P-P-Poker Face at the Workplace

Riding the escalator
with Gandalf the Grey -
just an average occurrence
on a normal workday?

I think, "Isn't he fictional,
pals with Frodo and Sam?
So why am I lucky enough
to see this great man?"

Later on that day
I take a short break,
walk myself to the restroom
and for goodness' sake,

I spy an older man in a onesie,
a member of the cleaning crew,
sporting the world's greatest mullet,
a most surprising corporate hairdo.

And on my way home that day
as I'm walking out the door
a man whooshes past me
and I think, "When it rains it must pour."

For he too had long hair -
How much more can I bear?
He had a dreadlocked ponytail
and I couldn't help but stare.

Maybe it's not so weird after all,
and I should try to keep a straight face,
when I encounter men with long hair
at the workplace.

The Time That Greta Almost Swept Me Away

It's a pretty quiet work day. I take a late lunch, eating quietly at my desk while I discreetly peruse my personal email. I finish up my can of iced tea, and toss it into the trash can a couple of feet away from my desk. I close my personal email and open up my work inbox to read the latest message to come in. As I am reading, Greta comes by with a dustpan and broom. She stands to my right and waits for me to acknowledge her. I do the opposite and pretend she's not even there.

"Please," she says. "To dust." And she gestures for me to get up from my desk.

I look directly at her, mutter "Jesus Christ" under my breath, and roll my chair backwards to give her room.

Greta proceeds to "sweep" the carpeting around my desk. She spends a long time making sure each fleck of dust and each little crumb gets caught in the bristles of her broom so she can guide it safely into the dustpan. She does her job diligently, and aggressively, committed to making my area dirt-free. I start thinking to myself about how I should probably start appreciating Greta - after all, she does make my work environment a safer place to be. Dirt and crumbs lead to bacteria, disease, and sometimes Herpes. And I really don't want to get Herpes at work.

I smile to myself and think, "Wow, Greta really is amazing. She cares!" I decide to express my thanks - but just as I am about to say my thank-yous, Greta stops what she is doing. She turns around to look at me, and says, "Please - to move! To clean!" She gestures at me to move back even further from my desk.

All of my gratitude quickly flies out the window. Greta almost had me fooled. She almost had me second-guessing myself this whole time. I always thought that she was an evil cleaning lady, who makes it her mission to sabotage my work flow, my workspace, and my damn apples. Today I thought Greta might be different.

But, no, Greta is the evil cleaning lady I always thought she was.

I roll my chair backwards, allow her to smugly sweep up more of my granola mess, finish up, and walk away.

I roll my eyes, slide back towards my desk, and blog.

Fasting Frustrations: A Top 5 List

I walk into work today at around 8am, grab myself some coffee and a piece of fruit. I walk to my desk, settle down, eat my fruit, and drink my coffee. Then I get an email from a friend, "so how's your fast?"

Fast?? Oh, [insert expletive here]! I am a moron.

Because, you see, today is a fast day on the Jewish calendar - the 17th of Tammuz. And I usually try to observe all of the fasts throughout the year to the best of my fasting abilities.

Today, I just plain forgot.

I instant messaged my Jewish coworker today, A-Pizzle, to see if she remembered to fast. She didn't either, therefore, to make ourselves feel better, we came up with a list of excuses why it's okay for one to not fast. I will give full credit to Miss A-Pizzle, since she masterminded this whole meshuge list.

And here it is... the top 5 reasons why it's okay to forget to fast:

5) We are Jewish, haven't we suffered enough?

4) Because you won't have any awkward encounters with other Jewish coworkers in the kitchen, like on normal, non-fast days.

3) Because fasting doesn't give you any energy to mourn.

2) Because sometimes overeating is more painful than undereating.

1) Because we'd rather sing "Eat It" instead of "Beat It", in honor of Michael Jackson.

Will Mel and A-Pizzle continue their day eating and adding items to the list? Or will they start fasting from scratch? Stay tuned!

The Jekyll-Hyde Within

Everybody pretty much knows that I am more sleep-deprived now than I have ever been in my life. But there's this little part of me that kind of enjoys it... that little part of me is my "other side", my very own Jekyll/Hyde personality that only emerges when the bags under my eyes are larger than a Hilton sister's overnight travel luggage.

