So Noelle C. has revealed her quirks to me. We all know she likes to get very graphic about her descriptions of other people, right down to removing her clothing to prove a point. But this week I've discovered something a tiny bit creepier:
She thinks she and I are twins.
I can see some similarities. I mean, we are both round ladies who live in Wisconsin and work for Dunder Mifflin.
End of the similarities.
However, I wore a top yesterday, and she said she liked it. I thanked her. She then said, "See....I have the exact same clothes in my closet. We are twins!"
Friends, I have no illusions about how I dress. I am business casual for the fluffy girl who recently was told to wear loose clothing due to a skin issue. The words "tailored" and "sleak" are nowhere in my wardrobe descriptions.
That said, I'd like to think there's a tiny bit of difference in the way I dress from that of my older...much older...counterpart.
That aside, there are a few other things that convince me we are not twins, and she's a bit of a whackadoo.
She tells everyone in the office she loves them.
Not the joking, "Hey, I love how you're so hilarious!" No, she tells people this in a serious, eye contact, "I really do love you." Now, it's fine if she wants to cement relations with NBM (she's such a huge fan of his it's sort of funny) and I don't mind when people tell me they love me because I'm funny or efficient or well groomed.
I do, however, wonder about people who tell coworkers they love them...and then tell other coworkers that they told coworkers they love them.
Do you follow me?
Let me construct a sentence: "Sarah, I told NBM yesterday that I love him."
Yeah, why would you share that? No twin of mine would share that.
But creepiest of all is that fact that, and I realize I've opened myself up to this, she feels the need to make "suggestions" about my diet. (This based on her miraculous discovery of the Weight Watchers points recently. However, when she weighed in after 13 weeks and realized she'd only lost 13 pounds eating nothing but dry toast and soup, she fell off the wagon and has since put on a few pounds. Those size 14's aren't fitting so well.)
Yesterday she gave me the tip that put me over the edge and made me realize I had to nip the whole "twin" thing in the bud.
"See, you're just like me," she said, "You have a leaky gut because you don't drink enough breast milk."
Ummmmm, what?
Oh yeah...I hope she never misses.
Apparently she read something (and why is it every nut case reads wild insane medical stuff, but I can't get ten people to buy my books this month?) that the colostrum in mother's milk coats an infant's intestines with tiny little bugs that then speeds the digestive process and makes them poop. "My poops used to be like rabbit turds," says she in my workplace. "Now they are long and huge like a big long rope."
Why is it older women think it's okay to discuss poop in the workplace? Seriously!
She suggested that we both need more (more?) breast milk in our diets and THAT will then cure us of being fat.
"We're exactly the same, you and I," says she.
NO, NO, NO!
On another note, because I know you care, I went to an actual MD doctor yesterday. And wonder of wonders, the man took notes when I spoke and actually touched me (and not in a creepy way) He didn't talk about magic necklaces or unhappy thyroids. Instead, he prescribed a couple things to help with my skin issues (he thinks it's eczema) and I'm to go in for a complete blood work up on Saturday. I already feel better. I did get him to chuckle when I explained Dr. Maime's methods. He also informed me that any diet that completely cut out fruit was not a diet to be followed.
I went home and immediately ate a bowl of blackberries. And it was good!
For those of you new to this blog, and for those of you who haven't been paying attention, I'll catch you up:
Last Saturday I paid a visit to my mother's 300 pound chiropractor/yoga instructor/nutritionist who informed me that I, the fat girl, needed to avoid all sugar, including, and especially: FRUIT. She also informed me that my thyroid was unhappy that I worked at a computer. She of course has a necklace that wards off the evil (her words not mine) rays of computers and cell phones, but she didn't think to offer me one.
So, no candy, no cookies, no cake, and no fruit for me. And no magic necklace to ward off the evil rays and make my thyroid happy.
Something else you should know, if you don't:
Several years ago I was diagnosed with PMDD, which is basically a very high powered form of PMS. Simply put, 2-3 days a month I am driven completely, utterly, and murderously insane by someone's voice. It's always a specific person, like the Evil Bossman. (He who blamed me for the fact that oil was $100 barrel because I, the fat girl, wanted to turn on the AC when the office reached 80 degrees.) More recently it was Elsie's, and now, it is Noelle C's.
Note his collar. His thyroid was probably
unhappy with him, too.
During these couple days, I take some medication (well, medication and CHOCOLATE), but I cannot tolerate the very sound of that specific voice. (I think Edgar Allen Poe may have had...or probably more likely knew...someone with PMDD when he wrote "The Tell Tale Heart.")
