Sometimes I included my great-grandboss, for a total of 54 dicks.

Here is a fantasy I used to run in my head at least twice a day for the last -- oh, probably the last 15 months of my eight-year tenure at the HQ of the San Francisco-based global apparel retailer: I'd be in a meeting with my boss, my grandboss, and some other people. Boss and grandboss would be their usual awful garbage person selves, undermining me, backhand-complimenting me, praising other "team" members, etc., and I'd finally at long last have had Enough of This Shit.

They'd address me directly on some bullshit matter or other, and as all eyes turned to me, I'd sit there with a clip-art "serious contemplative businessperson face" on, nodding agreeably before I replied, calmly and thoughtfully, "You know, I tell you what -- I would like to invite you both" -- indicating boss and grandboss with ironic finger-guns -- "to eat eighteen dicks." I'd give a businessperson half-smile (the kind you see in commercials for financial advice services), with a nod + sincere eye contact, to each of the two of them individually. I'd close the notebook I'd been doodling in, and in the shocked silence that ensued, I'd stand up, give a little half-wave to the room in general, and exit as if I'd just said I was going to Starbucks to get us all some lattes.

I'd walk a few yards down the hallway, then act like "Ooops, forgot my best pen in there," and turn around and go back. They'd all have just started sputtering and blarfgling and there'd be mutters of "calling security right now" and "what kind of a ..." and "think this is an HR matter" and that, and I'd poke my head in with another serious businessperson smile and say, "Sorry, guys, sorry, hate to interrupt, but I realized I might have made a mistake just now, and wanted to be completely clear: I meant that you guys should each eat eighteen dicks, for a total of thirty-six dicks -- not split it up and eat nine each. Sorry if there was any confusion on that!" And I'd wave bye-bye, duck back out, pick up my pre-packed duffel of personal items, and stroll unconcernedly away from the building, buoyed on waves of righteous justice and sweet self-satisfaction, the scent of a rotting bridge well burnt the only perfume I need wear forevermore.

Sorry, we only carry sizes 1, 3, and 5. You could try Sears.

Cunty Things Said to Me By This Person, Emma, Whom I Used to Work With at the Hi-Tone Nanny Agency In San Francisco in the Late 90s: A Partial List

--"You like Elizabeth Hurley? Isn't she a little too glam for you?" (In some insipid lunchtime conversation about celebs, amongst all us gals.)

--"Hunh. Provolone. Kind of bland, isn't it?" (Judging my cheese/fruit/baguette lunch, which was A, none of her business, and B, all I could afford at the fancy grocery store nearby.)

--"Well, when you've grown up a little more, you'll see it's not really that much." (Upon my wide-eyed reaction to hearing how much her house in the then-gentrifying area of the Lower Haight cost.)

--"I think you've worn those exact shoes to work every day this week." (Probably I had; I owned about three pairs, total, of work-appropriate shoes. Nice of her to notice.)

--"Heyyyy! You're getting skinny!" (Approving of my figure about a month after my dad died -- a fact of which she was well aware; she'd complained about how "long" I was out of the office, which btw was three days -- when I was at my lowest-ever adult weight on account of I had basically stopped eating for awhile there.)

--------------------------------
Randomly thought of this woman the other day, sparked by Shatner-knows-what; Emma is not her real name. She was/is about 5 years older than me, and was from Money, and worked at the agency as a counselor (who met with clients and placed nannies/housekeepers/etc.), whereas I was a mere admin. In fairness, she was generally pretty nice, and helped me out a lot with wedding planning and, like, restaurant suggestions, but she could occasionally just drop some fresh steaming cuntiness on my desk for no reason as she passed by. 

FYI, brah, the past tense of "dive" is "dove"

Things I Wrote In Meetings, Date Undetermined, Found in Notebooks I'm Finally Getting Rid of Now That I've Been Free of the Old Day Job for Over a Year Thank the Living Shatner, Which Things I Do Not Remember Writing Nor Do I Remember the Meetings That Caused Them: Further Continuation of a Series

I don't have to outlast Dunder Mifflin. I just have to outlast you. 

--Invite people into the conversation. 

--Influence the influencers. 

--Manage stakeholders through transition.

--Translation, cultural diversity

[drawing of a large sailing ship, stick figure on the prow, with the word WHAAAAAT? elaborately scripted on the side]

the word "boondoggle," underlined, atop three columns of 9 words of at least four letters drawn from the letters in "boondoggle" -- e.g. boon, bode, loon, goon, glob, bled, blonde, ogle, etc.

