Fuck Work, Unless You’re Hiring

Weeeeeeeell, I’ve got some good news and some not-so-good news. And then some more not-so-good news. Let’s go in reverse order:

I did not get the job I thought I was going to get. During my interview, it was strongly implied that I would get a second interview. Instead, they’ve elected not to acknowledge my emails. So, there’s that.

So now, having run through all my friends who have friends who might be hiring, I’m ready for the next rite of passage for this generation: I’m moving back in with Dad after Giant Camel’s and my lease in Philadelphia is up at the end of July. So, there’s that. I’d talk about how I feel about all of this, but since most of our readers are within five years of my age, I’m going to assume you know how I feel.

Now, the silver linings:

-       I’m going to keep looking for jobs, mostly so I can say I’ve been looking, BUT having already mentally processed the defeat of having to move in with family I’m going to concentrate on writing during my last while in Philadelphia. I have my eye on a couple of moneymakers (greeting cards and the much-discussed romance novel), but I also plan to do more blogging, and I have a few more projects in mind. This will be good for me, in that a) I won’t go crazy, b) one of these might make money, and c) then I can hold my tattered little manuscripts out to my father, stepmother, readers, and potential employers and declare, “See? I wasn’t just playing Playstation and crash-dieting and crying! I created.”

-       I get to go to the Texas State Fair in the fall, and to the Chickasaw Indian Casino for my birthday. I’m pretty sure that for my eighth birthday my father took me to an arcade and gave me some money to feed into loud machines covered in blinking lights for a minimal shot at reward. Twenty years are as an evening gone…

-       I get to dish about the crappy temp job I had last winter. I withheld it because I didn’t want prospective employers to find the blog, read me aggressively sassing a job, and decide I was unfit. Now I am exponentially less sanguine about prospective employers even looking at my resume, let alone my cover letter, let alone checking to see if I even HAVE a blog and wrote three books, so what the hell. For months I’ve had little bits of paper floating around with notes about that job, and now I can throw them away.

So, as you might remember from my post about Dawn Davenport being my spirit animal, I worked at a large, poorly run tech company. To cover my ass I won’t name it, but the name is as stupid as “CompuCom,” so should you draw any conclusions from that… My job was to load mobile phone apps onto mobile phones, see if they crashed and were in the correct language, rinse, repeat. Theoretically, this might have been a fun job, but. Most of the apps weren’t in English, resulting in a lot of “fun” with Google translate trying to find the keyboard shortcut for those letters only one language uses, a la “Ѭ.” Even before I began, random layoffs raged – the guy who trained me went a week before I did, which is incomprehensible. So there was a strong slasher-movie aspect – every day you’d show up and someone else would be gone. And most of the remaining people were either assholes, lunatics, or some new and exotic combination. So imagine me getting up at 4:30, taking a two-hour bus ride, then sitting quietly in a freezing office writing up, in extreme detail, why an application (we did not test APPS on PHONES but rather APPLICATIONS on DEVICES) to find a nearby bus station in Stockholm didn’t seem to work, but I couldn’t be sure because it was all in Swedish, all the while having no job security and the worst English-speaking coworkers I’ve ever had. Also, we had to flag things that might offend Islamic sensibilities or annoy the Chinese government. I can honestly say I find both of those things extremely difficult to predict. So you can see why I needed to try to mine it for humor.

Some of the best apps:

-       A body mass calculator that, if you typed in the information wrong, gave the reading “INFINITE BMI LOL YOU ARE OBESE”

-       An ovulation tracker that you could set to text your husband when your eggs were ready: “Honey, get home quick!” I got in trouble for not flagging this as potentially offensive to Islamic sensibilities.

-       A numerology “thing” that told me that, according to my name’s numerical value (verbatim), “looks like you should be peep-year-old aunt bath bar next door.” No clue about Islamic sensibilities, as usual, but this offended the hell out of me.

-       I plugged something in wrong and got an error message reading “OPERATION ATTEMPTED ON SOMETHING THAT IS NOT A SOCKET.” Of all the metaphors for my sex life…

-       A soundboard of clips and sound effects from “Young Frankenstein.” I thought I had my headphones in while I was testing it – turns out they weren’t pushed in all the way and Madeleine Kahn was just screaming away for fifteen minutes. The fact that no one mentioned this to me tells me all you need to know about that office.

