Mommy By The Book » work life

Survivor: Corporate Edition

Rachel — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 03:31:09 +0000

The setting: Hotel ballroom in Orlando, Florida

The participants: Overworked and under-appreciated sales consultants and their prospective clients

The situation: Sales consultants are placed in scenarios where mere survival becomes difficult, for example-

- Only 4 hours of sleep after a long, long day of traveling

- Stand in high-heels in a 10 x 10 foot booth for nine hours. Wait, make that nine and a half hours.

- No lunch due to time constraints and lack of available places to obtain food. Force participants to forage for food in their purses and steal a stray bag of pretzels left on a table in the hall.

- Endure nine and a half hours in a booth with a coworker that while very nice, does not share the same interests or sense of humor, a fair portion of that time being complete dead time that required that some sort of awkward conversation be made.

- Be forced to repeatedly shout the answers to questions that they are only vaguely sure of how to answer to clients that probably won’t call back anyway.

- Hold the conference in sunny Florida on a beautiful, sunny, 85 degree but force participants to stand in aforementioned 10 x 10 booth in heels for over nine hours in a windowless, foodless ballroom instead of lounging at the pool.

-Ideally, combine all above listed scenarios into one day to really provide the ultimate experience.

The objective: See if participants can keep their sanity intact, so they can come back and do it all over again the next day.

On the road again…

Rachel — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 04:49:51 +0000

So here I am, once again, in a lonely little hotel room. But this time it is in Florida instead of California, so hooray for variety, or something… Today’s flight was a tough one today, partly due to the sheer length, the rushing to change planes, the multiple crying children (and I am very tolerant of crying children, seeing as I have a small child that is prone to waterworks), and the fact that I didn’t have time to eat almost the entire day. But I’m making up for it by gorging on crab & bacon stuffed shrimp for dinner and a lovely key lime pie:

All in all though, there were many interesting tidbits throughout the day that I observed and tried to take mental notes of to tell my husband on the phone later tonight. For example:

- Realizing the awkwardness of sitting next to a nice older guy on the plane who really wants to chat about his daughter and grandkids and whatnot, but is hard of hearing…Do I try to end the difficult conversation for the sake of simplicity? Or do I continue to holler my responses two or three times?

- How awesome it was to be able to switch to the emergency exit aisle and get all that fantastic leg room

- However, the leg room did not exactly cancel out the fact that I forgot my neck pillow thingy or the 3 year old behind me constantly kicking my seat, or the poor infant that could not fall asleep and was so sad and grumpy because of it. So, roomy? Yes. Relaxing? No.

- SkyMall, as always, was awesome.

- The fact that I was able to connect to Wi-Fi while the plane was in the air blew my mind. I mean, internet access miles above the ground while moving hundreds of miles an hour? AMAZING. Does that make me sound like I’m 75?

- The night before I left I was very anxious and I suddenly had this vivid image of the fact that I would be in this big metal cylinder with wings that is somehow hurtling through the sky and depositing me on the other side of the country, and looking at it in such literal terms FREAKED me out. I mean, really, flying? It’s insanity. Now do I sound like I was born in 1810 or something? Needless to say, I was very relieved when I arrived at my destination safe and sound.

- It is gloriously warm here in Florida. I stepped off the plane and was embraced by the warmth and humidity and was practically smacked between the eyes with the realization of how badly I needed a VACATION, not a stinking business trip. The only other times I’ve been to Florida before have been with my husband, and feeling the lovely vaction-y climate without my man reminded me of how things just aren’t as fun when he isn’t around. (And when I’m working, naturally. Blah.)

- Speaking of relieved…this hotel is actually a normal hotel in a normal location near restaurants and convenience stores where actual normal people are, unlike my previous business trips in the ghetto. It’s nice to see valid business without bars on the windows and gaggles of homeless people around them, you know?

- Leaving Utah is always a culture shock. Seriously, as much as I love my beautiful home state, it’s kind of a weird place due to the crazy lack of diversity. It was kind of neat to see a kosher restaurant full of faithful Jewish men in yarmulkes, right next door to a bar. I don’t know what would be more unlikely in good old Utah County- a kosher restaurant or a bar in a strip mall?

- The guy checking me into the hotel told me I had beautiful hair and then instantly blushed and said he could get fired for saying that, but I told him I wouldn’t tell. Kind of made my whole night considering I felt like something that had been dragged across the country and was now a heap of smudged make-up and puffy eyes.