My intentions are good, and earnest, and true, but under my hood is infernal combustion power

Yeah, I was in the shit

[on a page of a printed-out powerpoint presentation]

     --Don't be locked into a word count [with the "o" scribbled out]

-Another one of those word-find things, this one with the word "teleseminar" 

     --How to employ and enforce consistent style [from which I drew an arrow down to a numbered list of my own creation:]

     1. Public beatings for losers

     2. Hookers & coke for winners

     3. Adhere to the Code of Hammurabi

Cameltoe City, USA

Things I Wrote In Meetings, Date Undetermined, Found in Notebooks I'm Finally Getting Rid of Now That I've Been Free of the Old Day Job for Over a Year Thank the Living Shatner, Which Things I Do Not Remember Writing Nor Do I Remember the Meetings That Caused Them: Continuation of a Series

--Idea: Axl Rose branded line of hot rollers and hot roller accessories

--Put your arms down, you look like an asshole. 

--Food trucks? That's your big idea? FOOD TRUCKS? Jesus. 

--The millennials don't want to be pitched to. SON, WHO YOU THINK INVENTED THAT? Fuck all y'all. I'm sick of hearing about how they want "conversations" and we don't own our own brand. Fuck you self important ADD motherfuckers. Go do a fucking group project and eat some cereal.

--yes, I am staring at your boobs

--[Yet another large drawing of the logo for my fantasy used-book store, Here Comes the Sun.]

--I want you to write ... a theme.

--[Yet another large drawing of a lawn sign for "Chuck Finley, Importer/Exporter"]

--Buy your sofas, chairs, ottomans, love seats, recliners and daybeds at Sofa King -- It's Sofa King Awesome!

--Please Jesus get me out of this before they try to make me videotape myself and watch it.

Passive incompetence is one thing, but aggressive Nazi hostility on the corporate level is something else again.

Well, THAT was a needlessly dramatic cliffhanger disappearance, wasn't it? Ha! I'm telling you guys, the hardest thing to do is to find time to write when Kid Gleemonex isn't in school ... anyway. To continue. 

That Time I Met One of Satan's Many Manifestations On Earth: Part Two of Two

So the airport was the pokiest little goddamn thing (I actually called it "hilarious" in one of my interviews -- oopsie), and not in a fun way -- just in a bare-bones, beige 80s ehh whatever this is good enough for the likes of you kind of way. I stepped out of there into, like, an oven. A hot, wet oven. Started sweating immediately, lugging my little rolly bag out across seven miles of asphalt to get my rental car. Then with the AC on full blast, I followed the printed directions to the hotel. I was expecting some sort of segue into a town-like situation, but this was the middle of nowhere, and the trees and grass and whatnot looked a lot like the surrounds of Cowburg, Texass, where I'm from, so that was nice. I drove along two-lane country roads for awhile before finally finding signs of life -- the places you could just tell were the Good (aka white) Neighborhoods (how you know: They had vaguely British-sounding names, like The Duckston Manors At Whingely Wood). Then, closer in, the usual smaller houses, schools, fast-food joints. Got to the hotel, unloaded all my junk and headed back out for food -- nothing but chains available in any direction (except one intriguing-looking smokehouse joint whose sign piously announced outside that it's "Always closed on Sundays!" because Jesus).

So the next morning, I dress in what would be the thing to wear to an interview at my current place of employment -- a sort of dressy casual, brand-appropriate dark skinny jeans, cute flats (pregnant, couldn't deal with heels), cowl-neck shell top and jacket. I even wore makeup, bought in desperation at The Walmart in town Sunday night (because it's been so long since I wore makeup that I actually could not find any of mine in my house before I left). Bonus, what I'm wearing hides my thickened middle.

First interview of seven is at 7:45 in the goddamned morning (who DOES that?). I get up early -- way early, cause I'm on California time, and sofa king tired I almost bag the whole thing right there. Follow directions ... and twice drive right past the goddamned global headquarters of the corporation that "employs" more people than any other entity on planet Earth except the fucking CHINESE ARMY.* I'm expecting something big, distinctive; what it is is, a low three-story red brick bunker, almost windowless,** with only one small sign indicating what evil lies within.

I go inside, check in and get an ID photo (my kid found it the other day -- I could not possibly look more ghoulish, it's hilarious). Then I sit down and wait in what looks a lot like my junior high's east hallway -- vinyl flooring, fluorescent lighting -- with rows of cheap plastic stackable chairs all facing the same way like at the DMV or county court, "History of Walmart" photos all over the walls, and several televisions blaring -- all tuned to Fox TV. My sense of being dangerously, delusionally out of place increases.

