It Might Be Working

Day three of this experiment in curbing my rage and I am feeling pretty dang good.

It could be due the fact that my office was pretty much empty today so I was able to sit in my little corner undisturbed without a single annoying email or phone call. It was like Christmas.

So I guess I really don't know if it is working or not because I didn't have to deal with any real people today. It is quite possible that a single human interaction could have turned me into a ranting banshee. Maybe I should just avoid people. I could go live in a cave.

But it would have to be a pretty nice cave...with heating...and plumbing...and tv and stuff.

Unmotivated

You know that place where there is WAY too much to do, but you would just rather not...I live there.

Between work, planning a wedding and just plain life stuff, my time is more than spoken for.

But last night, instead of cutting out tiny paper flowers for my invitations or the millions of other diy-diculous things I have put on my plate, I napped...kinda right straight until morning.

Don't even get me started on stupid crap like taxes. Who has the time and energy for that nonsense?

I suppose I should just suck it up because everyone else has the same crap to do. But I'm pretty convinced that my brand of crap is particularly crappy.

The Curse of the Print House

I am cursed.

That is the only explanation that I can come up with.

As a graphic designer (and a bit of a control freak) I like to be highly involved in the printing of my creations. But every effing time I take a new project to the printer I cringe. I cringe because I know, that somewhere, no matter how carefully I tread, the whole thing is going to go to hell.

Two Christmases ago I had a brilliant idea for this amazing die-cut greeting card. I slaved over the file and blistered my fingers cutting out my own die cut to make sure it would work. I brought it to my printer and asked him, "are you SURE you can do this?" I was willing to simplify if he told me it was too intricate. But he said it was fine and we proceeded. After the piece was printed and out to be cut...I got the call. "Umm...we can't do it. Oh and by the way, we are going to delivery on December 20th." (plenty of time to have 900 people sign them and have them mailed to people before they leave on holiday). Ugh.

Then there was the direct mailer of early 2008. A very unique concept with a accordion fold unlike anything you have ever seen. Once again I asked if this was doable and suggested that maybe we would need and envelope to mail it. I was assured that it was fine, that two little tabs would hold it all closed. When the piece was delivered it had two of the most ginormous wafer seals you have ever seen. They were 4-inch diameter stickers with no perforation. They were so violently sticky that the entire piece was literally impossible to open. Awesome.

My most recent story involves a new printer that came highly recommended by a fellow designer. The idiot took a month to print my job (it was supposed to be a week) and then shorted me 700 pieces and sent all of it to the wrong address. Roar!

What the hell did I do to deserve this? Hmmm? What?!?!

An Open Letter to the Postmaster

Dear Postmaster,

With a title like yours, one might assume that you take responsibility for the actions of your workers...but not me. I know better than to assume...because to assume...makes you an asshole (or something like that).

I have always been kind to the postal workers of America. I give chocolates to my mailman around the holidays. I write my addresses as legibly as I possibly can. I even subscribe to the USPS magazine for goodness sake.

Monday was a tedious day for me. I carefully formatted, double- and triple-checked my mailing labels while my helpers diligently stuffed these cute little cardboard coasters into 1250 even cuter envelopes. Then boyfriend and I spent hours affixing the labels to the envelopes. The tiny pieces were posted and sent out yesterday, lifting a great weight off my shoulders. I was happy, knowing that people would get their happy little invitations well in advance of the March 9th event.

But then...today...the horror.

The letters were returned for inadequate postage. WTF?!?! Seriously, you raised prices again? Because OMG, soon it will be cheaper for me to jump in my personal jet and deliver each piece of mail my damn self.

