How NOT to celebrate Admin Professionals Day

The first time a "Manager" who is a "Very Important Person" (it says so on his t-shirt) comes up and complains that his little report doesn't print right - it's cute.

It's cute that a man 20 years older than me who has been working in this business for over a decade can't figure out how to hit the landscape button in Excel. There is a bit of adorable in a big strong man needing a woman to come and click his buttons. It contains a sense of ironic, a sense of humanity. It's a little funny. It gives you a giggle.

The second time he does it, after a twenty minute tutorial of the print function in Microsoft applications, while I'm trying to finish reports for people who actually -are- important (and sign my paychecks), when he's waited two days so that I have already forgotten about his dorky, dinky little report and am in the throes of preparing inventory for an entire division while fielding 2 calls a minute from two bosses:

Not so freaking cute.

More than a color

My sister and I never really got along. With the age difference and me being the surprise (and I suspect - unwanted) baby we never connected well.

My earliest memories are being kicked out of our shared bedroom and spending most of my nights on the couch in the living room. I always did like sleeping on couches though...

But this weekend I was surprised by how much we have in common. Like:

"So I was hoping you could figure out how it works," she said to my brother, handing him a pretty spiffy new mp3 player.

"This is my new one" I said, pulling out the new shuffle I was recently surprised with.

"It's pink!"

"I know, I have everything in pink now. I just started it all of a sudden."

"Me too. I think I had this mental block and then just like that..."

And then just like that I realized:

Hey yeah, we really are sisters. And we like pink.

Blogs on Blogs

I haven't been very bloggy lately. Well if lately means an entire season. I'd like to say that it's actually the season that has sapped my bloggishness. Like a bear I prefer to snuggle down in my cave of blankets for the winter and nap. Or in my case watch really bad TV like “Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Boot Camp.”

Unfortunately, my laziness comes from more than just needing to see that blonde fall on her ass. I've noticed that blogging makes me more aware. I'm always alert, ready for that next post, the next thing to jabber on about. I was always like that, long before “web logs” came into being. But the blog kept me sharp. I was getting good at pulling long introspective ideas out of short encounters with the grocer.

And then I realized – I really didn't want to do that. Not because I don't want to think, or because I don't like being introspective, but because the grocer is an asshole.

Okay, he's not. I don't actually have a real “grocer” and I'm sure if I did he wouldn't be an asshole. Maybe a little weird, but not an asshole. No, what I've been noticing lately is that the world really does suck more than it doesn't. And it's filled with some really awful people.

I hate seeing that. I hate admitting it. Of course C., smart man that he is, has been drilling that idea into my head. And of course I already knew. I knew there were bad people out there. I knew there were sad people, and cruel people, and people who were so desperately trapped in their own heads that they trampled over everyone in their path. I knew that.

I just didn't want to know that. I've been trying really hard to keep myself from admitting it. I held onto my self-imposed naiveté so long and so hard that now I'd rather not think than admit it was all a ruse.

I live a charmed life. It really is the best life. Life does not get much better than the one I get to live. And even so – I want it bigger. I want my little patch of happy to stretch out farther, further, to more places, to more people. I don't want the bad parts, the bad people, to interfere with my rose-colored world.

And they are. So I'm feeling a little un-bloggish lately.