And my co-workers: One guy wore a purple-and-leopard-print Santa hat around all day, indoors, in January; on guy ostentatiously backed into a parking space in a VOLKSWAGEN JETTA (if you’re parking in a LOT, your car isn’t good enough to do that); and my supervisor typed interoffice messages in this font. Everyone was queer for sanitary wipes and used them many, many times daily – on their hands, on their workstations, on each other for all I knew – as though they knew I was deliberately not washing my hands after I peed. A poster in the breakroom (it had no chairs in it, but hooray for posters!) advised us that we could donate blood at the nearby Fluid Processing Center.

Fluid. Processing. Center. That’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? Crazy John’s Discount Fluids. Flow-n-Go EZ Fluids. Fluids r’ Us. And then when it gentrifies: the Fluidry.

So in short: fuck work, unless you’re hiring in the North Texas area. I’m available August 1^st.

Drinking Game Friday is totally roofus

Happy Drinking Game Friday everyone! I had planned to spend this DGF at home in my bed, far, far away from this office hell hole, but my request for a day off was Denied with a capital D. Why? Because a contractor is stopping by this morning to pick up a key. That's it. That's the entire reason I'm in the office today. To slide a manila envelope across my desk, smile and say, "you take care now." Why I can't just leave the key with our concierge at the front desk is beyond me, but as far as depressing aspects of my life go, I've got bigger fish to fry.

Yesterday I realized something: I have a problem. And if I've learned anything from Intervention, it's that admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery, so here it goes. Deep breath. I, Meghan C. McBlogger am a giant fucking loser. There. I said it. Out loud. (Sort of.) I feel better. (Not really.)

Yesterday, Tricia, from our Baltimore office, stopped by the studio to drop off a bunch of contracts. I genuinely like Tricia. I mean, I'm not about to sneak out of work to get friendship bracelets with her, but as far as co-workers go, she's completely tolerable. Yesterday was the first time I've seen Tricia since the New York trip debacle, so we decided to go to Starbucks, get ourselves a cup of coffee and catch-up. I heard all about her vacation to Jamaica, her kids, her husband, their new shitty GPS system and such and such, until it was her turn to ask about me.

"So what's new with you? How's your summer been?"

This is a very simple question. However, all I could do in response was to stare at Tricia blankly, synapses a-firin', searching for something—anything—worth sharing. Which was an incredibly difficult task considering the following is what's new with me:

- I went to Ren Fest last weekend!
This seriously almost came flying out of my mouth with a little too much excitement for my liking until what's left of the cool little Meglet within screamed, "STOP!!!! DO NOT let yourself be that guy who tells her co-workers about Ren Fest. No matter how fall we've fallen, I can not let you hit this rock-bottom. There is nothing I won't do to help you get better, but I will not love you to death!"

- I got a haircut!
The woman has eyes. She can see this. She didn't compliment you. Fish for compliments at a different swimmin' hole.

- I'm making a conscious effort to improve my posture!
This is true. And a lot more difficult than I thought.

- I dreamt I was in an episode of Step-by-Step the other night!
I was emptying the dishwasher and Frank was mad at me because he couldn't take the kids shoe shopping until I finished and I was going too slowly.

- My mom got me a single-serving coffee maker because I'm sick of my french press!
God I'm white.

- I'm breaking out like a 12-year-old and my boobs hurt, so I hope I get my period soon!
This really is the most relevant thing happening in my life right now, but I decided to keep it to myself, as period stories are more Boss #1's thing.

- I just discovered I get the National Geographic channel and it's changed my life!
Really though. NatGeo and Discovery Health are pretty much all I watch now. I watched a two-hour show about the Black Death followed by a documentary about polygamist CULTS back-to-back the other night. Best channel EVER.

- I'm tired!
I mean, that's kind of what's always "going on" with me at any given moment. It's not really newsworthy or specifically applicable to Summer.

I decided that none of these were acceptable or interesting enough to share with Tricia, so after an uncomfortably long silence, I decided to go with:

"I'm dog sitting!"

"Oh. Cool." But she said "cool" like just I told her I bought a crisp new pair of jean shorts.

"Umm, but the dog is a Hearst!"
"What?"
"The dog. She's a Hearst. Like the family."

This is true. Lily Hearst—niece of Patty Hearst, cousin of Lydia Hearst—rescued Cella from a life of pit-bull fights and doggy abuse and eventually gave her to my friend Becky, for whom I am dog-sitting. Which is all good and fun, but it was then that I realized that I had just name-dropped a fucking dog. That's how lame I am. I name-drop dogs. And my life is so boring, name-dropping dogs is the only thing worth mentioning.

