Monday, August 28, 2006

Irrevocable proof

A few days ago, I wrote about my smidgen of soupcon that Richie Rich might just be infiltrating my healthy-pizza territory. What? Accuse a boss of filching your cheeseless veggie pizza?

So Macklaine took it upon himself to corroborate my suspicious with some sleuthing of his own, and came up with the following incontrovertible evidence. "I've proof that Richie Rich was nabbin' the odd slice of pizza on the sly," he pronounced.

And pointed me to a terribly scientific study of office food, politics and diplomacy: an experiment was performed where-in muffins were left lying around the office, next to money-collection boxes. The system was based on the honour system, employees were supposed to drop a dollar in the box each time they helped themselves to a muffin. A Private Eye then recorded happenings, to report a strong reverse correlation between employee seniority and infringement of the honour code of ethics. Basically, the study said, senior executives were most likely to steal muffins, while the baser minions tended to pay up the honest dollar.

Irrevocable, incontrovertible, undeniable proof

Friday, August 25, 2006

The hare and the tortoise

Both Delta and I were frowning at the board in fierce concentration. An intense Scrabble game was in play, with words and letters forging through, around, over and under each other, creating a delicate linguistic filigree. (And I don't use the term delicate lightly - twice already, we had accidentally shaken the table and thrown all the letters askew).

We'd eaten through most of the letter-collection, with only a handful of letters remaining in play. "You're blatantly going to kick my ass," Delta said, glancing over at the scorechart. I looked at the scores, and true, I was averaging somewhat higher numbers than he was. Averaging more than Delta! I certainly hadn't expected this. I puffed out my chest in pride, and succumbed immediately to the eternal faux-pas (cockiness) of the youthful inexperienced. With only a few letters left, it was pretty much a fait-accompli.

And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Delta came up with an 85-point word (I didn't even know there were such words!), and blew his competition (ie me) right out of the water. Whacked me out of the playing field. Lobbed me out of the tennis court. You get the idea. Who stores their Z's right till the end anyway?!

"Oh." I was crestfallen.

I hate sneaker-uppers.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Food, politics and diplomacy

Once a week, the office orders in pizza for lunch. Now, pizza is somewhat far from being my food of choice. It has far too much bread, far too little vegetable, and a revolting amount of cheese.

And sometimes, in life, one must look out for oneself, must one not? So I put in a special request with Fran. "When you order the catering, Fran," I grovelled in my sweetest tone, "could you please order me a veg one with no cheese?"
"Sure thing, hon."
And so I've been able to pull off a 'healthy pizza' miracle for a while now. Then suddenly, since the last two months, I noticed that someone else had been eating my healthy pizza. I'd get to the counter, and my specially ordered veg-no-cheese pizza would be gone!

I wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, when I suddenly heard Richie Rich mention the other day that he was on a diet. My razorsharp mind at once put two and two together, and I turned to him with narrowed eyes.
"You haven't been eating my pizza, have you? Order your own!"
He laughed, but one can never trust a laughing boss.

I guess it isn't a wise idea to accuse your general manager of connery and thievery. I wonder how this will play out in my performance review due next month.

Friday, August 11, 2006

HR humour

The other day, I posted the following sign on my office wall:

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Company Policy
Dress Code
It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary. If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise. If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.
Sick Days
We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
Personal Days
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday & Sunday.
Toilet Use
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in teh stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the "Chronic Offenders cagetory". Anyone caught smiling int eh picture will be sanctioned under the company's mental health policy.
Okay. I'm prepared to accept that perhaps this is only funny to an HR bod. I'm even prepared to accept its possibly bordering on inappropriate for an HR bod. But seriously? The amount of people who have now asked me if the policy above is for real, I'm a bit worried about the overall intellectual faculties of our staff.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Camping pictures

Sunset walk on the beach

Gazing out to sea

Walking by the beach


Burgers by the campsite


Playing horseshoes

View of the sound

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Urban Hillbillies

There was much excitement and kerfuffle about our camping trip to Long Island sound last weekend.

First there was the consternation over comfortable sleeping arrangements. "I think we should take at least 18 blankets to sleep on," I said. "You know, just to make sure we're comfortable there on the ground."
"Puhlease!" Delta responded, "this is camping!" But then a few minutes later, he ventured, "erm, do you think we should take an airbed?"
Doobie just rolled her eyes.

Then there was the last minute panic of buying Doobie a new bikini. We raced out to the stores, only to discover that that the fashion world had already progressed to autumn collections. We stared in dismay at the dwindled racks of summerwear. "There's only size 25s left!!!!" she wailed. But after much scrutiny, and some debate as to the vices and virtues of board shorts vs. boy shorts, we finally managed to feel appropriately attired for the event. I even bought a pair of shorts with ladybirds on then, just to blend in to the picnic atmosphere.

On the drive over, Delta and I started to play word-games to kill the time. The game was simple - we'd come up with a category, and then compete on who could name more items belonging to that category. In that manner, we exhausted our knowledge repositories on famous female writers, deciduous trees, and famous historic discoverers (conquerers like Alexander the Great were allowed because they must have discovered as they conquered). "Okay now your turn to come up with a category," Delta told me.
"Okay. Marsupials."
"Kangaroo!" he input.
"Oppossum!"
"Wallaby!"
*silence*
"Erm. Seahorse?"
He turned to stare at me.
"What?! They have pouches!" I said defensively.

