Disco Tree

Here's the new, retro Christmas tree my aunt got for me at an estate sale this past summer. It's not very big, but I don't have a lot of room so that's okay. I believe you aren't supposed to put lights on it, so I have them coiled under the tree and hanging nearby. It's a bit dis-organized, but I don't care. I like it. I had to squish up the living room portion of my DVD collection that has spilled from the two large sets of shelves that are in the hallway in order to make space for the presents. Now all I need to do is buy a couple more gifts and take care of the Christmas cards and I am done!

The small, colored ball ornaments are some I got on clearance a couple of years ago. The larger ones are some that hung on trees from when my Mom was a kid. Pretty cool.

No, I'm not dead.

It's been a long couple or so weeks at work. I have finally caught up with the projects that belonged to the assistant who was gone for almost a week and a half because of her babysitter issues. She hasn't said word one to me about them by the way. I am in the middle of selecting VAV boxes for a hospital we got. I'm on 110 of 203. It takes me about 2 hours to do 50 of them.

In the midst of all that, Disney was upset that myself, the front office lady and a woman from the service department went to lunch one day without asking her. Now, she leaves half an hour early everyday so asking her to go to lunch would mean she would have to make up the time somewhere. I just always assume that she can't go because she has to work through half her lunch to leave at 4:30. Anyway, apparently we hurt her feelings. She wouldn't talk to the front office lady for almost two days. Finally Front Office had had enough so she called Disney on it. Disney told her she just wanted us to all get along and be friends...blah, blah, blah.

Thus, Hands Across The Office was born. Okay, only I called it that, but none the less all the office chicks went out to lunch that Friday. Most of the conversation was dominated by the four of them talking about their children. Whee. Disney thinks we should do this once a month. Ack. Can't wait.

Here's some super fast movie reviews:

Paranormal Activity: B+ It would have been a bit higher had there not been a problem during the screening of the film. Right at the first really big shock moment the "slide show" that normally comes up in between films started flashing on the screen. It broke all the tension that had been built up so the big finale wasn't quite as big as I think it would have been.

Where The Wild Things Are: A Everything about this is great. It's visually amazing, the acting is spot on (especially the young actor who plays Max) and I even enjoyed Karen O's music.

Men Who Stare At Goats: B+ I enjoyed this a bunch. Clooney is fabulous and it's always good when Ewan McGregor is around. Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey are great in showing two sides of loony. It's hard to make the transition from a non-fiction book to a fictional movie, but for the most part things work.

Today, it's Pirate Radio...or as it was called when it came out months ago in Britain, The Boat That Rocked. Looking forward to seeing Nick Frost (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) and Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd).

Now, off to the bank, the post office, Christmas shopping and a movie. Whew.

OH, almost forgot. I need more single friends. I got tickets for Illinois vs. Ohio State basketball and was very excited. I completely ignored the fact that the game is on Valentine's Day. My thinking was since Valentine's Day is on a Sunday then most people would go out Sat. night and their Sunday would be open. Apparently, this is not the case. Shows you how often I "celebrate" Valentine's Day. So, as of right now, I have one ticket looking for a ticket holder. Any takers?

Winner, winner, runner up chicken dinner

This evening I was at a trivia night/fundraiser that also had a costume contest as a part of the festivities. I ended up runner up in the women's division and got movie passes (sweet) as a prize.

I went as Annie from Misery, mostly because I would be coming straight from work and I needed something that would be easy to change into.

I believe it was my homemade sledge hammer (pictured) and fake Paul Sheldon romance novel that put me in the running.

Originally I was going to go as Mia from Pulp Fiction, but since I don't have Uma's long neck, the wig I'd bought made me look like Moe from the Three Stooges. Kathy Bates was much easier to pull off.

Kids are the new smoke break

I was telling my friend Laura the other day that I think I need to adopt a child so I can get out of work early...or show up late...or take the week off (not vacation though). It seems like my fellow sales assistants use their kids like smokers take advantage of smoke breaks. When I worked at the bookstore, the smokers would be taking 5-10 min. breaks every couple of hours and this wasn't an issue. Granted, it helped that several of the managers smoked and would be running outside every couple of hours as well. Now, instead of people constantly disappearing for a nicotine fix, we have baby related crap to deal with, pardon the pun.

Both sales assistants are breast feeding so they pump during the day. Now, I know that one of the assistants is using the same style of pump that my friend used. It is very discreet. She would shut her office door to get hooked up and then she'd open her door and continue working like nothing was happening. Disney doesn't see it this way. Both she and the other assistant shut their door while pumping. They pump at least two times a day and usually their doors are closed for at least 20 min. if not longer. No one has any idea what they are doing in there. My friend who works the front desk says it seems like they are on their phones the whole time.

They come in late after taking their kid to a doctor's appointment. Fine, I get it. You schedule the thing as early as you can and you are stuck till the doctor actually comes in to see you. BUT, you don't come in at 11 am and then take your hour lunch at noon. Seriously.

The best had to be this week. One assistant called and left a voice mail to our bosses that she wouldn't be in on Monday. Her babysitter's kids were all sick and feverish so the sitter didn't want the other kids coming in and getting infected. Fine. Understandable. Not so kosher was the fact that she didn't call back to let us know when she would be coming in. She didn't come in to pick up her computer to work from home (which is an option...we have laptops). No one knew what was going on until one of the sales guys called her with questions on a job (that was one of three that got handed off to me in her absence) and said "oh, when are you going to be back?"

Our main boss was out of town at business meetings Tues. and Wed. According to the front desk gal, he was upset to hear the assistant hadn't been back in and hadn't checked in. She finally shows up on Friday. Doesn't say anything to me about the files that were missing off of her desk that got passed off to me...actually forwards a voice mail to me to take care of on a job that she was responsible for (and that I had actually gotten called about and took care of on Wed. thank you very much) and, best we can tell, doesn't get in trouble at all for not calling in, etc.

I think they both must possess some sort of voodoo that keeps the guys in our office wrapped around their fingers. They both leave early every day, don't always work through their lunches to make up for leaving early, and then pull crap like this with no consequences.

Oh, did I mention she had a job bidding this week that she didn't check in on. The rep just grabbed the proposal off her desk without looking at it and sent it out to the contractors. The next day he gets a call. Our bid is $11,000 lower than everyone else's, which usually means there is a mistake. Apparently there were several things missed. The rep had to quickly revise the bid and fax it back out.

Sigh.