Quittin’ Time!

Quitting my job was not nearly as interesting or amusing as the daily drama on Gossip Girl or The Real Office Workers of New York City – waa?  That’s not a real show?  It should be!  Bravo, I’m going to give you your next big hit.  Forget about the whiny, plastic, unbelievably irritating women in the other NYC reality show you air.  No, the other one.  No, the other one.  With your Orange County show, the women were mildy amusing but the NYC women are simply nauseating.  It’s more like Lifestyles of the Bitch and Famous rather than a reality show featuring pampered women with too much time on their hands.  If I saw one of them on the street, I’d probably direct my cab to run them down.  Bravo, I can do sooo much better for you. A small advance and I’ll submit the script to you by next week. 

Anyway, when I started working for Mrs. Garrett she acknowledged that the position was substantially underpaid and, in full disclosure, informed me that my predecessor made almost four thousand dollars more than I did even though I would be doing a lot more work.  More work, less pay, less filling, tastes great!  You know how they say illegal immigrants often take jobs that American citizens won’t take?  Yeah, well, they would take a pass on this one and head straight to the California lettuce fields.  Mrs. Garrett’s salary revelation should have triggered a Code Orange alert in my brain but she promised a flexible work schedule that would allow me to work on my Master’s degree and continue teaching.  When Pap threw in health benefits and tuition reimbursement as some of the perks I was sold.  Mrs. Garrett seemed apologetic about the pittance offered and blamed the poor salary on union rules, office politics, the university’s budget deficit, the NFL salary cap, and the rising price of gym memberships.  For the record, other than sending me on scavenger hunts in the rain, Mrs. Garrett is the ideal hands-off boss; no micro-managing or nitpicking and she was truly appreciative of my work.  Unfortunately, her managerial skills are non-existent.  She is the leader of an office that epitomizes dysfunctional.  For me, The Office was not merely mind candy, it was reality TV.  Being relatively new to our Institute of Higher Learning Mrs. Garrett looks to Pap, the Personnel and Budget Wizard, to make all of the personnel and payroll decisions because, well, that’s Pap’s job. 

Pap, however, is truly evil.  Or, if not evil, at the very least malignant like a Testse fly or a tick; a voracious, engorged, blood-sucking, Lyme disease carrying tick.  Pap is quiet and unassuming in appearance except for the elaborate scarves she wears 80s style with the corner over one shoulder and a big ol’ glitterty brooch on the other.  I can only assume her scarves are part retro fashion statement and part utility – not only does she pay tribute to the 80s, but she can also avoid the slow assed elevators in our building by parachuting to the sidewalk ten flights below.  I think the scarves also come in useful for the office magic shows where Pap’s slight of hand makes your vacation time and benefits disappear with a flick of her nimble wrist and a snap of her magic scarf.  Now you see ‘em, now you don’t.  Two weeks after I started working at the office, I asked about my health benefits and tuition reimbursement.  Pap looked confused as if I’d spoken in Klingon and said that she didn’t know what I was talking about.  Frustrated, I talked to Mrs. Garrett who told me to talk to Pap. Again, with a confused look, Pap shrugged her scarf bedecked shoulders and threw her hands up in a semblance of frustration.  I would quickly come to realize that this gesture was merely an attempt to deflect any lightning bolts headed her way.  Words you will never hear Pap say:  “If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’” and “May God strike me dead if ….” Pap has mastered the art of innocent angst, looking worried and concerned when she knows very well she has fucked you over.

Other than Pap, only one other person in my department made things difficult.  Juicy.  Juicy takes up space in the front office and occasionally dabbles at helping out the other head honcho in the department.  Juicy was not evil like Pap.  Whereas Pap was a machete in between the shoulder blades, Juicy was merely mace in your eye: an unrelenting irritant.  It’s not that Juicy hindered my work, but that she would do no work at all.  This left her with a lot of time on her hands to meddle, interfere with everyone else’s ability to get work done, and invent heroic stories of her own inexorable diligence.  When Juicy wasn’t updating her Myspace page or adding pictures to her Match.com profile, she was on the phone with her boyfriend complaining about how much work she did and how little work everyone else did. 

I had my own office down the hall several doors away from Juicy’s prying eyes.  I suppose that Pap isn’t the only one with magical powers because apparently Juicy could see through walls and watch me painting my nails, reading People, and napping instead of diligently working to reschedule a meeting or plan a peasant uprising.  That I was in my office busily working hours before she arrived in her latest Juicy couture, drenched in Juicy cologne, and spackled with glitter eye shadow did nothing to quell her gossip: she knew what I was up to in there.  I’m assuming it’s the multiple layers of pink and green Urban Decay donning her upper lids that made her two hours late for work every day.  I certainly don’t underestimate the one-eyed effort each eyelid demanded, and never would have expected for her to leave for work until she felt she had made her very best effort to paint a perfect slice of watermelon over each eye.  Two.  Hours.  Every.  Day. 