But no. A trip to the Redwood City Post Office proved...um...informative?:

Us: (holding up the returned letter) What is wrong with this?
Grouchy Postal Employee: Um...nothing.
Us: Then why was it returned?
GPE: (taking the letter from us) Ohhhhh...well it is a CD (please note assumption).
Us: No it isn't.
GPE: (feeling up the envelope) Yes it is (notice the reassertion of the afore-mentioned assumption). So you have to put 75 cents more on it.
Us: But it isn't a CD.
GPE: Yes...I feel a CD (ok...u are an ASS).
Us: No...it is a coaster. Look (we fold it in half).
GPE: How am I supposed to know that?
Us: We are showing you...can we mail it now?
GPE: No. Not until you put 75 more cents.

So our choices were...just suck it up and cover the effing thing in postage...or fight. So...this evening we are planing a guerrilla attack of post boxes across the bay area. They might have been able to stop our giant crate of invitations, but if we spread out and sprinkle the things from San Jose to San Francisco...they won't have a chance.

I think the reason that people "go postal" is that occasionally a person (like a real one...with a soul and a brain) falls into this dreaded career path and when they realize that they are surrounded by zombies who have already snacked on all their coworkers' brains and they decide to take them out.

So postmaster...master of all post...please...I don't even know...don't hire stupid people?

Thank you.

A Little Design Help

Learning to work with people is hard. There are a lot of little nuances to co-worker relationships that make collaboration difficult. This is not about one of those little things…this is just about stupid people and stupid stuff…two things for which I have zero tolerance.

Being a graphic designer…I make things “pretty.” A lot of my co-workers get offended by that word, but as long as you appreciate my ideas as well, I am perfectly happy to make it “pretty.” You might be surprised to know how many people care about the aesthetics of the wrong stupid shit. I mean seriously dude…you should ask my help picking out some non-pleated pants before you ask for my help to make your email “pretty,” because all I am going to do is change it from Comic Sans and delete that heinous clip art.

How would you feel if you were asked to create a collection of 50 bajillion icons for some stupid internal application and all but one were great, but this one kinda resembles a gall bladder, so could you please go back and do it over? Well no thank you very much. I would rather not waste more of my time because some random person who just had their gall bladder removed, thought an icon that I made looked kinda like a gall bladder (maybe if you turn your head and squint while on crack).

While we are raging about design-related irritations…lets discuss the design sophistication of email stationery. As much as I love puppy feet, I don’t necessarily think they are an appropriate choice for your law firm’s professional correspondence. I can see that if you are say…an engineer…that a graph paper background might seem like a stylish choice…but it isn’t. It is ugly. And when I get your emails I die a little inside. Less is more people…really…black text on a white screen is absolutely in these days. And while we are at it…animated gifs of little butterflies or belly dancers as part of your electronic signature…also mildly inappropriate. Here is a desperate plea to Mircosoft: “Stop producing these hideous backgrounds, it is like giving a loaded gun to a kid in a black trench coat…it is going to end badly.”

Ok…so now that I have worked myself into a flurry, I just need to express a few more things that annoy:

• Times New Roman
• Powerpoint transitions that involve checked flags or pieces of pie
• Yellow text on black backgrounds
• Buttons with bevel, embossing, gradients AND drop shadow (just cause you can open Photoshop doesn’t mean you should use it)
• Microsoft WordArt…it is neither legible nor art…so don’t
• Pastel rainbow excel spreadsheets

Cause…The More You Know…the less I will want to spoon my eyes out.

Fail.

I took a test today. A test that was completely unnecessary. A test that I volunteered to take. A freaking HARD test!

Well, if the subject line didn’t give it away…I failed. I knew I was going to fail. I had no doubt in my mind. I had dreams of big fat failure. I ate failure for breakfast.

I’ve failed tests before. Not a big deal…accounting…that was a nice fail. But that was the result of zero studying…I didn’t even go to class. Not the case this time. I studied…I went to every class. Apparently, I’m just an idiot now.

I wish I could blame it on the coughing guy in the test.
I wish I could blame it on the guy who shushed the coughing guy every single time he coughed.
I wish I could blame it on the freezing temperatures in the testing facility.
I wish I could blame it on the archaic “computer” that I took the test on.
Most of all…I wish my failure more like this…at least then we could laugh when I recovered from my concussion.