- One of the restaurants in the little strip mall by the hotel is a fast food Chinese joint called “Run & Run”, which pretty much seems like the most perfect name ever considering fast food Chinese will probably give you the runs. Heh.

Oy, I have a very VERY long day tomorrow and I am up past my bedtime. I should probably call it a night. Business trips are the best time for nonsensical ramblings on the internet, don’t you think? If you’re lucky I will return for more tomorrow. I know you can’t wait.

Somebody make me stop using the PhotoBooth application on my computer. I need an intervention. No one wants to see badly lit photos of a a lonely, puffy-faced traveler, I know this. I just can’t help myself.

Thoughts for a Tuesday

Rachel — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:55:35 +0000

This has been a banner week for me so far. Not only did I blow dry my hair and straighten it yesterday, but I did today as well! Yes friends, that is TWO days in a row! Actually, scratch that, I did on Saturday and Sunday too, so that is FOUR days in a row. But really the impressive part is that I did it yesterday and today, because that requires early-morning effort, and I am not a fan of such things. For the last several months at this job I have taken the lazy road and just washed my hair and let it air dry, allowing it to swirl around my head in all it’s fuzzy and random glory, occasionally pulling it into a pony tail if I’m feeling fancy. My hair doesn’t look too bad when I let it air dry, so I figure it is no big deal considering I work with all men who cuddle their MacBooks and iPhones in the night and who probably would hardly notice if I shaved my head.

Or so I thought!

Last week I went in later and actually took the time to do my hair, and one of my coworkers popped his head in my office to ask a question. He started walking away, they abruptly popped his head in again.

“Hey! I really like your hair today!”

Crap. Compliment= nice, yes, but people are noticing?

The fact that people are noticing isn’t exactly going to change my habits, I still just wash and run out the door most days, but yesterday and today I woke up a little earlier and decided it may be worth the extra effort. I mean, it is good to look nice once in a while, right? Besides, it makes me look more polished and professional and less like a 14 year old, so that is a good thing too, no?

This morning I waltzed into my twice weekly 8:30 AM meeting, knowing that for the first time in weeks I was attending the meeting fully put-together and feeling more confident as a result. For a few minutes it was just me and my coworker, who also happens to be one of my neighbors (how I got the job, if you want to know).

“How are you doing today?” he asked.

“Fine!” I replied, and flashed a smile.

“You look tired.” he said in response.

As a matter of fact, I was not feeling particularly tired this morning, but I played it off as though I were. Oh, haha, yes! Yes, I am always tired. Such a shame, thanks for noticing…Say, are you sick? You don’t sound so good yourself! (hehe) And then I gave him the stink-eye when he wasn’t looking. But no matter! I have lovely hair and matching clothes today and I’m pretty sure my arms are buffer than they were two weeks ago, so I’m not too concerned about what some random office dude said about my appearance.

Which reminds me of an interesting tidbit! At my old job, for years and years, there were two of my superiors who would often comment on my appearance. It has always been such a befuddling thing to me. They didn’t comment in mean way, necessarily, but not a flattering way either. For example, I was teaching a training class and happened to be wearing a cute red and white shirt that day. My boss at the time (who was also someone I considered a friend) walked through the training room and declared, “Hey look everyone, it’s Where’s Waldo!” and practically slapped his knee and chuckled at his own joke as my innocent trainees looked on.

I made sure to give him the stink-eye while he was looking for that one. Actually come to think of it, that comment was kind of mean, so he most certainly deserved the stink-eye and the hearty “HEY, THANKS FOR THAT!!” speech I gave him later on in his office.

My other boss (who is a close friend of my first boss, by the way) would often comment on my jewelry choices or hair style choices or footwear choices in such a way that I didn’t know whether to feel self-conscious or to blow it off. One day, while sitting in a one-on-one in his office and most likely listening to him drone on about college football (as he was wont to do for some inexplicable reason, seeing as I cared little and contributed nothing to the conversation) he suddenly stopped and leaned forward and asked loudly, “Do you have one braid in your hair?”, which I in fact did have a small french braid in the front of my hair and leading back to a pony tail, as is the style. After affirming that yes I did, he simply replied with a “huh!”, and continued on with his football rant.

Another time during a meeting he randomly exclaimed to me “You know what I’ve noticed about you? You always wear a necklace!” and then continued to prattle away about something completely unrelated.

