Money Money Money Money

Welcome to Depression 2.0. If you disagree, that's fantastic for you, but I'm a pessimist by nature and that's just how I see it.

Yesterday the House voted to kill the $700 billion-with-a-B bailout plan, and while I'll admit up front to neither knowing nor frankly understanding the particulars, I have to say I'm glad. This is something that I would have been paying for until my retirement, my children would be paying for until their retirement, and likely my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be paying for until THEIR retirement, and probably a generation or two after that. While I am aware and I agree that something needs to be done, I don't necessarily support the government whisking in with flags waving, fanfares blaring, and my forthcoming taxes at the ready to save the crooks who put all their eggs in one basket called Shady Mortgages. Furthermore, I don't support patchwork plans that cost more money than most of us can fathom and offer no assurance whatsoever of success.

Something that bothers me in the aftermath is all the finger pointing going on in the wake of the bill's demise. The facts are that the bill was voted down in the House 228 to 205; of the 205 Ayes (to approve the bill), 140 were Democrats and 65 were Republicans; of the 228 Noes (to decline the bill), 95 were Democrats and 133 were Republicans; one Republican abstained.

The Republicans are laying the blame squarely on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech just prior to the vote. It was rumored that the Ayes had it on both sides of the aisle prior to the vote, so what happened? Some said she scared and upset the Republicans into voting against the bill, thereby giving the majority to the Noes; that because Pelosi's speech took so many digs at Republicans, the Republicans took their proverbial ball and went home. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that the speech "poisoned" the Republicans against the bill and, "I do believe that we could have gotten there today, had it not been for the partisan speech that the Speaker gave on the floor of the House." I'll agree that she was unnecessarily ideological and bitter in her speech (transcript here, for your reading pleasure.), but to that reasoning, I say, pbbbbbbbbbbt! Two weeks ago, two days ago, two minutes ago, you could have heard, up and down the halls of the House, Republicans taking any opportunity for another potshot at Pelosi et al. (To be fair, you could have heard the Democrats doing the same thing regarding the Republicans, but that's beside the point.) So since when are Republicans so moved and/or scared by anything Pelosi says or does that they would instantaneously change their vote? If the bill was such a shining example of bipartisan legislation, since when do personal feelings come into play? Congresspeople are figureheads, meant to represent the beliefs and opinions of their constituents. I know, my naivete is showing. But if the bill is bad, cop to it and say so. Don't whine and say, "She was mean to me!" You're big boys and girls now. Use your words. Furthermore, when people are this scared and the future is this foggy and/or bleak, how dare you even suggest that Republicans would vote against an ostensible economic - oh let's use McCain's semantics for it - "rescue" solely because of hurt feelings and insult?

Democrats by and large seem to be throwing up their hands, blaming the Republicans for killing the bill. Pelosi's reaction included statements such as, "Today, when the legislation came to the floor, the Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain." There were various iterations to similar effect. Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said, "...we came to the floor today with a piece of legislation that the members of our caucus decided was in the best interest of the country. And 60 percent of [the Democrats] put aside all of their individual feelings, emotions, experiences, and voted for this bill. Sixty-seven percent of the Republican Conference decided to put political ideology ahead of the best interests of our great nation." But let's not get too comfortable on that there high horse, Clyburn. If the bill was such a good plan, why didn't every Democrat in the room join hands in support of it? Democrats could have carried the bill without participation of a single Republican, but 95 Democrats voted against the bill. As Representative Pete Viscloskey (D-IN) said, "We are now in the golden age of thieves. And where I come from we put thieves in jail, we don't bail them out."

I've heard the media - several different outlets - painting the Republicans who voted against the bill in response to a flood of calls and emails from their constituents as weak and easily swayed because they by and large happened to also be up for re-election. The up-for-re-election business aside (because it would [okay, does] dismay me that voting one's constituency is an activity that is only seen during one's election year), I have this to say: um, that's their job, to vote the way their constituents tell them to. As I said earlier, they are Representatives, as in, representing the opinions and beliefs of the people who voted them into office. Under no circumstances should they vote their own beliefs when those beliefs go against the grain of their represented public, and don't you dare give me a line like, "Well the people voted the Rep in because s/he embodied the people's beliefs, so any way the Rep votes will thus be the way the people would have voted." That's crap logic. When your constituents tell you overwhelmingly to vote one way, you vote that way. Don't paint Representatives as villains because they voted their constituency. The people said no, so the answer is no. In fact, the real villains are the ones that pretend their constituency doesn't exist, that vote only their own opinions, as if they alone were in charge of how the vote should go.

Oh, but John Q. American Public, don't think you get to slide by unscathed. Today, Steven Pearlstein points the finger at you. It's YOUR fault that no solution is in hand. "The basic problem here is that too many people don't understand the seriousness of the situation. Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system." Really, Stevie? For two solid weeks, we're told that the sky is falling, that history is repeating itself 78 years and 11 months later, that we're all completely screwed, and we'd better go get in line early for the soup kitchen. We get that the problem is serious, that something BIG is going down. But I'll agree with you that we don't fully grasp the matter at hand. Why is that, do you think, Mr. Pearlstein? I posit to you that the people who get all this, who were at the root of the problem, who govern the subject, and who study it in depth, are collectively a very, very rare bird. Those of us who know finance only so far as to pay what the bill tells us to every month are collectively a much more common animal. So where do you get off taking me to task because I do not thrill at the sight of an Economics text? I pay people to be on top of that for me, just like people pay me to make sure they don't sound like blithering idiots to the client. However, those people, like yourself, who smugly sneer at silly little ignorant me, have yet to provide any comprehensive explanation of the problem in real-person words. How am I expected to "come to understand how deep the hole really is and how we're all in it together" without someone explaining to me that there is a hole, that it is this wide and this deep, and its walls are coated with this many slimy things and full of this many loose rocks? Jim Jubak, bless his heart, at least makes an attempt. And finally, thanks Steven, for closing with your holier-than-thou lament for what might have been: "In better times, the public might have put aside its reluctance in response to the strong and unified recommendation of political and business leaders. But it is a measure of how little trust remains in both Washington and Wall Street that voters are willing to risk a serious hit to their wealth and income rather than follow their lead." You're right that Washington and Wall Street have been stripping away every reason we have to trust that they know what they're doing. But just because someone takes the lead doesn't make them a good or knowledgeable leader.