I'm sharing that shocking tidbit with you to explain why I've not been terribly active online this past week:
I've been trying very, very hard not to kill anyone while I make it through this week of no sugar and no fruit and a major, completely unexpected, attack of my "pre days."
It has been less than easy.
IT hasn't been much easier when I try to explain to my family members why, the week after Easter, when candy is 70% off and I've bought a truckload of it, I cannot eat it. It' hasn't been easy, spring time in Wisconsin, when the new spring and summer fruits suddenly show up, beautiful and ripe, and all I ache for is a raspberry or a strawberry, or a freakin' glass of ORANGE JUICE.
So tonight, wracked with guilt, a sense of failure, and quite possibly the worst cramps of my life, I saved my family from any anguished scenes of insanity, and I ate four mini Butter finger Eggs.
An egg a day will keep
the crazies away.
And I had a glass of orange juice.
And it was goooooooooooood!
I see Dr. Maime a week from next Saturday. i was supposed to see her next week Thursday, but her assistant Flick couldn't seem to get his head wrapped around her schedule. Was she in Florida this week? Next week? He just couldn't be sure. And neither could she...until last night when he called to see if I wanted to see her tonight.
Uh, no, see Flick, even if I wasn't wrapped around a heating pad...I had other plans. You'd think someone who calls them self and assistant would have someone who calls them self a doctor's schedule better in hand.
Before I see Dr. Maime again, I'm checking in with an actual MD, and gent I've never met before. Most of you recall, my former internal med doc, the one I think looks like Dudley Moore, said that the crippling pain in my hands was because I was old and I had to live with it. Yeah, so I'm very done with him.
This new guy has NO IDEA the level of crazy that's going to hit him next week Wednesday.
I should probably eat another Butter finger egg before I meet him.
CONDA UPDATE:
While I have been slowly, very slowly, losing a pound here and there, it is clear that Conda is crushing me in the weight loss department. So yes, it is harder to lose weight on your own than it is when focused on nothing but weight loss 24/7.
However, in the department of people who don't hate you, I'm, pretty sure I'm winning. Out of the blue, someone I work with announced, "I love Biggest Loser, but I HATE Conda."
Food for thought: Those of you who watched Buddy and Mark walk out in protest...do you think Conda orchestrated the drama just to get everyone thinking the rules of the game where unfair so that everyone would walk...except for her and her brother Jeremy? Because I totally do. She's been behind every minute of game play, drama, and shenanigans since this game started and I believe that she looked at the final five and realized she wasn't going to beat at least the two guys. So she waited until something got leaked about returning players and she worked her magic.
It sort of backfired...because Kim didn't walk and Kim is one of the two guaranteed in the finals. GO KIM!
Let me start by saying I am NOT mocking people with food allergies in this post. I know a lot of people who have legitimate food allergies, and I respect them.
What I am mocking in this post, ultimately, are those who don the name "Doctor" and then spout some wildly weird stuff at you, and part us from our money by putting fancy words to very simple truths.
Oh, and I'm mocking my mother.
My mother, who has been rail thin her entire life, but has been battling my father's weight for almost as long, decided one day to visit her chiropractor. (I'm not mocking chiropractic care. When I have 30 minutes every other day and $30 every other day for ten weeks, I go to a chiropractor myself.) While there, her chiropractor...and woman I'll call Dr. MAMIE, because 1) it rhymes with her real name and 2) It's annoying to me when doctors who don't work with children insist you call them Dr. First Name.
so she went to her chiropractor, and I may never know how it came about, but she emerged from that appointment with fist full of brown glass bottles bearing hand written names of their contents, and a whole new attitude about food and why my father and I need to avoid it.
Since I'm 44 and live in my own house, I tend to not listen to her, but after months of gentle reminding (nagging) she offered to pay for my own very trip to this Dr. Maime who was going to put a vial of corn on my belly button and cure not only my fat, but also my arthritis.
I'm not making this up, this is what she told me.
(At least the Soggy Bottom Boys got $10 to sing into a can.)
So like I said, after several months of gentle reminding, (nagging) I called Dr. Maime's office and spoke to Flick (not his real name, but close enough) who set up an appointment for 8 AM today, Saturday.
8 Am. And Flick said, "BE EARLY."
So I filled out the paperwork, which didn't seem at all interested in my diet, and showed up at 7:45. Flick took my paperwork, and directed me to a room. Where I then sat for 25 minutes.