Since he never followed up these comments with something like it looks nice, I was never quite sure if he is merely making some idiotic observation or if he was critiquing my fashion choices out loud instead of in his head, and then I’d spend the rest of the day overly concerned about my hair or my jewelry or something else he had commented on.

Over time though I stopped worrying about it and realized that these “observations” were coming from a man who clearly had zero fashion sense at all. After that, each time he commented on something followed up by a “Huh!”, I wanted to holler I don’t need fashion critiques coming from a 35 year old man who is wearing a wrinkled button-down shirt and giant black skater shoes to his office job!!

But I didn’t, because I’m a nice girl.

It was so curious to me that neither of these men knew basic fashion rules such as wearing a belt to match your shoes (or a belt at all…), or that you don’t wear a navy blue shirt with ill-fitting black slacks, or how to use an iron, and yet they paid attention to my fashion choices.

So anyway, I’m not entirely sure where I am going with all this, other than to say that being a lone female in an office can be tough, especially when you work with men who feel the need to comment on your appearance in the oddest way.

But then again I could be working in an office of catty women who greet me with a smile while ripping apart every detail of my outfit in their minds, so it could always be worse.

Maybe I’ll just work from home tomorrow.

Age appropriate

Rachel — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:01:48 +0000

(This “vintage” lunchbox for sale on Etsy. Vintage! Am I that old?)

The lunch I packed for work today:

1 peanut butter and honey sandwich on whole wheat bread

1 caramel rice cake (in place of chips. Stupid healthy eating.)

1 small container of raw baby carrots

1 small package of applesauce

1 frosted heart-shaped sugar cookie that was made by my mother. No joke.

A perfect lunch to fit into my old My Little Ponies lunchbox, no? The only thing missing is a friggin’ juice box.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think I was 7 years old.

(My lunch is in a plastic Wal-Mart bag. So much more grown up!)

Mama said there would be days like this

Rachel — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 23:00:20 +0000

Last night I gleefully thought to myself, “tomorrow is Friday and the week hasn’t even felt long! Wheee!!” and life looked rather rosy.

This morning my alarm went off at 6:00 like it always does, and as I inexplicably seem to do lately I hit the snooze button 5 times and finally dragged my sleepy bones out of bed at 7:00. I reveled in the fact that the 8:30 AM sales meeting that has been held EVERY MORNING for the last four months is now only held on Tuesdays and Thursdays and that I didn’t have to worry about rushing to work. I took my sweet time getting ready (relatively speaking, anyway) and left my warm home at 8:15 am to be greeted by the cold, hazy air outside and happy that it was the last day of the week and I had no morning meeting. Hooray!

I got on the freeway as I always do, anticipating the 25-30 min drive to Workplace and BAM!!! Holy mother of all traffic jams! Still feeling somewhat optimistic and rosy because, hello, it’s Friday, I figured there was just a fender-bender up ahead and once I got past that things would be smooth sailing.

source

Then I realized there was no accident. There were orange barrels shutting down lanes for as far as the eye could see- during rush hour traffic.

And then I sat. in. one. place. on. the. freeway. FOREVER! With no escape! We weren’t even creeping along, just idling in one place! “Well!” thought I, “so much for keeping our driving to a minimum to help the condition of the awful haze in the valley. What the heck, UDOT? Why close lanes now? WHY DO YOU HATE MOTHER EARTH, UDOT???”

I did find some entertainment for a short time from the woman in the car behind me who was talking on her cell phone and gesturing vigorously with her hands. Was it a fight with her spouse? An important business call? A phone audition for a soap opera? I will never know. But then an old guy cut in front of her and proceeded to pick his nose, which less entertaining and much more disgusting so I was back at square one.

After an entire hour I had managed to go the distance that it normally takes about 4 minutes to cover and I came upon two things: 1. The orange barrels were now narrowing the highway down to one (1), yes one, lane of traffic (have I mentioned it was rush hour? What were they thinking?) and 2. There was a freeway exit. Two roads diverged in a cold and gray haze, and I took the one that resembled freedom. I high-tailed it off that exit thinking I would finally make some progress.

Wouldn’t you know it, that cold, cruel mistress known as the morning commute was not done with me. I spent the next hour fighting my way through the congested surface streets fraught with accidents and long lights and all manner of mayhem. I finally rolled into work 2 hours after leaving home.

Friday had officially lost its glow.

But on the bright side, grandma offered to watch the little one for a few hours which means a HOT DATE with my man! We will be having enchiladas at home and then going to a dollar movie.

