Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Re-Explaining for the third time...

[names and some incriminating details have been changed to protect ... well, me]

There are some pretty dumb people where I work. Not my coworkers, but some of the outsourced "help" we have to rely on. See, my company decided to stop offering support in our multitude of offices and "centralize" the internal office help (we'll call IOH in this entry) to some folks in Nowhereseville, Wisconsin, where we have a call center. Now, in their defense, a ton of requests I am sure they get are pretty dumb and mundane. The kind of requests that would bore anyone of moderate intelligence. "I lost my password ... again," or "I kant reech da netwoik... wut up wit dat?" But when you have a real problem, like say, a switch is down and none of your servers can connect from point A to point B, it's like tearing out your hair. Here's today's baldness:

Premise: We're moving equipment to from Lab A to Lab B. We literally have hundreds of machines, equipment, parts, and lots of other stuff. It's taken us over a year to move. Usually because of stuff like this.

Yesterday: While installing some LAN-enabled power switches, I notice that while I can configure them locally (meaning, right in front of them), they can't reach the network. I test, I ping, I trace ... and find out the LAN cables are connected to a switch where all the lights are out from ports 2-37. Port 1 is a server. Ports 38-40 go to Looneytown, I don't know. They're not MY cables. Needless to say the "lights off" means the ports are down, and since the others are lit, I can conclude that the configuration of the ports are administratively down...

Zen Koan: What is the sound of one blog reader snoring?

Thank you master. Let's do this a bit differently. Suppose you are at a hotel. You retire for the night, and as you get a glass of water, you notice ... you have no water. The toilet works, but not the sink or shower. You call the front desk.

You: Hello, I am in room 115 and I don't have running --
Them: [kkkt] (automated voice) "Thank you for calling the front desk. You call is important to us. Please stay on the line, and the next available clerk will answer your call. Please hold. [kkkt] (REO Speedwagon) Und ah can't faht this feelin anymooooorrree... ah've forgottin what I started fightin' faaawwww... und if I haf to crawl upon da floor, cam creeshing throoo you door... Baby, I can't fi-- [kkkt] ThankYouForTheFrontDeskMayIHaveYourNameRoomNumberAndTheLastFourDigitsOfYourSoicialSecurityNumberPlease?"
You: Er... uh, Blog Stevens. I am in 115. My last four digits are 1969...
Them: [clicking keyboard] Can you repeat that, please? You are Brian Steppenwolf...
You: No, no. Blog... Stevens...I am in room... one one five... my last four digits are one... nine... six.... nine....
Them: Okay, and you checked in this morning, is that correct, sir?
You: Yes. And when I went to the bathroom--
Them: And you are at one of our hotels in Sheboygan?
You: Yes. And, see, the sink--
Them: Annnd.. [clicka clicka] what can I do for you today?
You: I.. er, well, my sink and shower do not work.
Them: Okay... [clicka clicka]... and this "sink," it's some sort of... appliance?
You: No, no. A sink. You know, water comes from it?
Them: [clicka clicka] Okay, and what is wrong from this "sink?"
You: Well, it has no water. The toilet works, but the sink and shower do not.
Them: [more keyboard clicking] Okay, the traylet works, but the sink and shava don't?
You: No, the sink and shower. Show-wer. The toilet does work, so water is on, but the sink and shower are not giving me any water.
Them: [more keyboard clicking] Okay, sir, and have you tried unplugging and plugging the sink or shawa back in?
You: No, no. It's not an appliance. It's connected to the plumbing. You need a plumber to have a look at it.
Them: [clicka clicka... clicka clicka.. clicka clicka... tap. Tap. TAP TAP!] One moment, please. [kkkt] (REO Speedwagon) It's tam to bring dis ship into da shoooow... und trow away the oaaaaaas... foh-revah.... 'Cause I can't fight dis feeling anymoooo [kkkt] [click... pause... the back to music] ooooooooreee... [kkkt] Okay sir, I have written up a ticket, that number is 166499/a-445624738, we'll have someone look at it when they can.
You: When is that?
Them: Uh... I can't tell you that, they don't tell me, I just write up the ticket and they send it to the folks in your hotel. Good day. [click]

You wait and wait. Finally, you call back, and get another person. They ask you the same thing about who you are, and everything, and when you tell them you already have a ticket, they say its "in transit" and "has been forwarded to our Sheboygan office."

Hours later, you get a call back. It's the Sheboygan office, and they received a ticket, but apparently, you have to repeat the whole story to them. They said "it's not us you want, you want a plumber!" You state that you told the original clerk that, and Sheboygan gives you the number of a local plumber. You state that you are in a hotel, and do not have authority or money to call a plumber. "Oh, you mean one of OUR hotels?" YES! You scream, thinking it should be obvious. He says he'll send to request to maintenance.

Hours go by. You go down to the front desk to find someone, and they say to call the front desk hotline. "Aren't you the front desk?" you ask. "Yes, but only locally. You have to make all requests through the hotline." Steamed, you go back to your room. There is a note on the door the plumber was by, and said the toilet works, you weren't here to describe what was wrong, so he left and closed the ticket.

Now you're REALLY angry! You call the hotline, go through the spiel, then explain the ticket should be reopened. They say that everyone is closed for the day, you'll have to call back tomorrow.

THIS is what I have to work with.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:47 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Little White Chevette...

I was thinking about cars today...

Growing up, my father had a Maroon 1966 Thunderbird, and kept it until 1987. This think was old, squeaky, and had a vinyl top that was impossible to keep looking nice. In 1981, he bought a pimpmobile: a 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V. This huge blue boat of a car was part of some deal my father made with a guy in New York who looked like he was right from the cast of the "Sopranos." It had an 8-Track Quadraphonic stereo that sounded really nice in its plush velvet interior. Later, my father got a brown 1987 LC Mark VII as a "company car" or something, which he got to keep.

When Christine and I got married, we had her mom's 1987 Dodge Omni, a while car with a blood-red interior, for a few weeks before we had to give it back. Then we went a long time with no car, which sucked, but we were dirt poor. Finally, our friend Renee loaned us her Silver 1983 Chrysler LeBaron (with pimp velvet red interior), because it had a bad transmission (auto - it slipped a lot). Then, a friend of ours had a 1985 white 2-door Chevette that used to be her late mom's. Thus started the Chevette Saga...

Our friend's mother passed away, and they had to get rid of it. She already had two cars, and was living a lifestyle where she couldn't take care of it, and it did need some major repair work. But she didn't want to just junk it, so she sold it to us for $1, under the promise we'd fix it up and drive it. About $400 worth of exhaust work later, it ran. But boy, what a car! Such character.

It was white. White with pinstriping and fog lamps. Real sporty-looking. First, it was a two-door, but the car had been in an accident earlier in its life, and when they did the repair, the door was from a slightly different model (notably without pinstriping), and while it fit, it just barely did. It didn't seal, that's for sure. There were also two vent-style windows in the back, but if you left them open when the car was going at high speeds (for this car, that was 55mph), they'd fly off the hinges. The inside was a kind of bluebird-blue, with a faded dashboard that cracked over the speaker for the radio (AM only). The vent for the heater was stuck on the driver's side, and so whomever was driving the car would have their legs blasted with hot engine air. Christine had to put a towel over her shin to keep it from burning on hot days. The car couldn't have gone more than 55mph, and when it got to that speed, is shook like it was about to fall apart.

It ran great for 6 months, but sadly, we could afford to take care of the car like we should have, and small problems turned into bigger ones, and then finally, it blew a rod. The repair place said to call someone to junk it. We pushed the car to a lot next to the repair place, and I called a junk tower. We came back a few days later, and ... the car was gone! I contacted the repair shop, and they said it might have been towed, but they didn't tow it, and they said they hadn't seen it. We asked the businesses around if they had seen it, and they hadn't. Finally, we reported it stolen, which was ludicrous, because it didn't run; how could anyone get it off the lot? The police officer who took the case said he'd check the local tow companies and impound lots, and nothing ever turned up. It was eventually reported as stolen, and we got some piddling money back from the insurance company ... and that was the end.

I have always felt like the car went to car heaven, and sometimes I see a white Chevette and wonder, "Is that you, little car?" No, it's just a ghost...

Our next car came a year later, it was a black 1987 Chevy Cavalier. This was part of a horrific story about a crooked dealership (Brown's Honda of Alexandria), where they sold us something that they knew was damaged. Two weeks after driving it off the lot, it died. We took it to a repair place, and they told us that something was seriously wrong with the fuel system. They got it to run, but it would then die a week later. Further investigation was that the computer the regulated the fuel was bad, and the repair shop said that any check by the dealership on car health would have shown that. We called the dealership, there was fighting back and forth, we pulled the "Anti-Lemon Law," on them, they lied about the warrantee, it got ugly. So we got someone to contact the local news, and then I had a lawyer friend call them, and then they paid for us to have the car fixed. It ran great for about 3 years, and then died.

We got another used (1993, I think) Cavalier; a sort of light-Teal colored one. This car ran great for another few years, but had no character to speak of. We eventually traded it in for our first new car, a 1998 Bottle-green Saturn wagon. We were looking around for another car when the Cavalier was getting up there in miles and age, and we had always wanted a Saturn, but not a green one. We were really honestly just looking for a car to get within a year, but they liked our trade-in because they were looking for that car for someone else. Trouble was, the model and color of car we wanted was not available, so we said "we'll think about it." A week later, they called, saying "We need your car, we'll pay you [a lot more than it was worth], and we have a Saturn wagon, it's green, I know you hate green, but it's got all these options we'll toss in for free, we can have it for you by tomorrow, but pleeeeeeeeeeeeassseeee?" I have no idea why they wanted our car so badly, but they were willing to pay WAY over book value for the Cavalier and give us a ton of freebies for a car "we might not like the color of," so, how could we pass that up? We wanted a Blue 1997 SW1, but all they could get was a Green SW2, so they adjusted the cost on our trade-in, threw in all the power options for free, and were super-nice to us.

In fact, looking back on it, the Saturn dealership in Sterling has been NOTHING but great to us, as well as to my friends. I am very happy with my Saturn wagon, bottle-green and all. Later, we bought our second car, a Blue SC3, from them in 2002.

Tell me, my fair readers, what was your first car?

Posted by Punkie @ 10:15 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 27, 2003

We were down for a little while

Bear with me.

The Silverdragon server I am hosted on was down for a day or so for upgrades (which is a good thing, thank you Brad!). We're now running on faster hardware, a more advanced OS, and generally prevented eventual server burnout. Literally. Some of you may remember when the server burned down a few years ago, and I was on Chaosart for a year or two (thanks, again, Akiyu!). The power supply actually caught fire in a sort of slow burn, which cooked the hard drive, and Silverdragon was down for a year and a half while Brad had to save up for a new system.

But during the upgrade, some directories or something got shuffled around, and thus the achives of my blog are a bit messed up. If you get "no such page" or "you do not have permisson to view this page" when you load an entry, try again later.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:55 PM EST [Link]

What if you had a pity party and no one showed up?

I have a good friend, we'll call "Belinda," who confided to me once that she has dreams where all her friends are standing around her, pointing and laughing. It turns out they weren't her friends after all, and they just pretended to be as a joke or something. I can't say I have ever had dreams like that, and apart from my earlier school days (before high school) and a lot of "TV Specials" for kids, I never have actually seen anyone do that in real life. But I can sympathize.

