Skirt vs. Jeans

I decided this week that I should renegotiate the work dress code with my boss. Well at least "my" work dress code. Our office is a “business casual” office with absolutely NO sandals, my boss has this thing for any shoes that make a flipping or flopping noise. And you know what up until this week I have been ok with that. I do not mind dressing nice for work, even though I do enjoy the casual Friday in which my attention starved jeans get to make a once a week guest appearance. But this week I changed my mind. I vote for jeans everyday.

Along with being the “emergency coordinator” for my office I am also the IT or computer person. Don’t be impressed I do not hold this position based on skill or ability, it is by default because I am the youngest person in my office. Generally I am capable of fixing the problems that appear in our office; again don’t get too impressed, I do so by calling a real IT person who tells me what to do.

Yesterday our internet service provider called and informed us that one or more of our computers was sending out mass amounts of SPAM and they were shutting off our internet due to this. Naturally this became my problem. I was, over the course of the day, able to fix our problem and get us back online. How did I do this you may be wondering? Well, since you asked I ran a virus scan on all of the computers and got rid of the virus that was infecting one of the machines. Yup that’s all – 4 hours later problem fixed.

Now you are probably wondering what in the world me fixing computers has to do with wanting to change the dress code. Stick with me here I am about to connect the dots. In the process of doing virus scans all of my coworkers decided to have a little tell all of what is wrong with their computers. One of them does not have speakers, another wants a wireless keyboard and so on and so on. Nothing too big that I can’t handle, but because of these numerous requests I spent most of the day crawling around on the floor under peoples desks and behind tables switching out different parts of peoples computers. Seeing as I am by far the largest person in my office I have a little bit of trouble climbing under peoples desks to begin with, and then you throw in the fact that I was wearing a skirt and you have a whole other set of problems. Let’s just say that skirts are not very conducive to sitting on the floor.

Since that was not exciting enough, today the fax machine was not working and it was again my job to fix it. Why is it that the areas that computers and fax machines reside (at least in our office) are the areas that get cleaned least often? They are covered with dust and whole punch scraps – which then of course transfer onto my clothing. Lucky Me.! I think that this week I have spent more time on the floor or under my desk than sitting at it.

All Mixed Up

For my birthday I received an AMAZING gift

It gave my kitchen a pretty face lift

It's color is PINK, in my favorite shade

In it many things I have made

Pizza crust, cookies and muffins with blueberries

It's as if my kitchen has been invaded by baking fairies

You learn something new everyday

Today I learned that I am the emergency coordinator of my office. Unfortunately for me I learned this the hard way.

I am sure that all of you who are reading this know that Southern California experienced a 5.8 earthquake today. Well I think it was one of the largest earthquakes I have ever been in, and the only one I have experienced in an 8 story office building. So here I am at work reading an email from my sister when out of no where the earthquake strikes. I was a little slow at realizing what was happening. I originally thought someone was rolling something very large down the hallway and it was causing our office to shake. But I soon realized that it was not stopping, in fact it was getting more intense. It is about this time that my chair, which like most office chairs is on wheels – takes upon a life of its own and imprisons me. It started rolling all over the place and of course I just sat there and went along for the ride a little dumbfounded at what was happening.

As I look around the office I notice that no one is around, all of my officemates have disappeared, or rather they know what to do in an earthquake and I don’t. So I am just sitting there in my crazy chair trying to decided what to do when I remember you are supposed to stand in a door way or get under your desk. So I quickly scan the office, the only doorway near me is the front office door which unfortunately is a fire safe door that does not stay open (it automatically closes) therefore I can not stand in it. I quickly rule out the doorway idea. Moving on to the desk, I am preparing to jump out of my chair and crawl under my desk when the pictures above my desk fall and shatter, spreading glass all over my desk and floor around me. Witnessing the Norman Rockwell’s plummet from their places of glory, evidentially made me loose all of my working brain cells. Because, when I saw them fall I thought it would be no longer safe to get under the desk because things would fall onto the desk. You are probably thinking DUH! That’s the point, the desk protects you from falling things – I realize this now, but in the moment I was thinking I would get trapped under the desk. If the building fell down around me I would get stuck under the desk. However, I did not take the time to think about the fact that if the building fell down around me and I was sitting in my chair I would for sure be dead under all of the debris.