Making Dr. Maime ten minutes late.
We are not off to a good start.
The other thing I noticed about this nutrition guru, the woman who was currently charging my parents heaven knows what for treatment and for those glass bottle of voodoo, is this:
SHE'S FAT!
Yes, take dietary advice from him.
She's not just fluffy. No, my friends, this woman could be my partner on Biggest Loser. She's MY BEFORE PICTURE.
Now you all know I have long beat the drum of equality for fluffy girls. But there are just some jobs a fluffy girl may not be best suited for. Like a woman shouldn't do those movie voice overs for disaster movie trailers, a fluffy girl should not be billing people's insurance for her dietary expertise.
So after talking to her for several minutes, she says,
"So do you want chiropractic care, or RT?"
I'm not sure what RT is, so I said, "My mother told me you were going to put a can of corn on my belly button and cure my arthritis."
Rather than correcting me for being wrong she said, "Oh, well we are in the wrong room."
Chalk one up to Flick for not listening to me on the phone.
We get to her room and she talks about food and nutrients and how bad the American diet is.
She and I would be a great poster to prove that point.
Then she holds up a rubber band and lubes it up with aloe. She invites me to hoist my shirt and bra while she puts on this "heart monitor."
Then she makes me like completely flat, completely still on a table. Then she makes me stand completely still. She then reads a computer screen (There's a clothes pin on my shirt attached to the computer...it's not touching the rubber band around my boobs, so I'm not exactly sure how my readings to in to the computer.) She then tells me that I'm blocked and switched and my body has no reserves in case I need to move quickly.
Well, I don't know what the first two things mean, but as for the part about no reserves for moving quickly...DUH! I'm old and I'm fat and I have lousy hands and feet. I'm not going anywhere quickly.
So then she removes the rubber band and has me lie on the table. No crossed legs, no touching myself in anyway because she's going to touch me all over and she doesn't want my body confused.
Um....my body might not be confused, but I'm starting to wonder if I should be looking for a hidden camera because it's starting to feel like one of those movies...you know....
She then tells me I have to hold my left arm straight up. Keep holding it that way and she's going to apply pressure, not a lot, but a little and I'm supposed to match her pressure.
Well I do, except it's starting to dawn on me that she's working the algebra problem backwards. She's already pretty sure what she's going to tell me, now she needs to perform a couple magic tricks to prove I need her treatment. First, let's get the fat girl to hold her arm up in the air while she's already uncomfortable lying flat out and let's see how much pressure we can use until her arm falls down.
"Well," says she, "You're definitely blocked, but you can be successfully tested this way. So that's good. Now we need to see how you're switched and what organs are involved."
I came in because my hands hurt.
Then she gets a couple little jars. I can't see them, because I 'm supposed to have my eyes closed. She puts them on my stomach and does the arm test. By this time my left arm is very sore and very tired, so I'm pretty much proving her point simply because I'm uncomfortable and tired. She's touching me in sort of a soft creepy way, not like a medical doctor who would actually, you know, try and put pressure on an organ to see if it's inflamed or something, no she's more just pointing to them and pushing on my arm.
She has me press my right pinky to my thumb for a good part of the test. Not sure what that has to do with it, but it hurt and I informed her of that. She poked my zipper (why, I don't know) and said, "I know. We're almost done."
Uh, if a nutritionist is fumbling around your jeans zipper I'm thinking you ARE DONE.
She then says, like she's a genius, "Do you work near a computer?"
"You know I do. We talked about that."
"Oh well your thyroid doesn't like that."
"My thyroid is going to have to get over it."
"Yes, well, I do have a necklace I wear to protect me from the harmful rays of computers, cell phones, all those waves in the air. I forgot to wear it today."
You also forget to tell me if and where I can get such a magical necklace
Turns out, I have a sensitivity to mercury and cadmium. Now I don't know a human person who DOESN'T have a sensitivity to mercury. And apparently, those three fillings I have in my teeth are part of the reason I'm fat and have arthritis.
Finally, it was over. And, after all that, she was very gleeful in her diagnosis.
"You need to stay away from all sugars."
Well, this isn't a body built by carrots.
"No cookies, no candy, no cake."
Why...so you can have it all? (Sorry, that was mean...still, she's the one telling me what I need to do to lose weight.)
"And no fruit."
Uh...what?
"No fruit. No fruit juices, no fruit."