I've said before that I honestly don't know how this all happened, what it all means, what's going to happen next, how it affects me and mine, or how we're going to get out of it. I don't know the details of the bill, I don't know how finance and markets and notes and bonds and all that crap works. That's for Sister, the finance major, to understand. Ha!

But here's what I think and here's what I know.

You don't put a band-aid on a gushing artery. The catastrophic failure and shaky prop-ups came to a head only last week. How in the hell did anyone think that a bill originated and concluded between then and Monday would be solid enough to win confidence from anyone? It was simply put together too fast and we all know that hasty, reactionary moves lead to nothing but more disaster down the line. Time was not taken to explore the alternatives, to consider other paths. It was as though the drafters got this idea into their heads and touted it as the only way to go, and since they're supposed to be the big experts, no one asked for anything else before putting it to the House floor. No one asked whether it was a good plan, or just A plan. This was a shell of a bill, a wad of gum in the hole in the dam, a strip of duct tape over the crack in the foundation. Rather than simply reacting, I think they need to take a step back and consider what's really happening, what's at the root, and how to prevent it from happening again. Deferral of the problem to coming generations, and faith that the future will turn it all around and make it all better, is foolish.

OMG U R SO S2PID!

PUT IT DOWN! Yes I'm talking to you. You with the phone surgically grafted to your head, or with permanently crooked thumbs because you can't go five seconds without texting.

The world has gone completely mad. I should have seen it coming. I thought it was odd and amusing when I carried on a conversation for a couple of minutes with someone at Target, only to realize that they didn't know I existed - they were talking into their earpiece. I began to worry when I learned that 10-year-olds were taking remedial English summer camps because texting had taken such a toll on their linguistic abilities. But it all came crashing down on me today when a Friend Who Shall Remain Nameless admitted to texting me while s/he was driving. But only at stoplights, so it's okay, right?

No, Friend! Not okay! That is super-dangerous, even at a stoplight. Would you read a book while driving?? It's dangerous enough using printed directions in the car, and those aren't interactive. You text only at stops right now. But how long until you text just this once while moving? And from then how long until it becomes commonplace driving activity? You already said your Significant Other does it all the time. How long until s/he's so busy texting you that s/he misses the traffic jam coming up, and plows into the line of cars at 50 mph? An engineer in L.A. was texting while operating a moving train just last week, missed a signal, and killed 25 people in the ensuing wreck; and operating a train doesn't even require the same level of visual attention and concentration that operating a car does.


In fact, be forewarned, if I find out you're again texting me while in any gear other than Park, I will immediately cease communication. This goes for everyone. I will not be part of this. If you want to communicate with me, CALL ME! I know, I know, that limits you to only talking to one person at a time, but sacrifices must be made, and your eyes will at least remain on the road.


I've grown to see texting as just one more way that technology has allowed us to not interact. And while the misanthrope in me sometimes welcomes the opportunity not to have to talk directly to someone, the rest of me knows that it's not a good direction for society and civilization as a whole.


Here's a nasty little factoid: according to an article I've seen in several places (but I'm going to quote from the one posted on slashdot.org), in a survey of 6500 travelling executives, 35% of them said they would choose their PDA over their spouse, and 87% bring their PDA into the bedroom. And back in April, Madonna thought the world should know that she and her husband, Guy Ritchie, sleep with their Blackberries under their pillows. Madonna claimed that she wanted to be able to write something down in case she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to remember it; Guy apparently takes his to bed to play games on it. First, Madonna, it's called a pen and paper - look into it. And Guy, seriously? How old are you again?

I will admit I am not 100% innocent in all this. No, Mom, I never text while driving. But I do spend the entire workday on Gmail and Gmail Chat. In my defense, I am stationary and not in command of a vehicle, and it does not interfere with my work because, frankly, I have no work to do. Eight hours is a long time to do nothing. It often feels like three weeks have passed in my 8-hour computer-bound seclusion. In my excessively bored state, having gone through the copious websites I use to entertain myself and it being blatantly unprofessional to crack open a book or bring my cross-stitch or paint my toenails, I harass my friends to talk with me.

However, there are times and places for these things. At the office, I'm on the computer anyway, in case some work happens to flow my way (it sometimes happens). Your phone, however, you have to actively choose to utilize, whatever you may be utilizing it for.

I have encountered people texting me from doctors' waiting rooms, even in doctors' exam rooms. I've noticed as people blatantly disregard the "Please turn your cell phone off!" sign in medical offices, airplanes, movie theaters; not only do they ignore those signs, but they actively use the offending instrument. Folks, I know it's boring and gray there and that the wait may drag on, but you can find something more reasonable to occupy your time, can't you?

I have watched people, on multiple occasions, initiate personal calls while we're having a meal in a restaurant. Is my razor-sharp wit and sparkling personality not enough for you? If so, invite more people, or don't have dinner with me.

I have seen people take personal calls right in the middle of small parties. To me, that's as crass as lighting up a cigarette in a roomful of non-smokers. At least take it outside!


Cellphones have become an indispensable part of modern culture. And I know that. And that's fine. I carry mine (mostly) everywhere, though I have yet to utilize 90% of the features included on even my bargain-basement model. All I'm advocating for is a little bit of realism - the point at which we step back from an action and say, "Wow, this is not smart," or "I can't believe I even thought of doing that." It's bad enough that there's no recourse against those who cross the lines of social mores and bring we fellow Kmart Shoppers and moviegoers in on the details of their best friend's sister's coworker's breakup, or enlighten us as to where and what the cat barfed. It's important to know our realistic limits, especially those that severely compromise the safety of ourselves and those around us. Reallocating eyes and at least one hand while driving should be clearly on the other side.

Register This

I have had it. I've read one too many letters to advice columnists about the evils of wedding registries, and I just want to tell everyone to can it already.