The recruiter gal shows up, and she's as nice as she was on the phone. Her face is on and she appears not to notice Fox TV's histrionics as we chat about how my flights were and how hot it is already. She takes me through into the main building and y'all. Y'ALL.

OK, maybe it's worse for me because the building where I currently work -- in the global HQ of a specialty fashion retailer, in San Francisco -- is so lovely: all huge airy spaces, extremely expensive and famous modern art all over the place, marble and glass and hushed pleasantness, views from all 15 floors of the bay and the city. But I think by any standards, this place is fucking TERRIBLE.

It's a windowless, tube-lit acoustic-tile-ceilinged hangar divided into a warren of cubicles, separated by 7-foot-high walls covered in that awful material that's like a Delta airplane carpet from 1979, all of it a terrible blue that is indescribably disheartening -- it's not even that sad blue the Russians used to use; it's worse. It's like -- Morale-Crusher Blueisssh. Signs (Accounting, Communications, Cafeteria, Department of Paying Women Less Than Men, etc.) hang from the ceiling on chains -- plastic rectangles with the words pressed on them in white, the cheapest crappiest signage it would ever be possible to find in a graphic designer's worst PCP-laced nightmare. And the fucking TVs blaring Fox news were at every "lounge" area all over the goddamned place -- truly amazing cultural programming, inescapable like Orwell's telescreens, teaching everyone how to be goodthinkful and be doubleplusgood workers, I guess. It really set my nerves on edge in the worst way.

So. My first interview is with yet another HR screener, who informs me that actually they want about 25% of time here in Bentonville, and I'm like yeahhhh well we'll see about that, and she says that for a time she actually commuted like that from somewhere else (Chicago?), and it was "kind of nice, because although I missed my family, it was me-time." Mkay. Then I finally meet my direct manager -- a young woman about my age, whom I really hit it off with. We had a great talk, I had great answers to all her questions, a few ideas, some good questions of my own. I'm thinking this one is a winner.

I am escorted by HR Greeter Gal and a clearly junior HR Trainee Gal to some guy who has his own office (exactly like the cubes, but with a door and a ceiling, and still no window). He has some Yankees paraphernalia scattered around, so in the "getting to know you" bit at the end, I work in my own Yankee fandom, mentioning that I got into them in the early 90s when they were awful, and blowin' his mind with my knowledge of players and stats and whatnot. Another winner.

My minders take me to two more people, who are kind of a blur to me, but whom I remember also seemed to like me. Then they escort me -- you notice, I'm being escorted everywhere? Partly because of the Brazil-style warren of utter confusion, and partly because Walmart's corporate ethos seems to include the proviso that everyone is a potential criminal -- to lunch with the lady who would be my grandboss, a woman about 60 whose dress and manner remind one a little of Ann Richards. She's great, and but I can quickly tell that she brooks no nonsense -- as ever, but particularly contrasted with the everlasting roundabout shitshow of my current work environment, I have no problem with that, and could really see working well with her. She sits down first, though, and is the only one of my interviewers whom I catch getting a good look at my midsection -- and as a mother of four, I know she knows and then she knows that I know she knows. Ehhh, well.

But about this lunch -- in the cafeteria, which every one of my interviewers has mentioned as a great boon, a terrific perk of employment: It is a for real, straight up cafeteria, so much like the one in my junior high that I almost have a PTSD episode, wondering where to park my Dooney & Bourke purse before I get in the food line to make sure I get a seat with at least a second-tier group. Long cheap formica-topped picnic tables, fluorescent lighting, industrial tile floor, molded plastic chairs with metal feet. There are several stations -- grill area, salads, sandwiches, etc. But they're all kind of lame early 90s airport type food -- you can tell everything is premade and shipped in, frozen; the salad bar is like the one at K-Bob's where I worked in high school (iceberg lettuce, baco-bits, shredded cheddar, ranch and Thousand Island dressings). And again, maybe it's worse for me because of what I'm used to -- a cafe with a large landscaped terrace on the seventh floor, flooded with natural light, all blond wood and marble and little clusters of wooden tables, with a menu that has to compete with the offerings outside the building in one of the biggest foodie cities in the world; everything's organic, locally-sourced, seasonal, yada yada, and made by culinary school grads and chefs who take their game very, very seriously.