In spite of Pap and Juicy I enjoyed my job.  When I began to organize programs and work with the head honchos of the various academic departments, my job really began to be so much more fun.  I loved being the liaison between my office and all the other departments.  I also worked with officials and organizations from other schools, did research, prepared reports, organized departmental reviews, fixed Mrs. Garrett’s computer woes, of which there were many, watered her plants, got her lunch, and was in the early stages of brokering a Mideast Peace agreement.  In other words, none of this was in my job description but all of it was interesting and rewarding.  I was kept busy from the time I arrived until I left.  I never missed a deadline, Mrs. Garrett said I was indispensable, and I got great reviews until… there’s always an “until,” isn’t there?  Until I asked for a raise.  The earth ground to a halt.  You may have felt it.  I didn’t mean to tamper with the earth’s orbit but apparently my request just rocked their world.  They hemmed and hawed for a while and then said that in order to give me a raise, they’d have to give me a new title and according to some arcane union rules, this means that I would have to re-interview for my job, which I did.  At my re-interview I was told how much they liked my work, how others speak so well, of me, blah, blah, blah, and then I was informed that the “new” job would have more responsibility.  In addition to my already packed day they wanted me, among other things, to consult with students and work on curriculum matters.  Oh, and they also wanted to extend my workday.  Which meant not being able to continue teaching or finishing my Master’s. 

When I asked if the increase in responsibility and the additional hours tacked onto the workday came with an increase in salary, their faces screwed up in distaste as if I had just farted and waved it in their direction with the tail end of Pap’s scarf.  The answer was no, although Mrs. Garrett said it with a smile as if gently chiding a small child.  Pap smirked. 

So, after discussing it with Mr. Dingo — who was supportive in my decision to tell them to take their new job and kiss my ass — I went into Mrs. Garrett’s office a few days later and told her that I couldn’t accept the new terms and that I was quitting.  I don’t think she was expecting that response.  Her eyes got all big and round, she gasped for air once or twice, and a little bit of foamy drool appeared in one corner of her mouth as she turned both shades of Juicy’s eyelids. 

It’s been two weeks since I quit and in that time I’ve managed to do some much needed work on my thesis.  More importantly, I’ve been able to surf the Internet and add new blogs to my Google Reader.  My office spy, a/k/a Gay Best Friend, is also seeking to escape from the Venus Lie Trap and frequently reports that Mrs. Garrett has yet to find a new assistant.  It’s busier than ever around there and, without an assistant, Mrs. Garrett is a hot mess trying to stay on top of things.

I ran into Mrs. Garrett yesterday while on my way to the park for my morning run.  She looked like the seven-layer special at Dante’s bakery.  I asked if she was still working out in the mornings and she said that there wasn’t any time, she’s working fifteen-hour days and it’s busier than ever before.  Then she said, “You should stop by some time.” Um, right.  Although she didn’t say it, I could see the thought bubble floating in the air between us that said, “and please, for the love of God bring me some lunch!”

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Furry Frenzy

I had planned to write a witty post this morning about how I quit my job and the how trying to find someone to replace me has my former coworkers in a frenzy.  I was going to gloat about how Mrs. Garrett runs late to meetings and curses the day I walked out the door.  I was going to write about all of that this morning.  Instead, I chased Not a Dingo around the apartment with a pair of scissors. 

Not a Dingo had a massive dingleberry hanging from her butt and I had to remove it.  It was gross.  Really gross.  I first noticed it this morning when I smelled a rotten stench on the bed.  At the time I blamed it on Mr. Dingo and the delicious burritos we consumed last night.  “Very funny, Sweetie,” I said, before making a quick escape to the living room.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a quick escape.  Not a Dingo sleeps on my pillow and Dingo Girl sleeps across my legs, but I extracted myself as quickly as possible without inflicting bodily injury and hightailed it outta there.  The girls were close behind.  I did not believe Mr. Dingo’s drowsy denials and was a little miffed that I was driven from bed and robbed of thirty additional minutes of sleep — robbed, I tell you! — by his malodorous wake-up call. 

About 20-minutes later, Not a Dingo joined me at my desk.  She often takes up residence in my outbox while I am working.  When she’s not in my outbox, she’s sitting on my keyboard, trying to sit on my keyboard, or sitting in front of my keyboard with her furry face five inches from mine trying to hypnotize me with those big eyes of hers to get up and get her a treat.  So, when my feline inhabited outbox produced the odor of a fully inhabited catbox this morning, I knew that I had unjustly maligned Mr. Dingo — but I didn’t apologize.  If he didn’t deserve my censure this morning, he certainly has on other occasions.  He had it coming.