Having nearly exited my 20s, I cannot tell you how many weddings I have attended or been a part of. I could sit here and count, but I'd rather get right up on my high horse and make everyone listen to me instead.

I love registries. I love them for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, showers. I love getting a gift for my friend to celebrate their momentous occasion, whatever it may be, and knowing that my friend actually wants this thing. I love not having to stress over whether I'm giving my friend her 20th spice rack (sorry Stephanie!) because I was taking a shot in the dark. Don't you hate it when you ask someone what they'd like for their ______ (insert occasion here), and they say, "I don't know"? I certainly do, because now the onus is on me to find something fabulous.

Look, people, no event is gift-mandatory. If you don't want to give a gift, then don't give one. If you *want* to give a gift and you know exactly what the recipient would like, bully for you. But if you *want* to give a gift, and if you *can't think of anything* on your own, a gift registry is a blessing. That is the whole point of registering.

I know some people have ruined it for the rest of us and either enclose registry information in the invitation, or demand gift receipts, or get all bent out of shape if you get them something *not* on the registry. But that's a mark on your friend's character, and it's up to you after that whether you want to remain friends with those people. I have no defense for them.

But don't take it out on the well-meaning register-er (registree?). The registry is not your enemy. It is a dumb and passive tool if you want to use it. The register-er is not saying, "We've picked out exactly what we want you to buy." They're saying, "If you want to get us something but don't know what to get us, here are some ideas that we can volunteer."

So everyone, chill. Use it if you want. Don't use it if you don't. And if your friend has crossed lines of politeness, re-evaluate the friendship.

That is all.

What Is Wrong With You People?!

I read an article in the Washington Post yesterday that made me blind with fury about what it supposedly means to be a parent in this day and age.

For your consideration, I offer you Angst 101: Packing Lunch.

Go ahead and give it a read. I'll wait.

******************************

What did you think? Is your head reeling too? Do you want to punch someone, you're so fed up with parenting one-upmanship nowadays?

When I went to school, I ate cafeteria food every day. And much like camp food, despite how much I complained about it, it tasted good enough. Furthermore the nitrates and artifical coloring and high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that terrify the child-worshipping parents today managed to neither kill me, turn me into a diabetic, sap my attention span, nor drive me to homicidal mania. And when I went to day camp during the summer, my parents sent me with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a piece of fruit, a small baggie of chips, and a juice box pretty much every day until I decided that cold cut turkey and ham were acceptable. I know. They're bad parents and CPS should have stepped in and saved me.

Now apparently cold cuts and Capri Sun aren't good enough for today's children. Today's children must be sent with horizon-expanding (and tastebud constricting) things like (did you read the article?) grilled skate wing with chili sambal sauce, and quail eggs, and muffins fortified with flaxseed and brewer's yeast.

Are you out of your goddamned minds?

Ms. Becker. I could have told you from the beginning that your toddler would reject your flaxseed and brewer's yeast muffins. It doesn't matter that she's never had a muffin before. Bad tastes Bad. Simple as that. Toddler's and children-in-general's tastebuds are attuned to sweet and salty; sour appeals as they grow older, and bitter becomes acceptable when they are 18. Bland is never okay unless they are sick. But you don't realize that because you're willing to merely react to every potential threat out there instead of actually mulling it over for a second or two (these are the people who buy books called Super Baby Foods. Newsflash: making your own baby foods will not make your child better, faster, smarter, stronger. If you want to do it just 'cuz, that fine; but don't kid yourself.)

Of course, the marketers are only too happy to feed the fears that You, yes YOU!, are the source of all the world's ills. Exhibit A is a quote from Thermos Canada, as found in the aforelinked article: "Today, how you pack your children's lunch is just as important as what you put in it. Did you know that Canada is the second highest per capita producer of municipal solid waste in the world? And school lunches are a major source of waste."

Disgusting. In this day and age, when we acknowledge that the pressure to be The Perfect Everything is too high, we're only raising the bar for ourselves. Now you're a bad parent if you send your kid to public school, if you don't pack their lunch for them, if you don't take care to make sure that everything in there is organic and low carb and no fat and high fiber, and god help you if you decide that working is more important to the well-being of your family than being ready with a plate of uberhealthy flaxseed fortified muffins when they come home from school. (Note: That was not a dig at stay-at-home parents, especially those who have made that choice consciously and deliberately. But even you know the kind of people I'm talking about there.)

Let's address some of the points and questions from the article:

• How to package the lunch: PVC-free or PEVA vinyl? Or Neoprene? or Taste-Neutral Aluminum? Who cares? Everything gives you cancer now, so the lunch box will too. At least brown paper bags break down in the dirt.
• ""I remember growing up having the same peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich every day, and that's not okay with me," said Lindsey Paige Savoie of the District, who makes sure to pack a variety of foods each day for her son Caleb." What on earth was not all right about that? Now you're killing yourself to "make things better" for your son, when really it's all about your hangups? Grab the Jif and call a therapist.
• "The crumbs in the Tupperware container say it all. You know instantly whether meatloaf dumplings were a success or a bust." Easy answer. BUST.

The real kicker was when Ms. Debbie Hamilton of San Francisco, a promoter of using the Japanese bento box style of lunch packaging, enlightened us with the things she has foisted upon her kid: quail eggs, Tuscan squid, and (as I mentioned above) grilled skate wing with chili sambal sauce. Also discussed are her "leftover makeovers" such as turning curried vegetables from last night's dinner (I kid you not) into dumplings for the kid's lunch.

How much did that crap cost?! I guarantee you, Ms. Hamilton, your son does not know what skate is aside from the thing that goes on your foot (and in case you don't either, I direct you here). And I, in my nearly 30 years on this planet, have never heard of chili sambal sauce, cannot place its ethnicity, and cannot imagine why you would put anything with a sauce in a kid's lunch. Where does one even buy skate wing?? And those dumplings were dumped as soon as he got to school.