"Wait," says I, "So it's not corn, it's not gluten. It's sugar."
"No problem with corn at this point."
Right, until she tells my mother who will probably tell her to tell me I have a problem with corn.
"You can have honey, but no other sugars, especially not fruit."
So you heard it hear first America....and other countries. I can eat all the Cheetos I want. But a bowl of raspberries will keep me fat forever.
Darn it...I really want a raspberry!
I'm not taking child rearing tips from
Kate Gosslein either.
So it's been a week since Elsie W. departed in a whirlwind of fire. (My Bible scholar friends are howling at the humor in that statement.) I have to say, it's been a week of discovery...the discovery of just how wrecked Elsie managed to get everything.
There are some changes we knew would happen immediately:
We're going through far less paper towel/toilet paper/coffee/ stolen food. Turns out...Elsie was sort of stockpiling paper goods in her desk. I'm not sure what she was afraid of, but Noelle C. extracted four rolls of paper towel and three rolls of TP from a drawer. The best part was, only one roll of each was soaked in coffee.
The kitchen area has managed to stay bug free since Tuesday. In fact, the sink is as shiny as it was the day we moved in. NBM startled himself when he passed by the sink one day, he thought he was about to bump into someone in the hall...that's how shiny the sink is.
I'm pretty sure Noelle C. has destroyed all the moldy sandwich bags she uncovered in her desk. (I could be wrong on that one. There are a couple drawers she's still afraid to open.)
There are other changes, some discovered today, that are going to take some time to come about.
Elsie took that a bit too
literally.
The "honor box" snack guy left us a nasty note today...see, Elsie wasn't there to write him a check for $5.00 like she does every other month to cover her snack habits that weren't satisfied with her two fully cooked meals and three "snack breaks." (Which reminds me...there's no fish in the fridge anymore!)
The phone bill reflects $27 worth of calls to "information." And there are some very interesting calls to a couple of numbers in California and other Dunder Mifflin branches that have nothing to do with the day to day operations of our office, but which Elsie would call to "see how other sales appointment setters do it." (She did this to prove me, PM, and NBM wrong every time we tried to show her how to do something.) NBM saw the phone bill today and wondered aloud what those calls were about. I suggested that the phone bill, much like the snack guy, would be righted in a month's time.
I think the biggest change is how the office smells. I will give Noelle C credit...she is unflichingly cheerful, but she knows how to clean an office, and she's not afraid to bring in a potted plant. Oh, and she's sort of a painter, so in a week's time we went from blah bare walls (NBM is sort of a "stark means clean" guy) to walls filled with her colorful paintings of flowers.
Elise W gave us this.
Bonus, she brought in a pot of tulips. The whole place smells really nice. And when I told her I liked lilacs, she brought me a cutting from her lilac bush.
Noelle C. gives us this.
I guess I can overlook a couple moments of undress if she keeps bringing in flowers.
I am almost ready to bring back my stuff and brighten my desk. I better hurry...Noelle C might bring a bucket full of cheerful animal paperweights to brighten my corner of the world.
For those of you who celebrate Easter, Happy Easter!
Easter is one of those religious holidays, like Christmas, that has, in the US anyway, gotten tangled up with fairly funky non religious traditions. Here in the US, the Risen Savior is the reason for the season, as they say, but the Easter Bunny and his baskets of pastel wrapped candies is the big score many folks look for.
Sorry...no Johnny Gage for you. It's Easter.
My family, when I was growing up, was very, very religious. Easter meant one huge thing for me: i didn't get to watch "Emergency!" the Saturday night before, because we had to get up and be at church by 5 for the sunrise service that started at 6. (My parents played organ, sang in the choir, helped with the Easter breakfast, so we had to get to church super early.)
"I know you're all very tired
and but can we hold the snoring
down to a dull roar? And yes, there
will be bacon after the
final hymn"
Easter morning also meant something else: It mean my mother would be extra tired, since she and dad stayed up to hide the eggs all over the house (we didn't use the yard. Living in Michigan, Easter weather isn't always all that dependable...plus we had all kinds of dogs wandering around our neighborhood, getting into mischief and eating stuff.) and since she was extra tired, it meant she had less humor than normal. So when Brother and I would find eggs during the normal course of getting ready for church...she'd howl at us to "JUST EAT YOUR BREAKFAST AND GET IN THE CAR."
And no, I don't know why we had to eat breakfast before church when the mother of all breakfasts awaited us after church. Seriously...if you aren't a Christian, you are really missing out on the whole church Easter breakfast thing.