Relegated to the Mailroom

I have skills. Not being cocky…but I paid good money to institutions to amass said skills and I have a resume that proves it.

It isn’t that I am not willing to do tedious and brainless jobs like say…oh I don’t know…address and stuff 2000 invitations in 24 hours, but seriously…that sucks.

And it’s not like I don’t have 50 bajillion other things to do with my time since my boss went on maternity leave for FIVE (omg) months. And it’s not like there aren’t several people who clearly have time on their hands but don’t want to help, or if they do help, move so slow that it makes me want to jump up and down and do it my damn self.*

Luckily, boyfriend is not a snail and is ultra helpful so I only had to stay up until 10 doing it.

On the upside, I managed to not get any papercuts...so…that makes it a lot less annoying.

*perfect example of skills: proficient usage of the double negative

Thank God I’m a Suburban Girl

This morning I had to haul my ass to San Francisco for a meeting…we all know how much I love that. I don’t know what it is about the city that makes me feel like I need to gussy myself…wear real girl shoes, brush my hair and pull out my wool coat.

Anyway, after fighting traffic all the way up there and looking for goddamn parking for ten-gajillion hours…I finally broke down and valet parked. Super…there goes five-trillion dollars. As I handed over my key to the skeezy valet I was suddenly relieved that I had remembered to hide my Victoria Secret bag with pretty pink bra under the seat.

I walked into the building and to the elevator to start my ascent to the sixth floor when I saw the sign on the door that said:

ELEVATOR OUT OF ORDER
TAKE THE MOTHER-EFFING STAIRS
BITCH!

Or something like that. Are you kidding me? I can’t even walk a block in these death shoes, let alone climb six flights of stairs. As I stood there, planning my next move, (maybe the sign is just to trick me into exercise…maybe I could fake sick...maybe there is a window-washer around here who will hoist me up on his pulley thing) a little old lady came through the door and started up the stairs. Dammit…now I have to do it.

Luckily, I made it to the top with no serious injury and only small pit stains.

You thought the climax of the story was gonna be here…didn’t you? You thought there was going to be a horrendous meeting and a eventfully bad drive out of the city. Well you were wrong. We already climaxed. That’s it. I had to drive and park and use my legs. That is my bad day. And you know what?…as bad days go…that is a pretty good one.

Hey Baby…This is Barry White

Ok fine…there isn’t much of a physical resemblance, but my voice right now…wow…it is sooooo sexy. It would make even the most fridged bitch weak in the knees. Two people have called me on the phone today and when I answer they say, “Oh I have the wrong number,” only to call back 30 seconds later after they realized that it was, in fact, the right number and that Ashley had obviously undergone an emergency gender reassignment procedure.

So apparently amongst all the lack of sleep, singing my lungs out and the icy chill of Chicago…I managed to develop a cold. I know mom…I shouldn’t have stayed out so late and I should have brought a warmer jacket, but at the time I wasn’t really thinking that far ahead. Last night was a different story…as I almost died from choking on my own snot…my life (ok fine…my trip) flashed before my eyes and I reevaluated my plans for the next week. The plan had been: work, play, sleep, work, play, sleep, work, play, sleep. Now the plan is more like: work and play while you sleep.

Here I sit at work, hacking up a lung with my glassy sad eyes and used-tissue barricade that warn people to stay away. The people in the office seem to get it and are steering clear for the most part. The people who are emailing me with all sorts or ridiculousness...not so much.

Yep…I’m A Cutter

Don’t worry…no need for an intervention…it isn’t that kind of cutting. I am a graphic designer with horrible overuse of the die cut. Odd shapes…unexpected cutouts…I am all about them. My problem is that when I create such diecuttie creations…I have many many drafts. This wouldn’t be a big deal (unless you are one of those…paperless people) for most people, but for me, as a cutter, it is quite painful.

You see, each draft needs to be cut out. How can anyone viewing my draft see the true brilliance of the piece if it isn’t cut out? Hence my strong attachment to my scissors and other cutting paraphernalia.