We all get scared from time to time that we don't fit in. Some of us more than others. Some of us actually bear the scars of being ousted from a social group. I can think of a few that have happened to me as an adult, and while no one ever came close to pointing and laughing at me (in person), I have had incidences with people where suddenly, I wasn't liked anymore.

I never know what turns them off to me. I have been with some groups for a long time, and then suddenly, it's like the light turns off, people can't be found, and then when I find them they ignore me or give me the cold shoulder. They end up unresolved, and I feel kind of pissed off and lonely. Sometimes I wonder if my life is a movie, and the audience knows what happened, but I never do. Sometimes I wish I could hear this audience as they are shouting at the screen to me, "No no! Don't do that! She's unstable!" or "Oh man, you have no idea what you said has pissed those people off. You said blahdeblah, which was insensitive, but you'll never know that, and its not really your fault." Once in a while, a kind person tells me, "You came off as kind of preachy," and I think, "I didn't say that to be preachy," and then they say, "Yeah, well, they thought it was preachy, and what they think matters to the whole group." I have had a few people say, "When you said this and that, he thought you were really talking about him," like suddenly I have to watch what people say, lest their own paranoia define who *I* am. I mean, this hasn't happened with all the groups I have been a part of (thank goodness), but has happened more than I'd like.

And it's happening again.

One of the problems I have had throughout the years is some people just make this broad assumption I am evil. Yeah, I am supposed to be consoled that they "do this to a lot of people," but it still pisses me off. I suspect in this group I am having problems with that someone with some influence has just gotten sick of me for whatever reason, and spread poison among the other members. I have no proof if this, really, so it sounds like I am being paranoid (to me). Even if this was the case, I wouldn't even begin to suspect who. Maybe just a bunch of them got sick of me at the same time. Perhaps I said too much, or said that one boneheaded statement that everyone took the wrong way. I am not perfect. I say dumb stuff from time to time, but I never mean it in a bad way. People just assume that I do.

The warning shots fired across my bow would be great, if I knew they were warning shots. There is an old saying that "Everything is 20/20 in hindsight," and that's true. Patterns emerge and seem so obvious AFTER they are useful as warning signs. Trouble is, I get a lot of shots that are just misses aimed at someone else, or just shots in general, not aimed at me. I hate the game of double guessing, and I have to really write down what I see, and look for a pattern. But since this is a public diary, I have to really obfuscate things.

Why? If this got back to them, it adds another layer to the confusion. Suppose a bunch of people just started to dislike me for whatever reason. Often, they don't have a solid reason, so they will feel what they can't prove without looking foolish or paranoid. Suppose they still like me, and I am totally wrong? Then I look like an idiot, vying for attention. The only "winning strategy," IMHO, is to slowly back away. This has worked well in the past, although a lot of my other friends will say things like, "Don't let them control what you do," and "You should stick up for yourself." I stuck up for myself for the "Group I will not mention." It backfired. Had I bowed out when no one was looking, it would have been a much, much smarter move.

But here are some patterns I see, and have seen in the past:

1. About six months ago, I got a letter from someone in this group I liked (and still do), who said (in a letter about something else) he and his girlfriend had "issues" with "certain people" in this group, and thus, were backing out gracefully. He also stated, "Do not let this influence your decision about this group, this is a personal matter between us and so-and-so." When asked what happened, the details were vague, but stated certain people were doing things that I am now seeing.
2. An accusation towards my personage a few months later. Friends defending. War ensues. This is ALWAYS a bad sign, because it usually means people are taking sides.
3. A month afterwards, a second, personal, accusation towards my personage, this time someone who was dubious about my veracity of my past. I later found out this graphic designer from San Francisco made some very strong attempts to "prove" his point in private. Two people told me about his attempts. A sick feeling in my gut spread. This had happened before, in the same type of venue. I decided to do some "social engineering" and found out who he was, where he lived, what he did, and what band he played in. Nothing matched anyone I knew, but I did learn he was generally a prick anyway.
4. People stopped responding to me as much. In social circles I was often ignored, or given one line responses. I definitely got the cold shoulder. People seemed suspicious of my actions and things I said, as if I had ulterior motives. People only responded to me in small forms of criticizing, and almost no forms of praise (except from a few die-hard fans). Sometimes it seems like the mood has shifted, and I am no longer "in style." There are some things happening that the couple in #1 warned me of. They backed out. Quietly.

I can hear Belinda's voice saying, "Oh honey, it's time to go. You have real friends who do care about you." And that is true. I will miss this group of friends though, because they were all super-smart, caring, and not fannish.

I want to make a point here: I love fannish people and fandom. They are almost all smart, intelligent people, with big hearts, open minds, and just my kind of people. I have so much more in common with them than "mundanes," their word for people outside of fandom. But I also value my "mundane" social circles as well, because a balance is good. One group is no better or worse than the other, they are just different, and I learn from both sides. Trouble is, I lose far more "mundane" friends than I do fannish ones. Maybe it all goes back to being the awkward kid no one could or wanted to deal with. Maybe my honesty and strangeness are just too much for some people. Maybe that's really arrogant to say, but honestly, I got nothing on why I annoy some people. I am kind, and try to treat everyone with respect and dignity, but that isn't a catch-all to having a good response back. This is the kind of crap that Hollywood people put up with all the time. One minute, you're America's sweetheart, and the next, you are an arrogant has-been who has 40 face lifts and beats up helpless kittens for fun. The truth doesn't matter, ever. People love to love celebrities as much as they love to hate them. The Queen of England gets caught on camera picking her nose just once, and everyone refers back to it for decades. People love to see those they think are better than them fall from grace. Maybe that's what's happening, although I blush to think I even mattered as a "celebrity" among anyone.

I started backing off last week. Not many have noticed. This is a good sign, but it still makes me sad. I still have a lot of friends, though, all good people. I will go on, and learn from this as best I can.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:37 PM EST [Link]

Friday, April 25, 2003

Isn't It Ironic

Irony is defined by Websters as "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs." So I have always felt that Alanis Morrisette's song, "Ironic," is ironic because nothing in the song is ironic: it's all poor planning or bad luck. Sadly, I think it's ironic because she doesn't know that.

I can't really define what I consider ironic. Technically, all humor is a form of irony, but when literary people think "ironic," usually they think of it as a narrative; something that is ironic has to have a subjective vs. objective view. Here's my example:

In 1987, I was living with some sci-fi fans, and had access in the house to a huge (and I mean huge, 100") projection television. In fact, we all had friends over, and saw Star Trek: The Next Generation on it. One of the friends brought a tape of the famous Saturday Night Live skit where Bill Shatner makes fun of Star Trek conventions by uttering to assembled fans, "Get a life, will ya? I mean, for Christ's sake, it's just a TV show! [...] You've turned an enjoyable little job I did as a lark for a few years and turned it into a colossal waste of time!" That was pretty funny. It poked fun of Star Trek fans, and was meant as a ribbing comment by Shatner.

What followed was ironic. There were three sets of Trek fans that I saw who reacted to that skit. The vast majority thought it was funny, and took it in the spirit it was meant. Then there were a few that got mad, and started making up fantasies about how "Shatner was threatened if he didn't do the skit," or something. Then there were the ironic fans.

Whenever I think of irony, I think of one girl, who analyzed the skit with the depth and detail of the CIA on the Zapruder film of the Kennedy Assassination. We'll call her Esther. Esther was like a lot of fen I knew, and still know. She was an awkward Jewish girl, with thick curly hair, thick-framed, glasses, and walked with the speed and precision of a suicide bomber on the way to a target. She wore nothing more than sneakers, tee-shirts, and jeans... adding only an old beat-up sweater in the winter. It's like she wanted to obfuscate any feminine quality she might have had. Many female fen do this for two reasons: they view femininity like a weakness... or they don't think of themselves at all because their brain is so focused on intellect (so they dress very practical, whatever has minimal fuss). She carried books in her hands all the time, and wore an oversized backpack with more weight than what would be considered "terrible abuse" if put on a pack animal. The backpack was very much like mine: full of items that would be great in a crisis, but hardly ever used. It also contained more medication than a standard first aid kit. She never said much, but when she did, her voice was loud and clumsy, like someone unused to social interaction. I don't say this to be mean; she was a very nice person. I have always had a soft spot for intellectual people, and she was no exception. Her laugh was very geeky and loud, but refreshingly honest. I doubt her kind laughs at anything other than what they consider funny or in some cases, to break the binding links of nervousness when talking to someone.

The nervous laugh punctuated how she analyzed the skit, as she wrestled the remote control into her hands, and rewound certain scenes. She replayed them over and over, proving minute points she had noticed. "See," she'd say, then added a nervous laugh, "Dana Carvey here was waiting for Bill to interrupt his line. See how his voice goes down. He was supposed to ask about the combination to the safe, but he didn't. He got lost because Bill was late on his cue. His voice goes down, and he tries improv." Her voice became quick: the voice of revelation and enlightenment. All for a skit. Rewind. "See? Here he asks about the feeling and the mood of the character. It's like he's saying, 'Bill! Your line! Bill???' He has to cover. Then Bill says his line, asks about episode 27. Then Dana says his line, and it's about the combination to the safe! Dana...? You should have done improv related to your next line! (nervous laugh)" Esther was delighted. She analyzed the film like a good little Trekkie. She felt a moment of superiority.

And that's ironic. Terribly ironic... yes, I really do think. She was acting just like what the SNL sketch writers were spoofing, and she had no idea.

I like Esther. I can't really make fun of her, because if I had been a woman, I would have definitely been a lot like her. I haven't seen her in so long, but I see her make and model at sci-fi cons and protest rallies everywhere. Somewhere, there's a mate for her that will see past what the media tells us is pretty, and this mate will be as precise as she was at analysis. The mate will hone in to the gold in the center of that brain. It will happen at such a moment, when Esther will be analyzing a sci-fi book she read, or some sub-political nuance invisible to the average person. This will be invisible to most people, who would have written off Esther as totally geeky. And yet she'd be the best companion ever.

Now that's ironic, too. The very thing that repels her from normal society... will be her salvation in it. All she has to be is herself. And the irony in that is everyone says to be yourself, but few actually believe and practice that, and actually ostracize those who do. And that's hypocrisy.

So is irony hypocrisy? Humor is the art of the unexpected: a non sequitur. Irony and hypocrisy also share non sequitur. But the subjective view is that they are not often funny. Humor is the art of making the non sequitur into an acceptable resolved conflict. It's part of a spectrum of reactions. Humor is part of the happy laughter end, where conflict is resolved. Irony in near the middle. Hypocrisy in near the negative or the crying end. Tragedy is at the very crying end. All are part of the spectrum of reaction to conflict. And all use the same expressions. Crying, laughing, and reaction to puns.

And that's ironic to me.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:17 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Interpretation and communication: I miss good logical conversation

There's this joke I love where the psychiatrist is doing the inkblot test to a patient. Everything the patient sees has to do with perverted sex. The psychiatrist says, "Well, obviously you have sexual problems," and the patient says, "ME?? You're the one showing me the dirty pictures!"

I like that joke not just because it's funny, but because it illustrates so well the problem with interpretation and communication. Let's look at the following conversation:

John: You look nice today.
Jane: Are you saying I look terrible every other day?
John: No, I am just offering a complement.
Jane: Do you think I need complementing?
John: I was trying to be nice.
Jane: What would make you say such a thing, then?

