Company Morale - Part II

I talked about company morale in a previous post, but want to return to it just to iterate how my company has previously operated. (It's now under new management.)  First off, the plant from my previous post has since been adopted by our new COO, a master gardener, and will come back when she is pretty again.  The new COO has all kinds of plans for this place and I'm really excited to see what happens. 
Let's go back.  My office moved last year into a building that was vacant for at least 3 years.  One floor (my floor) was used as a Greek Church. From my desk I can see 15 sprinklers since they liked to use candles, a lot.  One floor was raided by the FBI for suspicion of terrorism because it was the headquarters of some Islamic non-profit. (Yes, this building seems to have been its own United Nations in it's heyday.) The entire floor was trashed with papers, food, pictures... gross.  Of course it has been completely re carpeted, painted, etc. but there are remnants, like the ugly ass yellow tile bathrooms. 
That's the new place. Now let's talk about the old place: Great location, shitty building.  Our parking lot was half covered by an overhang of the building. Consequently, we acquired a  homeless man.  He wasn't just a weirdo old homeless man either. He was younger, 20s or 30s, and only slept there, and occasionally smoked cigs with other employees.  One day, as I was walking to Starbucks, he told me I had pretty hair.  So he was ok in my book.  But let's discuss the fact that he used one of our recycling bins as a locker for all his stuff.  Or the fact that one of my co-workers saw him peeing in the parking lot one morning and he seemed to think it was ok since he was, "Aiming for the pile of leaves."

Here's a better view of his crib.  You can see he had become quite comfortable.  He had his reading materials, highlighters, etc.  The blue bin on the left was his "day-locker."  While I felt bad for him, there were pleny of shelters around the city he could go to.  So what was management's response? 

They hung about 15 of these around the outside of the building. Classy. It says, come in, let us sell you our educational products.  As I'm sure you can guess, this didn't work.  I wonder what happened to him since we have moved. I drive by the old building, which is now empty since developers are going to knock it down, and see no sign of the homeless man but the signs are still up.  And now that the building is actually empty, makes a lot of sense.

Busy Bee

I've been a bust bee these past few days and haven't been able to write any posts, but I've got some great ones in my head!!  Just to appease you for a while here's one of my all time favorite SNL videos.




If you watch any of the Real Houswives, you get this!  Hilarious.

My Teefs, Toofs, Teeth

Dentally, I have been relatively lucky.  I never wore braces on my bottom teeth and only had braces on the top for a few months.  I decided to be all sly about it and get “clear” braces.  They were not so clear and I found that out a few hours after getting them when I ate an orange and ended up picking orange pulp out of them for a week. They also became orange tinted for a while. 

 "Clear" braces are NEVER this clear!!  Curse you fake advertising!!

Well I had a pretty good track record with cavities, until I moved to a new city. It must be something with the city water, but a few cavities popped up within months.   I decided to nip it in the bud and get them filled.  Everything went relatively fine.  I had 2 fillings in one sitting and very little pain.  A few weeks later I was having sensitivity. I waited it out as long as I could before I decided to go back to my dentist.  The Dr. pointed out my biggest fear: root canal. Imagine him saying it in slow motion like "Bueller" and it's a lot more funny.

So... I got a root canal. The Dr. said it was an easy procedure based on my roots so no need to go to and Endodontist. Well, that didn't work out as planned.  I went back 2 times saying I still had pain. He kept attaching that bad-ass dental damn and "going in."

This gets very uncomfortable after an hour.

 Fail. He sent me to the Endo. Let me point out that the cost of dentistry rises with the cost of living, so when you live in an expensive city, you have expensive dentists.  I totally maxed out my dental insurance so now I was actually paying to be in more pain - pure and simple hell.  So off I went to the Endo.  I am not there 30 seconds when he conducted the "cold test" which is basiclly putting a frozen peice of metal on your tooth to see if you can feel it.  Tested the "root canaled-tooth," no feeling. Tested the tooth NEXT TO the root canaled-tooth, screaming bloody agony. I needed another root canal in the next tooth!  Yes, that's a second root canal, although by this point I had already had 3 "tries" on the first one.  The next 2 weekends were dedicated to more dental dams and lots of suction. (Hey, get your head out of your ass.  I mean that little suction tube that hangs out of your mouth to keep the drool to a minimum.)  Total, it was more like 5 in 3 weeks instead of 2 clean procedures.  I know what you're thinking: did they root canal the wrong tooth? Well, we will never know, but I will tell you something. I found a new dentist and he is awesome. 