Plus, I hate eating in front of people like that -- where I'm supposed to talk and eat and there's a judgment component, you know what I mean? Also I was FUCKING STARVING, because of the baby and missing my usual second and third breakfasts due to interviews, so I was using all my self-control not to just cram that stupid ham sandwich in my face-hole like it was the last piece of food on New Caprica.

So after that, my minders took me to one more person, whom I do not remember at all, then fail to deliver me to Lucky #7 (the three of us wandered the rat maze of two different floors for nearly half an hour while they try to track down whoever it is, and finally I'm like, ladies: I gotta make like a tree and get outta here). I bail, with many thanks, and drive to that podunk airport like I'm catching the last chopper out of Saigon. My flight is delayed, as is the next one (if I'd've known I'd be at DFW for four and a half goddamned hours I'd've called my family to meet up for some Flamin' Nachos at Frontera Grill or whatever in Terminal D).

And all this -- the late flights, the people who just sat there and let a pregnant gal hoist her own bag into the overhead, the rubbery chicken at the airport TGI Fucknuts that almost made me puke, the weepy phone call to Mr. Gleemonex about the delays and how I would miss putting Kid Gleemonex to bed, the exhaustion, my extremely dangerous falling-asleep, post-midnight 1.5-hour drive home from SFO -- ALL OF THIS I laid squarely at the feet of Walmart as its particular and purposeful fault.

The lesson I learned was that no matter how much they're paying, it's not worth it to work somewhere so deeply, terribly morally wrong and against my own principles. Also I learned that environment can and does reflect and reinforce thought and behavior.

I had danced with the Devil, and felt lucky to have survived it.

------------------------------------
*This is the factual truth.
**Hunter S Thompson describes a hotel a lot like this in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 -- run by penny-pinching anhedonic Germans, with empty mini-bars and every view a wasteland of tarpaper roofs and dirty air vents.

The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth.

That Time I Met One of Satan's Many Manifestations On Earth: Part One of Two

So did I ever tell you guys about the time I went to Wal-Mart Global HQ, in the hip-hop-happenin' town of Bentonville, Arkansas? It's been on my mind lately because of all the worker protests (and consequently up-leveled retaliatory ratfuckery on the part of the corporation) of the last year or so. And as you know, I hate those motherfuckers -- Wal-Mart, not their underpaid, shat-upon, locked-in, dignity-stripped workers, I mean -- and have hated them pretty much my whole life. So why did I go to their HQ?

Well -- I was desperately unhappy at my old day job, as you all were well aware. I had a bitchin' LinkedIn profile and was actively seeking a new gig (I think all the top-tier interviews I got could actually smell -- no, see -- the waves of desperation coming off me). One day out of the blue, I got an email from ... a recruiter at Wal-Mart. Real sweet gal, said she liked my profile a lot, and would I be interested in the attached job description?

In my head I'm all, hell to the fuck no, you guys are my mortal goddamned enemy. But -- desperation. So I looked at the attachment. The job was a fantastic fit, no kidding around. Just, it was for Wal-Mart. And it was in Bentonville, AR. I wrote back and said it looked great, but I am not interested in relocating from the SF bay area, so let me know if this could be remote/telecommute; otherwise, nah. Imagine my surprise when she wrote back a couple weeks later to say that actually, they might could do this out of their Peninsula office and would I like to interview? So -- fighting my gorge -- I say yes. We set it up -- first a quick phoner w/the recruiter (in which we discuss a salary about 30% more than my current one, yay!), then several hours in the Peninsula office (O SHATNER DO I HATE THE 101 FREEWAY) meeting with five different people, as is the custom around here. This seems to go smashingly. I do a Skype-y thing with my prospective direct manager; it also goes smashingly (I think because I go in to the interviews with the desperation-free attitude of, "Fuck all y'all, I don't want to work for you, I'm just  enjoying making my horrible boss paranoid.").