Last week, I didn't sleep a wink. Over the weekend, I barely managed to get 10 hours altogether. I went to bed late Friday night, couldn't sleep Saturday night, and procrastinated Sunday night. Monday night, I went to a concert and got home late... and that brought me to Tuesday.

Yesterday was an interesting day in the life of my other half, my very own Hyde, Myde as I like to call it.

Myde Scenario #1 (Tuesday, June 30th):
I'm at my desk at work, it's about 11am. I get a phonecall from a client about designing something for him, and he literally repeats himself 10 times. I tell him "I know, I know, I understand", yet he keeps saying the same thing in different ways, in his very nasal-y, anal-retentive-y voice. I start snickering on the phone as he's repeating himself yet again. I move the receiver away from my mouth so he doesn't hear my laughter. I stop laughing and re-enter the conversation. He's still going over his ideas again. Finally, he gets sick enough of his own voice and decides to end the conversation. We hang up and I start cracking up to the point of tears. I go over to my boss to tell her what happened and we both start cracking up. Apparently, it was funny even though I thought I was only laughing because I was sleepy.

Myde Scenario 2 (Tuesday, June 30th):
I get up from my desk to go to the ladies room, walk inside the last stall, and realize that I have something stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I bend down to unstick it, and as I stand back up, I bang my head on the toilet seat cover dispenser that hangs on the stall door. I start giggling, and then laughing out loud at my klutziness.

Would this all have happened if I wasn't so tired? Probably.

But everything is funnier when you go through life half-asleep, half-awake.
You should try Myde-ing it sometime.

Haiku Monday: Elation

This is the place where I passive-aggressively talk about stuff that bothers me. And there's a lot of little things that peeve me. The list is endless. So, hooray, it's Haiku Monday!

thank goodness for malfunctioning workstations // there's cause for celebration // today i barely notice your mastication, AMEN

Fantasy Friday

Cue dream sequence.

It's near sunset. I'm sitting on a purple and white striped beach chair, 20 feet from the shoreline of Waikiki Beach. The beach is deserted. I'm staring out at the water, sipping on a really strong cocktail that barely tastes like it contains any alcohol. I dig my toes into the sand, until the cold, damp particles envelope both my feet. In the distance I see a figure walking towards me. I can't really tell who it is. He looks strangely familiar, wearing a fedora-type hat, sunglasses, a brown t-shirt, and plaid shorts; he's carrying a brown messenger bag and a green beach chair. When he gets about 30 feet from my chair, I gasp. It's Jason Mraz!

"H..hi," I stammer tipsily.

He comes closer and extends his hand.

"I'm Jason," he says softly.

We shake hands.

"Mel, my name is Melanie. Well, Mel. Or whatever you want." I nervously giggle.

"Cool," he says. "Okay if I set up my beach chair right here, Mel?" he points to the space right next to mine.

"Sure!!!! I mean suuuurrreeee," I say.

He sets down his messenger bag, unfolds his chair, and casually sits down. He removes his fedora and places it on top of his messenger bag. He turns towards me, removes his sunglasses, and says, "So whatcha drinking?"

"Oh, it's nothing," I say. "Just 'Sex on the Beach'."

You idiot, Melanie!! That's awkward!! Why would you say that!! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But Jason just looks over at me and says, "That's cool. My favorite drink is actually 'Sex on the Beach' with you."

I spit out my mouthful of 'Sex' in a hose-like spray.

"W..what did you just say?" I stammer.

"You heard me," Jason says.

And he grabs my hand and...

SNORE!

THEN I WAKE UP.

Oh, shit!!!!! I just dozed off at my desk again. Damn it, Melanie! Damn it! I hope no one noticed.

I look around just to make sure and luck for me everyone seems to be immersed in their work. Close one. Phew!

That's what I get for sleeping on the job. TGIF.

Greta and the Staredown

I take late lunchbreaks. Everyone knows that. Even Greta, which is probably why today she tried to take advantage of me.

As I'm walking back to my desk today, I see Greta from afar, shuffling about near my desk. As I get even closer, I see that she is dusting my desk. I approach my desk and Greta turns to face me.

She looks at me.

I look at her.

She looks at her garbage can and back at me (which I did not take offensively at that point in time but now, looking back on it, could be kind of insulting).