Lucky for me the building did not fall down. After what felt like an eternity the shaking subsided and out of no where all of my coworkers appear. We are all gathered in the main office area, all in a bit of shock just standing and staring. Then my boss turns to me and says “Alright Mandy you’re our emergency coordinator, what is our plan?” I am thinking you have got to be kidding me, you all have experienced how many earthquakes in this building and you are asking me what to do. They must be crazy.

Wouldn’t you know it, I am actually the official emergency coordinator for our office – this was news to me. Evidentially I am registered as such with our building and therefore am in charge of making sure everyone follows the correct emergency procedures. Well too bad I don’t know what those procedures are. At this point they are still waiting for me to tell then what to do, so I glance out in the hallway and notice that all of the other offices on our floor are evacuating. I follow there lead, gather my troops, take a head count, lock the office door and lead them down the emergency exit stairs, which i was only able to find by following other evacuees. I feel a bit like an elementary school teacher, but hey if they want to follow the youngest most inexperienced person in the office that’s ok with me. At least I know they all trust me.

Once we get to the parking lot everyone starts to call there families and loved ones making sure everyone was ok. At least they tried to call. No ones cell phones were working and this of course causes even more panic than the earthquake itself. My co workers seriously started to freak out because they could not make calls and check on people. In an attempt to calm the troops down Steve took us out to lunch which worked out well considering we could not reenter the building until the fire department came and gave the ok. All in all I learned 3 important things from this earthquake.

1. I do not think clearly in emergency situations, and I have the tendency to freeze up.
2. I am the emergency coordinator for our office (surprising considering point 1)
3. I now know where the emergency exit stairs are (surprising considering point 2)

I am now on the hunt to find out if there is an emergency plan manual or something that will tell me what to do in emergency situations in our building seeing as that is part of my job.

Too nice?.......Too bad!

Today my boss told me I was too nice. Now you’re probably thinking "that’s nice" or "what’s wrong with that." Here’s the thing, I think it was meant as a compliment, but in the context of the conversation and office happenings I think its implications were not necessarily a good thing.

Here is a cliff Notes version of what happened: I had called the offices of a computer program we were running a demo of. Our demo had expired and we/my boss decided he wanted to extend the demo for another week before deciding if we were going to buy the program or not. So I call and ask, they say "No, we don’t do that. You only get one demo." So I say "Ok, thanks." And hang up. Well when I tell my boss this, he is not put off he wants the extension. So, this time he calls. It all happens on speaker phone, so I know he is talking to the same person that I did. He asks the same question and wha la he gets the same answer "No." Again he is not put off, in fact he goes on trying to convince the guy to extend the demo. Well 10 minutes later the demo is extended and my boss is happy. He turns to me and says "don’t worry it’s just because your too nice."

So I guess I am glad that my boss thinks I am nice, there could be worse things in the world. However I am not pleased with the implications that I can not accomplish things because I am nice, or that you have to be a little bit mean to get your way. It should be the other way around. Nice people should be able to accomplish more than the mean, but who am I to contradict? After all people always say "nice people finish last."

WARNING: This blog may not be for everyone

I feel that as my first blog post I need to give a preface or warning for all future blog posts to come. This blog is not for the faint of heart. No don't worry the contents will not be inapropriate, scattered and random yes, but inapropriate no. The spelling and punctuation on the other hand is another story completely. I am a horrible speller and I have the tendency to write extremely long run on sentences with absolutely no capitalizations anywhere to be found. I blame this problem on the following:

1. I was educated at Freeman Elementary School. (that in it of itself should be explanation enough)
2. My mind moves at an uncontrollable speed, like a million miles a second, and unfortunately my hands on the keyboard can not keep up. Seeing as I can only type a half a million miles a second. Therefore, if I take the time to slow down, spell correctly, make sure each sentence is grammatically correct and an appropriate length I will forget my precious thoughts. So really it is only out of consideration of you 'my readers' that I write so horribly. I do not want you to miss out on any of my amazing thoughts. I choose to sacrifice spelling and punctuation for the greater good of the content.

So, if you are a stickler for correct spelling and capitalizations and no run on sentences I suggest you stop reading my blog right about now.

However, for the sake of starting out on the right foot I did in fact spell check this post before completing it, but don't get used to it. I have an inordinate amount of free time tonight, spell check is not always a luxury my time will afford me.