Just Faux Fun Friday

You might remember this post and Just Faux Fun - my mom's Faux painting business. So it's firday and just Faux Fun, here are a few funnies.

This is the lady who gives the traffic.  She say's things like "heavens to Besty."  What does that even mean? Until a couple months ago, she would report out of a shell of a car. She annoys me.

I love this clip of Marel the Shell.  The voice is so cute!!

This is the CUTEST child ever!  Lucy and her scarf.  I found it stalking around on people's blogs. It makes me want to go adopt a child tomorrow. I think you will love it. She's likes it kind of funky, you kow!

Have a great weekend!

Listen to Your Elders - Child Rearing

Little boys are gross.  Don't argue with me on this. They are.  They pick their noses, play in the dirt and usually refuse to bathe.  They also have potty mouths. Once they learn the words, butt and fart it's all over. The parents diginty that is.  So my parents decided not to take it and came up with a pretty brilliant plan when my brother was younger.  They somehow convinced my brother that fart wasn't a real word and fluffer was the correct terminology.   That way he could scream fluffer-face at the top of his lungs at the grocery, and my mom didn't have to hide her face. And he did.

The amazing thing is he convinced his friends that fluffer was the word too.  He told them their parents had lied and this lasted for years.. YEARS.  It wasn't until he was 7 years old that one of my older cousins set him straight.

Weekend Recap - NYC

We went to New York this past weekend to visit the fam and had a great time.  New York must have known we've been on the skids, b/c she really brought it this weekend. The weather was amazing, not too much traffic, wonderful dinner in Little Italy.  Well done, NYC.  I like it.  I had my first experience with a New York Beach.  We went to Brighton and it was lovely.  Again, I think the weather had a lot to do with it because this was our view at the beach.

I also saw a lot of sock/sandal combos.
My parents were in town for a wedding so we met them for dinner on Saturday in Little Italy - ate at Angelinos on Mulberry.  It was amazing.  No, I did not take a picture of my food to show you.  But I will give a quick shout out to my brother and future SIL for the amazing food at the cookout on Sunday.

The highlight of my mother's weekend.  I'm pretty sure it was getting her picture taken with the half naked men standing outside the Hollister store in SoHo.  How did she get the picture, you ask?  She had my Dad take it.  Cougar?  I think so.

Volunteer FAIL

So, as I stated last week, I love animals.  I am totally a dog person, but I embrace cuteness from all species.  Last week, as I was walking home from CVS, I saw a little bird taking a bath in a water puddle and found myself talking to it in a voice 2 octives higher than normal.  I said, "OOOoooo, Look at you!"  That seems to be my go-to phrase when I see anything cute.  Of course when you say it to a dog, they get all excited. Hence the reason I love dogs.

How can you not love the little wiggles?!

I was feeling a lack of canine companionship after I moved so I looked into volunteering at an animal shelter.  I did this in college and after college and just loved it.  I would just go when I had free time and play with the dogs, walk them, wash them, whatever was needed.  I even pets some cats. - Can you tell I am not the biggest cat fan?  I just don't like that I never know what they are thinking.
Back to the story. I found a local animal shelter and online there was a volunteet application form, very formal.  I had to fill it out with a short essay as well as the times I was willing to volunteer. It seemd like a lot, but I still wanted to do it.  So with application in hand I went down to the shelter and turned in my application.  I listed my availabilities as one evening a week and one weekend a month - pretty decent considering I have a full time job, no?
I went home and waited.
A few days later I got an email from the shelter.
Dear Ms.True Story,
Thank you for your interest in _____ Shelter.  We regret to inform you that your volunteer avialability does not meet our needs.  We thank you for your continued support and hope you will contact us when your schedule opens up.

I'm sorry, what?  Did you just tell me you DON'T need me to volunteer at your non-profit animal shelter? You don't need/want me because I am offering only 10-20 hours of my time per month? Yes.  That happened. I was rejected.  I will not name the shelter because I fear ferocious backlash from the loyal follower(s) of this blog.  That's you. Mom. Are you there?

The good news?  I joined Junior League and am busy busy with being a recruitment specialist because I NEVER want someone to feel like their time and willingness to serve is un-apprecaited. If you want to volunteer your time, Junior League will  give you something to do.