How I Feel Right Now
I am so tired that I can hardly stand. Everything feels weak. I don't know if it's because I slept poorly last night or because I'm depressed. I just want to curl into a little ball & fall asleep. Everything sucks & I have to go running tonight because Tuesday is running night & I know I'm going to start crying while I'm running.
But How Was the Weekend?
The weekend was good. Had a friend (who is also depressed, but I feel like his reason is more valid than mine) over for the whole weekend. We watched Guardian of the Highlands which I do not suggest you watch...or, rather, I suggest you watch it after you listen to The Flop House episode about it otherwise you will be unprepared. Went to the Foo Fighters concert on Sunday which was pretty awesome. Security didn't want to let me into the venue with my backpack, which made me cry because they wanted me to just throw it away...but we managed to bag check it at a nearby hotel. On Monday, my husband & I called out of work to spend the day together & it was a really good day. I did so much laundry that I felt super accomplished, but somehow only managed to do ~2,800 steps which I find odd.
What About Monday?
Well, the funny thing is...after my last post about fire drills...the fire drill ended up being on Monday, so I missed it entirely. Luckily, the one dude who's physically impaired wasn't in the office, either.
That Was Mighty Convenient, Don't You Think?
Oh, don't even start. I was not warned when the fire drill was going to be. If I had known it was going to be yesterday, I would have forced myself to come in. I don't have a lot of responsibility in this office, but I wouldn't intentionally shirk what little responsibility I have.
I Apologize
As well you should. Harumphf.
What I Should Write a Full Post About
NaNoWriMo is coming up & I got the BFF & my husband to help me brainstorm an idea. I also should write about how I'm not an idiot regardless of what a certain coworker thinks & how much job searching sucks, especially when your self-esteem is particularly low.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
Tales of the Fire Drill
It's times like this that I completely understand the sentiment of, "Oh, I just can't even..." Apparently, half of my time at this job is going to be spent figuratively throwing my hands in the air in frustration at one of my coworkers. This is not the first (nor probably the last) example of why it's good I don't own a baseball bat, but it's the most recent & most baffling so far.
An e-mail went out to all the building tenants to remind everyone that each floor has to have a fire safety person. No one wants this job, but because I'm ostensibly an office admin & lowest on the totem pole, I was voluntold to do this. Not that I really care; its nice to be useful, plus you get a fancy orange vest & a modicum of responsibility.
My co-FSP thinks her boss made her do it because her boss didn't want to wear the vest. Which is ridiculous. That is the best part of being the job.
The role of the FSP is to make sure that if there is a fire or some other emergency, people get evacuated & relocated to the safe zone.
After listening to a fireman tell me what my new responsibilities are, I had to impart some of that training to everyone else on my team. I chose to do this in an e-mail because getting them all in the same room at one time is an exercise is so much futility that thinking about it is giving me a headache. I tried to keep the e-mail as short as I could because I knew no one was really going to read it.
One of the partners responded to my e-mail, CCing everyone else, by thanking me for the information & commenting that this probably means there's going to be a fire drill soon. Yep. Probably.
The day after I sent the e-mail, a different coworker asked me if "they" were going to tell me when the fire drill would be so that "we can hurry up & go down the elevator before the alarm goes off."
I get it. We're over twenty floors up. That's going to suck walking down. You know what sucks more, though? A real emergency happening & no one knowing what to do because they've never practiced before. Or there's an unexpected glitch in the evacuation plan that could have been worked out if everyone had drilled properly. That's why there are drills. But I get it; I do. She hasn't thought through the full ramifications of sneaking down the elevator. That's my job as I was the one who took the class.
What she said next, however, made me literally squint my eyes in disbelief. She then suggested that if they do tell me when the fire drill is, I should let anyone who's physically impaired know early in case they want to take an elevator down & participate in the drill.
From my e-mail to the firm:
If you are permanently or temporarily disabled, stay with your assistant outside the stairwell until most of the people have passed, then go into the stairwell & remain on the landing.
The Exception: If there is smoke, fire, or any other life-threatening event happening on our floor, GO INTO THE STAIRWELL & remain on the landing out of the way of the evacuees. The stairs are the safest places in the building.