"But the beauty of bento, as she sees it, is its ability to accommodate all sorts of foods and palates and present it in a way that entices kids." What, you're an advertising rep for your kid's lunch now? And how many palates are you expecting your kid to have? You're not expanding his horizons, you're creating a picky eater. And now that we've discussed how her son eats fancier food for lunch than I have even seen on a restaurant menu, allow me to drive the nail into the coffin:

"But she draws the line at trying to turn her son's lunch into food art. "I am wary of setting the bar too high," she said. "I don't want my kid to expect a fabulous creation every day."" Yes, Debbie, we can see that.

I have to say, though I've never met her, I hate this person. Or at least the person she represents.

She's the one at every PTA meeting with the sweater tied around her shoulders, the one measuring the grass in my lawn to make sure it's no more than the allotted 2.5", and the one sending nastygrams when a shingle is dislodged from my roof during a thunderstorm. The one who sneers when she learns I send my kid to public school. Who's appalled that I order a pizza when I'm too tired to cook. That I don't take joy in packing every single minute of my child's day with activities so that I can nurture their creativity... by smothering their creativity.

To all you parents out there: If you pack quail guts garnished with pigs' feet decorated in a red bow in your kid's $100 lunch box, chances are, he is going to open it, look at it, gag, throw it away, bum $5 off his BFF and go purchase a salted pretzel with a side of cheese fries for lunch.*

(*Thanks to Friend Michelle for the quote!)

Two Hours for a TV

I mentioned that the August Birthday Bash of 2008 had come and gone in the last post, and I'll admit that a recap was notably absent. That's because there was nothing to note at this year's minigala except that AuntZ managed to convince Grandad to wear a SpongeBob party hat, which was out of character in a good way.

The Bash was held this year at my father's house, about a 50-minute one-way drive from our place. We got there on time, which is to say, about a hour before AuntZ, CousinZ, and Grandad arrived. In between fretting over where they could be (he's old, he's stubborn, he moves slowly, and he's not allowed to make that drive himself anymore - they're going to be late, it's okay), Dad took us on a tour of the house and regaled us with all of his planned renovations. Apparently he's having painters come this week, so he asked Husband if Husband would help him move the ginormous TV in the basement so that the entertainment center could be pulled away from the wall in preparation for the painters.

Sure, no problem, Husband is helpful like that. But before they got to it, Dad had another martini and got chatting, and it escaped his mind entirely. Then Aunt/Cousin/Grand showed up and we were doing the family thing, and the evening progressed as normal.

Last week I received an email from Dad. Had a great time, thanks for coming, oh and could you and Husband come back out here this weekend to help move the TV?

...Sure.

So last Saturday morning, instead of revelling in our original absence of plans, Husband and I embarked on another 50-minute drive to Dad's house to move a TV. In my family, a TV is rarely just a TV, so we anticipated a few other heavy-lifting activities on the schedule.

We arrived a little after 11, the appointed time. Dad's outside chatting with the pest control guy on his quarterly visit. And chatting. Husband and I wait on the steps. He's still chatting. We take a pass around the house, and when we've made the full circuit, He's Still Chatting. They must have been talking for the better part of 15 minutes while Husband and I stood around. Whatever. So Pest Man leaves and we go inside. I put down my purse and head to the bathroom, saying I'll join them downstairs in just a minute.

By the time I get downstairs, ready to help, the TV has been moved. And that's all we're doing. Husband and I kind of stare at each other. Seriously? We're not moving the rest of the bookshelf? No, he hasn't boxed up his movies yet. We're not moving the credenza? No, he hasn't moved the stuff out of it yet, and he can take care of that. So really, with today's gas prices, you asked us to make a 50-minute drive... to literally just move a TV? To move a TV five feet from its original location? Something you could have slipped the painters $10 to do themselves? It's not an unreasonably heavy piece - I've helped him move it before.

He asked if we wanted to stay for lunch but, um, no. In hindsight, we should have had him take us out to Fireworks - at least we would have been compensated with a free meal.

Wet Floor

It is a little-known, but well-evidenced, fact that I live next to the crappiest Giant in the county. The produce is always mostly rotted or not even remotely ripe, the shelves are rarely stocked, the deli workers are surly, and the fish section is completely gone. However, the geniuses reached a new low last weekend.

I was making a mad dash last Saturday to get the makings of the cake I had to bake for this year's Annual August Birthday Bash (you'll remember last year's, I'm sure). I hadn't showered, but had merely thrown on enough clothing so as to not terrify small children and/or lose time by being thrown in the clink for indecent exposure. In short, a ratty tee, handy jeans, and my cheapo flip-flops. I'm not looking my best, but I'm going to dash in and out and attract no attention.

I'm burning through the produce section when I see a Wet Floor sign in my path. Well I'm not going to go halfway across the store to avoid a patch that may or may not actually be wet (those signs tend to stay out long after the floor is dry, or maybe that was just a convenient place to stash the sign so they didn't have to walk all the way back to the storage room), but I do take care to tread a little more carefully.

All for naught, as it seems. The next thing I know, I'm skating across linoleum, sliding down the sign, and landing heavily on my hip. (My self-defense teacher would have been proud of the landing at least.) Fear not, Rosie Fans, I received only scratches and a couple of ugly bruises, nothing serious. Shaken but not stirred, I get up, dust myself off, collect the scattered shards of my dignity, and continue on, brushing off the entourage of stockers who are now asking me in every breath, "Are you OK? Are you sure?," though until this point, they were passively stocking squashed tomatoes or rock-hard peaches or whatever.

First, my little stocker people, get the manager and have them have me sign a waiver so I won't sue your asses.

Next, this could all have been avoided. I recall clearly from my food service days that the Wet Floor sign is not an idle warning. It does not absolve the sign placer of liability when a person breaks into impromptu Ice Capades. Rather than a mere CYA or Caveat Emptor notification, its purpose is to alert passersby to the presence of a slippery substance in their path WHILE YOU ARE IN THE BACK, GETTING THE MOP OR PAPER TOWELS TO REMOVE THE LIQUID ON SAID FLOOR. Instead of getting such a drying material, you just put out the sign and proceeded to go about your business. Responsible of you.

I will say, however, that it was with amusement as I walked away that I noted the stockers now scurrying to find some rags to put down.

Heartbreak

BERNIE MAC DIED! OF PNEUMONIA! AT AGE 50! WHO DIES OF PNEUMONIA THESE DAYS!?

Actually a fair number of people, it seems, because just over a month ago, my great uncle Marty (Mom's father's brother) passed away from pneumonia. Marty was like a second (third?) grandfather to me. I didn't write a tribute to him in here, like I did for my grandmother in February, largely because so much was going on in my life at the time. Also, whereas I saw Grandma's deterioration for a long time and was more prepared for it, Marty's death was out of the blue - he fell, and while the fall didn't hurt him physically, surprise!, he was given maybe a week to live because the undiagnosed pneumonia had progressed so far.

Marty was in his 80s, and a lifelong smoker, which is a normal demographic for pneumonia to be a real concern. It was sudden, and painful, but at least it was... I don't know... not unusual. But seriously, how does a 50-year old man die of pneumonia in this day and age? I had pneumonia when I was 3, and while all I remember of it was a whirl of people and lights in the emergency room, I understand that it's not comfortable. So how did it go undiagnosed in an otherwise healthy 50-year old?!

(Rosie's Update 08/11: Apparently Bernie Mac had been suffering from a tissue inflammation disease called sarcoidosis since 1983, and that it manifested primarily in his lungs. His publicist said the pneumonia was unrelated to the sarcoidosis, but when you've had problems with your lungs for 25 years, you probably tend to assume that whatever doesn't feel right with them is related to that, and that you know how to deal with it. Until it's too late. Sigh.)

I adored Bernie Mac. He was half the reason I kept watching the Ocean's # series, despite the waste of pixels that was the second one. The world seems a little less funny without him in it.

Weird

I saw an Asian man in a plastic cowboy hat walking down Chain Bridge Road this morning.

I Don't Miss You

In my previous post, I listed The Good, the people at Old Company whom I miss and who actually made working there at least remotely tolerable. Here, I introduce you to The Bad (those who meant well, but usually bungled, making my time more difficult), and The Ugly (those who made my life plain miserable.)

THE BAD

BOSSMAN

BossMan was a genuinely nice guy, but his managerial skills left a fair bit to be desired. He seemed distinctly detached from his employees, and never seemed to really grasp the depth of the mistakes or the transgressions they were making. He didn’t stay there late with us when the cards were down (he’d be accessible via his Crackberry until all hours, but it’s a different feeling when you’re chained to your desk until 3 in the morning.) He was a man of contradictions: he said he couldn’t stand “Yes-men,” but missed it when his engineers would do just that; he said he didn’t care about people’s feelings and that he’d fire people in an instant, yet he kept entirely too many of them long after their expiration date (and ironically, people who should have been kept on frequently went to the chopping block); he sort of floated along in a haze no matter how many problems Production brought to his attention, but rather than nip those problems in the bud at the onset and steer the Failboat back on course, he would wait until the problem became a project-threatening crisis and then he would yell at people for a while.

Ah, the yelling, the hallmark of our daily 9 a.m. stand-up meetings (no, seriously, sitting down was verboten because the meeting was going to be quick… or, more accurately, an hour long…) Every single day, it seemed, BossMan would bring fire and brimstone to the table. The trouble with yelling at the general population every day is that after a while, it just becomes an annoying buzz. He never yelled at Production – we never gave him reason – but the engineers were fair game. If you’re doing your job as a manager, there should be no need to yell at your employees.

When he wasn’t yelling, he was offering spotty direction. The big winner, the one that killed even the last shreds of my faith in his judgment, actually came to light in my last week. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that we had recalled the last submittal (the one that I killed myself to get out on time, and that I had set as the point when I could leave in good conscience), and one of the designers was adding client-required text to his section of the design report. Unfortunately, the new text increased the page count for his section (the first in the document), which would have caused us to repaginate and reprint the entire 200+ page report because the page numbering format was Page X of Y, and if this section increased in size, “Y” would also increase, meaning that every page would have to be altered. BossMan refused to reprint the whole thing based on cost, but we had to keep the page numbering static, and the new text was critical. BossMan’s solution: number the first few pages in the section 13A, 13B, 14A, and 14B, etc., until we were back on track to end at the original page 26. My professionalism forbade that (though I think I would have paid money to see Commander’s reaction to that suggestion), and I instead altered the font size just enough to retain the original pagination. But seriously. Page 13A?? You would be willing to submit that to the client?

At his core, BossMan was a truly nice person. Not nice enough to make up for the weak management, which is why he’s found in The Bad, but certainly too good to fall into The Ugly.

FLANDERS

Everyone knows Ned Flanders, the ever-chipper, uber-religious nemesis of Homer Simpson. That image you have in your mind is the perfect equivalent of one of our architects.

Flanders would take the time to make the rounds of the office every morning to say Hi to everyone. Flanders brought back gifts from visits to the client site. Flanders never cursed, never yelled, never had a bad thing to say about anybody. But Flanders was a straight-up buffoon.

The man could never meet a deadline, could never prioritize the work to be done, rarely finished one task before being distracted by another, was always rushing but producing little, could not get work out of his underlings, and was too soft-hearted to recommend firing those on his team who needed it. I grew to hate those morning rounds because I knew how much time that took up in a day and it was that much time he wasn’t spending on his work, which would be unconscionably late and often unfinished. He became an office joke because of it. He was quick to give me status updates on things he hadn’t provided me yet, and quicker still to say “I’m sorry” for his missed deadlines – to the point that the words "I'm sorry" are empty to me now, and they only inflamed me further. Don’t update me, don’t apologize – you’re wasting time that you could be spending on your work! He also regularly offered to buy the Production staff meals as a way to make up to us that we were there after hours, on weekends, at 2 a.m., working on things he’d given us only an hour before, and already very late. Because that will make up for it. You turned this in extremely late, but you bought us pizza, so it all washes. I don’t think anyone in the entire organization made me as regularly furious and frustrated as Flanders did.