Jane obviously has insecurity issues. She expects that the only reason that a complement would be delivered to her would be for "ulterior motives." Telling someone like Jane they did a good job, or you liked how they acted, or any other complement would be met with defensive suspicion and almost outright denial of the other person's motive. Jane will probably later tell a friend that John is hitting on her, and how John is a weasel-faced scumbag who just wants to have sex with her.

I used to be Jane. When I was in theater in high school, I became angry and embarrassed when I was complemented because of repeated sarcastic comments made by bullies and even my own parents. It took a brave girl, an actress I respected named Lauren, to teach me how to accept a complement. She actually had the nerve and guts to say, "Listen, I don't tell people they are gifted writers for my own pleasure. I offer it as a free expression of my feelings towards your work. If you spend the rest of your life rejecting complements like these, you will stop getting them, you will never have friends, and die a lonely man. When someone complements you, say, 'thank you.' Now, repeat after me: 'thank you.'" Lauren, like a lot of other actors and actresses I worked with, knew my home life was bad, and I was teased and bullied often in school, too. Many of them did their best to improve on what I considered a lost cause: myself. It took many, many years to fully appreciate what they were doing for me.

Today, I am a different person, thanks to them. I feel better as a person. I can take a complement and use it as encouragement. But in this process, I have also dulled the sharp edge that used to be my sarcasm detector, although, truthfully, back then it went off far too much to be of any use anyway. So often, I have to analyze what people say to me if I think they are being sarcastic. This is what I call my "Vulcan Problem"; I expect too much logic from others.

Truth is, people are not logical. They lie to themselves and others. I am never in a position to determine whether someone is lying to themselves, and I can barely determine whether they are lying to me. It's simply not fair to me that I have to constantly watch what I say, and then analyze the response. Take this example:

John: My daughter was caught cheating in school.
Jane: She's a kid, kids cheat. Her crime was getting caught.
John: I disagree. I think the crime was cheating in the first place.
Jane: Are you saying you never cheated?
John: No, not that I recall.
Jane: So who appointed you as Mr. Morality?
John: No one. That's just how I was raised.
Jane: You are conceited, and a poor liar. Everyone cheats. You're no better than anyone else!

This type of event has happened to me twice today. Once on an listserv, and at work. One was via e-mail, one was via voice. The e-mail one I could analyze. I could almost see that Jane and John were having two different conversations. I think Jane's response would have been better suited if the conversation was altered slightly:

John: My daughter was caught cheating in school.
Jane: She's a kid, kids cheat. Her crime was getting caught.
John: I never cheated. You must have cheated, and thus, support cheating.
Jane: Are you saying you never cheated?
John: Cheating is wrong. Thus, you are wrong.
Jane: So who appointed you as Mr. Morality?
John: No one. I am just right, and better than you.
Jane: You are conceited, and a poor liar. Everyone cheats. You're no better than anyone else!

Jane certainly responded to John as if this was the real conversation. John probably expected the conversation to go like this:

John: My daughter was caught cheating in school.
Jane: Cheating is wrong.
John: I agree, and that's why I am upset.
Jane: What are you going to do?
John: I will punish her with a stern lecture, extra chores, and no dessert.
Jane: That sounds reasonable. What is the school doing?
John: The test is an automatic "F," and she's in detention for two days.

But it didn't. That's a logical conversation between two mature people. I know, I have them from time to time. But I often have more people who seem to think that I think I am better than they are, are out to get them, or somehow have some weird moralistic power that will shame them. I am never in a good position to judge people, and try not to do it, if anything because I am lazy and don't want to keep track. What if Jane disagrees? I'd think a good conversation would go:

John: My daughter was caught cheating in school.
Jane: Oh no! What did she do?
John: She cheated on a pop quiz.
Jane: I got caught cheating once. I got in big trouble. How bad is it?
John: I will punish her with a stern lecture, extra chores, and no dessert.
Jane: That sounds harsh. Were your parents so stern with you when you cheated?
John: I don't know, I never cheated. I was too scared of getting caught.
Jane: Maybe you should just have the lecture. It was just a pop quiz.
John: Cheating is cheating.
Jane: Still, overreacting is not going to help, either. She'll avoid you when she has to make a moral choice in the future.
John: I stand by my decision.
Jane: Let me know how it works out.

This is the kind of conversation I am blessed to have with Christine when we disagree.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:01 PM EST [Link]

Throwing Stuff Out of Second Story Windows

Yesterday, I was spending most of the day assembling Ikea furniture. I discovered that instead of an office chair, the third-party delivery company had sent me a full-sized bed. That's quite a mistake. They came by later and took back the bed, but they can't find my son's office chair. Grrrrr! Now I am in some limbo of finger pointing, voice mail, and calls not returned between Ikea and the delivery company.

Well, I got everything but the dresser assembled. Two night stands, three lamps, and a computer desk are now in my son's room. I had to get rid of the old stuff, and a unique opportunity sprung up. My son's room is part of the 10' addition the previous owners made. The central air conditioning and heating system are not quite powerful enough to heat or cool the additions, so we use window AC units in the summer and space heaters in the winter to make up for the shortcomings. My son's AC unit died because he ran it during the winter for reasons I can't possibly comprehend, even though I told him to keep it off over and over again (and even unplugged it -- he plugged it back in). I have to either get the old one repaired, or buy a new one. I am going to make him suffer, so I am in no hurry to fix it. Last weekend, I pulled the unit from the window to see if I could repair it, but it's beyond my talents. Luckily, it's a Kenmore, and there is a Sears nearby for my leisure. Removing the AC left a huge window opening on the side of my house (don't worry, it's closed off from the outside by a windowpane). You saw some of the furniture he had. Literally, some of it is falling apart on the spot. I feared that moving an awkward piece that was unstable down several flights of stairs (including the flight that my wife broke her ankles on) would be inviting disaster. So I threw them out the window. This solved several problems. I got the furniture down to street level quickly, and since they hit a sidewalk on the side of my house, broke into several easily carried pieces upon impact, making it easier to get to the curb for garbage disposal.

This was fun. The cheap particle board rolltop desk shattered like a vase. The dresser drawers also broke apart in the most alarmingly fun way. I wonder if my reclusive neighbors thought I was involved in a domestic dispute?

Some of the furniture we saved. Christine's old 5-drawer bureau we saved because even though it's only held together by staples, that very fact made it easy to fix up again. It was cheap thin panels pine wood, but solid pine, so until something structural actually splits, we're keeping it. We're cheap bastards. We also kept the Government-issued desk, because although the leg is bent and can't support a lot of weight, CR needs a work surface for homework, drawing, Legos, and so on. Just as long as he doesn't lean heavily on it, it will stay upright. The old 3-drawer dresser of mine is still standing (I don't know how - I threw out the drawers), but since I haven't built his new Ikea 4-drawer, and the garbage pile outside was getting too big anyhow, I will wait for a few days. It's going to be hard, because he has his fish tank on top of that, and we're going to have to move it.

I can't wait to push that thing out of the window, though. Wheeeeeee! I may even toss the ejection-seat office chair out the window in sheer spite.

In the news today, Fairfax resident Grig Larson reviews the damage to his vinyl siding as he tries to convince his insurance company that a cheap particle board dresser and an ugly green office chair from the 1960s "just fell from the sky."

Posted by Punkie @ 10:29 AM EST [Link]

Monday, April 21, 2003

When I Come Home

I was recording this in my mind recently when reevaluating my life: what is coming home like? Every day is different, but here's an average day. Generally, when I get home, it's with my wife since we carpool.

Arf arf yap yap arf yap yap arf arf yap yip

I hear the dogs barking when we step put of the car on our driveway. If our son has beat us home, he comes out, whereupon I usually ask him, "Did you take the trash cans back in/pick up the paper/get the mail?" to which I always know the answer is a whiny nasal, "No... I'll get it..." I walk in the house, and Ahfu is so excited to see us, he's whimpering, marching in place at the door, wagging his tail. Widget, who thinks every time someone is near the door, he's obligated to lose his mind, loses his mind. He yips, he yaps, whines, yaps from the head of the stairs because he's so small, he's terrified of going down stairs (to him, they are like cliffs). The nearer you get to him, the more he loses it, and starts to spin in circles, yapping like he's on fire and no one told him to stop, drop, and roll. He wants to be petted like Ahfu, but now has lost his tiny peanut brain, and so runs away, yapping furiously, spinning, bumping into objects, and trying to run at us to be petted ... all at the same time. Finally, I manage to grab him so he'll stop yapping. Then he shakes and shakes with excitement, making strange guinea pig like burbling noises of sheer frustration. My wife pets him, and then I put him on the floor, where he charges our legs for some reason, slamming into them with all of his pathetic 3 kg total weight. It's like being hit in the shin by two disgruntled sparrows.

That's when Artoo comes in. He's the alpha cat, and wants me to pet him. If I don't, he'll lose it, get mopey, and yowl. Trouble is, Ahfu and Widget don't want him getting a smidgen of attention, so if he's on the floor, they chase him like he's a rabid fox that wants a beatin'. So Artoo jumps on the backs of chairs, which is fine, because I can pet him at waist-hieght that way.

Then I look at the kitchen: it's a mess. The living room is also a mess. Something like a table or lamp or plant or stacks of papers or something has been knocked over since I cleaned it just this morning. Half the dog toys are out. Somehow, the dogs got ahold of some trash (usually wrappers or napkins) and that lies totally licked clean of any possible food molecules on the floor. My son forgot, again, that it's his job to clean up the dog toys and the trash. "Why should I clean it when they drag it out again anyway?" I dunno, why eat when you'll just be hungry again later? Life is so meaningless when you get down to it, isn't it, Mr. Nietzsche? And who ate two sleeves of Ritz crackers? No wait... "I don't know." I blame Satre for the missing crackers because he's French (if it's cookies, I blame that fat cookie-eating bastard Camous). Or Cosmo, who is turning out to be curious destructo-cat.

Then, if nothing weird happens (50/50), I'll take off my backpack, shoes, maybe go to the bathroom, and then get started on cleaning the kitchen. Then if there's no immediate pressing projects/repairs (50/50), I may go to my den to be on the computer, catch up on some laundry, or take a nap. It depends on when I get home. I get home from 3pm - 9pm, depending on work, so sometimes I just go right to bed, trying not to look at the mess in the kitchen. But on average, one of the first things I do is housework of some kind.

Do I like this? I am not sure. I think I'd hate it if every day was like this, but there's always something different greeting me. Maybe I have to e-mail myself a reminder to something, and I got straight to my den. Maybe I am hungry, and get a snack. Maybe I just don't want to face anyone because it's been a bad day and I don't want to suck anyone else into my depression spiral, so I go to my den. If it's a nice day, I try and catch up on yard work. Sometimes Christine is bummed out and I need to be there for her. If that's the case, we'll go right to bed, and watch TV until we fall asleep.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:30 PM EST [Link]

Weekend Wrapup - Easter: Ikea, Legos, and Candy

This weather had been crazy on my joints and asthma. Most of the weekend I was lying down, trying to breathe normally. It was a miserable way to end a week off. I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another. I am 34, and complaining about a string of health problems like I am 80.

I have been reflecting this week off, and while I got a lot of stuff done, like yardwork and finances, I didn't get as much stuff as I would have liked done. I am at work now, wating for my department manager to answer a question about a project that's been a big PITA for years.

