Huddles

Once a year my company decides we all need a customer service refresher and sets up required customer service training classes. We all try to contain our excitement at the prospect of spending half a day in front of some impossibly perky person telling us we just aren’t good enough. But this year, management just really out did themselves by coming up with a brand new exciting daily requirement. The Huddle. There are numerous reasons why the huddle offends me – but first an explanation of what the huddle consists of. Every single morning at 8:00am the office separates into groups of no more than 10 people who then stand in a circle and discuss the finer points of customer service. Corporate management very helpfully sends out a company wide email each week with the daily huddle topics. “I greet clients by…” “I promote our company by…” Just a little sampling of what exciting topics await me every morning. We are a fortune 500 company. Thousands of people are now every morning getting a great big warm fuzzy from their coworkers. Warm and fuzzy. My email inbox is flooding with emails telling us to go check out the Huddle dedicated website to see the great feedback from employees. Are we seriously so desperate to connect with people that people enjoy this? I’m dreading the day my manager arrives back from her current sick leave and implements the daily huddle. If I have to huddle I had damn well better be the star quarterback for the 49ers and I had damn well better be dreaming.

Wedding Planning

I've discovered a great thing about planning a wedding. You first have to decide on a venue. And every venue you consider, you have to go there for dinner. I'm getting a lot of good meals out of the whole wedding planning thing. I'm trying to see the positive here. I'm not a planner. I'm not good at making decisions. The other amazing thing is that when people find out you just got engaged, they all tell you their engagement stories. Some better than others. I'm waiting to hear one that knocks my socks off so I can post it....but so far I've been disappointed.

Bling-Bling

My angelic two year old niece, a blond haired, blue eyed beautiful baby runs up to the boyfriend the other day wearing a long, plastic beaded necklace. My niece who is already extraodinarily verbal tells the boyfriend, "I'm wearing my green bling-bling." We both supress laughter and he responds, "Oh, are you wearing your bling." She indignantly corrects him, "No, it isn't bling, it is bling-bling." Who on earth taught her this??

The boyfriend and I have both lived with significant others and had it end messily. (See Letter to Psycho) We agreed since the beginning of our relationship that we wouldn't live together until at least an engagement has happened. Since we are in the process of having a house built for us, it goes to stand that an engagement is imminent. Not being of the type to pressure him or really be in any big hurry to get engaged, I have no idea when this will happen. This doesn't stop people from telling me how either they have or they would pressure him to just ask me now. Not a patient person, I've been surprisingly patient in regard to when we are actually getting engaged. But now, I've taken to asking him at least once a day where my bling-bling is. I think he is starting to get annoyed......

Inappropriate Questions

When are you and the boyfriend getting married? Love this question. People started in on this one after we had only been dating two months. Two months. Seriously? Seriously, how well can you truly know someone after two months? Do the people who ask these questions actually think it would be a good idea for us to commit to marriage after dating two months? Did I miss something and all of a sudden I'm in a world where a single 28 year old female is an old maid? What is the hurry here? Take the remote possibility that the thought of marriage had even crossed my mind - would I ever admit that to anyone? No. No, I wouldn't. None of your business questions reside towards the top of the long, long list of my pet peeves. They just push my buttons. Okay, it is true my buttons are pretty darn easy to push. I like to just put them out there for anyone and everyone to see and have fun with. Poke, poke, pokey, poke.

I managed to find two very satisfying solutions that both work stupendously. When I know the person asking the inappropriate question decently well, I won't even entertain the thought of answering the question. Instead, I settle on an equally inappropriate question of my own.
Question: "So, when are you and the boyfriend getting married?"
Response: "Hmmm...is this your fourth or fifth marriage now?"

When asked these questions by people I don't know well enough to come up with a retort question there is a perfectly easy solution as well.
Question: "Are you adopted?"
Response: "Oh, aren't you just cute..." Smile. Walk away.

Letter to Psycho

A letter written to the boyfriend's psycho ex-girlfriend that I cannot send but wish I could after she emailed him again for the upteemth millionth time.

Dear CC,

Reasons the boyfriend doesn't want to be friends with you:
1) You broke into his house by climbing in through the dog door and accosted his girlfriend in the shower.
2) You stole over $600 of his stuff when you moved out. Including taking his brand new Kitchen Aid mixer out of the box, stealing it, and putting the box back.
3) Even after he had the cops call you to tell you to stop harassing him - you continue to harass him. You continue to do drive bys.
4) You aren't enough of a decent person to respect his boundaries and his choice to NOT be friends.
5) You threatened to and would have taken both the animals if you had gotten your way.
6) You continually use Sadie, his ex-dog, as a way to try to get under his skin.

The clues that the boyfriend doesn't want to be friends with you:
1) He hasn't contacted you or returned any of your contact in over 5 months.
2) He has told your mutual friends to let you know he isn't interested in a friendship.
3) He emailed you 5 months ago and told you specifically to stop contacting him and that he didn't want to be friends.
4) He is moving and not giving you his forwarding address.
5) He had the cops call you and tell you to stop harassing him and stop contacting him in any way.
6) Your text messages/voicemails/email threatening him that you are going to stop trying to be friends with him unless he contacts you illicit NO response from him. This means, he WANTS you to give up and stop contacting him.

Silence is an answer. I know it isn't the answer you want - but it is an answer, it says, LEAVE ME ALONE, I don't want to be friends. Please accept this CC, let go and move on. After 5 months of no contact you continually contacting him is just plain sad. Walk away with what little dignity you can possible manage to still have. Go read "It's called a breakup because it's broken" and follow what it says. You think you are over it - trust me I've been through a nasty breakup and I know what it is like - but if you still want him in your life so badly you are emailing/texting him/calling him every week after FIVE months of no contact on his part - you aren't over it. Do yourself a favor, let it go. Do us all a favor, let it go. He doesn't want you to be a part of his life. He has told you this so many times. Please hear it for once.