"Oh...well, that's cool."
"Yeah. [Awkwardly shifts eyes] It's been a really boring summer."

So I'm a boring loser. Who name-drops dogs. And I don't know how to remedy it. I think I might just embrace it and go with god. And speaking of embracing one's inner loser, it's time for this week's drinking game—The Never Been Kissed Drinking Game!


Rules:
Drink When:
- Anyone says "Josie Grossie"
- Josie corrects someone's grammar
- Molly Shannon alludes that she is a slut
- Aldys divulges one of her life aspirations (i.e. potter, painter, candlestick maker)
- Anyone says "Northwestern"
- Anyone says "roofus"
- Anyone says "prom"
- There's a flashback
- Someone makes friends with a whole table of rastafari. Not just one, a whole table.
- "Yikes bikes." Mainly because after seeing this movie it became a very important phrase in my daily vernacular.
- The Denominators wear their sweatshirts
- Someone refers to Aldys as "Alpo"
- Sam and Josie have a teacher/student inappropriate conversation
- My favorite Anita line: "Sex. Yes well Sex. What do you say about sex really. You like a guy... you do it with him... sometimes he calls, sometimes he doesn't!"
- Anyone gets their first kiss

As per usual, thank you so much for reading, twittering, forwarding, emailing, facebooking and voting here, here and especially here. (Yea man, someone nominated us for a third category! You should vote! I mean, you already went through the hassle of creating an account, so the hard and part is over! KTHNX!) Hope you have a great long weekend! Cella, Chris and I will see you back here Monday morning!


(Cella Hearst, doglebrity. I know her. No big deal.)

Thoughts I couldn't flesh out into full entries.

- As I've discussed before, I am painfully white. Sure I'd like to think I'm a sassy black woman on the inside and I pray to St. Dre (the patron saint of Akrite,) but technically, I am straight-up lily white. I was recently at the makeup counter in Bloomingdale's with my mom picking out a new foundation and the makeup guy asked, "what shade do you think you are?" My mom looked me up and down, laughed out loud and answered: "Oh, her shade is WHITE. Like PAPER white. [Laughs at own joke] Like just give her a bottle of White-Out and call it foundation, WHITE. [Laughs at own joke again] Like the only way to kill her is a stake through the heart, WHITE! Like—" OK, OK HE GETS IT! I'M WHITE! Jesus.

Unfortunately, I always forget how white I am and neglect to wear sunscreen, resulting in the most god awful sunburns this world has ever seen. The worst sunburn to date happened when I went to Arizona for my 18th birthday and laid out from approximately 9am-6pm one day. I was responsible and wore sunscreen everywhere but my legs. My thought process was, "Man, my legs never get tan. Ooo! I know! I won't put sunscreen on 'em and let the strong Arizona sun tan 'em to a golden brown!" Six hours later, they were a comical lobster red. I looked absolutely ridiculous and holy God was it painful. I spent the rest of the trip pantsless in my hotel room vomiting and icing my legs. On my actual birthday, I was supposed to get a hot stone massage and my sister was going to get a cooling detox wrap. The thought of someone rubbing my legs with hot stones was enough to make six layers of skin fall off. In an ironic twist of fate, my sister got an explosive case of diarrhea the morning of our spa visit and could in no way spend an hour and 15 minutes tightly wrapped on a table. We switched spa treatments and all was right with the world.

This past Sunday, I neglected to wear a stitch of sunscreen at my mimosa rooftop pool experience and SW waterfront crab feast. By the time I was coming home from the waterfront on the metro, I thought I was going to rip off my shirt and dump my bottled water all over my back and shoulders, which were en fuego. I could not get into a cold shower fast enough. As soon as I got on the elevator in my apartment, I started unbuckling my pants and unhooking my bra. The second my door closed behind me, I tore off my clothes and hurled myself into the coldest shower possible. The noises of sweet relief coming from my bathroom were perverse. I feel badly for anybody walking by my apartment at the time.

The pain from Sunday has yet to subside. I woke up yesterday morning at around 4:30am in searing pain. I got up, went to the freezer and took out a bottle of vodka from the deep freeze section. I went back to bed and fell asleep with the bottle between my back and the bed. Unfortunately in my half-conscious state, I neglected to wrap the frozen bottle in a towel first. When I sat up a few hours later to hit snooze on my alarm, the bottle of vodka came with me, as it was completely frozen to back. I essentially Supermanned myself with a bottle of vodka. So now not only is my upper back completely sunburned, it's also freezer burned. It takes a special girl.