Saturday, we went to Ikea to get CR some new furniture. I was very happy I stayed within budget, and I got him some nice things. Ikea used to be part of Potomac Mills Mall, but they got so overcrowded, that they moved out, doubled their floor space, and then added a second floor on top of that. It's "ginormous," a word someone on a board made up once, and I use a lot. It's a combination of gigantic and enormous. Ikea is simply ginormous. And it made me miss Sweden, too, even though it's not terribly Swedish, really. I mean, apart from the names of the stuff, it looks just like some cheap furniture warehouse. The names always get me. I know they are all Scandinavian, with a mixture of Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian, but there are so many names that sound like nonsense words small children would make up like "Firp" and "Glorg" and "Lista" and "Besok" and "Ocrit" and "Marf." I also got some Marabou, crisp breads, and other "godis" as the Swedes say. We got CR a new computer desk, chair, chair mat, 4-drawer dresser, 3 lamps, and two more rolling end tables. Our Saturn wagon has a flat tire, so we had to have the stuff shipped to our home, and it arrives today (Monday). The last time we did this, it was in September of 2000, when we moved into our new house. I recall half the stuff was missing hardware, and I sort of expect the same thing to happen again. Luckily, when I got new hardware last time, I saved it for the future.

After Ikea, we went to Potomac Mills Mall to the Lego Outlet store, which for me is like Mecca. I didn't spend a whole lot, I am not sure why. I could have, but money has been good lately, so my mind goes, "Uh oh ... trouble ahead." Every bad financial disaster in my life have been preceded by a boon. Everything is paid off except my mortgage, of course, so I am very wary ... like when the enemy suddenly stops shooting at you. What's coming? But back to Lego. I got a cell phone caddy, which is hysterical because for YEARS since I have gotten my first cell phone, I have been wandering around, trying to find a case that fits it that will attach to my belt. When knew Lego made one? I got a black one, and it has a big zippered Lego... "nub," I guess you would call it, on the front. I also got a blue CD case for my LINUX disks. I also got a small Alpha-team set (Ogel's Manta Ray Ship - on sale), a keychain of a racecar driver (I call him "Marf"), and a small "Pepper" Brickster figurine. CR got a Mars Rover set, also on sale. I really wanted to buy the Mindstorms 2.0 set, but I have better ways to spend $200 these days, sadly. But the Lego outlet has tons of Legos not found in the US, or only in Japan, their catalog, and so on.

Easter came and went. I was in bed most of the day, controlling my breathing. The pollen is really bad this year. I ate Easter candy. Christine made a great dinner. We watched "The Ten Commandments," and it's weird, I haven't seen that movie in a while, but it seems so different now. For example, I think Moses was set up, and I felt sorry for him. If even a smidgen of the Bible is true, I wouldn't want to be Moses in any of those situations. The Old Testament God sure is a meanie.

Probably missing hardware from his Ikea Fnid nightstand...

Posted by Punkie @ 10:39 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Pediatricians on Demand

And oh yeah, I am off this week

Originally, it was so that my wife could go to Georgia on business, but that got delayed until next week. I also took off this week to be with my son, but his asthma is so bad, he's not allowed outside. He has a doctor's appointment with a new doctor (my doctor) tomorrow. The Singulair/Atrovent combo no longer works. He's back on the machine, but that only leaves him with a few hours of relief at best. So I am mainly alone while he is on my wife's computer, playing with Neopets. He's home because of Spring Break.

His previous doctor was a nice man, but his office staff was terrible. It's a family practice, and up until a few years ago, both he and his dad worked there. The whole office seems more like train station during rush hour. I don't know why they are so busy, but they are obviously TOO busy. Want proof? Get this, to make a non-emergency appointment (shots, checkup), you have a three month wait on average. Three months! When you get there, there is always a long wait, too, so if you had an appointment at 2:00 pm, you'd likely get to the examining room by 2:30-3:00, and then maybe the doctor will come by at 3:15 or so. I say maybe because we've had several visits that ended with "the doctor is unable to see you today, he is too backed up/been called away.... please reschedule." Another three month wait. Getting refills from these people was terrible, too, because they didn't believe in automatic refills unless you really caused a scene. They often refused refills unless you had another appointment which, as you can see, made things very difficult.

He's almost 13, and should stop seeing a pediatrician anyway.

In other news, I managed to get the woodpile in order, and got a sizeable chunk of my lawn back. Not as much of the wood decayed as I thought it had. Most of the decay came from the wooden flats they were stored on. No ants or termites were present, either, which was a stroke of luck.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:06 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Yardwork

In the last few days, I got a lot of yardwork done. Not as much as I would have hoped, mostly because of my asthma, this being pollen season and all. But I did two important things.

First, I fixed a long standing problem with this sloping area next to my front door. See, it's hard to describe, but my front door has these concrete steps that go down a hill to our driveway. Not a lot of steps, but my house entryway is elevated about six feet above the driveway. This gives the house a grand, sloped manor look, but the grassy hill slopes down with the steps, and it's hard to plant anything there and make it look nice. The previous owner went to some stream somewhere, gathered a ton of reddish sandstone rocks, and plied them up there. But they didn't put any weed barrier, so as a result, weeds grew up over the rocks, and using the weedwacker on the rocks didn't make the problem go away. I just had an ugly slope, covered with weeds and rocks, for the last two years. On Saturday, I ripped out all the rocks, sorted them by size, graded the slope into three steps, and stacked the rocks, making it step up three teirs. Kind of like how rice fields in Thailand look. I plan to plant stuff in those steps.

The second was I had to drag the lawnmower out of the shed, and beat it up until it worked again. This is a yearly ritual, because as the lawnmower repair shop keeps telling me, my mower sucks. I got it brand new when we got the house, and it was a Scotts 3-in-1 self-propelled bagger/mulcher. It stopped working after the first summer, I got it fixed, and then the next spring, it broke again, and the repair shop said I should have gotten a John Deere (and oddly enough, they sell John Deeres). Look, I am sure a John Deere mower is a fine mower. But I paid $300 for my mower, and a similar model costs $790 in a John Deere. Back then, and even now, I can't shell out $800 for a new mower. Even with repairs, I still have only paid $500 for my mower. Maybe my next one will be a John Deere.

The ritual goes like this: First, I drag the mower out of the shed, and shake off any dried grass still left from last year. I check the oil and gas. Then, I push this bulb on the side called a "primer" a few times. Then I jiggle the idle speed, leaving it on the picture of a rabbit (fastest speed). I shift the self propel into forward. Then I pull the cord a few times. Nothing. Prime again. Pull cord. Nothing. Prime, pull, nothing. Rock mower, bang it on ground. Prime, pull, nothing. Wait. Prime, pull, nothing. Bang around. Kick motor. Pull... and it roars to life like nothing's the matter. I let it run for a while, then shift down the speed to the picture of the turtle until the engine almost stalls (this saves a LOT of gas). If I restart it again while the engine's still hot, it will go on the first few pulls. If it hasn't run for about an hour, it takes a lot more pulls. The worst is when it's been stored for the winter, and been off for a long time. It's been like this since the day I bought it. The mower repair place also noticed this, and told me to buy a John Deere. They tried to sell me a riding mower.

Look, I am as lazy as the next guy, but riding mowers on my lawn are definately out. See, my lawn isn't small, but it has a lot of stuff (trees, house, rocks, gardens, hills, and so on) scattered about. Riding mowers are best them you have a lot of flat, straight lines to mow. Not the obstacle course my lawn is. In fact, when we first got here and had no mower, and the lawn needed work, we hired a team to mow the lawn, and I watched these guys in their huge mowers curse and swear that they couldn't get half the lawn without using a weed wacker or push mower. There's too many small, hilly, bumpy obstacles.

And when I stared mowing yesterday, I was again reminded of how hard it is to mow the front lawn. My front lawn is a mound with steep sides, and even the flat part is tough because most of it is under trees you have to steer around. But even with asthma, I managed to mow both the front and back lawn, using the clippings as mulch around my bushes (which makes them very leafy).

Today I hope to attack my wood pile. The previous residents bought a lot of wood for the fireplace, and with the exception of last winter, the two previous winters were mild, and we didn't need to use the several cords of wood they left behind. While most of the pile is now gone, there still remains a large ugly lump of decayed wood where I want lawn. So I plan to toss the bad wood, maybe save the good wood (if any). But I have to be careful because of that muscle tear I still have to deal with. So I'll have to do it nice... and slow...

Thankfully, the weather has been fantastic.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:23 PM EST [Link]

Missing Sweden

I cannot find home.

Sometimes, when things get bad, I find myself muttering "I want to go home," so much, it's like a voice in my head. I have done this since I was a wee kid, and when I was about eight or so, I realized I was saying it when I was already "home." I left there when I was 18, was never allowed back, and after about 13 years, my father finally sold it in a hurry.

But I don't know where "home" is. I have never known. When I look at my old house in McLean where I grew up, I have memories. But not really missing home so much as a memory of discontentedness and severe sense of being alone. I recall looking up the real estate listing shortly after it was sold, and seeing my old house as an adult, and how... sad it seemed. Poorly tended yard, house front covered with an aging tree, and how weird it looked separated from the neighbor's houses in the photo. I realize it was a trick of the photographer to make the house look better. I bet it needed it. The listing for the home was certainly full of red flags, something the realtor who looked it up for me also noted. It was listed quickly, way below market value (we estimated at least 30%), as a "must sell - owner moving." There were other items on the "official listing" of note about it being a "fixer-upper," and many items ticked as "needs work." It also had other warning flags like "charming decor" (outdated), "original flooring" (from the 50s), and "a bargain" (for a reason). The realtor mused, "there are only two reasons a house is sold like that: it is falling apart, or the owner is skipping town." The house also had unofficial realtor notes about "evidence severe neglect" and "prospects must be warned of the basement." My bedroom was in the basement. How eerily symbolic. So much evil happened there, I would be surprised if it wasn't haunted. My mother's spirit may still be there, trapped in the house as she was her real life, but I hope not. I doubt she knew that place as "home" either.

My life after McLean jumped around a lot. I lived in Alexandria for a few years, first in the Mount Vernon area (near George Washington's house), then in the Franconia area, and then in the Rose Hill area when I got married. From there, we moved to Reston twice, and settled where we now live in Fairfax. I have never left Fairfax county. And still, I am looking for home.

We own this house. Well, truthfully, the bank owns most of it, and I make payments, but Christine and I are on the paperwork. It still doesn't feel like home. I feel like I am living in someone else's memories. The previous residents, an odd bunch of people, took this house and renovated most of it. Then even added ten feet to one side of the house. When they got it, they said the former owners were terrible, and the house was in awful shape. So awful, for example, they had to replace the walls in many rooms. I mean, apart from a few rooms, this house was gutted, and rebuilt weekend by weekend, for 16 years. During this time, the new owners had three kids, who were all aged 7-13 when I met them. People still refer to this house by the former owners who lived here. Since we are not as nearly active as the former neighbors were in the neighborhood, we haven't made this "The Larson House," yet, and we've been living here since September of 2000.

"I want to go home..." goes the voice.

When I went to Sweden for the first time, as I was flying over the farmlands, an unexpected voice in my head said, "Home? Is this home?" I got real excited about it. But while I was there, I was so distracted, I didn't think much about it. But when I left, I felt I was being torn apart, like when I wasn't looking, something made an anchor there. So then I went a second time. The feeling was stronger. I felt different, I felt... stronger there. I felt I had been there once, grown up there, lived in Sweden since I was a boy, and yet, I had not. Some parts more than others. Sometimes when my cousin Sven was driving me somewhere, I'd pass by some farm, and suddenly have a flashback of running around the grass, under the clothesline, leaning against a car... and none of those could be me. The flashbacks were false, because judging from the decor in these glimpses, they had to have happened when I was already alive, so we're not talking past life or anything like that.