I know what you’re thinking-

Those people totally know how to party.

Maybe this Friday has a chance after all.

A post about why I haven’t posted

Rachel — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:37:31 +0000

I’ve had so many good intentions over the last several days, and yet this here bloggy has been a bit light in the posting department. I’m sure all of you have been wringing your hands and asking, “Why? Oh, why hasn’t there been a new post? Whatever shall I read?”. Well, have no fear! I am here to post about not posting! Quality stuff, I tell ya.

While brushing my teeth or showing in the morning I get all sorts of fantastic post ideas, including a title and pictures and the whole she-bang! But then as the day goes on it turns out there is actual work to be done (I know, lame) and a child to be fed and a house to be cleaned and a husband to be fawned over and before you know it, I’m plum worn out. Plus, I would like to include a picture in the post (that still exists only in my head), but that would require the camera that is upstairs, which would require hauling myself back up the stairs, requiring energy (you see where this is going?). So in the end, not a thing gets accomplished.

And then there’s all this pressure- a post must be witty! And moving! And informative! And creative! And all manner of wonderfulness! The pressure, I assure you, it’s crippling.

But really, despite all my laziness and insecurities, I did fully intend on writing something worthwhile (*ahem* unlike this post), and then the heavy hammer of disappointment came down upon my head, and I felt the need to wallow in it. And wallowing in disappointment does not lend to blogging, my friends. You see, I’ve spent the last month interviewing for a particular job. It wasn’t my dream job, necessarily, but the commute would’ve been so nice and it was something I was experienced in and comfortable with and felt would be a good thing. So I did my research, went through four (4) lengthy interviews, completed an extensive background check, sent emails to five (5) different references requesting they fill out a survey about me, and totally thought I had it in the bag. I was well qualified and really seemed to hit it off with all six (6) of my various interviewers. “Easy-peasy!” thought I, “I’ll have a sweet little commute instead of this tortuous, soul-sucking slog through miles of construction in no time!”.

And then, what did appear in my inbox this last Thursday but a general email of rejection thanking me for my time and admirable talents and informing me they’ve decided to go with another candidate.

Well!

So, wallow I did. It wasn’t so much that I was devastated about not getting my dream job, because it wasn’t my “dream job”. I already have a perfectly adequate job where everyone is very nice. It just might have been a more enjoyable and convenient job, I suppose. It’s just…I don’t know, the rejection? The fact that I really did my best, and really thought I would do so well at the job, and it turns out I wasn’t good enough? Maybe the fact that I put so much time and energy into the process, and didn’t even receive a phone call and instead got a generic email? Bah! Who knows?

In the end though, I am very fortunate. I have a job, a decent one, and that’s a lot more than many people are able to say, so I should be grateful. The wallowing in self-pity was short lived.

Since the pity-party ended quickly, a blog post should’ve been born, right? Wrong. Instead, my body decided to give up on its defenses and went and got sick. I woke up at 3 AM a couple nights ago coughing and choking uncontrollably every time I tried to take a breath. I got up to get a drink, only to be consumed by the most unsettling feeling of a racing heart, a cold sweat, a queasy stomach, and a spinning head and spent the rest of the weekend in such a state. The husband and I are both mystified as to how I seemed to get violently ill in a manner of minutes and then have it linger.

So hopefully this odd little post will suffice until an actual post with substance can be created and we can all be friends again. Deal?

Tired ramblings from the City by the Bay

Rachel — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:13:52 +0000

So. I’m in San Francisco. On a business trip. Doesn’t that sound so very grown-up? If someone were to ask me “are you here for business or pleasure?” I could reply with a mature, all-knowing and controlled tone, “business.” In fact, someone did ask me! Kind of. This guy I was sharing the shuttle with asked if I was just visiting and I replied, “I’m here on business” and it sounded so very bizarre and foreign coming out of my mouth, almost like an out-of-body experience. But I felt super cool, like a real adult.

I spent all of today manning a booth at a conference, which means I spent 10 hours standing in heels and trying to yell over the noise of all the other people. And you know what I discovered? Business trips are no fun! Being an adult is totally overrated!