Anyway, we'd go to church, stuff ourselves with all sorts of breakfast yummies, and come home. One tradition the kids of my congregation had was to see who could eat the most hard boiled eggs at the breakfast. You know, the colored eggs everyone uses as a centerpiece...well we kids would spend some time gathering up as many as we could without the adults noticing. Then the contest would begin. As far as I know, Greg Panos (Yes, that's his real name) still holds the record at 14...and he was in third grade at the time.
Our big tradition after church was to come home and find our own Easter eggs and baskets. Now, almost every family I know does this, but at our house it was sort of twisted...and therefore funny. See, by the time we got home, my parents had been up for almost 7 hours, and we kids were a touch cranky too. Plus, most Easters we had to get in the car in the afternoon for the 9 hour drive to my grandparents' home in Wisconsin, so mom and dad had that good big fun to look forward to AFTER we found our eggs and baskets.
My father is one of those guys who makes charts and lists of stuff. I've always thought that if he were running the world things would be a lot more organized because he would boil absolutely everything down to a chart, and then time everything. he's very big on clocks and time. Easter was a big deal for him because he would not only keep track of how many eggs they hid, he made a list of where the eggs were hidden. Brother and I would scurry about the house, while mom lay on the couch, and look for eggs here and there and find our baskets. The rule was we weren't allowed to TOUCH our baskets...and the candy therein...until ALL THE EGGS HAD BEEN FOUND.
Every Easter Sunday, from the time I was five until the year my mother said, "THAT'S IT WE ARE NOT DOING EGGS AGAIN, YOU CHILDREN DO NOTHING BUT CRY," (I'm pretty sure I was eleven) would proceed the same way. We'd look for eggs, we'd find some, we'd make a huge mess looking for eggs in places like the sugar canister..and the flour canister. (One year, my mother tells me, I dumped the two together to find an egg. I don't remember that, but I'm sure she took away "Emergency!" for a week to punish me.)
After about ten minutes of really chaotic searching, we were tired, and done with the egg hunt. That's where my father would walk around saying, "You have seven more eggs to find."
We'd search another five minutes, find a couple more eggs, and whine about wanting candy.
Forget being afraid of the rabbit
This kid is crying because he has
9 more eggs to find.
My mother would say, "Dennis, just tell them where the eggs are!"
My father would say, "If we don't find the eggs now, we'll find them in about a week when they start to stink."
Another five minutes and eggless running amok and finally my mother would snatch the list out of his hands and say, "Sarah, go to the bathroom and look in the drawers."
I think this is a good time to tell you that I was one of those kids who just didn't find stuff. My mother constantly would yell, "IF I COME DOWN THERE AND FIND IT FOR YOU, THERE WILL BE NO EMERGENCY FOR A WEEK."
Frankly, I'm surprised I ever got to see that show.
Easter Sunday would always end the same way: Kids crying, mom grouchy on the couch, Dad wandering around the house saying, "Why do we do this if no one wants to do this?" and then we'd get in the car for nine hours and not say anything to each other.
Good times.
JACKPOT!
When I had kids, I knew I was going to do the whole Easter bunny baskets and eggs thing too. It's a thing...you swear you're not going to be your parents, but then it happens. The good news is, you've probably married someone who is turning into THEIR parents and so with the new mix of traditions, something fun can happen.
Case in point: Our Easter traditions. We too, like my family before, go to Easter sunrise service and Easter breakfast. And we too, like my family before, hide the eggs. That's where the similarities end. Instead of making the kids find their baskets, each year I'd put the baskets right at their bedroom doors, along with a note from the NAUGHTY EASTER RODENT.
The Naughty Easter Rodent is a rabbit who, while we sleep, hides our eggs that we were going to play tips and butts with (you don't know tips and butts? Read on.) at grandma's house. Since we do not have time to find the eggs before church, the Rodent gives us a basket of goodies, small clothing items, perhaps a small toy, to apologize for being naughty.
The children get to wear the shoes or new clothes to church. (This was always the way I justified buying new clothes for the kids.) then they'd find the eggs after the breakfast, just in time to take the eggs to grandma's house where we'd play Tips and Butts.