Before we knew it, we were there, and it was time to pitch the tents. When Metrohom had lent me his tent, he'd cautioned that it might be difficult for me to figure out how to pitch it. "Don't worry, Delta will know!" I'd said confidently. With the type of confidence that can only come before a fall. It was only when Delta had spent fifteen minutes trying to pitch the rainfly instead of the tent that I realised the error of my judgement :)

The camping itself, of course, was fantastic. There was a barbecue and burgers.
There was a campfire and smores (I stared in horror at the white sticky smores until Jenn made me one without the marshmellow).
There was a voda-infused watermelon (none of us realised that the vodka would evaporate so quickly. So basically, after the first 5 minutes, there was just a watermelon).
There was general gamboling in the sea, and a two hour walk along the beach.
And there was sunshine and blue waters, as far as the eye could see.

All in all, a fantastic weekend (pictures to follow).

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Am I really a monster?

Doobie (Chief Eating Officer), Jenn (Events Organizer), Sarah (Wine Sommelier) and I (Membership Consultant) were sitting at an outdoor table in a little Mexican restaurant in the West Village, one of our Restaurant Club events.

A young couple strolled by, pushing along a happily gurgling baby in a pram. The baby was contentedly self-entertained, smiling and waving and gurgling and drooling as babies are wont to do. What an adorable little critter, I thought to myself, feeling the first nascent tugs of maternal instinct. Just then, the baby fixed me with its heart-melting eyes.

I swear to you, it looked at me. All the other people around, and it chose me upon whom to bestow its beatific smile.

Omg it chose me, I thought. Me. All these other bods around, and it still chose to smile at ME. Must be that babies just naturally love me! I couldn't help but feel a welling of pride.

Then I did that horrible thing that all adults are reduced to when faced with a smiling baby. I put on that ridiculous expression on my face, somewhere between a look of wide-eyed surprise and a frighteningly toothy grin. Personally, I thought I looked dead cute. Just what the doctor ordered for that little golden child. I thought. Personally.

But suddenly, with no further instigation whatsoever, the baby burst out crying. Not the I'm-hungry-give-me-baby-goonk kind of crying. Not the oh-dear-I-just-pooped-myself kind of crying. Oh no.

This was a terrified shrieking Mum-I've-seen-a-monster kind of bawling. With a finger pointed right at me. Shrieking screeching screaming squawking.

I was horrified (the baby continued pointing at my face and screaming bloody murder).
The parents looked stricken. "I'm so sorry," the mum mouthed at me. (The screaming continued unabated. How do babies have such lung capacity anyway? They'd make great divers.)
I glanced over at Doobie, she was doubled up in laughter (wait till this happens to her one day!).

The parents hastily wheeled the pram down the block (the baby continued to peep round the corner, and point at me and wail).

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FACE?!!!

Maternal instincts be damned.

Curly mops

Have you ever kept your hair tied up in a hasty knot for multiple days in a row? I finally let my hair down this morning, after a three-day marathon.

The results are - uhmm - interesting.

I now somewhat rue the day I mentioned to Macklaine that his hair looked like a curly mop. Funny how things come back at ya.


This link ain't goin nowhere

I was about to send out one of my email reminders to 'All employees', reminding them of our usual Wednesday Social. I mean, seriously. It's somewhat ludicrous that these folks need their HR Bod to coax them out for basic imbibition. But far be it from me to complain or shirk from duties of such earth-shattering gravity.

Any of you guys planning to go out this evening? I first sent out a preliminary note to the regular office social butterflies - Seagull, Danby, Schaffs, Li'l Rob and crew. Only when a few of them responded in the enthusiastic affirmative did I email out the official invite to the rest. This way at least I'd be assured of some engaging company. Heh heh heh, conniving conspiring contriving HR Bod.

A group was already assembled in the bar by the time I ambled over. "So," Schaffs said as I tried to assess the nature of the conversation and where I could make my strategic entry, "why don't you tell us all about your blog, Ficali?"

My eyes almost popped out of my head.

My blog, what with references to Big Boss M, Richie Rich, Danby, Schaffs, Seagull, and (most importantly) all sorts of dubious insights into my character, is strictly not to be shared in the work environment.
"heh heh, what blog?" I said weakly, casting about a look which was supposed to make obvious to the rest that Schaffs was off his rocker. And maybe the strategy would have worked, if I actually had a modicum of credibility amongst these darned folks.

But instead all eyes were instantly riveted to the laughing Schaffs. What blog? What's it about? Our HR Bod knows what a BLOG is? How can we read it? Their popping eyes were saying.

Schaffs was basking in the undivided attention. "It's a blog about ass-grabbing!" He said. The curious looks turned to saucer eyes. I had to defend myself. So I told them the story of last year's Halloween party in Philly, and the unfortunate incident of the butt-pocket tale.
"Man! We have to find this site! What's the link?!" One of them asked.
"I'm NOT distributing the link to my blog," I said firmly. Decisively. Finally. Unequivocally.

Forgetting they were tech guys.

"That's okay we'll just google HR+Barcelona+pilot+New York and it'll be easy enough," was the response.
I don't think that would work (would it????), but at as we all know, I'm hardly the authority on the subject of technological forays.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.