Today I am working on what can only be described as a giant doily…and as such…has required me to spend my day hunched over the cutting mat with my exacto knife for basically five hours. My neck hurts and I have blister on my finger and I have at least 10 versions of this thing cut out on my desk now…on second thought…maybe I do need an intervention.

Shut In

I have now been in Chicago for nearly a week and I haven’t seen much of it. Mostly the inside on my hotel room and its room service tray or the convention center. But tomorrow is the last of my responsibility and I am determined to explore this wonderful city. And by explore I mean take a cab to the nearest department store and buy things that I could have bought at home.

Technical Difficulties?

I’m blogging at cha from the San Jose airport…where I have been, and will continue to, sit for hours. Apparently the plane that I should be on and 10 minutes closer to Chicago in is having a generator problem.

Ok fine…things happen…I get that. What I don’t get is this…the airline employee just came on over the loud speaker and said, “Ladies and gentlemen…may I have your attention. Our flight is going to be delayed this morning due to a generator problem in the plane. This is a very simple problem to fix, but our San Jose mechanics can’t fix it. So we have called the San Francisco mechanics and they will be coming down to fix the problem. This should take anywhere from one to two hours. Thank you for your patience.”

This information not only annoys me because I must remain here…sitting on the dirty airport floor, leaning against a trashcan…but it also worries me. Maybe I am reading this wrong, but it seems to me that the airline is basically saying, “our mechanics are incompetent.” Doesn’t inspire much confidence. Maybe I should always fly out of San Francisco now…at least their mechanics can fix a generator.

UPDATE: If you call United Airlines’ 800 number they will tell you that they can “provide you with up-to-the-minute information on flight arrivals and departures.” Well it is a good thing that I am smarter than the automated man…because he says that my flight is 2 hours delayed…but I know that it is FREAKING CANCELLED! It is also super than United has its act together and as a replacement for my 8 am flight they can get me on a red eye with a stopover in Phoenix if I haul ass to OAKLAND! Don’t worry I am smarter than that lady too and I got on a reasonable flight…I guess I’ll just hang out at the airport. It won’t be too bad…I have a whole clan of University of Washington marching band geeks who are kinda entertaining in a I-want-to-spoon-my-eyes-out-dear-god-I-hope-I-was-never-like-that kind of way.

Pay No Attention to the Women With the Furry Feets

My brain is on overload these days. There is a finite number of things that I can remember and I have exceeded my limit. You would think that would mean that I would be forgetting a few things here and there…but you would be wrong. Apparently the overload is causing an entire system meltdown and keeping me from accomplishing the most simple daily tasks like...say…remembering to wear shoes.

Oops…I left the house this morning for work in my fuzzy sheepskin slippers. Über professional.

On a completely unrelated side note…my friend Jen got a package today. It was a platypus letter opener / pâté spreader. Everyone must have one of these…civilization depends upon it.

The Return of Feisty Thursday

I am full proponent of the Feisty Friday tradition, but this Feisty Thursday stuff is a little overkill, even for a grouchyface like me. Two days in a row of pure feist is hard to handle, not only for me, but my coworkers, friends and family. I literally stuck my tongue out at my boss today. Some place that crap could get me fired. Luckily she responded likewise and threw a paper clip at me (as you can see…also a fan of the feistiness).

Smart-ass comments and general snarkiness aside, my attitude is pretty well justified as it has been a pretty shitty week. Bad news comes in threes eh? Not so much this week…more of a continuous downpour of nastiness.

What Was I Going to Blog About?

God knows I can’t remember. Today’s blog is brought to you by the word “distraction” the number “14” and the letter “F.”

The number 14 is how many times I have muttered the words, “what the heck was I doing?” under my breath today.

The word distraction is the theme of my day as I jump from half-finished task to half-finished task with reckless abandon.

The letter F is the grade I would give myself on my productivity today.

So you can easily see that today would be a great day for me to tell you that the meaning of life is…ooo…look…something shiny.