Now Tips and Butts originated at my paternal grandparent's home. Each year, as we were all super full from eating a big Easter meal, we'd reach for the plates of colored eggs in the center of the table. My grandmother LOVED coloring Easter eggs, so we had plenty. We'd each pick an egg, and begin battles with the person next to us. A battle would start with the two players holding their eggs either with the tip (the skinny end of the egg) or the butt (the round end of the egg) up. On person would point his egg down on top of the other person's egg and start trying to smash that person's egg. Then they would reverse and do "butts." The egg that wasn't crushed moved on to do battle with someone else at the table. The smashed egg was passed down to my uncle, who patiently pealed every egg. He ate some of them, but most of them sat in a pile of pastel colored baubles, next to a pile of pastel colored rubbish, in front of him.
Battles would last a good long time, until the eggs ran out. The last person standing with either a whole egg, or , more likely, a tip or butt intact, was the winner. I don't know what we won.
Tips and butts is a very fun way to blow off some steam after what tends to be a formal dinner. Our nasty twist? color one raw egg and put it in with the general population of hard boiled eggs. If you know the trick to telling the difference between a raw egg and a hard boiled egg (I do.) you can avoid getting splattered. Otherwise, hilarity ensues.
I think having your own traditions for anything is a good idea. Creating your own traditions is even more fun, especially if you have a dark sense of humor.
Meanwhile, happy Easter to everyone. To all you Christians: He is RISEN! To those of you celebrating something else this time of year, enjoy your holidays! It's what ties families together...even when they want to kill each other.
As you know, I have a knew office lady. Elsie was let go early this week and my new lady coworker is NO ELSIE. So I've started calling her NOELLE C.
Just so you have a picture in mind: Noelle C is in her late 50's. She is short, and round, like me. She's quite proud of her weight loss since January...and I mentioned in my last blog when I detailed how she dropped trow at my desk to show me her pants size.
Now, I thought that momentary declothing was just a fluke, first day nerves, a weird "get to know you" custom her people (and by her people I mean people who think dropping their pants to show pants size to a stranger...or a coworker...is acceptable.) have.
I thought wrong.
I've mentioned that Noelle C is unfailingly cheerful. Everyone loves her.
Everyone but me.
Yes, she's good at her job. And she makes sure every person who comes within 15 feet of her knows 1) she used to work at Dunder Mifflin 2) she's very good at her job 3) she ADORES NBM 4) she HATED the women who previously worked there, and they HATED HER.
Seriously...we just got rid of drama...MUST we
relive drama I didn't even witness?
The last two creep me out just a tiny bit. See, I am wary of any boss/employee relationship that crosses a line, and abject worship is pretty much that line. If the Evil Bossman taught me anything it's that there's a line and people who cross it are trouble. And as for her previous experience...after listening to her regale me with tales of how evil the previous women were, (I met one of them, I didn't see any horns or anything. I thought she was nice.) I'm not interested. Previous employees are ancient history. Even Elsie. I'm not interested in gossiping about her with Noelle C unless I need to explain something Elsie did, and how Noelle C now has to fix it. (And yes, there's a lot of that.)
Anyway, as I said, everyone loves her, and since everyone else in the office is a MAN it's doubtful they will see what I see....especially since Noelle C likes to save the most revealing work habits when we are alone.
Two days ago I got a good view of granny panties and a tiny bit of fanny crack.
Today...cleavage. And way too close to an actual R rating for my taste. I'm not a prude. I dress up for Renaissance Faires and I corset and bustier my upstairs and much as possible. But I keep things buttoned down for work. It just seems proper.
But we got to talking about previous employees...her favorite topic and she mentioned a younger woman who worked there right before she did. (How she would then know this is beyond me.) It seems this young woman liked to wear low cut tops and high cut skirts.
This is what she was describing.
Telling me would have been enough. Showing me...
Yes, Noelle C actually unbuttoned her jacket top, pushed her girl glands together and up and said, "She walked around like this all the time."
What with her shirt flapping open...and her own hands acting as the ultimate Wonder Bra?
Somehow I doubt it.
This was a little closer to what
I saw.
The bad news is, since everyone LOVES her I have no one to share this with in the office. The good news is...I'm not that attached to this job. At this point, I haven't brought anything back to my desk except for my radio, so the minute we hit the NC-17 rating, I'll be out the door.
Maybe if we just dispense with outer clothes completely
she'll be more comfortable.
I doubt it will come to that. It's clear that she's so far into NBM's pocket she knows his PIN number, and it's also clear she's never liked any woman she ever worked with at Dunder Mifflin. My guess is, and I shared this with PM today, I'll become the bad employee soon.
Two days with the new lady co-worker and I've come to realize one thing: She is NO ELSIE.