- And just when you thought Dupont Circle couldn't get any gayer, this happened. Yep, the Real World is officially coming to DC. But am I the only one who's kind of excited about this? And I'm not excited in my usual militant pro-DC ranty and ravey kind of way, I'm excited because living in the same hood as the Real World increases my chances of having sex with a cast member exponentially. And if you told 11-year-old Meglet that one day she'll have sex with a Real World cast member, she'd probably pee her peace sign boxers shorts with excitement. And what are your early 20's for, if not making your Middle School fantasies come true?

- I would like to state something for the record: laughing after making a dick statement does not make what you just said any less of a dick statement. A smile might be the universal "hello," but a laugh is not the universal "SIKE!" I have a co-worker who always does this, and I want to kill him. The most irritating part is when I get bitchy in response his asshole statement, he's all "woooahhh, take it easy killer!" No. No I will not take it easy, killer. You just said something fucked up to me and I'm going to react in kind. I don't give a shit if you laughed directly after you said it. You still said it! Example from yesterday:
Co-worker: Do we have anymore marketing binders?
Me: Nope, Liza was in this morning and cleaned us out.
Co-worker: Well maybe instead of just sitting there you should make some more—HAHAHAHAHAHALOLZ!!!!!! :P
Me: Well, maybe you should have called and let me know you'd be coming by to get marketing binders so I don't waste both of our time.
Co-worker: Well me-ow! Watch out for Ms. Meghan today! I was just joking around with you, sheesh! HAHAHAHAH!!!!!! ;)

You wanna joke around with me? Then tell me a knock-knock joke, motherfucker. Don't be a dick to me and then act like I'm the asshole when I don't take your shit. It's a passive-aggressive move and I have no time for passive-aggressive people. If you wanna be a dick, then be a dick to me. I'm a big girl! I can take it! You don't need to soften the blow by giggling like a Japanese school girl. It's the equivalent of hitting someone in the face and then giving them a back massage. Or stabbing someone and giving them butterfly kisses on the wound. Be a man and have the decency to be an out-and-out asshole to me. Now that's something I can respect. God, I fucking hate him.

- So, I got a little more riled up about that last point than I expected to and now feel awkward leaving on that note. Damn stream of consciousness writing. Hmm...Oh! Here's something quasi light hearted for you! So I started following this porn star on Twitter because I totes respect her work, right? Wrong. Big mistake. Her Twitter has completely humanized her in a way that has ruined everything for me. I thought her tweets would be hilariously porntastic like "bangin' evan stone then hittin' up~ taco bell~!!", but mostly they're about how her brother was recently in a near-fatal motorcycle accident leaving him paralyzed and with no will to live. Now she's stuck taking care of his kids and spends everyday with him in the hospital. Awkward...It just sucks because now I can't enjoy porn without wondering how his physical therapy is going or if her nephew passed the math test she helped him study for last night. God people are selfish.

- Damnit. That wasn't light-hearted in the least. Hm. Welp! Here's the Turtle Rapes Shoe video! Have a great day!

Intermission over. Act 3: Meg Becomes a Bartender

Cast of Characters:

