Pulling out my hair

Good lord, who are they letting into Wheaton College these days? (And the bigger question: who are they letting out?) My boss hired someone from the old alma mater to replace me hoping for a repeat in my fantastic reasoning skills and technical savvy. Since she started on Monday, I have been receiving strange phone calls from her on Richard's cell phone which I had written down somewhere on my (her) desk. I gave her my phone number to direct any further questions to, so she called Richard's cell phone the next day with a couple more questions. Things like, "How do you put the toner into the printer?" and "Do you really have to fill in all of the blanks on the certified mail slip like the example you left me?" and a little conversation that went just like this:

Me: "I thought I gave you my cell phone number. I must be mistaken."

Replacement me: "Oh, no, you're not mistaken. You are actually quite fantastic in your reasoning skills and technical savvy. You could never make a mistake. You gave me your number, but I had already called this number and I do not like pushing buttons, so I called the number that required the pushing of the fewest buttons."

Me: "Ok, on with it then."

Replacement me: "I can't get this document to scan. I know you wrote out step-by-step instructions which I followed to the t, but I can't get it to work."

Me: "At which point exactly are you having trouble?"

Replacement me: "When I place the document on the scanner/copier feeder tray, nothing happens."

Me: "Did you follow all of the other instructions before and after that?"

Replacement: "No. I just put the papers on the tray and it's not doing anything. I think it should scan automatically when you do that."

Me: "So when you said you followed ALL of the instructions, you meant that you followed one of the instructions and decided that the machine did not work properly."

Replacement: "Yes..."

I hung up. (No, I sometimes wish I had the audacity to do so, but, alas, I gently encouraged her to pay attention and follow directions and that will get you far in life. blah, blah, blah.)

I had a few clues when I was training her last week that this would not go well. She asked if I minded if she walked around barefoot because shoes make her feet sweaty. Apparently the only reason she asked is that her last employer had very forcefully and unreasonably requested that she wear shoes while at work. To which I replied that I the socially acceptable thing to do while working in a professional office is to wear shoes, but I would not require it. And several times while I answered phone calls, documents that I specifically stated she should not touch until I told her what to do with them disappeared and got mailed.

I could never be a teacher. And I could never be a supervisor for people I was not able to hand pick with special attention to the amount of common sense that they have. Well, maybe I could. But I would shake people a lot and start laughing and crying in despair. People would think I was a lunatic.

It's a Wonderful World

I was reading a recent post that a certain Working Boy created.

I am not completely sure that my blind optimism does me much more good than negativity. I go into everything with the idea that life is wonderful.

I truly believe that I will score 100% on every test that I take. That if it's cold and snowy, at least there will be sun and that we all will go outside in our hats and mittens and make wonderful, sunny snow people. That if it rains, I will be sick enough to stay home from work, but feel better by 11:00 so that I can enjoy the Oprah Show and a fantastic science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury. And there will be a rainbow around 3:00.

But then life happens, and there's car trouble and student loans and going to work even though you feel like the living dead, and it's not nearly up to par with all of my imaginings. And I sink into a crazy depression until I can dream up the next believable fantasy.

I'd probably be much happier if I just retreated to my absurdly wonderful fantasy world of kittens and mittens and sunshine. But I would probably end up unemployed, in debt and hungry, or possibly committed to an institution. So, maybe my life is as happy as it can be right now.

Trekkie in Disguise

I just found out that the seventy-something year old secretary in my office is a Star Trek fan. And from what I gather she seems to think that William Shatner was rather sexy back in the day.

That sure made my day.

Man bites back.

I love seasons, and by that I mean I love fall.

It seems to be the perfect season for sensory overload. There are so many colors it looks like someone spilled a box of crayons - and not just the box of 8 or even 16 - the box of 120. There are the smells and tastes of so many foods - pumpkin pie, apple cider, halloween candy. Not to mention that the perfect item of clothing to suit this season just happens to be my favorite to wear: the sweater.

I even like to feel the melancholy that comes on a cloudy wet fall day. The colors are darker, and the days are darker. The heavy scent decay destroyed by fire fills the air.

So many opposite extremes - the warm sun and the cold air, the healthy grass and the dying leaves, wet ground and dry wool socks, a cold face and a neck kept warm by a scarf.

Life is so fucking fragile.

I guess I was naive, innocent. I'd never watched an animal struggle so hard for breath before. I'd never watched the light go out of an animal's eyes. Stupid, dumb lab just wanted to be by me. Just wanted to run with me. Stupid dumb lab kept licking and wagging its tail even though it was dying.

Death came out of nowhere. Death came in the form of a nice family driving a truck back from a nice family vacation. In the form of a man who cried because he saw what he'd done. Why couldn't death have come in the form of a mean person who didn't care and just drove off so that I could be mad at him instead of being mad at me? Why did he have to be the one who comforted the dog while I just stared?

Well, we have cable. I can officially get up one hour earlier for work and watch any one of the following: 1. a shark special, 2. Sesame Street and 3. Dawson's Creek reruns. For the time being, I am choosing to ignore the question in my mind: "Why the hell would I do that?" and just be glad that I can. I will also, for the time being, ignore the little voice in the back of my head telling me that there are better things to be done with my time and that cable television will only be detrimental to me reaching my goals.

Hmm... I'm still all for moving to Argentina, but maybe we should avoid living near the river. If you can't read the article, just stay blissfully ignorant. Ugh.