No...Elsie....no...elsie....noelsie...NOELLE C.
Ladies and gents: Introducing Noelle C.
I wasn't going to give her a name. I was really, really hoping that a normal, not weirdly disturbing person would fill the position left by Elsie's dramatic departure.
Well hope springs eternal. Maybe at my next job I'll get to work with someone normal.
Before you judge me...and believe me, hubby already has, let me relay to you just a smidgen of what my new office mate revealed to me.
But first let me say this: She might be the death of me at Dunder Mifflin. Everyone...and I mean everyone...LOVES HER. She used to work here, and left because the other office women were mean to her, but apparently NBM ADORED HER. (I know this because yesterday she brought in several e-mails, cards, and sticky notes he'd written to her. None crossed a line, none were creepy...until you read them all together and realized that 1) she'd saved them for over a year while she was not working at Dunder Mifflin and 2) she was showing them to everyone, proving just how much NBM likes her.
We're getting into a weird area here.
But that's not what prompted me to blog this morning. No, Noelle C is lovely, and she's good at her job. I don't have to train her. In fact, I don't have to do anything touching on her job now...and that's awesome. Gives my brain time to focus on my job. I haven't been able to to that for about six months. And she's unfailingly cheerful.
I'm sort of hoping that wears off.
Basically, she's making me look like the office hag now, and yes, I'm a tiny bit jealous. She's now started the last two days by HUGGING EVERYONE and cheering and...oh yes...informing anyone in the office that she's done something right because she's good at her job. Oh, and she's a complete neat freak who not only cleaned her office (seriously, we should have called a hazmat team) but decided to clean my desk...around me...after I told I didnt' need cleaning AND she observed my desk and said, "Wow, it's clean." Didn't stop her from wiping everything down with a wet rag....and lifting my elbows up to do it.
But that's not the reason I'm prompted to blog.
Those are just the previews of coming crazy. Nope, I'm blogging today because I always thought that in an office setting...underwear should be kept covered and not shown off to random people to prove the end of a story.
Apparently...in Noelle C's case, I was wrong.
See, while she wasn't working for Dunder Mifflin (she calls it "home" as in "NBM , can I come HOME NOW?") she'd discovered a new health show run by a guy named Doctor Oz. (Have you heard of him?) And Dr. Oz was taking about this revolutionary weight loss program...Weight Watchers...and how they used POINTS to guide you through portion control.
She was so earnest in all this, I had to be polite and nod and not inform her that pretty much the entire planet knows about Dr. Oz and two thirds of everyone I know has been on and off WW points for years.
"So," she says, "I started at a size 20."
Now, for visual help here, she's writing this on a napkin while we're sitting entirely too close to each other at my desk.
"And then I went down to an 18. and then a 16, and now...what does the tag in my pants say?"
Here's where most people would just spew out the number. Nope, not Noelle C. She stood up, stuck her rear in my face, rolled down the waistband of her pants revealing her underwear, and made me read the tag. It says 14, by the way.
She sat back down, as if she hadn't just done a weird peep show four inches from my face, and said, "My final weigh in is Saturday. I might win a million dollars."
So now I'm torn. I'm not sure if I want her to win the money so that she can live a life of leisure and we can try taking a stab at hiring someone not completely devoid of personal awareness, OR if I want her to stick around for the next ten years while I reap yet another worthy harvest of book material.
It is with a joyful heart that I write to you today. I'm sure many of you noted that I haven't been quite as hilarious lately as I have been in the past, and that was for one very good reason: Elsie stopped being funny.
I can share this with you now, because now it's starting to be funny again. Some weeks ago Elsie called me on a Friday afternoon as I was trying to sort out a major scheduling issue with a customer. Elsie demanded to know why I was cleaning up the daily list of sales calls, clearing out mistakes and removing names that were on the daily list more than once.
I didn't think I had to explain that, but I said, "Well, I'd like for the two of us to not embarrass Dunder Mifflin."
She was very agitated, and asked why I felt the need to correct these mistakes.
I thought we'd already gone over this, but I said, "There were mistakes on the list, and I didn't want us to embarrass the company by calling the same person three times in a day or by offering special sales to someone who already purchased at a higher price."
Then she got ugly. "But why do you feel the need to do this every day?"
"Because there are mistakes on the list every day."
"Why?"
Now, I wanted to say, 'because you're a nitwit and you never do anything consistently or right.' but I didn't. Instead I said, "Look, it's a visual thing, we'll go over it on Monday, but it's almost 5 and I have to call back a customer and sort something out with him."
