legally” unless you have a J.D. or – barring that – can pronounce “fiduciary” without sounding like you’re hooked on phonics.
  • If you DO say “legally” and I know you don’t have a leg to stand on, don’t act insulted when I ask if you have a law degree or suggest that you conference in your counsel so that we can get a valid interpretation of the contract.
  • If you have to state (repeatedly) that, “We are all adults here. We are MATURE adults here. We are grown-ups. We behave like grown-ups,” then you probably aren’t. Act it, don’t say it.
  • And if you find yourself saying, “I’m not trying to be unprofessional by yelling at you,” then guess what? You’re not only trying, you’re succeeding!

Tags:

Club Quarters: Where you get a quarter of the room for half the price!

2 Jul

People who know me well know it’s a point of pride that I’m frugal. I like sniffing out a deal and can rarely justify a splurge on something that isn’t going to be with me for least five years. When I travel for work, people think it’s funny that I routinely seek out cheap hotels even though I’m not footing the bill. I can’t help it – it’s just not in my DNA to waste money.

I will say that this frugality has led to a few choice lodging options along the way – like when I awoke flea bitten in Los Angeles or thought I’d picked up bedbugs at a place in Chicago – but overall, it works out just fine. That is, until someone in my company asks for a recommendation of where to stay.

Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →