Prairie Landing
Today at work it was definitely one of the overwhelming days. I seriously doubted my own competence and it crossed my mind that I might not make it past my 3-month review. But I figure it'll get better.
On the L, this guy asked me, "Hey, guess what I just bought." Since I couldn't guess, he pulled out the Scorpions box set, which he had spent his dinner break from work taking the train downtown for. I spent the rest of the ride hearing about all the Scorpions shows he'd been to. He also relived their first live album ("In track 10 there's this AMAZING drum solo. Just when you think it can't get any better, the vocals kick in!").
There are only two acceptable activities on the train: reading and looking out the window. Except if it's really crowded, in which case elevator etiquette prevails and you have to find an unoccupied spot to gaze at. Anyone who is not engaged in these activities makes me uneasy. There was a girl the other day who ate Chee-Tos and stared at me -- not really at me, but into space that I happened to occupy. Once I decided she was probably high, it stopped bothering me.
An L-time pastime I've adopted is figuring out the unique way in which I dislike the people who get off at each stop. Now, I don't hate everyone on the train. I'm not that much of a grouch. But I do notice all the people who annoy me and, for obvious reasons, where they get on and off.
For example:
Fullerton - Loud cell-phone talkers. Frantically reading students who realize it's their stop long after I do and practically knock me over in their haste to get off.
Belmont - People wearing fluorescent fishnet clothing and scowls.
Lammons would call them gravers, as in goth-ravers. Chee-To girl. People who sit in the doorway. (Unlike New York, the trains have no steps to sit on, so you have to really
want to sit in the door.)
Addison - Clean-cut young professionals like my sister. Baseball fans. I don't mind the Addison people, but I notice them because it's my stop.
Colliculus and I went out for our anniversary dinner to a very nice place where I ate tasty chicken with cornbread-andouille sausage. It rocked. The only irritation was a toddler who screamed through our meal. S/he was sitting all the way across the dining room, but it was still loud as all get-out. About every 5 or 10 minutes one of the parents would take the kid outside for a minute or two, then return to continue our punishment.
A minor thing overall, but C. and I got into a debate about what you're supposed to do in this situation. He suggested that we complain to the waitress, but I couldn't think of what she was going to do about it. In a movie theater I'm all about complaining to the staff -- OK, so I waited through 45 minutes of Lord of the Rings part 3 -- 45 tortured minutes during which other patrons actually hollered "TAKE THE KID OUT!" -- but in restaurants I'm not sure. I did some web searches and there are plenty of etiquette columns devoted to what parents should and shouldn't do. But I already knew that and so did everyone else. The question is what I, the victim, should do, and nobody addresses that. I gave the parents some dirty looks but they were too far away and occupied to notice.
***
WARNING: This story is totally gross
Today I met with my coworker and noticed his absolutely stunning view. All the offices have amazing views, but his has a really lucky angle -- Lake Michigan's shoreline, Millennium Park with the new Frank Gehry building, skyscrapers and gardens and stuff. While I was talking to him and half-looking out the window, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a big, ugly spider hauling its fat ass up a thread. I was like, "Hey John, do you know you've got a spider in your office?" He said, "Oh yeah, but they're outside not inside." Now I looked more closely. The entire window is veiled with a spiderweb occupied by at least 6 big, disgusting spiders and a whole lot of dejuiced bug debris. I said, "That's really, really gross." He observed, "You know, one time I had a giant moth sitting on my window. The biggest moth I've ever seen. Who knew they could fly up this high?" I guess the moth's not the only thing, if there's enough prey to keep all those spiders fat and happy all the way up on the 63rd floor, smack in the path of all that prairie-coast wind. Who knew indeed?
***
Everyone asks me how my job is going. That always seems like too ambitious (and too tedious) a question to answer fully, so I'll just say this: I don't really know yet. I think it's fine. It's definitely different from my old job, which was part of what I was looking for. But after a week and a half it still flip-flops between boring and overwhelming, as new jobs often do, so I'll let you know later on.
More salient facts about my job
Things I get for free at work:
Green Mountain Coffee (the kind where you get an individual serving size in your choice of 16 flavors)
Starbucks coffee
"Pop" from the pop machine - I am learning how to refill CO2 cartridges
Hot chocolate
Tazo tea in a dozen or so flavors
Nestle Quik Milk - although the milk machine has a big sign on it that advises people to "MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATE ON YOUR MILK."
Things that are really cheap at work:
Manicures, pedicures, massages, and baked goods and candy from the snack cart that comes by twice a week.
Things that are hella-hard to get for free at work:
Office supplies. Even ones that you plan to use for actual work purposes.
Things that are force-fed to us at work because the company or industry association is a client:
Milk from the milk machine
UPS overnight services
Axe cologne
Bush's Baked Beans
Things that are not any easier to get even though the company is a client:
Antidepressants
Botox
Pretty much every sexual dysfunction drug on the market. I never knew there were so
many.
Complete list of clothing items that are not considered "business casual":
Jeans
Halter tops
Tube tops
Logo t-shirts
Return to Wage Slavery
We got back from the beach on Sunday at 9 p.m. I started my new job Monday at 9 a.m. So in addition to re-learning working-stiff time management skills, I've also had to cope with a howling, emotionally starved cat. I had forgotten how wardrobe management is practically a part-time job in and of itself, what with all that ironing, dry cleaning, figuring out what the hell to wear, and that whole "what does business casual mean here? on my first day? when it's hot? when it's cold, but still summer?" And today, "I'm really glad about that polio vaccine, because it means I won't die from walking home barefoot in the rain after my sandals turned into Slip-N-Slide-wear."
It reminded me of that Strawberry Alarm Clock song, "Barefoot in Baltimore." SAC is such a treasure trove of ridiculous lyrics. "Sit with the guru/Sit with the guru/Meditation, woooo!/High, high where eagles fly . . . " Tee-hee!
It's very late and I still have many things to do before bed, so I don't know when I'll have a chance to blog about the beach and my job. I will say that I work in the the 3rd tallest building in America, the Aon Building. The building managers are very proud of this fact and give everyone a fact sheet about it. (I refrained from asking whether they bothered with it before 9-11.) Also, I'm working for two enormous drug companies. I won't tease Google by naming them, but one is based in North Carolina and the other in a suburb north of here, and that's more than enough to go on.
Also, here is some
news from Hotel and Motel Management featuring one now-famous resident of Providence. I mean, Cranston.
I probably won't be blogging for a while since we're leaving tomorrow for the beach (happy happy joy joy). Back 7/18.
Oh, and I should clarify my last post -- I brought up that article solely to mock it.
What's wrong with kids today
The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy has an
article entitled, "Lessons in the Teaching of Vocabulary from September 11 and Harry Potter." It asks why it is that adults can never pronounce or remember Pashtun and other foreign names, but kids can easily remember new words like Slytherin and sneakoscope. One of the article's 3 conclusions is this: "Speakers are more likely to learn new words when they are feeling playfully engaged rather than when they are feeling threatened and worried."
No wonder nobody knows how to teach reading.
Why I need a vacation in tropical southern Delaware
1. It is 65 degrees and overcast here.
2. I just got a great radio interview opportunity for a client. The show airs live on Friday afternoons. The client says he is available on Friday afternoons "only when it rains" due to the demands of his golf schedule.
3. Because it will be WARM and SUNNY and involve extensive GRILLING and BEER. Oh happiness!!
The very morning after I get back I start my new job and I am trying unsuccessfully not to obsess about that.
I learned today that your chances of dying in a streetcar accident are 1 in 1,230,975, courtesy of the National Safety Council's website's
Odds of Dying feature.
And by the way, does anyone know what the hell is wrong with Blogger this week? For days I've been having trouble loading the pages.
In which we discover some excellent new bars
and the filthiest
bar bathroom in Chicagoland.
Mad Dog and Fish came to visit from the City of Liberated Cheese Steaks this weekend. Mad Dog is moving here in the fall to go to theater grad school, so we looked at apartments and neighborhoods. I had no idea Ravenswood was so cheap -- we saw one place that was $925 for a 2 BR, which would be a good deal even in Baltimore. We also got rained on like we were in
Bangladesh.
Friday we paid a visit to the
L&L Tavern, where at least half of all the exposed skin was tattooed and '80s punk hairstyles and leather jackets were back in style. (One reviewer at the above link describes the L & L: "Full of punk rockers and ugly girls. I will never go back again.")
The next night we checked out the
Hop Leaf, which hosted a much tamer crowd. Many of Colliculus's learned colleagues came out.
I didn't invite my sister because she melts if you take her north of the Sheridan stop on the El. But we went to see fireworks with her and her gang and will be grilling with them tonight.
More innovations on clowning:
www.clowns4christ.com
Thanks, Ianqui and Tim, for the congrats. Yes, this is the job where I might have to go to NYC regularly. And Europe. But it depends on which accounts they put me on.
I did finally get a call from them and the offer was pretty good. Very corporate, though, and nothing like my other experiences -- when I asked about the details as an opening to negotiation, the HR person simply said, "That's all in the offer packet we'll messenger to you on Tuesday." So I don't know if that means they're not in the habit of negotiating, or if that's some kind of technique recruiters use to avoid it, or what. (As usual, my interest was in haggling over vacation time, not salary.) Also, all new hires start on Monday so should she schedule me for the 12th or the 19th?
Crazy!
My freelance "clients" at my former agency are taking it OK. It's kind of painful because I like them a lot and it's like quitting a second time. But you know, business is business.
Gonna be a real productive Friday
The phone rang at 7 a.m. -- landline and cell -- and I didn't answer because I was like, "Who the hell calls this early?" I mean, even East Coast types don't call that early, even if they forget about the time difference. And working from home, I've trained myself not to go for the phone if I'm not completely awake.
Turns out it was the agency I've been interviewing with, offering me a job! I called her back around 8:30 when I was awake enough to negotiate but got VM. Damn early bird Midwesterners.