Another phone call with the recruiter, who chooses this moment to lay it on me about their monthly 7:30 a.fucking.m.-to-9:30 a.m. Saturday morning all-hands mandatory rah-rah/cult meeting, and the general companywide 7:30 start time to the workday (WTF?), and the bullshit cheap-ass holiday/PTO policy ... but I'm sofa king desperate at my job, I'm still listening to these guys. They invite me to Bentonville. I decide, whatever, I hate you guys anyway, and tell the recruiter that o by the waaay, full disclosure, FYI I'm 5 months pregnant; I lay out my Californian expectations for maternity leave (the standard 4 months, during which -- because it would be a new job and I'm a real swell person, plus this is my second so I know how this parenthood thing rolls -- I'd keep in touch). They -- because legally I'm pretty sure they have to, to avoid a lawsuit -- say it's cool, no prob, here's your flight details. I take a day off work, fly out on a Sunday, cry hormonally throughout the two (2) flights because of missing a precious weekend day with Kid Gleemonex and Mr. G., and arrive in Old Bentone.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[Stay tuned for part two, in the next post]

On a similar note:

That Marissa Mayer chick can shut RIGHT the fuck up about nobody gets to telecommute and blah blah blah lookit me I only took two weeks of maternity leave. Good for you, bitch, with your custom-built nursery right next to your office. Where's my custom-built nursery? Right. Exactly.

As I skulked around the airport, I realized that I was still wearing my police identification badge.

My sister-in-law posted on the facebooks that she can't bring a balloon kittycat home on the plane from a convention she is attending. I love her, but I think she is just not giving the required level of effort here. And so: 

Things Which I Have Transported With Me In the Coach Cabin of Commercial Aircraft

--My wedding dress, DFW - SFO via Las Vegas (fog-related emergency landing), Burbank (carried by another airline entirely) and a seven-hour drive up California in a rental car with 2 strangers also stranded in Burbank 

--Twelve vegetable samosas from Indian Cafe, EWR - DFW

--Two children under the age of five, solo, SJC - DFW / DFW - SJC

--Forty oz., total, in 5-oz packets, frozen expressed breastmilk, SFO - DFW

--Six packages of Morrison's Corn-Kits (cornbread mix), DFW - SFO

--Eight onion bagels with scallion cream cheese from Columbia Bagels, LGA - DFW

--A set of hot rollers, still hot from the morning's hairdo, which disturbed and alarmed the security peoples but was in the end allowed to travel with me, DFW - LGW

--A tennis racket and the entirety of my CD collection (~125 units), MIA - DFW

Makes you wanna just rare back and puke at it

I do not now, nor will I ever, shop on Thanksgiving Day. It's the last real holiday left in American life, and I will not support forcing retail employees to come in to work to try and catch a few extra dollars for their corporate employers. It's cruel, it's stupid, it's unnecessary -- and I'm voting against it with my dollars.

I mean it, Internets -- the only things open on Thanksgiving Day ought to be emergency rooms, movie theaters, bars, and pharmacies. And whoever works in those ought to be paid triple-time and/or be recruited from an all-volunteer workforce (as in, nobody gets forced -- it's an opt-in schedule). Holy two-for-one cashmere-sweatered Shatner, y'all -- do your goddamned shopping the next fucking day.

On a related note -- I contributed a couple of dollars to this fund, because as you know, I fucking hate Wal-Mart and I want to kick them in the personal regions for what they've done to American workers, American towns, and the general direction of retail in the world, and also I feel compelled to put my money where my mouth is w/r/t supporting the people who are taking such a risky stand against the world's worst corporate citizen, the 800-pound gorilla, the thug in the room, the lawless disrespectful Marlo Stanfield, the maniac Gyp Rosetti -- fuck 'em.

Also, an entire paragraph of the letters WTF

Things I Wrote in a Notebook During Meetings In the Two Weeks I Have Been Back at Work, In Which I Remember Neither the Meetings, Nor Writing These Things During Them, Which -- What the Hell Is Wrong With Me?

AROUND does not equal ABOUT

these are not the same words

and no matter how many times you say

AROUND instead of ABOUT

it will not make it so

[circled several times, with arrows for emphasis]

Avada Kedavra

Catalog deep dive

I [heart] the way IT ppl dress

STFU Overtalkers

spent 2 hrs this afternoon under Cruciatus Curse

[beside drawing of stick figure in pain]

[drawing of little birdie with three worms in its beak]

I GOT WORMS!

[bulleted list]

*yes! Let's establish some more approvals and processes!

*must be able to measure on our goals

*The accountability piece

*christ I forgot how much I hate you

I'm Jamal, I'm your waiter and I also act

Somewhere in the Los Angeles metropolitan area today, in a large conference room booked by someone's admin, there is an AAR -- After-Action Review -- going on. There are those giant Post-It note pads on easels, a shitload of Starbucks coffees, and a "facilitator" who says this isn't about blame (yes it is).