Part of what got me was that a lot of the scenery I passed looked a lot like rural Maryland, in the Calvert County area. Maybe that's what triggered it. Solomons Island was my second home for many years because my father owned a yacht there. Of course, that was a very unpleasant memory, being on that damn boat every weekend for almost eight years until the child abuse trials finally got my father to to leave me the hell alone.

"I want to go home..." goes the voice.

I think of Sweden often, though. I would hope my relatives there thought well of me, too, and that I wasn't too bothersome. I can't express how nice everyone was to me. Sven has been such a magnificent person as a tour guide and translator. He still sends me sporadic e-mail updates about everybody. I feel like they are family, but they are so far away. And I miss them.

I get Swedish food from mail order from time to time. Marabou, Tvist, Hvalost, and other stuff. I got a lot of Swedish knick-knacks when I was last there, and I have them scattered about my house as a hint of the fond memories Sweden gives me. Thinking of that place gives me such an ache of longing: Christine calls that "homesick," and maybe she's right; I never had a home that I was sick of being away from. Yet, when I am in Sweden, I am so nervous I'll offend somebody, so desperate I am to please, to be accepted, that I never really relax. Last time I was there (third time) I got a cold, and felt terribly guilty and embarrassed.

Is Sweden home? I don't know. Part of me says yes, part says no. I bet if I lived there for years, I'd be sick of it. Or... maybe not. I think logically I would, because, honestly, the USA has a lot of crap I like. I am used to it, speak the language, all my friends are here, and it's the "evil I know." I am pretty patriotic, and I feel I'd never leave the US unless it totally changed, I lost my freedom, or some disaster killed my wife, son, and hundred or so friends in one fell swoop. I have often thought, though, when money gets good, to travel there, once a year, for a month, in the summer.

I wonder if I'll ever find home. I know it has to be someplace on this planet, because when I see pictures from the Earth from the shuttle, I get all misty-eyed, and think "Home... HOME!" but that's going to have to be narrowed down. Maybe the world is my home. Maybe home will be a little in the US, a little in Sweden, maybe a smattering in Japan, Fiji, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, England, Denmark... who knows?

I'll tell you one thing: it will really be great on my frequent flyer miles!

Posted by Punkie @ 03:38 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, April 12, 2003

Great Day for a Daydream...

It's really nice out. The only reason I'm doing this entry now is to state I put up some new web photos in various areas. Check out my Wot's Noo? secition and check out new pictures of my friends, my pets, and some weird stuff.

Oh, and they finally, FINALLY, fixed my gutter up front. It's as good as new. I hope. Looks that way to me.

I'm going outside to work on our front yard. See you there!

Posted by Punkie @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 10, 2003

I forgive you, McLean.

But not all of it.

I got a letter recently from a former high school classmate named Sandra. Just before that, I got some great e-mails from someone I have known since kindergarten named Allison. So I have been thinking about reunions a lot recently.

I went to Lewinsville Elementary school in the 1970s. I had one bad teacher, but most were pretty good to great teachers. I would say this school was okay in my book. Most of the traumas suffered there were a result of my family life, not the school itself. Yeah, I had bullies, but not as bad as junior high. But, all good things must come to an end. Two years after I left, they closed down my school and turned it into a combo retirement home and day care center. I have always felt sad about this. Allison had suggested a Lewinsville reunion, and I thought that might be a great idea. Hopefully, we'll have more details later.

Junior High, Longfellow Intermediate High, was a hellhole of terror, bad teachers, shame, degradation, unfairness, and general misery. I will someday have a great essay about those years, my teachers, and my theories as to why it was so bad. I wouldn't have a reunion there even at gunpoint. I still get goose bumps of terror from those two horrific, miserable years.

McLean High School was better. Not good, but better. I went to high school near the nation's capital, and so many kids were "military brats," "state department brats," (these are not insulting terms, it was the self-described words the children of military and government parents used) children of senators, lobbyists, and those that follow them, and so on. Most never stayed at the same school, or even the same state for more than four years. Only 40% of the kids I was a freshman with, for instance, graduated with me. We had little to no school spirit, no unified force other than a shrug and "eh..." We had a terrible principal, which really stained my memory of that place.

So for our 5th-year reunion, only 40 or so kids showed up for a class of 350. I didn't go, because my father didn't tell me they were looking for me, and only thanks to Jason Lasky did I find out about it at all (way after it happened). Most of the kids that were in our area were now living elsewhere far away in the US or even overseas. It was a dud party, mostly filled with people who didn't hang out or anything in high school, so they didn't know each other, and there were never many memories.

The 10th reunion never happened. They tried to make it happen, but they couldn't generate enough interest. Apparently all the classes of the 80s had the same problem, so they grouped together and tried to have a "big 1980s reunion," and even THAT didn't generate enough people interested. The 15 year mark came and went without a peep from anyone.

But last week, I got a notice from a former classmate named Sandra I never got to know (I knew who she was, but we never shared the same circles), and she said, "Finally! We have a date for a reunion!" followed by the date, time, place, and a perky "more details to come later" promise.

Just a few years ago, I might have totally blown this off, because I had so few friends in high school. But this time, I actually think I might, since it would be near by house, of all places. And Sandra seemed so gung-ho and excited about it, I didn't want to rain on her spark, so to speak. She contacted a lot of other alumni, and many are interested, too. I anticipate an attendance (based on response) of 10-30 people, tops. Mostly because most of our classmates are scattered so far and wide, and the invite seems informal.

Times have changed, too. The 1980s were all pop-Reagan-conservative, and most of the kids were so focused on their future. Our school was like an engine of progress. Almost everyone I knew were applying to colleges by their junior year. Most seemed to have a "graduate, go to college, get a good job, and have a career!" navigation beacon. But then the recession hit right after they graduated college. Then came the Internet boom. Then the bust. Then 9/11. Then the war, and now back to recession. I remember what I used to think these people would turn into, and while some of them surprise me, a lot of them don't.

I see a lot of posts, mostly from girls, but some boys. I see many just recently started their families in their 30s. I already have a son who is turning into a teen this year. A lot of guys are or were in the military, which doesn't surprise me at all. A LOT of people who lived or are still living overseas, which also doesn't surprise me. I knew so many kids who grew up in Europe, who hated the US when they moved back, and pined for their European friends and familiar culture. They may have been US citizens, but their childhood hometown was in London, or Germany, or maybe even Japan. Many have kept moving every four years, just like their parents did. This is why so few people stayed in the area: what was to hold them here? It was just another station in their train of life events.

The major thing I had known all along was that most of these people would have good lives. They had money, parents that cared enough about them to raise them well, and always had someone look after them as an adult. And only a few of them were spoiled, and that kind of went away as they grew up and decided that having someone do stuff for them all the time was boring.

Hell, even I did okay, and I had none of that. So I am looking forward to seeing who ended up as what. Sure, they may snub me, or pass me on as "uncomfortable" like so many McLean people, but maybe not.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:55 PM EST [Link]

No New York for me... have to buy furniture

Well, try as I might, in the end, I could not afford to go. There are several reasons.

First, Amtrak has to be frigging kidding me on those prices. For God's sake I could fly there cheaper! And since I can't afford to fly... Now, the hotel were no surprise, and in fact, the ones I prices in the city were fairly reasonable, IMHO. I found many for $99 - 120/night at their cheapest. But to add it all up:

Two people to tour New York from DC:
$ 241 - Cheapest pair of round trip tickets there (flying)
$ 500 - Hotel stay for 4 days (with tax). I didn't want to stay less than that.
$ 400 - Approximate food and rail/bus fare for all 4 days for two (New York is pricey)
$ 200 - Entertainment (1 Broadway show, assorted tours, and so on)
--------------------
$1,341 - Approximate total

If I can swing that, which I almost budgeted for (about $400 less), I could certainly buy my son a whole new roomful of furniture, which he deserves more than my dalliances in the Big Apple.

Which leads me to the next thing: my son's appalling furniture situation.

What CR Has and Why

I feel this need to explain to my new York pals (Ellen, Eden, Merideth, Vinny, and half of 3WA) why I can't make it to "Noo Yawk." What follows are my photographic evidence. First, let me apologize for the mess of his room. He's 12. Second, let me apologize for the strange wall pattern. See, the former owner had this room for their two eldest boys, and this is how she masked stains: sponging teal paint on them and then evening out the pattern to make it look intentional. The carpet is a strange green and blue stipple pattern that from a distance makes it looks like grayish green/blue. The border near his ceiling is of killer whales. We can't really repaint though, unless we sleep elsewhere (like out of the house) for a week. He and I have the same asthma reaction to paint fumes.

	Cargo Upper Bunk/Daybed - I used to work at Cargo, and I got this... uh, "Off the back of the truck" as the drivers put it. I did a HUGE save-their-ass favor for the drivers one day, and they repaid me by uh... "selling me" spare parts to buy a bed. Truthfully, they kept spare parts of all our stock in the truck, because what if they got to a customer's house and a bed rail was warped? Or it was missing hardware? It would take weeks to get back to the customer's house. So they always had spares of all the parts. Sometimes they had too many spares. Sometimes they would end up in ... uh, an inventory black hole. Yeah. Okay, enough about that. My son needs a new twin mattress now, but man, what a bed.
	3-Drawer Dresser on the Verge of Collapse - This was a formica-over-particle-board 3-drawer dresser *I* had since I was... 3? 4? I don't know how I got it or where it came from. Chances are it came from a former house we moved into where the previous owners left it behind. I used to have a six-drawer combo dresser with hutch that matched it, but that finally collapsed in 1994. This collapsed in 2000, and I don't know how it remains standing with no drawers and no internal struts. My son's 5-gallon fish tank is on it now. I better replace it before there's broken glass, 5 gallons of water, and a flopping goldfish on his floor.
	Cheap-ass Ugly Brown Plaid Loveseat - My wife has the matching chair in her den. We got the pair when a previous neighbor was moving out of her house to rent it, and she said, "I don't want to throw these away, but I can't store them. Want them?" It's handy, comfy, and other than a really bad spring suspension, it's in fairly good shape. I think we'll just buy a cover for it.
	Milk Crates - We have a lot of milk crates in the house. I got mine from two sources: flea markets and once my mother got a "college milk crate system" which were supposed to be interlocking "supper crates" (like Yaffa) but really sucked. Christine got hers... from stealing them, I think. :) Then somehow we got a Yaffa set. Now the crates act as storage, end tables, book shelves, and a tribute to ugly standards of function. My son needs real shelves. Plastic Toybox (sans Lid) - Need new toybox (with lid). Probably at least 3. I think we paid $10 for this at K-Mart or something. You can't see it here because it's buried under what supposed to be piled neatly in it. The Tiki God - Stays. Don't mess with the Tiki God. He keeps our house from evil spirits and only demands a sacrifice once in a while. We usally give him Reeces Peanut Butter cups or Oreo Cookies (Double Stuf), so he won't become a VENGEFUL GOD!
	Busted Up Cheap Pineboard Dresser - This was Christine's dresser growing up. The way it was built, it was one step better than pure cardboard, but just barely. I kid you not, most of what you see here was stapled together by the manufacturer, and thus falls apart with amazing regularity. Ejection Seat Office Chair - The amazing things your former office gives away for free. This office chair(the green blob on the lower left), which dates back to the 1950s, is a marvel of enineering. I looks like a normal office chair, but has a complicated internal mechanism that when sat upon, dumps the sitter on the floor. It works by some counter-balance mechanism. Christine got it from a former office who was throwing it out, can you believe that? No? Then have a seat... The Lamp - Notice the light shining in your face. It's the top of my friend Rogue's old boa constrictor tank with a 60watt florescent bulb in it. That's the light source for the entire room. The entire, 10 x 24 room. There used to be a ceiling fan lamp, but my son broke it beyond repair, although he denies it, but when it happened could not explain the loud noise, the shattered glass, and the expose wires. The fan part still works, but the light part below is totally destroyed. So yes, he needs lamps.
	Busted-up Particle Board Rolltop Writing Desk - Proof that particle board furniture has no loving God, the garage-style rolltop is nothing short of a sculpture of decaying pressed sawdust. This was Christine's desk, growing up. It should be tossed, because it has me throwing up. It's too bad, because Christine really liked this desk, and it was well-designed as far as the drop leaf and cubbiholes went, but it's been through too many moves, and then a young boy, so it sits, sagging like a comdemned structure. That white panel in the foreground is actually what remains of the rolltop garage-door part. What's holding the slats together? White paper. I kid you not.
	US Government Issued 3' Metal Office Desk with Bent Leg - Rescued from a pile of trash my neighbor had. It was my son's first desk, then a work area, and then back to a desk again when the writing desk could no longer support the weight of a computer. Deep Blue Ikea Rollaway Nightstand - We got this when one of the two Birch Rollaway Nightstands we ordered came in the wrong color. We forgot to exchange it. Its birch twin is in our bedroom. CR will probably get a second one to match it, unless they send the wrong color again.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:01 PM EST [Link]