It’s a darn shame I had to waste the whole day, you know, working. It was an unusually warm and sunny day in San Fran, the perfect day for a celebratory parade for the SF Giants, new World Series champs! And I missed it! I ventured out to go find some lunch right around the time the parade ended and there were thousands of crazed fans all over the place. It as quite the experience, I tell ya. There are some interesting characters in this here town. And the celebration went on ALL DAY. Do these people not have jobs? At about 8:00 pm there were still people in the streets honking and yelling “LET’S GO GIANTS!” over and over. But you know, I’m happy for them. It must feel nice to have your favorite team win a championship. Although I gotta admit, I have a hard time really understanding why it is such an enormous deal. I mean, yeah, it’s awesome, woohoo! But in two weeks everyone will have moved on and pretty soon it will just be like, “hey, you remember when our favorite team won? Yeah, that was great…” and then everyone continues on with their usual day.

I’m totally bummed that I don’t have the chance to explore the city more. I haven’t been here since I was about 10 years old, and from what I can see the city is freakin’ fantastic! I love big cities. But my flight got in after dark, and the conference got out after dark, and there ain’t no way I’m traipsing around this city by myself after dark. I kid you not, there are about five homeless people hovering within the vicinity of my hotel all the time. I think I vaguely remember that from when I visited forever ago- a lot of homeless people. And the people who aren’t homeless are thugs. So yeah, my little hotel room is looking pretty attractive.

I fly home tomorrow, which I am very happy about. Some time to myself is nice, but I sure miss my little family. Plus, they don’t even have HGTV or the Food Network at my hotel! They have about seven different news channels, but no Food Network! What the what? How on earth am I supposed to kill the boring evening hours? Lame.

Speaking of flying home, I have a PSA: If you fart on a plane, your seat cushion will not absorb it. Really, it won’t. I know the cushion can be used for flotation, but it’s not made out of Odor Eaters. Do us all a favor, people.

Want to see what my trip looks like so far? I knew you did! Here ya go!

View from my room. Apparently this is a historical site- an old U.S. Mint.

Kinda dumb that I’m in this cool city and the only thing I have pictures of is my hotel room.

Oh! I forgot to tell you about my hotel! It was built in the 1920′s originally. I believe some would call it uh, charming. However, I have never been the type to want to buy an old house for the charm. I just see it as OLD. They did a fairly decent job of updating it, minus the soundproofing. I can hear every sound outside my window. I’m pretty sure dump trucks full of rocks drive down the street all night just to mess with people. And I’m confused- I thought NYC was the city that never sleeps, but SF has way more people jabbering on the street all night! The walls are pretty thin too. I heard my neighbor’s alarm go off at 6:00 AM and heard a variety of people showering and hacking up a lung in various rooms. You know, people make some pretty darn gross phlegmy noises in the morning. Yuck.

In better news, I ate an amazing dinner tonight. I found this creperie named Melt and ordered myself a fantastic savory crepe for dinner and the most unbelievably delicious dessert crepe with bananas, strawberries, whipped cream, and NUTELLA, which is pretty much heaven in spreadable form.

Anyway, this post is entirely too long and pointless and clearly I am way too tired to write anything worthwhile, so…the end.

Harrumph!

Rachel — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:37:11 +0000

When we were kids my little sister pronounced the word “grumpy” as “dumpy”. One of my parents would say something like “ooh, somebody’s grumpy!” and she would muster up her dirtiest look and shoot back, “I not dumpy!”.

Today, I am dumpy. However, I don’t mean “grumpy”, I’m not necessarily in a bad mood. I think dumpy describes it best: kind of down in the dumps.

I made a promise to myself yesterday morning that I would be a bright, shining ray of positivity all week. No complaining, no negative thoughts. Even if I couldn’t muster up rainbows and butterflies, I was determined to at least be optimistic with a rock solid good attitude.

Well, clearly, things aren’t going according to plan. Maybe next week. One of these days I will become a disgustingly optimistic person, but today is not that day.

Yesterday was rough. Definitely a Monday. I was tired, I was burned out, I was unmotivated. I spent a portion of my morning sitting at my desk, staring out into space with glassy eyes, trying to find my “happy place”. At some point I Googled “daily motivational thoughts” to see if that would get me going. I felt better after going home and going for a nice walk outside with the family. The exercise and fresh air invigorated me and I resolved that today would be better. I had high hopes because I had a full schedule today, and I knew staying busy would be helpful in staying motivated.