We ended the call, and I made a couple more calls getting the customer happy. Then the phone rang.
It was Elsie.
She was completely out there. You know the sound people get in their voices when they are having some sort of out of body rage experience? That was Elsie.
"I just don't know why you feel the need to go behind my back and correct my mistakes."
Are we all reading the same words?
"Look, Elsie, I told you, it's a visual thing. We'll go over it on Monday."
And that's when we both lost it.
"Why would you even do that? Why wouldn't you tell me what you were doing?"
"Okay, fine, you want the truth/" I was channeling my finest Jack Nicholson, "Here's the truth: I have told you when you make mistakes with the phone list. I've pointed things out. NBM has pointed things out. PM has pointed things out. YOU DON'T LISTEN."
She was quiet for a second and I thought we were done. No, she was just reloading.
"You know what I think, Sarah? I think you're the one who doesn't know how to enter the phone list each day. I completely understand it, I'm the one who does it the right way, and you're the one doing it wrong. And I don't appreciate you going behind my back and correcting whatever mistakes I make."
"Look, we have to talk about this later, I have to do something for a customer yet."
"You just have no idea how to work the system. You've been doing it wrong this whole time and just telling people you're the one doing it right when I'm really the one who has been doing everything right and consistent since the first day."
All I could think at that second was, "IN WHAT UNIVERSE?"
We ended the phone call. That was the day I cleaned out my desk. The following Monday I had a little sit down with NBM and PM and said and quietly as I could that I hoped I could depend on them for a good referral as I started looking for a new job. Strong words, I'll admit, but there was no way I could possibly continue working in a place that was going to keep her on as an employee after that rant. And, given her history of rants, I felt pretty sure that for whatever reason, they were never going to let her go.
NBM and PM said some very nice words to me. But reality is reality...and I didn't bring anything back to my desk...except my radio because I am not living without my Bob and Brian in the morning.
I mentally had an expiration date of 3 weeks. I have a couple phone numbers I can call, everyone should, and I wasn't going to call them for three weeks.
Today, exactly three weeks from that moment, Elsie was shown the door.
I knew it was coming, but I didn't know when. You could feel it in the air. I figured it would happen over the weekend, or they would chicken out, given she'd just had a fender bender on Thursday. (Oh, you didn't hear about that? And you're not following me on Face Book why?)
I've never been around when someone got fired. I've been fired. My husband's been fired a couple times. It's devastating...especially when you're a good employee stuck in a situation that has less to do with you and more to do with the economy or whatever. But I've never been around when bad employee gets the boot. I didn't want to be there today. I wanted to take an early lunch. So did PM.
So, we've got the Red Sea parted...what's next?
Oh yeah...wrath of God down on NBM.
Yep, you heard me. She basically laid down a good old fashioned witch curse on him.
Having been fired, having talked to people who have been fired, I know that while we all would like to curse the person firing us, and put some sort of eternal curse on them...we don't. We're adults. This is a society. Even a person who doesn't see it coming for miles doesn't reach to the heavens and actually call down a deity.
So in that, Elsie lived up to every expectation I had.
Oh...and it wouldn't be an Elsie story if I didn't have one last parting giggle. Of course when told to box up all her stuff, she couldn't do it. Not in one box, not in one trip to the car, not in one half hour. Nope, she had to wash her dirty dishes...left over from Saturday...and she had to box stuff up and have PM carry a couple loads to the car for her. Best of all...she left her vacuum cleaner behind...and had to call me and I had to meet her this afternoon and give it to her.
I can't look...is it still there?
I wonder if that George foreman grill is still out in the shop.
Best of all, while I'm very cautious about New Elsie, I can tell you this: She used to work here at Dunder Mifflin. She was very beloved. So much so that our toughest sales guy teared up and HUGGED HER when he saw her.
I wonder if New Elsie will know what this is.
Her first order of business tomorrow? She's going to clean her office. She asked me what sort of person used the office. When I asked why, she said, "Because every piece of paper in every desk drawer is soaked in coffee."
Yeah, I think I'm going to like working with her.
Or maybe she'll be hilarious in her own way. A way that doesn't involve me having to do her job.
Either way, it's a win for me. And win for you, my reader friends because I'll be able to finish the Elsie Books (And yes, there will be at least two, I'm hoping for three) and get them out.
All I need is someone who will...you know...format them for me, market them, edit them, proof read them....oh, and for free!