But in the end, he always meant well, which is why he only rates The Bad instead of The Ugly.

LURCH

Why do we call him Lurch? He was tall, gangly, never seemed to have an expression or a reaction to anything, and never seemed to be rooted in the present.

Lurch used to be the lead architect. But he was quickly found out as incompetent, and was demoted. That should say something right there. Lurch should have been fired long ago, but as fate would have it, he became very sick and ended up on disability for a long while. He recovered from his illness substantially enough to return to work in May, much to the chagrin of most of the office. Don’t misunderstand – we were glad he was recovered and felt well enough to return to work. We were just sorry he returned to work. Lurch was the subject the only time I ever heard Flanders speak less than saintly about anyone: we were closing in on a submittal and client comment response, and Flanders was bordering on nervous breakdown (again). I was there late as well, and was making chitchat in the kitchenette with Flanders, when I heard him complain that Lurch wasn’t doing anything; that every time he gave Lurch a client comment to respond to, Lurch would sit at the design table and flip through the drawings again and again, until Flanders came back to realize that Lurch had neither done the response, nor even made a single note toward that end, so Flanders had to do that too. Basically, Lurch was sitting dumbly at the design table, taking up space and costing money. This all may sound callous of me. Rosie, how can you say such a thing about the recovering ill? But here’s how I see it: if the recovering ill are well enough to return to work, they need to be well enough to do work. There’s a certain amount of slack to be cut for them while they get back up to speed, but I have no respect for sitting still and making absolutely no progress while everyone else races around to meet deadlines.

He narrowly misses The Ugly because a) I worked with him very little, and b) he was out of the office for over 6 months, so he didn’t have enough chances to piss me off.

THE UGLY

CRUNCHY

Crunchy, an electrical engineer, seemed innocuous at first, but he quickly became one of the absolute worst people with whom I’ve ever worked. I named him Crunchy because he was very Granola: shopped exclusively at Whole Foods, biked to work, ingested nothing impure, and made sure everyone knew it and knew what was wrong with what THEY were doing. I heard him harass Awesome Admin 1 regularly as to the use of high-fructose corn syrup in this food item or that. Once when I was making a mid-day Target run, I good-naturedly asked him if he needed me to pick him up anything (I usually asked the people in my proximity). He gladly accepted, asking me to pick him up sugar-free, caffeine-free herbal cough drops. Do what now? (Turned out he wanted Ricola.)

The problem with Crunchy was that he hadn’t matured emotionally past the age of 8. Whiny, elitist, chauvinistic, self-righteous, and quick to anger, are all terms I would use to describe him. He would interrupt you in a heartbeat, but god help you if you returned the favor. His work was most important, far more important than yours, and if CADD was too busy with other work to do Crunchy’s drawings in the timeframe that Crunchy deemed acceptable, BossMan would often hear about it. He was never wrong. Never. And he would have screaming fights with you over the (open area!) design table if you thought otherwise. I distinctly remember one such fight with one of his underlings (who was as stubborn and as much of a bully as Crunchy was) back in August, in which Underling stormed off while Crunchy was talking and Crunchy demanded Underling’s badge on the spot, and in which the yelling got to be so overwhelming for Crunchy that he actually smacked the design table and screamed like a little boy having a temper tantrum.

I recall back in the spring when Awesome Admin 1 was still with us, and he asked her to fax something for him. Awesome Admin 1 was very busy, working furiously on the Specs for the approaching deadline. Crunchy got increasingly angry at her repeated refusals, and ended up spitting, “Fine, I’ll do it myself!” He spent probably more than five minutes trying to induce her to do it for him; it would have taken him less than two to walk over and do it himself in the first place.

I recall in May, when Crunchy was about to go on a two-week absence, he asked me to water his plants for him. It seemed a simple favor, so I said sure, no problem; how often should they be watered? He shrugged off the question as silly: “Oh just water them when you water everyone else’s plants.” In hindsight, I deeply truly wish I had simply said, “Okay, I’ll do that,” and let the damned things die. Instead, I ‘fessed up that I don’t water anyone’s plants, and he seemed annoyed at the inconvenience of having to offer a schedule.

I recall another time in late June. Note that, in preparation for this final submittal, I had printed out copies of everyone’s design reports for them to review, verify, and revise as necessary. Because Crunchy was only sporadically in the office anymore, I gave the reports for the electrical group to Crunchy’s second-in-command and let Crunchy know via email. Well, now it’s late June, the date BossMan declared as Pencils Down is tomorrow, and Crunchy has decided to start looking over his design reports. He asks me to print him copies of them. I dislike repeating work, especially if that work involves the wasting of paper, so I told him, “I printed all of your design reports and gave them to Second about a month ago, remember?” He huffs up, turns on his heel, and storms away, tossing poutily over his shoulder, “A month ago is like an ETERNITY now, Rosie!” Feel free to laugh. I did.

WEASEL

*Update 07/30/2008: I stand corrected. Lest anyone draw parallels between this individual and a certain fictional heroic mongoose, I have changed this person’s pseudonym from Rikki Tiki Tavi to Weasel. However, I hold that I cannot be held responsible for not knowing my Kipling, when I never actually read Kipling.*

Named for the creature like which he looked and behaved, this civil engineer was originally listed under merely The Bad, but the more I wrote, the more I remembered, and decided to reassign him.

Weasel was a junior civil engineer. But he wasn’t some 20-something out of college, paying his proverbial dues. He was mid-30s, and a three-time failure of the Professional Engineer (PE) exam. Apparently, fourth time was the charm (I don’t even know if they let you take the driving test four times!), because he FINALLY got his license in June. However, license in hand, he quit the same week I did. As I understand it, it was because BossMan refused to then give him the lead civil engineer spot.