A couple dozen people with some version of my Day Job (most of whom have "Participate in X number of AARs" on their development plan) are sitting around in crappy conference-room chairs, feeling simultaneously murderous and skin-shreddingly bored. The facilitated conversation is halting at first; no one really wants to admit error or be the first to point the finger, since it'll come back on them fivefold, but enough gets said that there are some notes on the giant Post-Its at least, and the facilitator allows the introduction of What We Could Do Better Next Time.

Now some jackass who is probably a lot like my boss decides this is the moment to be bold. Seizing that moment like the daring, radical innovator he is, he acts like he has just come up with the notion of "incorporating more user-generated content" into the Oscar broadcast so that "viewers can really engage with the material," "have a stake in the outcomes," and "join the conversation."

He's like the reincarnation of Steve Motherhumping Jobs, this guy. His idea will be to have presenters and/or the host(s) read viewers' -- no, "home participants'" -- Tweets and Facebook posts live on air. This, he says, will help make Oscar "relevant," "buzzworthy," and "trend-leading."

Sensing the approval of more senior types (who know that the kids love their social medias), people in the room will glom onto this. Ideas will blast forth like wine: a Twitter crawl in the bottom of the screen! A viewer contest on Facebook for a new "Fan Favorite" category, to be decided by the number of Facebook "like"s! (Can we get Bob to reach out to our contacts at Facebook and Twitter so we can start having some conversations around that? We don't want to lose momentum, and we'll need executive buy-in.) The phrase "tell our story" will come up, more than once.

When the FB/Twit thing starts to dry up, there will be talk about Oscar's "brand," and how to "celebrate and incorporate our heritage," but not overemphasize the fact that your great-grandma could've been Douglas Fairbanks's side piece at the first one. We really need to "leverage" that 85 years of "iconic glamour" without "looking backward" too much. There will be suggestions for "dream hosts," ways to "sharpen the edge" and "create a more youthful profile." Eventually this will "circle back" to social media, because that is how Millennials "engage with content" nowadays; they don't like to just hear who the nominees are and which ones won. They don't, in fact, want to be told anything -- they want their voice to be heard* , and they like it to be in a social way, with their friends, and we need to recognize that and meet them "in their own space."

After this meeting has exhausted every minute of its three-hour running time, there will be a PowerPoint deck sent around, summarizing all the major and minor bullet points, and people will be "tasked with" various "action items," upon which they will all "report out" in the coming weeks, when they will begin to "have those conversations around" their progress on said action items. A year from now, this is why you will be seeing "alot" of idiotic, incomprehensible shit involving @ symbols, hashtags, the number "2" and the letter "u" trundling along underneath Clooney's face as they cut to him for the hundredth time because he's the closest thing we've got to an old-school movie icon anymore (and besides the last time they cut to Bieber he was picking his nose lololol!!!1!!).

This is how it works, America. You're welcome.

------------

*No matter how painfully uninformed and vapid that voice is.

E'rbody got they cup but they ain't chipped in

Lunedi Tricolore

1) So this dread/anxiety/hate spiral about my awful motherfuckin Day Job continues even though I ain't been there since late October (October 25, to be exact) and am not required to report back to it until March something-or-other, and it manifests in strange ways. Such as: A very very long, realistic and detailed dream about being on the project team for a "new concept in coffeetailing" my company is launching, called "Fisticups." A direct competitor out to "seize market share from Starbucks," it's a coffee house aimed at the 18-to-49 male demographic, where you can, you know, buy coffee and coffee accessories, but instead of "Starbucks' more traditionally female 'soft' palette and entertainment options," you get to watch a neverending stream of fights on the big screen (boxing, MMA, etc., matches in real time, plus fight scenes from movies, TV and YouTube). My boss and I were having a bizarre passive-aggressive argument over email with DOZENS of cc's and bcc's (as is our real-life wont) about the chain's tagline -- should it be "Coffee for men," "A manly place for coffee," or (my suggestion) "Kickass coffee"? Also he had "tasked" me with "owning the rights-availability space" to all the fights and clip scenes the chain would use (CAN YOU IMAGINE); he wrote in an email (cc'd to our mutual grand- and great-grand-bosses) that he thought "it shouldn't take much of [your] time," and that finding a "cash-outflow negative" (i.e. "free") way to do it would be "really beneficial around your development plan," plus "a really exciting way the broader team can leverage your talents to the benefit of the team and the company as a whole." KILL ME NOW.

2) The only people who own JetSkis are Kenny Powers and total douchebag econ/banking/financial guys. This is, btw, a conclusion I drew from watching several hours of House Hunters International the other day.