Lifting Not a Dingo from her perch I was immediately disgusted and repelled at the nastiness appended to her.  And now, you are disgusted and repelled as well.  That’s what blogs are for, no?  But you didn’t have to wrestle with a pissed-off cat this morning.  And neither did Mr. Dingo.  Two seconds after I told him of our dilemma, he suddenly had to be at work early for a conference call or some such sorry-I-just-checked-my-calendar-and-noticed-it-have-to-run-don’t-want-to-be-late-very-important-bye thing, and out the door he went.  Oh Mr. Dingo, you will get yours....

So, this morning was spent running with scissors.  Not a Dingo was far from cooperative.  Without getting into the gritty details of this morning’s bout of Twister with my normally docile kitty (because I expended all the grittiness describing Not a Dingo’s poor hygiene), let’s just say that I’m reconsidering our decision not to declaw her and have notified the CDC that my local hospital will need antibiotics to counteract the effects of cat scratch fever. 

This was definitely a two-person job.  I could not hold a wiggling Not a Dingo and use a pair of scissors to clip a foul-smelling golf ball size mutant appendage while trying to calm Dingo Girl.  Yes, Dingo Girl had to get in on the act.  Any sign of distress from Not a Dingo caused Dingo Girl to whine, bark, and nudge my elbow with her nose.  Between the mewling, gyrating, barking, nudging, stinking, tears and tears, I was truly in awe of people who work from home and manage to be productive. 

When I quit my job a little over two weeks ago, I had blissful but seemingly realistic visions of morning workouts in Central Park followed by several hours of writing, preparing for my English subject-matter test, a break for some play time and a walk with Dingo Girl, working on my thesis, and then studies before running off to teach and returning home to a warm, hot, nutritious meal and glass of wine on the beach, the sunset glittering off my diamonds and too-white teeth.  But it was not to be.  There are not enough hours in the day when my days are filled with things like dingleberry distractions and extractions that prevent me from sitting at my desk and working.  I need to come up with a system that makes me just as efficient and as organized at home as I was at work.  Any suggestions that do not involve violence?

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Ow! Ow! Ow!

You would think that, knowing about this yoga class for the past week, I would have made sure I had my yoga clothes ready.  Was I wrong to assume that since I haven’t been to a yoga class since Paris Hilton was a virgin, I would have some clean, folded, and well-fitting yoga clothes just waiting for me?  Yes, I was.  With only twenty minutes to get to class, I grabbed what I thought were my gray yoga pants only to discover that it was actually my gray long sleeved T-shirt.  I eventually found a pair of amorphous black pants in Mr. Dingo’s drawer.  These were not the trendy sleek pants I envisioned for my first yoga class in almost a century, but if an opportunity for ninja-like stealth or martial arts combat arose on the way to the studio, I would be appropriately dressed. 

Sports bra?  By the time I contorted my upper body to get into the vise-like spandex and polyester torture device I found in the back of my drawer, I probably did not need to go to the yoga class after all.

Cute yoga top?  I found it behind the dresser covered in multiple layers of Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo hair.  I wore it anyway.  After a few swipes of the lint brush, it was a good as new it was going to get. 

I consoled myself with the thought that I wasn’t going to yoga dressed like a poser (although I wanted to).  Instead, I would sport the casual, relaxed attire I often admire in the tabloid photos of Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Love Hewitt as they zip off to the gym in nothing more than track pants and a white T-shirt.  That hope was quickly dashed once I left the magical force field that surrounds my apartment.  Leaving that magical force field transforms items that appeared acceptable in my bedroom mirror into outfits that look as if I allowed circus clowns to dress me prior to dousing myself in honey and rolling around in dust bunnies and pet hair.  There were people snapping pictures of me as I walked down the street. I am sure those photos will find their way to some Yeti website.  I almost called it a day then and there and then I realized that yoga people are all New Age-y and non-judgmental, right?  So off to class I went.

The class was in a beautiful studio on Madison Avenue.  For those of you who know New York, Madison Avenue will conjure images of Upper East Side matrons with too much time and money on their hands.  I fit none of those categories.  When I stepped into the studio, I encountered other categories outside my usual realm of experience.  Botox, for one.  Hey, I said yoga people are non-judgmental.  I never said that I wasn’t judgmental. 