Monday, April 7, 2003

Weekend Wrapup - Science Olympiad

Science Olympiad
Saturday was CR's "Science Olympiad." I am not sure how common this is, but it's kind of an extra-curricular "Science is Fun" competition. It was a blast. It was held in Sandburg Middle School, a school near where I used to live back when the FanTek house was in Mount Vernon. It's weird, the old neighborhood hasn't changed much on Old Fort Hunt Road. But that's a side note.

My son and a girl named Sarah (hauntingly familiar persona: GT and LD... exactly the kind of friends I had back in high school) were doing the "Egg Drop" competition, and got second place in distance, and although the egg broke on their design, only one school did not. A school I will call God's Karma.

During the egg drop, I met a nice guy with a coach badge, and he was talking about how they hoped their missile/helicopter design would work. He was a teacher, I could tell that, and was very friendly and chatty. I got along well with him as school after school dropped their eggs from the stairwell to the target below. His was the ONLY school that it didn't break. His school? Longfellow. My old Junior High. The name that almost makes me scream and run out of the room in terror. Two of the worst years of my life as a kid were in that asylum.

And God said, "Ha!"

But seriously, I had a great time. Sarah's mom was a physics teacher at West Springfield High, and we got along GREAT. Their family is so typically... GT. I swear, I was in a time warp, listening to my best friend Kate's dad go on about computers and the F&SF Magazine. What did Sarah take with her to read while other class people did their contests? All the core Dungeons and Dragons manuals. Sarah and CR quizzed me on old D&D monsters, and I got most of them right. I was in a junior high, looking at Longfellow's table, reciting D&D stats from memory with GT people and surrounded by teachers I was getting along with. For the first time in... maybe ever, for a brief few hours, I didn't mind childhood memories so much. Nerdvana...

One thing I noticed was how... flaky some people were. Get this, 12 kids and some parents were supposed to show. Six kids and three parents showed. One kid was dropped off with no food, no money to buy food, and a lot of us parents and teachers worried about her, although she refused any free food we tried to give her. Her tee-shirt said, "Do not Disturb: I am disturbed enough already." You know, a tee-shirt that said that on an adult would be funny. On a kid... especially a sad kid who looks at the food table with interest, yet refuses food offered to her, not so funny. Whispers about her home life abounded, and we all kept an eye on her to make sure she was okay. She seemed very distant and sad. My own childhood memories showed those familiar dark clouds over her head: those used to be my clouds. I was also incensed that six kids didn't show. I mean, this is an elective that you train and prepare for for months. How could you just flake and not show to the competition? I mean, we were angry when actors in Prune Bran did that: show up randomly for rehearsals, then flake on performance day. "This is par for course," said the school coach.

Party!
We got home from the Olympiad around 4, in time for one of Christine's parties. A lot of people didn't show. Some were sick (one had some chest cold thing, and another was recovering from surgery after being attacked by a wild animal... all good reasons to stay in bed), but others did show with no note as to why. A lot of our friends do that, which bums me out. I mean, you buy lots of food, and then there's no one there to eat it. But Missie showed up, then Sean and Lou-ann came late, and finally Sara and Josh came, and we had a pretty good time. I had to go to bed by 11, because I had only a few hours of sleep, and had been busy with the Olympiad all day.

When I woke up at 9am on Sunday, people were asleep, but when they woke up, the party continued. Until 9pm on Sunday. I didn't mind, really, but felt bad I couldn't hang out with them all the time because I had to do some shopping, cleaning, laundry, bills, and so on.

I love our friends. They are awesome.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:49 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, April 6, 2003

Cargo Furniture - Reflections Part 2

When we last left Punkie, he was explaining how Lascetta was impressing his Viking instincts...

Of course, Gretchen had another plan. Mike had trained her, and all his old assistants the same way. He made them to be managers from the very start, and encouraged them to do the same thing. By early 1994, Gretchen was offered a better store, her work at Springfield done. See, Mike and Phyllis had this idea that certain managers were trained to fix bad stores, and if they proved their worth, they would promote them to a really great store. Makes sense. But Gretchen said she was not leaving Springfield unless I was to be promoted to manager (she was cool like that). Phyllis was skeptical, but agreed, and by March of 1994, I was manager of Springfield Mall Cargo. My heyday in retail came of age. I went to manager private parties, the annual meetings, an the whole fun.

The Best Laid Plans...
It started off well. My store was doing well, and I got myself my first assistant, a guy named Chris. He was a an ex-punk, skateboard park loving guy. Real sharp, real nice, and a lot like me. But Chris was a bit... too good. Chris was a little bit too dedicated, and one day, he did something that meant well, but is now the reason I will always tell my employees "never lie for me." See, Gretchen had called on a day he was working alone. She asked if I was working, and for some weird reason, he thought I *should* have been working, but was lying about my 48/6 hours for some reason. I wasn't, and he was trying to "cover up" for me, and did such a botched up job, Gretchen became suspicious, and then told Mike.

The first I heard about this was the next week when Gretchen was angry and didn't want to speak to me, but said I had to work Sunday and my store was going to be audited. Mike also said he was doing the audit, and was not allowed to speak to me until that Sunday, but I'd better be able to explain myself. I asked Chris what the hell they might have been talking about, and he suddenly blurted out he had opened late a few weeks earlier, and didn't tell me. Of course, had the mall noticed, I would have been informed within hours, but they didn't catch him apparently. So I postulated the mall called the home office, and that's why I was being audited.

So I worried for the next few days, and since I always kept my paperwork in order, I made sure everything was ready for the audit, and there was little I could do. Mike had once made the comment, "I can fire anyone I want to, because no manager is 100% clean." Mike was not a district manager, but used to be, and still, for some reason, had some of those powers.

Sunday was a bad day. The started by asking me if there was anything I would like to confess. I told them Chris said I opened late, and they didn't know that, and grilled me. Then after that was done, they went over my hours, and found I was telling the truth about when I worked. They went over every. damn. item. on my inventory. I had nothing to hide, I showed them everything. Down to the cent. Deposits, refunds, everything. They were convinced I was hiding something, and asked me over and over again about the hours I worked. They said they had a spy on the store, and when I asked what the spy said, they backed off. At the end for the gruelling 5 hours, Mike said, "I've got nothing. This was a... uh, mandatory audit for all new managers and you... uh, passed." He smiled.

Gretchen didn't speak to me for months.

I made friends with other managers. I felt pretty cut off, but Gretchen was also going through some personal problems I found out later. She was leaving her husband (a bland man who was so unlike her type, it was inevitable). Then she and Mike had an affair, which I also didn't know at the time, made Phyllis mad. See, apparently, Mike and Phyllis had an affair years earlier. Gretchen finally quit. The affair with Mike ended, and then Mike was in a funk for a long time. Phyllis and Mike started to get worse and worse towards each other. Then, they announced they were pulling out of Springfield Mall in January of 1995 when their contract ran out.

This at first ticked me off, because I had made the store profitable by this point. It used to lose $20-30,000 a year, and now it was making a profit of $8000 - 9000, and was looking for a very big surge in sales due to my aggressive marketing and callback. They told me I was going to get Tyson's Galleria, back to where I interviewed. This was both good news and bad news. Good because it was close, in my old hometown of McLean. Bad because it was a "penalty store." No one, and I mean no manager, had ever made that store profitable. It was considered a total loss, and everyone had given up on it. I was determined to do my very best, because I had helped turn Springfield around. I secretly started making plans.

During the year of 1994, I saw many managers come and go. Many of them young people. Many of them had different stories. Some were like so many retail managers, a combination of bad life decisions and poor circumstance. I knew college dropouts and a few ex-millionaires. Some were people who just drifted about life, bumping into companies and jobs. Few were "career managers," which led me to the statement I still make to this day: "Retail is not a career as much as it is something that happens to you; like a tragic accident." I really started to rethink my own life at this point, and being manager of a furniture store in a mall, I had a lot of empty free time to contemplate this. There were times when other managers would call just to chat. Our stores were often empty wastelands with bright colors, but dim amusement. There are only so many times you can crease the bed sheets, fluff the sofa cushions, and rearrange the octopus on the daybed. I spent a lot of my time hand-writing postcards to previous customers, telling them to come get the new catalog or "You got an end table, we now have new lamps, come see!"

I also went through a plethora of assistants. Chris quit to start his own skateboard park. I had a guy named Phillip who was a liar and a thief, and I had to fire him eventually. Then I had Mark, who left to become a firefighter. Then I had Anne, who was a total flake (was trying to get social security benefits for her ADHD), and quit under fear of being fired after not showing up for days for no reason other than she had just moved and her alarm clock didn't work. Then I got this wonderful girl, Ellen, who was a lesson in burning bridges.

I try not to burn bridges. Remember Serena, the only manager Laura let me contact? I stayed friends with her. She was fired, and went to work for the competition, a place call "Kid's Room" or something. In my mall. I didn't make her an enemy, and we had a strange alliance against the "evil" store, "The Pine Factory," which went out of business that year, and then we got a "This End Up," yet another store that sold crate-like furniture. It seems so comical now, the little wars and alliances we made with each other. One day, Serena calls me, and says, "I have the perfect assistant for you. I don't need one, but this girl is great!"

Ellen was. I hired her right away, and while she did leave to pursue a acting career in New York City, her sunny personality was a needed pick-me-up. She acted very much like Marlo Thomas in "That Girl." Yeah, that sunny. She stayed with me until the store closed. Best damn assistant I ever had.