Nor was this unfounded refusal. Weasel’s work was never complete. He’d say he was done, but the next day there he was, back at the design table, correcting something he’d forgotten about, after which he would say that he was *now* done. This sequence would repeat until the submittal went to print, and inevitably there would still be holes in his work big enough to drive a truck through. In those stand-up meetings, if BossMan was offering tips for or criticism of the group as a whole, Weasel was the only one to jump in and insist that whatever it was hadn’t been his fault because Thisperson hadn’t done such, and Thatperson never gave him such… Always very defensive and ready to redirect blame. A leader owns up to his misdoings, accepts that something could use adjustment, and looks for ways to ensure that such a problem doesn’t happen again. No, Weasel, you are no one’s leader.

As if the lack of professionalism wasn't bad enough, Weasel earned a reputation as a Taker. Anytime anything was provided free, he would take it. And take. And take, and take, and take. The concept of sharing or fairness seemed to elude him. CADDMan kept a pretzel barrel full of snacks for the CADDCrew - granola bars, single serve baggies of chips; Weasel would steal them every day, and never offered anything back. Awesome Admin 3 and I kept candy bowls at our desks to foster goodwill (and okay, to satisfy chocolate cravings); Weasel always had his hands in them. If a picnic or potluck were thrown, you could expect Weasel to whip out Tupperware and pack some (read: three days' worth) to take home with him. If there was leftover food from a meeting, Weasel would be on his second plateful by the time you got to the kitchen. Our office tried to institute something called Friday Treats, administered by Awesome Admin 2, in which two people on a rotating list would provide treats (bagels, doughnuts, cookies, etc) every Friday; Weasel wasn't on the list, but he was always at the Treats table. And the crowning glory: Awesome Admin 3 was gathering table items for a holiday potluck and had set out a cheap dollar-store white lacey tablecloth. When she looked for it the next day to prepare the table, the tablecloth was gone. She looked everywhere, asked everyone, sent out an email... and finally found it. Weasel had assumed that, since it was left out in the open, it was free for the taking. We never could figure out what he planned to do with it.

REDNECK

You remember Redneck. I wrote him an open letter last June. This is the same guy who could not control his bodily functions behind the invisible soundproof barrier that was the threshold to his open office. But I’ll give a light shading to him here, just for fun.

Redneck was Weasel's supervisor; the main point that was in Weasel’s favor for The Bad label rather than The Ugly was that Redneck made Weasel so much better by comparison.

Redneck was from Texas, and wanted everyone to know. It was hard to miss, between the accent, the expressions, the manners, and the attitude.

I distinctly remember an argument he tried to have with Awesome Admin 1 over something that was in fact his responsibility to do, but he was simply too lazy and too poor a time-manager to do it himself. Awesome Admin 1 steadfastly refused to do it – she had enough of her own work to do, and it was his responsibility. Redneck actually pulled out this chestnut (paraphrasing): Let’s compare what it would cost per hour for him to do it, to what it would cost per hour for her to do it, and see which of these scenarios cost the company less money. Say it with me: Asshole. Classless, elitist son of a bitch.

This is also the same guy that dragged the August design report so late that I ended up putting in 139 hours in two weeks, and caused the print shop to stay operational 24-hours a day for four straight days in order to meet the deadlines we imposed. The same guy that, when I demanded he stop working on a document because it was already past due and he was just going to have to deal with unfinished work, abjectly refused and got so ugly about it that Awesome Admin 3 had to get me out of the office before I did something I might regret.

KOMRAD

Old Company tended to have a revolving door when it came to staffing. After every submittal, BossMan would be given an edict to cut the fat, and about a quarter to a third of the staff would be sloughed off. Which would be followed shortly by a hiring frenzy when it was made plain that the remaining employees couldn’t handle all the work on their own. I know, I know.

Anyway, not wanting to be part of the blood-letting, our lead structural engineer jumped ship back in January, leaving a junior engineer all alone to handle, well, a metric ton of work that he was neither prepared nor trained for. He did beautifully, considering: his work was always in on time, succinct, and complete. But it came to light in May that he was afraid they were going to make him stamp the drawings, and since he was only a junior engineer, he didn’t want that much pressure. Nevermind that, as a junior engineer, he didn’t have a stamp with which to stamp the drawings, nor could he be listed as the engineer of record because he lacked a PE certification. So maybe that was just an excuse and he didn’t want to tell BossMan that it was simply an awful working environment. Whatever.

In June, we got a new structural engineer, a real live PE. I call him Komrad because he was Russian and it’s as good a nickname as any other (Boris wouldn’t work – there was a Boris already in the company). BossMan set him to answering client comments based on the existing drawings and calcs, and asked Komrad to alert him (BossMan) to any inconsistencies or problems. Everything’s going smoothly, and Komrad has his new calcs for the client comments in on time, and we – a first! – get a submittal out at the 4 p.m. pick-up time! (Normally Commander, Colonel, CADD, and I were there at 8 p.m., frantically trying to package these things up and get them to the shipper’s airport location.) We all breathe a sigh of relief. Until the next morning, when BossMan hands me a list of tracking numbers and tells me to fax the shipper and request the halt and return of all the packages we sent out the day before. It seems Komrad had not touched or even reviewed any material that he himself had not originated, and the comments could not be answered appropriately. Commander had realized this last night as he was trying to finish up the client comment spreadsheet and package it up for shipment. Gossip in the office held that Komrad was so obstinate and such a jerk about it all that Commander and Colonel had both been induced to yelling – yes, Commander CAN yell – and demanded BossMan find a new structural engineer because this guy was simply intolerable.

So it is because of Komrad, and certainly a few others but originally because of Komrad, that I was still in the office at 5:30 p.m. on my last day with Old Company, trying frantically to reprint the new material Komrad had been convinced to provide. I nearly had a nervous breakdown because there was no way I could get it all done, and I gave a very shoddy crash-course to Colonel on everything that was left as he and I were both trying to flee the office.

So I would like to thank you, Komrad, for making my last few days at Old Company pure and utter misery.

I Miss You

In my solitude (officemate hasn’t materialized as yet), my mind drifts to the people who until recently surrounded me almost every day for 18 months. And I feel a little sad that you all, my lovely readers, didn’t get to play Fly-On-The-Wall and meet these people. Therefore, I would like to offer for your entertainment, a series of character sketches of the more colorful individuals with whom I used to work. Names have been changed to hide the guilty, to mask the innocent,… and to avoid any libel suits.