3) Speaking of which: Why are the places they look at on House Hunters International always such total, utter shitholes? I know it's Europe and they don't have normal goddamn toilets or showers, that's a given -- but so many of these joints are actual, literal piles of rocks, with all the amenities of a Delta AirBus and the interior decor stylings of a Soviet Bloc gynecologist's waiting room. Really puts a girl off of her fantasies of living abroad, dammit.

I might be a little young but honey, I ain't naive

So you guys know how much I love Burn Notice (specifically, I love it real hard, and a lot), but the mania for social media (something I deal with in the Day Gig, and which has become a phrase I can't stand) is out of control. In the commercial breaks, when one is not fast enough on the trigger, one will be assaulted with the promos for some online graphic novel they're pimping that's based on the show. It goes like this:

"ENGAGE WITH our graphic novel blah blah blah Burn Notice!"

Engage with. I'm being ordered to ENGAGE WITH a fucking graphic novel thingy ... I can just hear the meetings about (or "around," as is now the term) this idea. "We'll partner with this hot new artist, Joe Yadayada, to capture the buzz/cool factor of graphic novels combined with the cachet of exclusive content and really drive viewer engagement! The metrics'll be off the charts!" They forgot to even cover their naked ambition with some phrasing other than "engage with," which is a CorpComms term if ever there was one. GOD.

Engage this, y'all ...

A most fascinating post for all of you, I'm sure.

And but so the thing is, I am maybe beginning to understand about why all the damn black maternity clothing from last time around. It's because THERE ISN'T ANYTHING ELSE. At least not anything else that doesn't scoop almost to the band of my super-attractive Pregnant Lady Bras, that is -- and listen. I have big tatas during the normal unpregnant years. I have learned a thing or seven about what deep scoop neck and V-neck blouses look like on me, as compared to what they look like on your A's, B's, and even C's -- I look like I am about to ask you if you're lookin for a date, honey? is what. And this is in stuff from, like, Lands' End. Forget the younger, trendier stuff. I do not want the gals up and out there like Lisa Goddamn Cuddy wears em, for chrissake. It is not a work-appropriate display, the top half of your ginormous rack. It is distracting and unprofessional and frankly quite chilly in the modern air-conditioned office environment. And nobody -- NOBODY -- sells a tank or tee that kind of goes straight across the chest -- like, say, a boatneck or relaxed crew -- instead of dipping down to show off Nature's Great Abundance And the Miracle Of Life. Except the ones I've already got ... which are black. So yeah, lotta black this time around too.

"Oh, didja hear that? He was GETTIN there. Psssh. Son, you wouldn't know what to do with it if you HAD gotten there, so don't worry about it."

What's Impeding the Bloggage Lately? A Partial List

--The immense, fantastic suckitude of my job. When every day starts with that sick dready third-day-of-seventh grade feeling, plus a heapin' helpin' of poison loathing, and there's so much work to do that for the third night in a week you're up past midnight plugging away, and you still make what you made three years ago, plus you're bossed by aggressive halfwits, and twenty-five-year-olds are getting promoted over you -- you know it blows!

--Under the Dome. GodDAMN, Stephen King. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU. But I can't put this (five-pound) thing down, dammit. I'm sick ... and I never want to get well!

--Various and sundry Grownup Life Tasks (getting prequalified for a mortgage, booking travel to HHL's wedding, arranging family social shit, gettin us all to the dentist, payin bills, what have you)

--Running! I never knew I could love it, but reader, I do. Longer and longer distances, higher and higher runner's highs ...

--An inability to handle horrifying shit in the news (for days I've been trying, and failing, to come up with something to say about the murder spree that numbnuts crazy fuckwad went on in Arizona -- I got nothing but outrage and sadness).

--The daily irritation of seeing those Natalie Portman - Ashton Kutcher movie posters in the festering pit that is BART. Now, y'all know I love me some Natalie, and Kutcher, for all his retarday, will always hold a special little place in my heart for my beloved Dude, Where's My Car?, but come ON. It's the tagline that really bothers me: "Can SEX FRIENDS stay BEST FRIENDS?" Because: What? "Sex friends"? Has anyone -- in the history of ever -- used that phrase? I get what you're going for, but THAT IS NOT A THING.

--Unproductive yet awesome shit I find on the Internets (a series of tubes). These two are via my personal Kenny Powers of Internet Awesome, Mimi Smartypants: First, Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit. Second: The hills are alive ...