It wasn't all boring wasteland. Sometimes the Company sent us places. First, there was the annual sales conferences, like I got to go to Forth Worth (pronounced "foat wuth") Texas, Las Vegas Nevada, and a dude ranch in Bandera near San Antonio. "Foat Wuth" was a dull meeting in a hotel near a steak house. Most of the managers drank. Las Vegas was very exciting, and we stayed at the Tropicana. I was originally going to hate it, but a friend of mine convinced me that I should take it on my own terms. I did, and had a good time. Most of the managers drank. Then we went to a that isolated Dude Ranch in Bandera, where they tried to get managers not to drink, but one night, one of them got a truck, and drove to the nearest bar where they drank with to locals until they almost got arrested. Something about an electronic dart board.

Anyway, you see the theme. I did well as a manager and won store quota contests quite frequently, and while I never got huge bonuses, I got a lot of freebies, and got to take my wife to Cancun twice on the company dollar.

Last Stop: Tysons Galleria!
When I made the transition from Springfield to Tysons Galleria, it was like night and day. The store was half the size, and very thin. It was about the size of a large RV camper, and with all that furniture, it was very crowded. I had a TON of stuff to fix. This store, when I looked at the scant accounting and made some of my own math magic, was losing $150,000 a year! Holy shit! Most of that was due to horrible rent, but our location was terrible, and the mall was appallingly abandoned. I was on the top (third) floor, way out of the way, and several store spaces on both sides of me were empty and had never been rented since the mall opened seven years ago. Everyone in that mall was losing money. It was a ghost mall. Literally, not exaggerating in the slightest, days could go by before anyone actually came in my store. Days.Days! I went from a store that did $40,000 - 80,000 a month to less than $5000.

Another problem was not only did I have trouble finding customers, but employees. There was a period of two months where I had no staff. I pulled 80 hour weeks. Salaried. No overtime. No days off. I had a lot of time to think, and that store was a sucking wasteland that could tear the bones from your back. Halfway into this, I thought, "This store is affecting my mental health, and I started to look for work elsewhere. This budded my seeds for the technical industry in 1995. On my days off when I did have an assistant (a redneck employee Phyllis hated and later forced me to fire), I applied for tech jobs. Finally, in 1996, I got one, and became a third shoe.

I say "third shoe" because for some reason, managers always quit/got fired in sets of three in a month. I am not sure why, but, the first shoe was Phyllis fired Mike. That was a mortal blow to company morale from New York to Texas. Then the manager in one of our New Jersey stores quit. I had to call Phyllis days after she scrambled to find a sub for that store, because when the manager quit, her assistant also quit, leaving only one part timer.

Phyllis sighed a very heavy sigh, and said she'd leave New Jersey to talk to me on the next plane out. She promoted an assistant from another Jersey store right then and there, and flew out to see me. She didn't come to talk me out of it, but did hint she suspected I'd quit after Mike was fired, if anything, to prove her wrong when she had made the statement, "Managers say they'll quit when I fired Mike, and that's all talk. No one cares that much about him and his Manassas Mafia." She discussed the transition of the store to a new assistant manager from Laurel, a peppy short guy with bad teeth. I had to train him to be a manager in my last two weeks. I have forgotten his name, but that store eventually ate him alive. He was fired when he was caught asleep in the store. I stayed on as a part timer to help out with paperwork for a few months, but eventually quit because I started to freelance web work, and at $500 for a few hours work, it was much more conducive to do that than work for $6/hr for 10 hours a week.

Cargo then became a memory. They eventually bought themselves out, became employee-owned, and then did even worse than Tandycrafts did. The stores changed their name to "Cargo Kids," got bought out by Pier One Imports, and are closing all over. This year, Tandycrafts filed bankruptcy.

Mike is now working corporate assurance for a company called Mattress Discounters, and Gretchen is manager of a Best Buy close by. Her and Mike and living together again, and I don't know under what circumstances. I recently refound them when I found Gretchen at Best Buy. Lascetta quit to be a full-time Mom, and does not race in crash derbies anymore.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:22 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, April 3, 2003

Cargo Furniture - Reflections Part 1

Uncle Punkie? Where did you work before you became a computer guru?

Sit down my child. See, before your Uncle Punkie was a technical monkey for large testing corporations, I worked retail. See my earlier story about Crown Books. Let me tell you about Cargo Furniture.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel
I was unemployed for two years once. Two long, horrible and wonderful years. Horrible because of the crushing poverty, depression, weight gain, and feelings of inevitable doom. Wonderful because it got my writing career off, I raised my son from six months to 2 and a half, and was a dutiful househusband. But the horrible part pretty much overtook the wonderful part. I kept a journal in a notebook of jobs I applied for, and in those two years, I called, mailed, and applied in person to over 400 places. Only about a hundred of those got me interviews. Only six ever seemed promising. I had an assortment of writing jobs, all paid a few bucks here and there, and part time seasonal help, but really, I was unemployed. Christine carried the weight of sole wage earner for a horrible company during that time.

Cargo came to me literally as I was at the door with a warrant for a court appearance from another a bill collector. It was I think our sixth or seventh one, I don't recall. I was waiting for a callback from the now defunct "Nature Company" store, and as the phone rang, the sheriff knocked on my door, my son was trying to chase the cats, and I had something burning on the stove. I took care of all at the same time. The phone call was from my friend Tracie, and between her, CR trying to get out the door, and the sheriff trying to get me to admit Christine was hiding in a closet (the bill was in her name), and the burning Ramen noodles on the stove, I was severely distracted. I think I accidentally gave the sheriff the impression Christine did not live at this address anymore, when I was trying to tell him she was at work, and no, I didn't know the address. So he left, with the warrant, and my Ramen was now burned. I cried because it was my last package for the week, and it was Thursday. Tracie then remembered, out of the blue, that her company, Cargo Furniture (which she loved), was hiring in my area (she was in Maryland, the store looking for help was in Tyson's Galleria). I got a phone number, hung up on Tracie, called a girl named Gretchen, who was so eager to hear from me, she arranged an interview in the evening. That was great!

The interview went very well, and Gretchen was a charming young girl with almost bleached blond hair who looked very tired. Apparently, she had no staff, and was running the store all by herself. She wanted me to do a "follow-up" interview with another manager in the superstore in Chantilly. So we went there the next day. That guy's name was Mike. Mike was a manager who had been with the company since its beginning, almost 15 years. Mike was ... odd. Nice, but odd. He spent half of our interview complaining about the quality of the merchandise he had just gotten, and then wanted to know what *I* thought about it. I waffled. Should you agree with the guy interviewing you, yet slamming the product they sold? Was this a test? He also asked me a killer question I will never forget, "Give me three reasons not to hire you." Man, another test? I couldn't think of anything.

It was a test, and I passed, apparently. I got a call a few days later from Springfield Mall, a manager named Laura wanted to hire me. Who? Who is Laura? And Springfield Mall was a 30-40 minute drive from Reston, and with only one car my wife used ... public transportation SUCKS in this area, too. Christine and I talked it over, decided we needed the money over everything else, and I agreed.

Gretchen's Master Plan - Part 1: Supplant
This had to be the worst set up. Laura was, later aptly described by the district manager, "a sad sea-cow of a woman." I was cheerful, outgoing, ready and eager to start a new, real, full-time job for the first time in years, and I couldn't have hit a bigger wall. First, I was replacing the current assistant manager, a girl named Carol. Carol was informed of this the day I started, and she was on "temporary full time status" so she could train me. Let me repeat this, because it bears repeating. The girl I was replacing, replacing because she did a poor job, and wasn't told of her demotion to eventual part-timer until my first day, was to train me. This was one of many management decisions made my Laura. Laura also informed me that my work week was going to be 48 hours a week, 6 days a week. I was stunned, and blurted out that this was not told to me during any part of the interview. "We don't tell people that during the interview," she said, "because we lose more applicants that way." I bet. I could have balked some more, but Laura told me anyone who ever questioned this schedule would be fired. I was desperate for work, and shut my trap.

Laura had some rules. One of her rules was that all recorded sales for the day was to be rounded up by 3s. Let me explain this, because it's damn idiotic. Normally, people round by 5s. Like 23.5 would be rounded to 24, and 23.4 would be rounded to 23. She rounded by 3s. So when I called in weekly figures to the office, they were (surprise!) off by a lot. Her second rule was I was not allowed to talk to ANY other manager but her and a manager at landmark called Serena. Serene was sweet. Bitter, but sweet. Bittersweet. I grew to like her anyway. But should, say, Stefanie from Landover call, I was NOT allowed to talk to her for some reason, unless it was strictly business. Stefanie was Tracie's boss. I was not allowed to talk to Mike or Gretchen, and this caused a weird incident I will retell in a little bit. Another rule was Lunch Break was to be taken before or after your shift, not during the middle. So if you worked from 8am to 5pm, you left at 4:30 and never came back. The last, and worst rule, was not for me, but her kids.

Laura had apparently been the manager of a store down in Virginia Beach, but then left her husband and had a restraining order put on him. Our DM, Phyllis, out of kindness, put her a few hundred miles up north to help her start her new life. Laura was a now a single Mom for three kids, aged 12, 6 and 4. She ruled them with an iron fist. After they got home from school and the daycare sitter, they had to call her every half hour on the half hour. Laura quickly made it apparent that I was working the 1pm to 9pm shift for the rest of my life.

The first time I was alone with Carol, and Laura was elsewhere, Carol said to me, "No offense, but you'll never make it here. Laura has a problem with men I won't go into, but working under her is a depressing and suffocating hell." Carol was bitter, but admitted her main problem had been attendance. She was a teen mother, now 19, with a son about my son's age. We bonded on that level. She also never wore anything professional, always seemed to wear loose-flowing afkan hippie-gowns or tie-dye parachute pants.

The very first day I was allowed to be in the store all by myself, it was like a depressing black cloud had left the store. My optimism returned. I could stand Laura. I only had to spend 1-4:30 with her, anyway. Later, this became almost nothing, as she always found excuses to leave early. I called Serena with any questions I had, and running the store was fairly simple. Tracie called me often to cheer me up, too.

Then one day, Gretchen called. "How are you?" she asked, all perky. "Uh, fine... what can I help you with?" I answered. "Nothing, I wanted to chat." I recalled Laura's rule. I sweated. "Um... uh..." "So," she said, with a voice leading to nowhere good, "you like working with Laura?" "Uh..." I said, "Sure. She's... swell." Gretchen countered with, "No she's not, you liar! (giggle) Just PLEASE don't quit before the end of your first month okay, promise? Prrromise?" Gretchen could coax a drowning man to swim with her sunny humor. "Okay," I said. The first hint was planted in my brain.

More hints followed. I got to talk to Phyllis, the District Manager for the first time (about 3 weeks into my job), and she was totally insane like a female Robin Williams. Now, most managers hated her guts, but I always got along with her. I never could find anything wrong with her. Maybe I was just lucky we always got along, because many managers QUIT because of her with alarming frequency. Laura had also informed me to always tell Phyllis "Laura is with a customer," whether she was or not, and if she was in the store, and not with a customer, I'd have to say, "But she's wrapping it up." Laura was with a customer at the time Phyllis called, and when I said "She's--" "BUH!" said Phyllis. "Er, she with--" "BUH!!!!" went Phyllis. Then she pressed keys on the phone pad. She was nuts like that. "Don't tell me, she's out of the store, but told you to say she's with another customer. Right? Huh huh huh? [BEEP BOOOOP]" I said, "No, she's with a guy up front, would you like her to call you back?"