I begin with the Good: an overview of the people I left at Old Company only regretfully. In truth, my heart and gut still twist a little at having abandoned them. In spite of all the badness to be found there, Old Company was often a fun place to work, and it was largely because of the efforts of these people.

I’ll save the, um… The Rest… for another post.

CADDMAN AND THE CADDCREW

Note: I’ve seen CADD spelled with one D and with two. Acronymfinder.com agrees that both are acceptable. But I always go with two: first, because CADD with two Ds stands for Computer-Aided Drafting and Design, and drafting is important in the work we were doing; and second, to differentiate it from the term “cad,” which according to Dictionary.com is “an ill-bred man, esp. one who behaves in a dishonorable or irresponsible way toward women,” and all of CADD were incomparable gentlemen.

CADDMan and the CADDCrew were my fellow long-suffering Production staffers; they dealt with the drawings whereas I dealt with the documents. When I left, there were just four of them; the others had either run for the hills, or been subject to the callous layoffs that seemed to follow every submittal.

CADDMan gets the superhero name because he gave off a superhero vibe. Larger than life, he was a competitive weight lifter in his spare time, and he loved nothing better at the office than hassling the engineers. He’d insult them right to their faces, and they were never sure whether he was serious or joking, because he’d always follow it up with a big laugh. Most of them wrote it off as joking. Truth is, he was pretty much always serious.

The CADDCrew were my buddies, and we’d snipe about the engineers if we heard any of them make a particularly obnoxious comment or demand, or if they got abnormally out of line. They worked as many or more late nights than I did. What the engineers failed to internalize, while they often made themselves out to be holier-than-thou to us poor pathetic non-engineers, was that the CADDCrew could do most of what the engineers could do: one had earned a degree in mechanical engineering, another one in electrical engineering, and the third had drawn so many architectural drafts that he could probably design a building on his own. However, being the class acts that they were, the CADDCrew never saw fit to wave these facts in the faces of the engineers. Besides, it was more fun to watch CADDMan surreptitiously take the gauntlet to the ingrates.

AWESOME ADMINS 1, 2, and 3

I number these ladies only in the order in which I met them, but let me add that “Administrative Assistant” is a joke of a title compared to what all they did for us. While some of the engineers got some kind of sadistic pleasure in lording their titles, salaries, education, what have you, over them, the reality is that if the Admins all up and walked out, the place would instantly fall to pieces.

Awesome Admin 1 was present at my interview and became my first close friend in the office. We shared a cube wall, and she worked the specification documents while I worked the design reports. We kept each other sane, and she rescued me from more than one corner into which I had painted myself. We both realized that this was a sinking ship about the same time, but she got out first. We still talk most days over IM, but it was a much lonelier place without her there. Not to mention a lot (LOT!) more work! Granted this post is supposed to be about the people I left behind at Old Company, but I just can't talk about Old Company without including her.

Awesome Admin 2 played HR rep on my first day – lots of forms, introduced me around… she kind of became Mom At The Office for some of us, always ready with support and a smile no matter how rotten a day or how rotten the treatment. Her most shining moment, I think, was when she introduced our latest Structural engineer around the office, and she instructed him to be nice to me because it be bad for him if I got angry. And he did!

Awesome Admin 3: I was first attracted by the lure of the shiny candy bowl stationed outside her cube; in the longer run, she was a good friend with a good heart and entirely too generous a spirit. She didn’t really work in our group, but she may as well have, as much as we depended on her to bail us out of a bind. There was the evening in May when she and I spent hours installing spiral spines on deliverable materials because someone didn’t leave enough time to have them professionally done; there was every single submittal when she graciously stopped what she was working on to help me make CD covers and labels because lord knows I couldn’t figure out the printers myself; and there was the scary moment last August when she whisked me out of the office because I was thisclose to losing my temper with a certain Redneck.

COLONEL

Colonel was retired Army, and to be honest, I was never sure where I stood with him until the very end. His speech pattern and tone left a person unsure whether he was good-naturedly teasing them, or whether he was genuinely displeased. Colonel was a techie wizard and was always ready to dig up a program or whip up a macro to help with even the smallest details, and I didn’t always use them, so he’d come by and rib me for missing one typo rather than using the Find/Replace tool (I know I’m hypersensitive, but I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was teasing, or considered me incompetent). That may have sounded like I thought he was a jerk, but much to the contrary, Colonel was a man whose respect you wanted. When word of my notice got around, he came down to inform me that he didn’t recall giving me permission to leave – which was when I finally got it that he thought well of me. I still knew I had to go, but it was nice to know I’d be missed. Colonel was a good friend to me, and bears all my sympathy for having so much stuff dumped on him at the last second there.

COMMANDER

Last, but certainly never least, we have Commander. Commander was retired Navy, and whereas I wasn’t sure in the beginning whether Colonel thought I was incompetent, I knew Commander thought so. I could see it the first time we talked design reports. That’s okay. I like low expectations. It only made the victory that much more impressive when I knocked it out of the park, and it was that much more valuable when I earned his respect. (To be fair, Awesome Admin 1 informed me that my predecessor had set the bar pretty far down.) Commander oversaw the design report before I got there (okay, after I got there too, but he was glad to hand off the greater part of it) and, unlike the engineers, Commander could write – he’d done a fair amount of it for senior officers while in the Navy so he developed a very strong hand. Commander never yelled. He didn’t need to. But if his voice got tight and clipped, and his speech pattern slowed, you were wise to pay attention and watch yourself. A little grovelling probably wouldn't hurt at that point. He commanded respect like few I’ve ever seen in my career. Because of all of this, over the next year and a half, Commander ended up becoming something of a mentor to me. I cannot measure the amount I learned from him, including the ingraining of the difference between “shall” and “will” in government documents. In all honesty, if he’d been running the project from the start, I have a feeling I’d still be there, as might some other valuable individuals. Commander, in the immortal words of Dorothy to the Scarecrow, I think I’ll miss you most of all.

(Next post: The Bad, and The Ugly…)