Fate had other plans for me though and it feels like I’m being beaten down slowly. Not a total K-O, mind you. I haven’t received that punch in the gut that sometimes happens when we have a bad day. Just a gradual, steady process. I had a small disappointment in my personal life (hey, I’m not going to put everything out there. Sorry, Internet.). Then my morning sales meeting went rougher than I had hoped. I was presenting with the boss there which made me nervous, leading to the I’m-blinded-by-fear-so-I’m-rambling-on-and-ohmyheck-what-am-I-even-saying?? type of presentation. Then the two weekly webinars I was supposed to conduct today- a great way to get leads- had no attendees. Suddenly my schedule became wide open with nothing productive to do, which tends to hurt my motivation. Then, I followed up with a lead that was potentially a great sale (in an effort to stay motivated and a “go-getter”), only to find out they decided to go with another company. THEN, a lady I sold to last week decided she wanted to downgrade what she purchased and be refunded for the difference.

Well!

(I just realized I sound like a terrible salesperson. I swear I’m not that bad! But it sure is feeling like it today…)

So here I am, having dropped considerably far from the optimistic high I started on this morning. As kids, my parents would tell us to “throw our grumpies away”, which eventually morphed into “throwing our dumpies away”. So, I want to know, how do you do it? How do you throw your dumpies away? What are your methods for “getting back on the horse” when things aren’t going your way?

A list

Rachel — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:25:28 +0000

Not to be a downer or anything, but I’ve had a running list in my head of Things That Must Go. So here you go:

1. Cinnamon Twists from Taco Bell. Today I went through the drive-thru and the girl happily informed me that the cinnamon twists were free for “customer appreciation”. Score! But wait- when I started eating them I realized these weren’t a good gift. These deep-fried, sugar coated pieces of deliciousness were an abomination! Why? Because they are so deceiving! Because they are basically flavorful styrofoam you think that these morsels are light as air and can’t possibly contain loads of calories and fat, so you keep eating them. Cut to 20 years down the road and I have to have a cardiologist on speed dial.

2. Noisy office chairs. I don’t need my coworkers receiving notification every time I move. It’s made me all self-conscious because this chair is so freaking loud I feel like moving too much is disruptive, ergo the odd hip cramps throughout the day, which in turn make me limp like a 90 year old. Am I going to need a hip replacement in addition to heart surgery?

3. 40 hour work weeks. I’m fairly certain we can get the same amount of work done in 35 hours a week, tops, dontcha think?

4. Daily commutes. Someone out there has GOT to be working on some sort of teleportation invention, right?? Screw a new version of the iPhone, I need a teleporter!

5. Nightmares. The kiddo woke up screaming 3 times last night. She’s still too young to really vocalize that she had a nightmare, but if she inherited my genes I’m pretty confident the poor kid is being chased by giant spiders that want her to eat her kidneys and force her to take a calculus test while she sleeps.

6. Thinking too hard to try to accomplish a blog post. Oy, it’s Friday (OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS I AM SO HAPPY IT IS FRIDAY WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS MY JOY!). Time to veg. Peace out.

Where my ladies at?

Rachel — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:57:01 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the biggest changes with my new job is that I work with almost all men. I work for a small company right now, but we work in a building with a number of different companies occupying the offices around us. Not only is the company I work for male-dominated, almost all of the other surrounding companies are too. (The building houses technology based companies, which in my part of the world is not popular among the ladies). It’s kind of odd to me, since at my old company there were probably equal numbers of men and women.

Now, at my new job, I’ll go to use the restroom and the lights are out, the toilets are sparkling and haven’t been used as evidenced by all the seats being left up by the cleaning crew. The men’s restroom, on the other hand, sounds like there is a perpetual party being held in there. As the door swings open when someone walks out I can hear all sorts of laughter and talking. I wonder if they have a disco ball and drinks being served as well?

So today, I was heading to lunch and stopped by the restroom (deserted, as usual) and crossed paths with a couple of guys exiting the men’s room. They smiled and nodded, probably thinking I was a visitor or something since I wasn’t wearing my badge. Afterward I went into the break room to grab my lunch from the refrigerator and happened to run across the same guys. When I opened the fridge and they realized that I was not a visitor but a bona fide employee, one man exclaimed with wide eyes, “Holy crap, a GIRL is actually working in the building?!”.

Now before you get all worked up and cry sexism!, I will defend him by saying that he was being completely facetious, as I’m sure he has noticed the severe imbalance in the sexes and was probably genuinely surprised to see a female.

However, I don’t think I could’ve summed up the overall feeling I’ve had since starting here a month ago any better!

Well said sir, well said.