I said to my coworker, "Oh, they definitely don't have to try to go down the stairs if it's a drill. They don't even have to go down the stairs in a real emergency. They just have to wait for the firemen to come."
To which she replied, "But I was just thinking that you should at least give the physically impaired people a heads up in case they want to participate." I reiterated again that physically impaired people do not need to go down the stairs in a drill OR in a real emergency. Her response was another variation of what she just said.
"I understand what you're saying," I replied very slowly, "but physically impaired people don't ever have to go down the stairs, so making them take the elevator down doesn't really do much for them."
"But," she said as though I was a moron, "you know, just in case they want to participate..."
At this point, I turned back to my computer & said, "Yeah, okay." Then she tried to change tack & say that I should e-mail our physically impaired coworkers if I know there's a fire drill so they know not to come in.
I think her definition of "participate" is "go to the safe area." My definition is more like "do what you would do in a real emergency." But I can only spend so much time trying to convince the unconvincable, so I suppose in the end we agreed to disagree.
We only have one person on our team who is physically impaired. Most of the time, he works from home. When he does get into the office, he gets winded & has to take a break walking from the lobby down the hall to his office. The chances of him wanting to walk the block to the safe area is slim to none & Slim just left.
The upshot is that I realized making her our physically impaired person's assistant, even though her cube is right outside his office, would be a bad idea. If she can't follow my directions, how can I trust her to not just insist he get on the elevator or something? I can't. So I asked a different coworker to be the assistant.
The kicker? The assistant doesn't have to walk down the stairs, either. So this next fire drill, if our physically impaired coworker is in the office, she gets to walk down twenty-six flights of stairs instead of hanging out on the stairwell.
An e-mail went out to all the building tenants to remind everyone that each floor has to have a fire safety person. No one wants this job, but because I'm ostensibly an office admin & lowest on the totem pole, I was voluntold to do this. Not that I really care; its nice to be useful, plus you get a fancy orange vest & a modicum of responsibility.
My co-FSP thinks her boss made her do it because her boss didn't want to wear the vest. Which is ridiculous. That is the best part of being the job.
The role of the FSP is to make sure that if there is a fire or some other emergency, people get evacuated & relocated to the safe zone.
After listening to a fireman tell me what my new responsibilities are, I had to impart some of that training to everyone else on my team. I chose to do this in an e-mail because getting them all in the same room at one time is an exercise is so much futility that thinking about it is giving me a headache. I tried to keep the e-mail as short as I could because I knew no one was really going to read it.
One of the partners responded to my e-mail, CCing everyone else, by thanking me for the information & commenting that this probably means there's going to be a fire drill soon. Yep. Probably.
The day after I sent the e-mail, a different coworker asked me if "they" were going to tell me when the fire drill would be so that "we can hurry up & go down the elevator before the alarm goes off."
I get it. We're over twenty floors up. That's going to suck walking down. You know what sucks more, though? A real emergency happening & no one knowing what to do because they've never practiced before. Or there's an unexpected glitch in the evacuation plan that could have been worked out if everyone had drilled properly. That's why there are drills. But I get it; I do. She hasn't thought through the full ramifications of sneaking down the elevator. That's my job as I was the one who took the class.
What she said next, however, made me literally squint my eyes in disbelief. She then suggested that if they do tell me when the fire drill is, I should let anyone who's physically impaired know early in case they want to take an elevator down & participate in the drill.
From my e-mail to the firm:
If you are permanently or temporarily disabled, stay with your assistant outside the stairwell until most of the people have passed, then go into the stairwell & remain on the landing.
The Exception: If there is smoke, fire, or any other life-threatening event happening on our floor, GO INTO THE STAIRWELL & remain on the landing out of the way of the evacuees. The stairs are the safest places in the building.
I said to my coworker, "Oh, they definitely don't have to try to go down the stairs if it's a drill. They don't even have to go down the stairs in a real emergency. They just have to wait for the firemen to come."
