The weirdest people work with me part 2

The mail man at my job is the creppiest person ever. I know that sounds really mean. But he is. He is about 70 years old, balding, with like 3 strands of hair left that he combs over the top. He wears the same outfit for each day of the week—he has a Monday outfit, a Tuesday outfit, and on and on.

Now I can hear you saying, well, just because he only has 5 outfits and bad hair, that doesn’t mean he’s creepy. He’s just old. And lonely. With poor fashion sense. Oh don’t worry, I have made all of these arguments in my head. I have tried to be nice. And patient. And feel sorry because he is old and should be playing with grandchildren instead of fixing the photocopier and delivering my mail.

Well. In addition to all of the above he is a LURKER. A quiet, sneaky lurker. I will be typing and I will turn my head and he will just be in my doorway. Creepy. How long have you been standing there Fred? (yes, his name really is Fred. Of course) And he nicknames people and mutters their nicknames under their breath as he lurkes in their office doorway. And if you smile kindly and say “Hi Fred, thanks for dropping this off” he looks taken aback and slowly backs out of my doorway muttering all of the ways he has abbreviated my name under his breath. I don’t like it.

And he makes every interaction you have with him super awkward. You could just be walking past him in the hall and smile and say “Hi Fred” and he will jump to the other side of the hall and mutter something about not getting in the way.

Dude. It’s a big hall. Two people can fit in it. Happens all the time.

Anyway. I dread interactions with him. I walk away feeling so awkward and terrible. I feel like a really mean person, even as I’m writing this. But I try to be nice in person!! I just had to get it out.

Hi I’m Tilda. And the mailman? He freaks me out.

Please pick someone! Anyone?

So I don’t want to make this blog all political, but since we are constantly inundated with news from the presidential election (slightly overshadowed, for the minute, by Eliot Spitzer, but sure to be back on track soon) it is hardly something I can avoid.

BTW, Eliot Spitzer? Way to go.

The presidential election is making me want to move to another country. I am SO sick of it, but I can’t stop paying attention, for fear that I might miss something important (like Hillary Clinton on SNL). This has been going on forever. I feel like, by the time the actual election rolls around, people will just be ready to throw up their hands and say “I don’t care just please fill our newspapers with something else!”.

And while I am a lifelong Democrat, I cannot help but be sort of embarrassed by the back and forth snipping by my party. If there is anytime the Democrats can stage a takeover, one would have thought that the time was now, but I feel that we are throwing away our chance by dragging this election out for months. The two candidates are both strong potential leaders, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. I am not going to go into which one I support, because, for me at least, the most important issue is moving on from these eight years of Bush presidency. At this point, neither candidate is going to have enough delegate votes to win the nomination. However, instead of trying to do what is best for the COUNTRY they are both solely interested in dragging out this primary season for as long as humanly possible. I thought that the point of moving so many primaries up was to speed up the nomination process, not drag it out over a period of decades months.

I am sorry. I am usually all for the election process, and supportive of my party. But I am starting to get frustrated. Both candidates are looking worse and worse to me because I am so sick of seeing their faces over everything. Obama can’t sneeze without Clinton flipping out about it and it is driving me crazy. Just pick someone!!

The longer we take to pick someone, the more organized the Republican party looks. Instead, our process is entrenching people even further into their Obama/Clinton divide. Whichever person actually gets the nomination is going to have such a hard time swinging their own votes to their side that they will barely have time to run against the Republican. Which is bad news. We need a candidate. One that will unify. The more down and dirty this election gets the harder it will be for die hard Clinton supporters to get out there and rock the vote for Obama, or vice versa.

We need one candidate. And we need them soon.

Apologies for this long political rant. I am just frustrated that our party seems to be throwing away a golden opportunity

Cat-tastic

Ok so the whole cat in the ceiling thing is getting a little out of control. Now, I am NOT a cat person. So when someone suggested I open the ceiling above my bookcase “in case the cat is scared to jump all the way to the desk” I was not having any of it. I would not be happy if a cat came flying out of the ceiling toward my desk OR my bookcase. A. already has the ceiling open above her desk; can’t she open the part above her bookcase as well? That way the cat can have options. And when cats are stuck in ceilings, options are very important. I would much rather watch the flying cat from one office over.