My class consisted of the instructor, a lithe charming brunette with pink toenails at the end of slender toes that she could clearly use to put her earrings on; a woman who fit all the categories previously mentioned; and me, in my pet-hair ninja costume.  Class was a blur of pleasure and pain.  I was more out of shape than I had thought.  My “straight” back rivaled Quasimodo and my hamstrings were constantly at war with my quads resulting in spasmodic twitching and grotesque muscular contractions.  At one point, surely mistaking my flailing for an epileptic seizure, my instructor asked if everything was okay.  I wanted to respond in the negative but my mouth was too full of pet hair dislodged by my desperate gasps for breath.  Sensing my distress, the instructor would gently correct my posture and positioning.  By “gently,” I mean that she would wrench my body into contortions formerly reserved for roller coasters and Gumby.  Meanwhile, my classmate moved with fluidity and grace.  I couldn’t tell if she was experiencing any discomfort because her Botox left her expressionless.  I also had a feeling that the wide-eyed surprised look on her face was less a result of the physical exertion than eyelid surgery and a rather vigorous brow lift.

By the end of the hour-long class I was getting into the groove of things.  My body was starting to relax and I was able to enjoy a level of looseness in my limbs that I hadn’t felt for some time. My muscles are slightly sore — but it’s a good soreness.  I signed up for another session for next Tuesday.  Sometime between now and then, I have to find workout clothes that do not make me look like an extra from Planet of the Apes.

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Finding My Chi

I am going to a yoga class this morning.  I’ve been doing yoga off and on for the past several years — more off than on due to time constraints, but I love how regular practice makes me feel.  I also love the non-competitiveness of yoga.  A competitive person by nature, yoga is not a level playing field in which I can one day hope to “win.” I am not, and will never be, one of those women who can put her leg behind her head — Mr. Dingo has made peace with that — but in the classes I’ve attended, it’s feeling good in your own skin that is cause for celebration and not whether you can braid your hair with your toes.

I am looking forward to starting yoga again.  The years and calcification are catching up to me.  I move with all the stiffness of a zombie; not one of those new fangled George Romero Dawn of the Dead (2004) fast-moving zombies but one of the Night of the Living Dead (1976) ghouls — arms fully extended, knees locked.  I’m too young for this stiffness but I’ve always been this way.  At five years old, while other girls were aspiring to be the next Nadia Comaneci (yes, I’m that old) or starring in Swan Lake, my dance instructor told my mom that, “Dingo’s talents lie in other areas.” She did not specify exactly what those other areas were.  Although Mom tried to hide it, I could tell she was crushed.  Not because she had the stage mother aspirations of the other moms at my dance studio, but because she loved making the costumes for my dance recitals.  She truly missed her calling.  Mom belongs in NYC making costumes for Broadway.  Still, there were days in grade school when I thought that going to school dressed as a pirate right down to the eye patch was a bit much.  And, in retrospect, my mom standing in the hall for costume changes — going, for instance, from the Cat in the Hat for English to a pilgrim for History — now does seem excessive.

Years later I discovered yoga.  At that point it wasn’t that I wanted to look like a Degas portrait as much as I wanted to be able to bend over and tie my shoes without pulling a muscle.  Yoga was incredible.  It took me months to gain flexibility but my body felt good.  I felt good.  So I’m off to the yoga studio this morning.  If I haven’t sprained my fingers or torn a ligament, I will give you an update later this evening or tomorrow.

For now, meditate on the peaceful expression of the Yoga Frog gracefully executing Tree Pose on my terrace.

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It’s All Happening at the Zoo

Several times a week, Dingo Girl and I walk past the entrance to the Central Park Children’s Zoo.  When she was little, she’d paw at the wall on Fifth Avenue that overlooks the Children’s Zoo.  I would hoist her up so that she could see the animals, particularly the goats.  She was fascinated with the goats.  When I think of a zoo, I think of penguins, polar bears, lions.  Not goats.  I guess it’s not a good public relations move to let children run around a lion enclosure.  It’s not that goats are any less dangerous; not by a long shot.  In fact, at the entrance to the Central Park Children’s Zoo there is a statue of a child being mauled by two goats!  Somehow the goats tearing the clothes off of this child fails to deter parents from buying their overpriced tickets to the “petting zoo.” I have only seen one child balk at entering the Children’s Zoo.  This marvelously prescient child must have realized that the “children’s zoo” was a ruse to get cheap human fodder for the goats and other animals behind the enclosure.  The parents of this child ignored her tears and, as they dragged her through the entrance, I swore I could hear her shout, “Soylent green is people!”

Update:  It is with irony and sadness that I need to update this post to let you know that Charlton Heston, one of the old school actors of the big screen died on Saturday, April 5, 2008.  He was 83.

Heston had a prolific film and television career spanning more than six decades.  Although in his later years Heston became better known as the face of the NRA, at one time the silver screen icon was the king of blockbusters.  He often portrayed the gritty, rough around the edges leading man in blockbusters such as Ben Hur (1959), Planet of the Apes (1968), and one of my favorites as evidenced by the film clip that is linked above, Soylent Green (1973).

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