To which she replied, "But I was just thinking that you should at least give the physically impaired people a heads up in case they want to participate." I reiterated again that physically impaired people do not need to go down the stairs in a drill OR in a real emergency. Her response was another variation of what she just said.
"I understand what you're saying," I replied very slowly, "but physically impaired people don't ever have to go down the stairs, so making them take the elevator down doesn't really do much for them."
"But," she said as though I was a moron, "you know, just in case they want to participate..."
At this point, I turned back to my computer & said, "Yeah, okay." Then she tried to change tack & say that I should e-mail our physically impaired coworkers if I know there's a fire drill so they know not to come in.
I think her definition of "participate" is "go to the safe area." My definition is more like "do what you would do in a real emergency." But I can only spend so much time trying to convince the unconvincable, so I suppose in the end we agreed to disagree.
We only have one person on our team who is physically impaired. Most of the time, he works from home. When he does get into the office, he gets winded & has to take a break walking from the lobby down the hall to his office. The chances of him wanting to walk the block to the safe area is slim to none & Slim just left.
The upshot is that I realized making her our physically impaired person's assistant, even though her cube is right outside his office, would be a bad idea. If she can't follow my directions, how can I trust her to not just insist he get on the elevator or something? I can't. So I asked a different coworker to be the assistant.
The kicker? The assistant doesn't have to walk down the stairs, either. So this next fire drill, if our physically impaired coworker is in the office, she gets to walk down twenty-six flights of stairs instead of hanging out on the stairwell.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
October 1, 2015
What I'm Hearing
I finished listening to the 11th episode of Undisclosed: The State Vs. Adnan Syed on the drive into work this morning. I started catching up on the back episodes when a friend of mine who knew I had loved Serial, the podcast that inspired it, messaged me with something like, "Have you listened to Undisclosed?!" As a true crime fanatic, I was drawn to Serial as soon as I had heard about it, but the fact that everything happened in 1999 made it that much more compelling. In 1999, I was a Junior in high school--Adnan & Hae Min were Seniors. Two days after her body was found, I got dumped by the first guy I ever fell in love with; it's just so weird to me how such different things were happening only about eighty-five miles away from each other.
When Serial, was over, I was left feeling conflicted over whether or not Adnan killed Hae Min Lee. There seemed to be so much compelling evidence for either side. I figured that we'd never know unless The Innocence Project was able to reopen the case. Of course, I underestimated the level of obsession people had for Serial & how tenacious people can be when researching--especially with the Internet making things easier.
Now that I've listened to eleven episodes of Undisclosed, I don't think Adnan did it. There are too many loose ends. For example, the blogger-lawyers who are re-examining all of the documents have pulled out so many inconsistencies in Jay's story that I don't know how anyone could believe anything he says. I can't decide whether or not he's actually malicious, but at the very least, he's a gigantic liar--in 1999 & in recent interviews.
However, I do realize that the podcast has a pro-Adnan bent. One of the founders is the brother of one of Adnan's friends & the podcast has a disclaimer that all the proceeds from its sponsors goes to the fund for Adnan's defense. Even so, the fact that they have that disclaimer right there makes me believe in the podcast all the more--it feels like they have nothing to hide.
I also listened to an episode of The Longest Shortest Time about a woman who decided to be a single mother & got a sperm donor & IVF & all that jazz. I spent most of my life trying to make sure that I did things in the correct order--marriage, then baby--that I felt a little sad for myself that I didn't have the courage to do what this lady did when it was right for her. All these feelings prompted me to talk to my husband about when we could start trying to have a baby which then led to a hard conversation...that I'm not sure I'm ready to actually write about.
After that (I have a long, long commute), I started listening to a Sawbones about lice which, as they warned in the beginning of the episode, made me feel itchy.
How I'm Feeling
I thought today was going to end up being a good day, emotions wise. I was a little worried about bringing up babies with my husband, but it started off as a good conversation. Our debt is going down & our travel plans have been laid. I had wanted to set a goal for when we could start trying because I've felt like I'm in a holding pattern for most of my life & I wanted to make an attempt to take some control. Then it turned into the aforementioned difficult situation that I can't see a resolution toward. Someone is going to end up hurt & that makes me sad. We're meeting up for dinner tonight downtown before we go to an event, but I don't think he'll want to talk about it with other people around.