"Sorry, so sorry," says Greta. She smiles, nods her head ever so slightly, grabs hold of her can, and drives it away.

"That's right, Greta," I think to myself, "Walk away. Walk away and never come back... unless you come before 8am or after 5pm."

I smile satisfactorily, pull my chair out, sit down at my desk, and stare right at today's afternoon snack: a green apple. Mind you, an exposed green apple.

Did you dust it today, Greta? Did you!?! Damn you, Greta. Damn you.

Finally! A practical and OCD-friendly bathroom accessory!

Are you obsessed with Purell? Hate dealing with your personal hygiene day in and day out? Do you wish that you had a bidet? Ever have that not-so-fresh feeling? Well Comfort Wipe has come along to assuage* your worries. Finally, a solution!

If you'd prefer a stick up your ass to your own hand, this product is for you.

Do you think that, in the "olden days" people used a stick with leaves wrapped around it? NO. They probably just used a leaf because no one had thought of using a stick! The Comfort Wipe inventor is going to totally strike it rich. Lucky bastard. Wish I'd thought of it myself. I can't even comprehend the mind-boggling-ness! To put it simply: it took thousands of years for someone to finally invent a tool that makes ass-wiping easier, cleaner, and more-efficient. This is one for the books, kids! A HISTORICAL BREAKTHROUGH!

It's official. My mind is blown.

I am so excited I could pee. Actually, I have to pee. Wish I had my very own Comfort Wipe at the office, stowed away in my desk drawer, alongside my paperclips. If I had my very own Ass-Wipe (for short), I'd take it right out of my drawer, carry it the 200 feet to the bathroom, whilst beaming with pride. "That's right, assholes," I'd think to myself. "I have a 'Comfort Wipe' and you don't!" Then I would cackle to myself, walk past my coworkers, down the hall, and all the way to the last stall. "Chumps!"



[*Assuage: one of my high school vocabulary words. My friends and I used a very special mnemonic to remember its meaning. "Assuage. Kind of sounds like 'sewage'. Sewage is soothing. Assuage." I kid you not. So it was only fitting for this word to be used in such a circumstance.]

Haiku Monday: Tweet, Tweet

Shout out to, well, me! I've been turning to Twitter lately to vent my work frustrations, and it's sure been paying off. I've become a poet of sorts - a lyrical truth-teller - as I like to call myself, and I have found it to be amusing and therapeutic.

So, in case you've missed out on my haiku-"tweets" over the past week, a couple of them have been posted below. Stay tuned for many, many more to come. (FML)

why must i spell everything out // for the stupid people // they will drive me to drink on the job
8:24 AM Jun 12th

the way you chew your pretzel nuggets // makes me want to fall in love // with my workload
about 2 hours ago

Greta and the Green Apple

Yesterday, as I'm working at my desk, Greta comes by with her yellow duster and garbage can in tow. I shrug my shoulders and carry on with my work. Usually Greta comes by to dust the empty desks. But yesterday, well yesterday, was a special day.

Greta shuffles over to me, pushing a tall garbage can, and holding a yellow duster in her right hand.

Greta: "Em, ekskuse me. Please to get up from desk."

I stare at Greta in disbelief.

Greta: "Please to get up. Must clean area."

I take my iPod with me and roll my chair back a couple of feet. Greta looks at my desk , then looks at me. She tilts her head downward and looks at me above the frames of her eyeglasses.

Greta: "Please take cup of water."

I fearfully scurry over to my desk and take my cup of water. Greta smiles smugly and I watch as she proceeds to dust her yellow duster all across the surface of my desk, my phone, my computer, my tape dispenser, my scissors, my cell phone, and my apple. WHAT, MY APPLE!??!!?

Greta finishes dusting, looks at me, and gestures to me that it's safe to go back to my desk. I follow suit. I look at my clean desk, surveying the area to see if her yellow duster really did the trick. As I scan the surface of my desk, I come across my afternoon snack. My green apple. My poor green apple. I shake my head, and take a sip of my water.

"Oh, Greta," I think to myself, "you just had to dust my fucking apple, didn't you?"

Greta walks away, rolling the tall garbage can, holding the yellow duster in her right hand, humming to herself. I then sneeze from all of the dust.

"Fucking Greta," I mutter aloud.