And omg, if I had known that a cat in the ceiling would cause this much drama, maybe A. and I would have kept it to ourselves. Our offices are like a freak show. I am getting no work done. Everyone from the PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY on down has stopped by to stick their heads in the hole in the ceiling and make cat noises. Well if it didn’t come at the first cat noise it definitely isn’t going to come for you, no matter how much your cat at home loves when you make that noise. One of our scariest editors is apparently a HUGE cat fan, and bought in toys and treats and gross smelly cat food. If this lady was as nice to her assistants as she is (apparently) to cats, everyone at my job would be a whole lot happier.

People are expecting hourly emails keeping the apprised of the cat situation. Did you hear it? Was it loud? Do you think its scared? Is it stuck? Really, I’d just like to get some contracts sent out. Thanks. Apparently it is now okay to shout out from your office if you think you heard the cat. I HEARD A MEOW. DID ANYONE ELSE HEAR THAT? Wowzers. The cat is never going to get out of the ceiling because he is terrified of all of you people.

How do you get a cat out of a ceiling? Because it definitely isn’t coming down for any of the weirdos that I work with.

I just wanted to go home!

So this happened yesterday:

Which was awesome. And of course, it had to collapse right before the nighttime commute. Luckily, no one was hurt. But omg, getting home was a complete nightmare. They were only running limited trains, so they would combine three or four trains onto one. And these are trains that are usually jammed packed to begin with.

Every available spot was taken. I have never stood so close to people that I did not know before. I have been on rush hour subways that were less crowded than this train. I think my elbow was in some man’s ribs (sorry sir!) for the majority of the ride home.

And my nice little 20 minute train ride? Yea. Hello 2 and a half hours later. The trains INCHED our of grand central. I probably could have pushed the train faster than it was moving. I guess the fear was that the rumble of the trains would cause more of the building to collapse (on the tracks!!) so the only other alternative was to run one train on the track furthest away at turtle like speed.

Thank you, metro north, for ensuring that I didn’t get crushed by falling building! But for a rainy Tuesday night, this was not fun. Why can’t this stuff happen in the morning, so I can be late GOING to work, not coming home.

Oh, and there is a cat stuck in the ceiling above my office. Good times.

Can I do this?

So now that the weather is finally starting to not be freezing cold winter, I am going to *try* to start running in the mornings before work again. I really need to do something to get into shape again, because I have been feeling pretty crappy about my body lately.

I do go to the gym after work 3 or 4 times a week, but I really don’t feel like it is doing that much for me. Since I started going (last September) I have noticed some changes, but I would really like more. The problem is that I picked the gym for convenience, not for its awesome facilities. The gym is right at my train stop, so I can get off the train on my way home from work and just go. I seem to have problems getting myself motivated to leave the house again if I go home first.

And it has been working out pretty well—I get there on a fairly regular basis, and I work out for about 45 minutes. But the equipment that they have at the gym isn’t that fantastic. I try to get some circuit training in, but they don’t have any classes or anything to supplement my own workouts. Also, I am the youngest person there by oh, about, 20 years. It is an all women’s gym, which I like. I got a complex in college that guys in the gym were all staring at me, comparing me to the super skinny girls next to me. I would show up in a tee shirt and some old shorts and run on the treadmill, getting all sweaty and gross in the process. And these other girls would show up in some perfectly coordinated outfit, talk on their cell phones while walking on the treadmill, and never break a sweat. So yes, compared to them I probably looked pretty disgusting. EXCUSE ME FOR USING THE GYM FOR ITS PROPER PURPOSE.

Anyway. I like the fact that its all women. Everyone shows up kind of grungy looking because there are no guys to impress. So I can sweat away!

But I really need something to supplement my sad little gym workouts. So I decided that running in the mornings before work is it. I woke up yesterday and today about an hour earlier than I usually do (not to terrible). We will see how it goes. In high school I was a dedicated three-seasoner of track from 7^th grade until my senior year and I was in great pretty good shape. I would really like to get that back. Good luck me! (I'll keep you posted on how long this enthusiasm on waking up an hour earlier in the morning lasts)