"NO!" said Phyllis. "I want to talk... to you! How do you like that? Didn't expect that, did you? [BEEP BOOOOP BEEEEP] " Suddenly, she downshifted to a sweet caring mode, "How are you...?"

"Okay..." I said.

"I heard you're really great. I want to meet you! You working on the 31st?"

"I am closing that d--" I stared to say, but she interrupted me with the phone keypad again.

"[BEEP BOOOOP BEEEEP] WRONG! You're opening that day, sweetie. Okay? Let Laura know that. I can't wait to meet you! Buh-bye! [click]."

Laura was not amused when I told her. "They are moving me to another store, I bet. Goddamn Manassas Mall." I suddenly put it all together. I bet she was being demoted. I didn't know anything about Manassas, but I knew the concept of a "penalty store" from previous jobs. A "penalty store" is a store they put a manager in when they can't fire a a manager, but want to pressure them to quit. I was pretty sick of her thumbscrews in place at the time, so I stabbed her below the ribs with, "Ooh, a promotion to another store. That would be cool!" She said nothing, but glowered at my smile.

On the 31st of March, exactly one month of employment, I came to the store to find Laura, Phyllis, and Gretchen. Gretchen was happy to see me. This was her plan: my interview went so well, and she knew she was leaving Tyson's to replace Laura in Springfield (a bigger store), she had Laura hire me to replace Carol, whom Laura was trying to fire. That way, Gretchen got to keep me. Their risk was Laura would drive me insane. It was hatched by Gretchen, Mike, and Phyllis. Laura did go to Manassas, and later quit to move back with her husband in Virginia Beach.

Gretchen's Master Plan - Part 2: Promote
My first day with Gretchen was like night and day. Phyllis took me out to lunch to ask if I had a problem with a female boss. I told her no. Then she asked if I had a problem that Gretchen was 18. She was 18??? Well, I can't think of a reason to hate her because of her age. I was 23 at the time, so that was only 5 years difference. Phyllis approved of my attitude. Then she told me, "Your store is a mess. Gretchen will go crazy trying to fix it. Make sure she only spends 8 hours a day doing this, or she'll burn out, and be no use to the company."

Gretchen was one cool cat. Very fun to be with. She taught me so much about management and leadership, and she also had her head on straight as far as who she was and what she wanted. It was true, for the first few weeks, she did go nuts trying to fix the store. We were losing money like crazy in overstock, bad accounting ("Rounding by 3s? Laura rounded by 3s? Jesus!"), customer followups, and general mismanagement. Our store began to turn around, but as bad as she was doing, it was like turning a huge oil tanker. It took time to slow down, stop, turn around, and speed up again.

Gretchen was odd in many ways. One big weirdness she had this Taco Bell obsession. She pronounced it funny, like her accent was on the wrong syllables. She said, "Taca-bell" like one would say "Tinkerbell," instead of "Taco Bell" like two words with more of stress on the second word. She also used it to cure any ailment she was suffering. She actually uttered these words: "Ugh... I feel so sick, like I am going to throw up. I am going to go eat some burritos. Be back in a minute." What? No no, you AVOID burritos when ill, Gretchen ... no! But it was I who did not understand the wisdom of Gretchen. She also was hooked on this song, "Whoomp, There it Is!" by the group Tag Team, and would play it from the cassette single a lot.

Through her, I got to meet other managers, and what became part of what was known as "The Legend of Manassas Mafia." It seemed most of the managers in our area were all trained by Mike. Gretchen was one of them. Stefanie was another. So was a girl named Lascetta. Later there came Roy and Gary.

Let me pause here and talk about the wonder that was Lascetta. She was a short girl with a demure build, and looked delicate and pretty, like a little Dutch girl. But in that dainty package hid a powerful and brutal force that could, with the whip of a few simple words, lay a person flat like soggy piece of pasta. She might as well have been Irish, because she sure could have held the best with any Irish temper, and came out the winner with tufts of her opponent's hair in her fingernails. You simply could not believe from such a tiny little package could come the sharpest mind, the razor wit, and the kind of cursing and swearing that would make even a seasoned sailor blush. Frequent responses to her comments were, "Oh my GAWD! You didn't just say that, did you?" She was also as funny as hell, a very good manager, and later made a wonderful mother. Before she got pregnant with the only man who could weather her storm, she drove in demolition derbies. No fooling. The real ones, and had trophies, scars, helmet, and Polaroid photos to prove it.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:16 PM EST [Link]

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

Pain, pain, go away... aw, shut up, fatso!

As I type this, I am able to sit up in bed. Good news is that it doesn't appear to be an internal visceral problem nor is it a hernia. But it's "most likely a small tear or strain in your abdominal wall." I have spent almost 100% of my time since I got back from the doctor's on Monday in bed. Near as I can figure, all that lifting of wardialers and such, going up and down the stairs at work, strained muscles I was using, overcompensating for my attempt to save my back. It worked, my back is okay, but my left side is still sore as I type this.

I am sick of sitting in bed. I am sick of TV, because it's over 200 channels of nothing to watch most of the time. I am so spoiled, I swear.

How I Got Fat (with apologies to Alan Sherman)
This incident also brought the "you should really lose weight" speech by my doctor, and the echo of, "No shit, really?" by my head. I only have two reasons I want to lose weight: health and clothing size. Right now, I am at the very edge of what can be bought in a normal store. I wear a 2xl shirt, and size 42 waist. The thinnest I have been as an adult was a XL shirt and size 36 waist. I also have this annoying habit for fluxuating weight between 290 and 315, depending on the time of the month (I have weight cycles). So sometimes my clothing is loose and baggy, and other times it is a bit tight. I have always had cycles, but since I have gotten married, the cycles have been creeping up ever so slightly in 14 years. When I got married, I was a skinny 180-190, and looked terrible. Now I am 290-315, and also look terrible, but in another way: I am pudding man.

I don't have any aversion or denial to being fat. I am fat. Fatty fatty two by four. I was fat, very fat, between the ages of 12 and 13 before I sprouted upwards and developed a mild kind of anorexia I like to call "amnesiac anorexia," which was "I forgot to eat." See, my mother started her heavy drinking around this time, and when she was sober, she kind of overfed me to compensate. Often, my food was like a steak with a side of spaghetti and mashed potatoes. I was also a VERY fussy eater, and even thought I assaulted my poor mother with picky whining and nibbling, she gave into me. She even let me eat pancake batter and frosting from the can. Yugh. This was where I think I got a lot of my poor eating habits, and then, almost incredulously, I got tired of being fed by her. It might have been a strange form of rebellion, but my eating pattern changed radically around age 13. First, one of my problems turned out that I had an ulcer, which for the longest time, my pediatrician thought, "How could a 12 year old kid get an ulcer?" Then when the bleeding got heavy enough, I got put on this medication that I could not eat within hours of taking it. My mother gave me this medicine just before breakfast, and this was a vast mistake. All food made me ill. So I stopped eating breakfast. In junior high, this kid named Robbie used to beat me up savagely for my lunch, so I stopped bringing lunch to school (I hated school food, and my parents were against school lunches anyway). So by the end of junior high, I stopped eating breakfast and lunch. This also had a great added benefit that I didn't have to use the school bathroom, which is where a lot of bullies hung out in. Of course, looking back on it, no wonder I was so sluggish in school. I was now eating one meal a day.

By high school, my mother's drinking had increased, and my weight decreased as I started avoiding food. Sometimes I'd go days without eating at a time. I wasn't doing this consciously, because when I got "reminded" of food, I would be very hungry. But there was some subliminal process going on. I shudder to think of my nutritional intake during this period. I dropped from a 300 pound behemoth at 5''2" to a 190 pound gangly giant at 6'0". This was fine with me! Of course, my friends thought it was funny that I would be at a party, eating chips stating I had forgotten to eat for two days, and now was famished. I think a lot of them assumed my mother was drunk, my father was away, and there was no food in the house, which might have been true to an extent, but I could have always gotten food if I really wanted it at home. My mother had gotten all her booze when she went out "food shopping" so her drunk periods were always periods where lots of new food was in the cabinets.

The worst period was my senior year, when I dropped to 135 while in the hospital. This was due to a massive screw up I am not ready to relate here, but my eating was sharply curved for two months due to injury, excessive nervousness, and because I felt sorry for someone in worse shape that I was. When I got back to the real world, I went back to 160 in less than a month, and was steady at 186 until just before I got married.

The reason I got fat again is several fold. First, I got married, and suddenly, my irresponsible and sporadic food intake was increased to three solid meals a day. Then I got a lifestyle where I didn't move much, and now I am in middle age. I never learned to eat properly or balanced, and I have this severe addiction to sweets that is very hard to curtail.

My addiction to sweets is so much like alcoholism, I see parallels in it all the time. I binge on it all the time, go through withdrawal, realize I need to do something about it, but don't ever seriously admit I have a problem. I rely on it for tough times, and chocolate has been the ONLY thing to get me through depression cycles. I am sure if my family forbid me to have any, I'd hide it or eat sweets at work. It's even tied to childhood trauma. The whole gambit. This is one of the major underlying forces deep in my programming which keeps me a teetotaler: imagine this pattern to alcohol. It would destroy me, my family, my life.

Why I Never Exercise
When I was a manager at Cargo Furniture, I met another pair of managers at a conference who were probably gay workout buddies (meant seriously, in a good way). One of them, a very pumped-up and developed man, said to his pal and then to me, "Look at Grig. Grig, you have the frame to really look good. I know bodybuilders who would KILL for that frame. You should really work out, man, use what God gave you. Take care of yourself." He meant it to be a complement mixed with some advice, and I took it as such. I thank him for that, because he showed me, in a mirror, what he was talking about. He saw me as a sculpture waiting to be built, and is probably the only person who ever said anything encouraging in that manner. I truly believe what he said. Not that I want to be built like a bodybuilder, but it would be nice to have a lot of energy.

So why don't I work out? Ever been fat, uncoordinated, and nonathletic as a kid? Yeah. That's why. Exercise = gym = PE = teasing = failure = misery = avoidance. Memories of exercise are directly connected to anger and frustration, pain and humiliation, and the solemn swear to myself that I when gym was over, I would shut that door on my life, shatter the key, and never look back. I don't want to go there ever again. Of course, I don't want to be fat and low on energy anymore, either. These two opposing forces create a knot of frustration... which drives me to chocolate.

That's no good.

It's weird, it's like I logically know that I have to exercise and move around to be healthy, yet some internal process sabotages it. Right away, it's like "I want to exercise," then "Oops... knee hurts." The harder I try to do it, the more my internal sabotage process goes to work. "I could die if I don't exercise more," I cry. "Go eat some chocolate," is the response. "Don't you care if I die? Most of my physical miseries are a direct result of this." "No exercise. It's dumb. Remember your promise." "I made that promise when I was 15, can't we re-evaluate this contract? It's no longer valid, made under a different life experience. I don't have bullies or parents anymore. I am different now." "It does not matter what you say, this is solid. This belief is as solid as your aversion to hurt people. If you break this, all deep moral contracts you have made will be in jeopardy. It will not be broken. Ever."

Crap. Stupid promise I made at 15. I wish I had the sense to have made the promise, "I will stay in shape, *despite* gym. That will show those bastards." So now I have to figure out some loophole, some sneaky way to get around that, because I have to admit, I cannot break promises made to myself. I mean, if I do that, I will totally lose my sense of moral boundary, and in today's world of cheats and liars, my own promises of morality and deed are all I have to keep me stable.

This will be a long fight.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:55 AM EST [Link]