Ear wiggies

How do you tell your boss that at a meeting she asked you to attend in her stead you couldn't concentrate and didn't have any idea what was going on because the guy beside you had gewbie things in his ears and it was so distracting you didn't pay any attention to what he was saying?

The captain sinks with the ship

Yesterday afternoon at about quarter to four, the building I work in sprung a leak somewhere on the 12th floor. Of course we're on the 2nd floor, so it took some time to start gushing down the stairs and elevator shafts. By some time, I mean a minute or two, and then we all were asked to evacuate. Today I'm at work again. The entire building smells like wet carpet and only one elevator wasn't damaged, but we're all here. Apparently the first out the door yesterday was the CEO.

Life's too short... so finish your smoke

Homemade sign taped up at the front of the bus today:

SMOKERS:
Please finish your
smoke a few minutes
before getting on our bus.
Don't litter.
Thanks.

Wednesday at lunch

Three of us went out and hit a consignment store in the neighbourhood that specializes in expensive brand names at not really reduced prices. This crazy wrinkly old German saleslady was helping me. I tried on this short knit sweater and I turned to Brenda and said “how’s this? Are the sleeves too short?” The saleslady came right up into my face and poked me in the shoulder and said “THIS is KNIT. Now when you get home you wrap this sweater in a wet towel and then put it on, and then -- now hold tight and tell me if I pinch you, (grabbing my shoulder) then you take this top seam and the bottom of your sleeve and pull like THIS.” She starts reefing on my arm like she wanted to wrench it out of its socket!

I was a little shocked (and very amused) and looked at Brenda who immediately turned around and started laughing. She continued “now, with the body of the sweater you can do the same. Shoulders back! Stand up straight!” and she starts yanking on the bottom of the sweater, thereby extending it three inches over my butt… even though I protested that it was fine.

All of a sudden there was this tearing sound and she looked up at me surprised and I giggled and Brenda almost peed herself. She'd torn the plastic tag right off!

Absolutely annoying

I find it super irritating to go into coffee shops and see a little homemade magic-marker sign that has a variation on "Minimum debit transaction $3.00 or we will add $0.50 to your purchase." That's totally a rotten deal, for one thing either jack up your prices to include the occasional customer who uses debit on a transaction for a $1.50 coffee -- or view it as part of your overhead, and (guess what?) include that in the prices you charge your customers!

Recently I was in a coffee shop with no such sign posted and I ordered a drink, the drink was made, placed on the counter in front of me and when I pulled out my debit the woman flashed a triumphant grin and said "You can't use debit for puchases under $5.00!" I said that I was sorry but didn't have any change on me so they could cancel my order and turned to sit with my friend who already had her beverage. The woman consulted with another staff member on the issue and came to the table to tell me that she could sell me a drink after all, but they would have to charge me $1.00 for the transaction. I got kind of angry at this point and told them they had no such sign pointing out any such fee and they could forget the drink.

It seems to be primarily Asian owned coffee shops that do this to their customers. Why??

People with Children

There's this woman at work who makes sure that her daughter Meghan is mentioned at every possible opportunity. She'll come in and someone will say "good morning" which is her cue to let everyone know how Meghan did being dropped off at daycare this (and every) morning -- good or otherwise. Then someone will say to someone else "how was your weekend" which of course leads to a story about Meghan's weekend was. On Friday someone will say "have a nice weekend" which is a cue to let everyone know what Meghan has planned for the weekend.

At lunch today I was offered a grape. I said "no thank you, I don't particularily care for grapes" which was neither true nor a lie, but I just didn't feel like eating someone else's lunch. Would you believe it, Meghan doesn't like grapes either! Someone else complained that she'd brought leftovers but the noddles were overcooked so she was planning on eating only the vegetables in the dish. Would you believe that Meghan does the exact same thing when presented with a dish she doesn't care for!? Wow, it's like we're all long lost twins of Meghan! We love Meghan! Meghan please come in and work with us!

Pain in the ear...

Biggest pet peeve today: people who talk to you on hands-free. It's been my experience that men (usually) don't think you'll be able to tell if they've got you on speaker phone, but it's totally loud, completely distracting and every time they put down their coffee cup or move papers it blows your ear drums! What a pain!

Weird

Don't you hate it when people name their kids something ordinary like Corey and then decide to be cute and spell it with a K? It kind of bugs me when I see names spelled like Kris or Alyson or Ami. If all they want is to be different, why not just pick an unusual name for their child?? Like Z'Anne instead of plain old boring Anne. Oh no wait, that's weird too.

Committees at work

So today I had a committee meeting of this certain committee (one of a few I am on) and no one showed up except for the woman recording the minutes and one other person.

It shall go down in history as the most productive committee meeting ever. Lots of decisions made, lots of tasks assigned... to other people on the committee.

No Rash Decisions

Does anyone else get a rash when presented with some horrible work that they'll have to spend hours fixing? Really? You don't?

Huh. ... me neither.

Hackysack Plague

Last night, I was standing at the stop downtown and a couple of guys were kicking around a hacky-sack when a girl they knew walked by and said hi and started watching. Before you knew it the one guy kicked it straight up and caught it in his MOUTH. To impress?? Who knows. You should have seen the looks on his friends faces! It was a look of horror and repulsion and I laughed right out loud. The one kid was like "Dude! That's SICK, that thing's been in garbage cans and sh*t!! It's been on the ground where DOGS take a crap! You're going to catch the PLAGUE and DIE!!!"

Later on the bus the girl had a pepsi and the guy asked if he could have a drink and you could see she was trying to be cool and really wanted to let him but she was thinking about the hackysack in the mouth thing... finally she handed it over and said "but don't drink it all!" which of course was a direct challenge. On the plus-side, there's no chance of catching the plague.

Now selling

Costco sells caskets. I know! Is there anything that they don't carry??

You've got to be kidding!

Ever hear someone's voice and turn around to look at them like "you've got to be kidding?"