Tuesday, 07 June 2011

• Currently The Very Best Of Enya By Enya see related

  Meh

  I was thinking yesterday that I should write a new blog, but I didn't feel like writing one.
  
  I don't have anything to say, but I'm going to babble a bit anyway.
  
  About a month or so ago I was politely informed that "some people" at work think that I don't care, and they get that impression because they don't think I dress professionally enough. I think I dress fine, especially compared to some other people. :P
  
  Anyway, as expected, this information pissed me off quite a bit. I started noticing people who were dressed, in my opinion, less than professionally. I started looking at other females in the office, and concluded that my fashion sense wasn't that terribly different from theirs. They're skinnier, so they look better, but otherwise they were wearing the same clothes.
  
  Anyway I got over my being pissed off stage and descended into a vaguely depressed sort of denial. You always find out about the perceived "badness" of yourself - you don't dress nice, you don't look nice, you're "lazy", you're "stupid," whatever, but you never find out the positives. People never stop and gossip in complimentary ways. They never say, "Oh, look at so-and-so, she's so snazzy!" they say, "Who does she think she is, the *@&#ing CEO, dressing like that? Huh!" I hate gossip. I hate social situations. I hate people.
  
  I need to finish writing my damn story and send it off to be published so I can get rich.
  
  Yeah, right. Ha!
  
  Moving on. I made an effort to put a plastering of gel on my hair every morning. I put on (gasp) makeup, even though I expected it would smudge off by lunchtime (the eyeshadow definitely does). I bought a couple of new shirts and pants. I thought rebellious thoughts of murder. I wrote fanfiction that will never be published, but made me feel better.
  
  I grumbled under my breath when the CEO announced last Thursday (despite a lack of professed enthusiasm from some parties) that we're going to be all casual, all the time!
  
  With rules, of course. No t-shirts with logos (bye-bye Beatles shirt that I used to wear on Fridays occasionally) unless they're the company logo, or they're specific to the "theme", like when they have sports themed Fridays. No ratty jeans, no flip-flops. Capris are okay as long as they're a certain length. I overheard a discussion between two women in the next aisle over from me, in which one woman wondered if the other woman's capris were too short. The second woman remarked that there were plenty of young ladies around who wore skirts much shorter than her capris.
  
  It's all up to interpretation. I went to Kohl's on Sunday and bought three new shirts. Two are kind of dressy, kind of casual, and the third is just a plain black t-shirt with buttons. So far this week I wore the first two shirts with regular dress pants and high-heeled, dressy sandals (which are okay). I only own one pair of jeans.
  
  Moving on to other exciting work news. Being as the last time I had a twice-a-month one-on-one meeting with Matt, he mentioned the need to "look professional", I wasn't looking forward to the next one-on-one, which was scheduled for yesterday afternoon. Usually, I have mine from 4:30 to 5, and half the time we end up babbling so much that I don't leave until after five, but that's okay because Frank's were always scheduled from 4 to 4:30 and I would come at 4:30 on the dot and feel like I was intruding. So instead I waited until 4:35 before I even left my desk.
  
  So this one-on-one was really a three-on-one, since Matt, in an attempt to get Frank to be more managerial, made both Frank and John attend as well. They asked how things were going (fine) and what issues or problems I might have been having lately (which I mentioned one, which they all knew about already) and that part was even more of a waste of time than usual. With Matt it made sense, since I often go days without seeing him, and sometimes I would wait until our one-on-one meetings to ask him important questions, since I had trouble finding him otherwise (and finding him un-distracted, at that). But since I now sit two desks over from Frank, and eat lunch with him every day, he basically has at least a vague idea of what I'm doing, and when I have a problem, I just yell, "Hey, Frank?" and he'll not only be there, but actually pay attention and listen to what I say before being interrupted by something else.
  