Work-A-Rama

Ok…are you ready? Today is official “Work All Day” day. That means 24 hours of full work. No breaks, no chit-chat, no eating. Just work. Don’t even try to take one of those girly pee breaks…that is against the rules. Food? Water? Pshaw!

Who is with me?!?!

Anyone?

P.S. Yes I know…I broke the rules with the 2.5 minutes it took me to blog this. But come on…I’m doing a public service. You totally would have forgotten National Workaholic Day if I hadn’t reminded you. NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

I awoke with a start as the pouring rain slammed my windowpane. A flash of lightning illuminated the clock on the wall…midnight…exactly.

As my sleepy eyes adjusted to the dark, a shadow materialized in the corner of my bedroom, its large and ominous shape silhouetted against the wall at the foot of my bed. I gasped and pulled my blankets up under my chin, as if that would protect me.

I felt the lump of panic rising in my throat. I looked for an escape…none to be found. I thought about screaming for help but my voice had inexplicably disappeared.

A strange crinkling noise marked each move closer and closer to me. And then it was upon me…taking all the air from my lungs. I gasped for a breath while its razor-sharp edge sliced small painful cuts across my knuckles.

As one more flash of lightning revealed my attacker’s face I shrieked in horror at…the biggest…to-do list…ever.

Networking Tips for the Socially Stunted

Networking can be tricky business. Here are my simple steps to mediocre success in a social situation. Watch and learn:

1. Stand with your back to a wall…that way you can see everyone who might come up and try to talk with you.
2. Make sure to wear lots of jewelry so you have something to play with to look busy.
3. When you can’t think of anything to say, just giggle and mumble a little…people will think you are talking but will be too polite to ask you to speak up when they think they can’t hear you over the party noise.
4. Eye contact is dangerous…don’t do it…or else people will talk to you.
5. Eat…a lot…it isn’t polite to talk with your mouth full.
6. Find the one person you know and glom on…don’t let go.
7. When all else fails…break into a almost jog and go in and out of doors like you are doing something super important.

With these easy techniques you can be just as much of a party goober as I am.

A Bad Day A-Brewin’

I think I should have a reality television crew. Not because my life is particularly interesting, but because on those few tragically pathetic days, I think people could get some real humor out of the comedy of errors that is my life.

Today is shaping up to be one of those days.

I fell down in the parking lot…I tripped over…well…nothing. I just fell for no reason. It kinda hurt…but it was kinda funny so I laughed a little and some guy came around the corner and saw me kneeling on the ground giggling to myself in the middle of the parking lot…he thought I was crazy and took a wide berth. I walked into the building and got onto the elevator. I waited…it was taking a long time. I waited. The door opened, and someone got on…still on the first floor. They informed me that I had to press the button of the floor I wanted to go to.

That is just the story of my five minute trip from car to desk. That doesn’t include the load of shit that fell on me after I made it to that desk or the stabbing pain behind my eye right now that is causing me to want to go back and lay in the middle of the parking lot again.

Happy Fucking Friday!

I Heart Ruler

I have a strange attachment to office supplies. Nothing creepy…but I definitely feel an unnatural emotional link between me and my cube accoutrement.

I keep a special stash of various sizes of purple and yellow post-its…not the average everyday canary yellow ones but the darker and richer yellow. I have these rad scissors that have a hidden blade on the handle to open boxes (or stab unsuspecting scissor nappers). I have the metal ruler with cork backing that I have had for at least ten years. I have a scotch tape dispenser that works like a packing tape dispenser with the little mini handle and everything. I love these things. I protect them. Don’t steal my ruler because I will kick you (and I will know you stole it because I wrote my name on it in sharpie).

I don’t mind sharing…I am not a selfish person. But finding my scissors across the room is a little distressing. What if I decided to move your car and park it a block away. I know…jacked up!

It’s the golden rule folks…do unto my office supplies as you would want me to do unto you…or something like that…I’m a heathen…you get the drift.