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Words and Phrases for Which My Boss Has Used “Benign” As A Synonym

--small

--insignificant

--not legally actionable

--should not take much [of YOUR] time [nb: false, false, false]

--something which is neither here nor there; moot point

--low-cost

--easy

--annoying

--piddling/trifling

What “Benign” Actually Means

be·nign

adj \bi-ˈnīn\

1: of a gentle disposition : gracious

2 a : showing kindness and gentleness

b : favorable, wholesome

3a : of a mild type or character that does not threaten health or life; especially : not becoming cancerous

b : having no significant effect : harmless

Actual Synonyms for “Benign”

anodyne, harmless, hurtless, innocent, innocuous, inoffensive, safe

"I don't have to outlast Dunder-Mifflin. I just have to outlast you."

Yesterday's Team Vision & Strategy Meeting, By the Numbers

Total hours duration: 4.5

Number of large cartoon drawings of horrified, stricken-seeming faces drawn in my notebook: 1

Tally of what my brain said while my manager was speaking:

STFU: 21

YOOYFE*: 7

OH! IRONY!: 3

Times it looked like the consultant wanted to kill us all with a thick and high-powered jet of fire: 3

Absolute neologisms: 1

Specifically: The word "family" used as a verb. Ex.: "Tell us how those things family together."

-------------------------------------------

*You're out of your fucking element

"The Dark Continent is no place for an addict, Elaine."

Speaking of editorial madnesses: I have, through some mysterious combination of online ordering patterns (likely involving those fucking tank tops from J. Jill, the New York Times and New Yorker subscriptions, the interview suit from Banana Republic, a couple of Boden items, Yankees tchotchkes for my father-in-law, clown costumes, and the family membership to the San Francisco Zoo), apparently tripped a secret algorithm that caused me to be sent the J. Peterman catalogue -- and y'all, it is HILARIOUS! I actually got through the Seinfeld years without realizing this was really a thing -- and now I'm like, fuck, why would Elaine not want to work there for the rest of her life? I sure would! This is comedy gold, y'all, and the creative license is immense -- you can write WHATEVER YOU WANT, and they will print it, and it will sell $425 "Lizzy B" (as in Bennett) dresses, "Viva Argentina!" shirts and "The Rolls Royce of Travel Bags" to rich people with a nostalgia for long-ago eras of travel and adventure that never actually existed outside of Pixar movies.

Note to self: visit website, if there is one, and apply IMMEDIATELY.

Well, what I wanna know is, where's MY stuff?

Sorry for disappearing, y'all -- Work/Life Balance, as it is HILARIOUSLY called around my office, got way the fuck out of whack, and then we went to the Olde Hometowne for some Thanksgiving good times -- but now I'm back so let's fucking PARTY.

Imaginary Excerpts From the House Style Guide for Southern Living Magazine

--Each article must contain at least one, and preferably half a dozen, "as Southern as ... " similies. Options for the "as" include but are not limited to: pecan pie, family get-togethers, iced tea, family, grandmother's fried chicken, yam pie, family recipes, old Chevy trucks, the flag, the Grand Ole Opry, tradition, traditional recipes, church, going to church, family pews at church, Sunday dinner. Unacceptable: government teat-sucking, abstinence-only sex-ed, redneck jackassery.

--If you must depict or discuss persons of brown coloring, ensure that they are shown in a service capacity, and that they display large friendly unthreatening smiles.

--Be sure to refer to Appendix A for explanation of our preferred code words, especially "heritage" and "whimsical."

--If your Design-focused article features a Gay (as surely they sometimes will, because the Gays are so delightful, with their design sense!), you must not refer to his housemate as "partner" more than once. Avoid using entirely, if possible. Photos must not depict a Gay touching or being near enough to touch another man, whether or not that man is himself also a Gay.

--When speaking of Family, the tone must be both reverent and intimate. Photographs must feature two parents (opposite gender only) and at least two minor children, unless the topic is a Family Business, in which case multi-generational photographs are acceptable.

--Articles about food which do not include the word "decadent" will be stricken from the magazine and the author blacklisted in perpetuity.

There's a support group for people who hate their jobs. It's called "Everybody," and they meet at the bar.

So I was looking in my files for my results from one or another of the many personality tests we've done in my group over the years, for reasons too tiresome to go into, and I couldn't find it. I looked under M -- Meyers-Briggs? T -- tests? team meetings? S - StrengthsFinder? W - What Color is Your Brain? R - resources?

No, no, no. Eventually I realized: It was under "H" for "horseshit." Oh, riiiight! I remember now!