Teresa: Owner. I have a theory that all small-business owners are bat-shit crazy and this loon is no exception.
Doug: Bar manager #1. Doug looks like your dad and once made me turn off CNN and put on Fox News because he refuses to "let the liberal media infest his bar." Doug is soft-spoken and nice enough, but talks about Jesus way too much for my liking. Doug's wife just had their first child and when I told him that I hadn't made up my mind about having kids, he told me not to worry because when the time comes, Jesus will turn on the switch to make me care for another being as much as I care for myself. Frankly, I don't hold myself in the highest regard, so if I do have kids, I sure as shit hope that's not true for their sake. Plus any and all conversations involving Jesus and turning me on make me painfully uncomfortable.
Julien: Bar manager #2. Julien wears an Under Armour mock-turtleneck everyday (despite the fact that we're not playing a football game in 32 degree weather,) is a part-time karaoke DJ, a single dad and only drinks shots of Peppermint Schnapps. More importantly, Julien is also coked out of his gourd 9 times out of 10 and has a penchant for grabbing my ass and calling me "lover."
Melissa: Part-time bartender, full-time girlfriend of Julien. Melissa is what I can best describe as "Boardwalk Hot." Every time I've seen her, she's wearing the same thing: white Reebok sneakers, khaki booty shorts and a Secrets Ocean City, MD sweatshirt. She is unusually tan, has long platinum blond extensions and has the personality of a parking meter. The weird thing about Melissa is that her face doesn't match her body. She has this amazing body and given the above description, I always think she's 22 years old. Then I look at her face and realize she's probably more like 42 years old. It's unsettling.
Adam: Adam is a weekend bartender and looks like Tom Green times nerdier.
Chef: Chef is Kenyan and learned English in France, which means 99% of the time I have no idea what he's saying. Chef came down to the bar this afternoon and said, "It smells like Satan's asshole in here," and it was the first thing he's said in a week and a half that I actually understood.
Ondreah: Ondreah might be the only person who hates the concept of working more than me. Unfortunately, the only thing Ondreah hates more than working is white people. This created some tension between us during my first few days of work. Eventually Ondreah explained why she hates white people so much, and I explained that I'm not a White Devil and just want to be her homie. One night I was complaining about having a stressful day and she started lecturing me about how white people can't really have hard days. I lost it and shouted, "You're right! Everything is fine! I'm not tired at all! I never really work hard and everything comes easy to me and none of my problems are real! Now I'm going to float away on my cracker rainbow and continue to have a wonderful night!" Her reaction: "You. You are alright." We've been bestest friends ever since.
The Greater Kitchen Staff Population: My BFFs #1. They save my ass when I inevitably screw things up and then come down to the bar at the end of their shifts to have a shot of cognac and shoot the shit with me. They each have oddly specific ice requests, which I know by heart. I now have a PhD in cognac mixology and feel pretty good about it.

I have to admit, being a bartender is a lot harder than I had originally anticipated. Before this job, I had never waited on a table a day in my life or made a single martini. Now I'm doing both. I got this job by lying my face off and telling Doug in my interview that I had worked at a bar before. Talia was my "boss" at this supposed bar and gave me a shining recommendation. I know, I know, I'm a raging liar and blah blah morals blah, but the bar is literally next to my apartment, I need money in a fierce way and it's a recession. After Doug gave me the job, I went out and bought Bartending for Dummies, watched a few instructional videos on YouTube and bada-bing-bada-boom; a bartender was born.

If I may say so, I think I'm doing a damn good job so far for being so full of shit. I've only completely fucked up one drink. Last Friday a guy came in and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. Although I went through a phase Junior year when I consumed at least a dozen or so of these a weekend, I had no God-given clue how to make one. I remember learning in high school health class that a Long Island is just a bunch of various liquors mixed together with a splash of coke for color, so I threw a bunch of shit in a shaker and called it a day. As I was preparing the garnish, I noticed that the color of my freshly made cocktail resembled human excrement and began to get nervous. When the guy turned around to glance at the sports score on the TV, I threw a straw in his drink, sucked up some liquid and quickly hid under the bar to sample my concoction. It tasted like gin and death. I threw out the drink and tried again, but got the same disgusting result. Being the only bartender there, I told the guy our CO2 tank was out and I couldn't make him his Long Island Iced Tea because only syrup was coming out and please pick something else. As I successfully served him a Grey Goose and Pineapple, I applauded myself for my ability to think so quickly and then proceeded to serve the next customer a Jack and Coke. Coke being the integral part of that mixture. Bubbly, bubbly coke made from my magically broken and then magically fixed CO2 tank. Long Island man tipped me zero dollars, and I earned every penny of it.

Besides that little snafu, things are going swimmingly. The only downer is that I'm not crazy about my fellow bartenders. I think they're rednecks and I'm pretty sure they think I'm a snob (in the end we're probably both right). It's not a big deal because I'm usually the only bartender during my shift, but it's just sort of a drag when they are there. They're always gossiping about God knows what and doing drugs in the back room together and I am in no way invited. At first I was sad that they wouldn't let me in on the work gossip or share their drugs with me, but I'm starting to realize that it's probably a good thing that I'm not in on that in-crowd. I'm there to serve the booze and get some good stories, not make friends (I feel like I'm on a reality show all I'm not here to make friends!) Besides, I totally do have work friends! They're cognac drinkers and cognac beats coke in the backroom any day.

Besides, it'll be a cold day in hell before I spend a Saturday night at a karaoke party in Virginia, belting out "Fins" in a pair of khaki shorts.