  But the good part of the meeting was that it's time for the Performance Review stuff, and unlike last year, we're actually going to be coming up with measurable objectives beforehand. Previous years, we would think of what we'd done over the last year and put those down as our objectives, while at the same time giving ourselves a (very subjective) rating (1-5, but nobody gets a 5) of how we thought we did on those things. Then we'd send it off to our boss, who would rate us on the same things, write up a blurb about general stuff, and ta-da....nothing happened after that, since there was a wage freeze and no one got raises.
  
  This year, however, it's the bosses who are coming up with the objectives, and there will be some for the individual and some for the department, and they'll be measured in real, objective numbers instead of random, subjective "feelings." This is awesome because Objectivity is better than Subjectivity in these matters, I don't have to think of what I've done over the past year (I don't remember!), and we actually will be getting performance-based raises as a result.
  
  I don't know if I'm eligible, since I got a raise when I was promoted, but maybe I am. :)
  
  So that made me feel a little better about Stuff, since I like things that are concrete and measurable. It doesn't matter what people gossip about laziness and such if there are ways to measure the Truth. [insert heroic pose here, as well as dramatic, heroic lighting, and a dramatic organ cord]
  
  In other news, after about a month of barely acknowledging my existence other than to say hello when we occasionally passed in the hall, I got an email from The VP last night asking for some stuff. Then, this morning, I came in to find another email, forwarded to me by Frank, about some specific, detailed information. I got that together and sent it to Matt and Frank so they could look it over, and Frank forwarded it on to The VP, and then began to depart for the day, since he had a doctor's appointment. Perhaps because Frank was leaving, The VP then called me (!) to ask for some more information relating to this email.
  
  I went to lunch, and then when I came back from lunch I again saw The VP in the hall, and he asked if I had this information yet. I didn't, since I had gone to lunch, and I thought "Oh, dollar sign asterisk apersand exclamation point. Maybe I should have eaten at my desk and worked on that." But I went back and managed to get the information together (which I was pretty proud of doing by myself, by the way, since Frank had gone for the day and Matt was nowhere to be found) and sent it off to him, to which he responded "Thanks!"
  
  Ta-da. Work-related self-esteem has been (mostly) restored. Go me.
  
  In non work-related news, it's hot. I haven't put the A/C in the window yet. It's supposed to be in the upper nineties by the end of the week.
  
  I finally got my state tax refund last week. I mailed it on 4-15 exactly. I think it probably took so long because I mailed it kinda late and because I did it wrong, so I got back a bit more than I thought I was supposed to get. Or so they say. I don't remember how much I planned on getting back, since it was so long ago. I put that money right into my savings account today.
  
  It's nice to have money in my savings account for a change. :)
  
  In August, I'll be turning thirty.
  
  Every summer I think, "Gosh, I'd like to go somewhere exotic and interesting on vacation" and then I never do because I don't have anyone to go with, and my family is LAME with a capital everything, so I don't go. My sister (who is going to be thirty-six) goes on interesting vacations all the time, to Spain, Italy, England, Montreal, etc, etc, etc.
  
  So I thought, "I'm going to be thirty!" and then I thought "Why can't I go on vacation by myself?" and then I remembered that two years ago I drove myself to Philly (randomly, it wasn't planned) and stayed overnight in a hotel by myself, and I have ridden on many a train by myself. I have never been on a plane alone, but the one time I was on a plane it wasn't that much different than riding on a train.
  
  I have always wanted to go to California. So I think I'm going to go to California for my vacation this year. I'm thinking I might go to San Francisco, since I've always wanted to go there, but other than seeing the Bridge and the trolleys I'm not sure what else is there.
  
  Also, unless my parents volunteer to do so for me, I'm going to buy myself a Kindle for my birthday as well. I would buy one Right Now except that I've got some actual paper books that I feel I should read before I buy something else to read, otherwise they'll never get read. I figure in the next month and a half, I might make a dent in them. And if not, maybe I'll bring them along on my vacation.
  
  I bought a new Enya CD, and I have to tell you I like this one a lot. I listened to it just about nonstop at work today. :)
  
  That's all for now, folks. Hope you had a pleasant Tuesday. I'll be back with some photos tomorrow. :)
  
  

  • 10:09 PM
  • 17 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 4 Comments