While we were in the middle of our discussion, one of the paralegals who just gave birth last month brought her baby in, so while I'm watching my goal slip through my fingers, a baby was crying in my office.
Stuff I Should Spend an Entire Post On
I ended up rehashing the whole floor warden/physically impaired during a fire drill thing with a friend of mine. Baffling. Still baffling. I also want to write a post about meeting my brother when I was twenty-six. That was inspired by The Longest Shortest Time when she asked for story pitches. I'm not sure my dad would want to talk about his first wife, though, so maybe I should write the post first before I ask him about it.
I finished listening to the 11th episode of Undisclosed: The State Vs. Adnan Syed on the drive into work this morning. I started catching up on the back episodes when a friend of mine who knew I had loved Serial, the podcast that inspired it, messaged me with something like, "Have you listened to Undisclosed?!" As a true crime fanatic, I was drawn to Serial as soon as I had heard about it, but the fact that everything happened in 1999 made it that much more compelling. In 1999, I was a Junior in high school--Adnan & Hae Min were Seniors. Two days after her body was found, I got dumped by the first guy I ever fell in love with; it's just so weird to me how such different things were happening only about eighty-five miles away from each other.
When Serial, was over, I was left feeling conflicted over whether or not Adnan killed Hae Min Lee. There seemed to be so much compelling evidence for either side. I figured that we'd never know unless The Innocence Project was able to reopen the case. Of course, I underestimated the level of obsession people had for Serial & how tenacious people can be when researching--especially with the Internet making things easier.
Now that I've listened to eleven episodes of Undisclosed, I don't think Adnan did it. There are too many loose ends. For example, the blogger-lawyers who are re-examining all of the documents have pulled out so many inconsistencies in Jay's story that I don't know how anyone could believe anything he says. I can't decide whether or not he's actually malicious, but at the very least, he's a gigantic liar--in 1999 & in recent interviews.
However, I do realize that the podcast has a pro-Adnan bent. One of the founders is the brother of one of Adnan's friends & the podcast has a disclaimer that all the proceeds from its sponsors goes to the fund for Adnan's defense. Even so, the fact that they have that disclaimer right there makes me believe in the podcast all the more--it feels like they have nothing to hide.
I also listened to an episode of The Longest Shortest Time about a woman who decided to be a single mother & got a sperm donor & IVF & all that jazz. I spent most of my life trying to make sure that I did things in the correct order--marriage, then baby--that I felt a little sad for myself that I didn't have the courage to do what this lady did when it was right for her. All these feelings prompted me to talk to my husband about when we could start trying to have a baby which then led to a hard conversation...that I'm not sure I'm ready to actually write about.
After that (I have a long, long commute), I started listening to a Sawbones about lice which, as they warned in the beginning of the episode, made me feel itchy.
How I'm Feeling
I thought today was going to end up being a good day, emotions wise. I was a little worried about bringing up babies with my husband, but it started off as a good conversation. Our debt is going down & our travel plans have been laid. I had wanted to set a goal for when we could start trying because I've felt like I'm in a holding pattern for most of my life & I wanted to make an attempt to take some control. Then it turned into the aforementioned difficult situation that I can't see a resolution toward. Someone is going to end up hurt & that makes me sad. We're meeting up for dinner tonight downtown before we go to an event, but I don't think he'll want to talk about it with other people around.
While we were in the middle of our discussion, one of the paralegals who just gave birth last month brought her baby in, so while I'm watching my goal slip through my fingers, a baby was crying in my office.
Stuff I Should Spend an Entire Post On
I ended up rehashing the whole floor warden/physically impaired during a fire drill thing with a friend of mine. Baffling. Still baffling. I also want to write a post about meeting my brother when I was twenty-six. That was inspired by The Longest Shortest Time when she asked for story pitches. I'm not sure my dad would want to talk about his first wife, though, so maybe I should write the post first before I ask him about it.
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