“I have no use for body guards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants.”
– Elvis Presley
This is the office where J. will be working next year:
And this is the view out of the front door of said building:
Why, yes, that is the Tower.
Now, minions, I need to find an equally impressive job, or at least one with an equally impressive scenery.
“An inherent cultural passion for things that went boom, perhaps.”
– Louis McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
I’m at work today kittens, this is one of our busiest days of the year on account of the parades, local events, and stadium fireworks show.
If we judge by history, at least one police officer will be hit by a car this evening – due to the fact that people turn into jerks when told they can’t jump the line to get out of the parking lot ahead of the fifteen thousand other cars. Seventeen people will try to bring their firearms into the stadium and throw a fit when they are turned away. Five thousand mothers will try to bring outside food in and their children will throw fits when we tell them they cannot. Four fistfights will breakout twixt fans of different sports team persuasions. Twenty five people will be arrest for public intoxication. Three small fire will be started from poorly monitored firecrackers.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Actually, I love July 4th. I like picnics with friends, getting out in the summer sun, the local fairs and parades that spring up everywhere, getting to a park early to claim a comfy spot of grass with blankets, and watching fireworks. But I’d be lying if I said that July 4th didn’t bring out some unfortunate behavior that I wish didn’t get slathered with a veneer of patriotism. Drunk and disorderly is still drunk and disorderly, and slurring, “You carn arressssst muh, ‘s a frey country!” is not a legal defense.
On a more practical note, be careful with the fireworks, kittens. Half the country is already on fire.
“The finest clothing made is a person’s skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.”
~ Mark Twain
Moments after a phone call from a woman distraught to see a couple of young people park their car in her neighborhood and engage in some, ah, explicit amorous activities, Lt. South walks by my desk and sighs, “Bunch of guys running around the sports fields in thongs or less.”
Honestly, people, there is a time and a place.
“Look, you can’t do things like that! Now, I don’t know how I can explain this to you. But, it’s not only against the law, its wrong!”
– Arsenic and Old Lace
Dear World At Large,
Me again! We haven’t chatted in a while, so I thought I’d do my usual pop in and deliver a few quiet words of advice. This one’s heavy on both the philosophy and the rambling, but going to be a firm talking to nonetheless.
We live in a world of autocorrect, delete buttons, editing, photoshop, spellcheck, you name it, all of which exist to give a comforting sense that errors and perceived mistakes or flaws can be done away with. I know these are all technological examples and heavy on social media, but I think that anyone who believes these don’t inform our personal, unofficial philosophies is terribly self unaware. We live in a society that seems to believe that things we don’t like can be made to go away – whether that’s removing something you once posted on Facebook, or deleting a text message – but I am here to tell you that this is a false sense of security.
Mistakes follow you, Dear World At Large, and even if you have gone through a legal, religious/spiritual/philosophical, or paperwork laden process to atone, make restitution, or accept punishment for your actions, this is not the same thing as unmaking them. They cannot be unmade. Stupid mistakes can – and will – follow you around for a long time.
So, as a recent example, if you’re a visiting university staff member responsible for a number of students and you make a series of poor decisions culminating in the arrest of you and several of those students, putting your job in jeopardy – this is not something that’s going to just vanish because you want it to. Particularly after you’ve already appeared before a judge and plead guilty. Yelling at your friend neighborhood secretary, demanding to speak various administrative officers, and trying to pressure people to make your arrest, court appearance, and sentencing all vanish will not work. First of all, we can’t make such records and events disappear (at least not without some sort of political clout and obscene amounts of money, and even then a fairly obvious hole still gets left in the legal system). Second of all, and probably more importantly, we won’t make them disappear. See the quote at the beginning of this post.
The same is true for much less serious errors, Dear World At Large, but even small things can affect your ability to get a job, a date, housing, loans, recommendations, and even friends. As for social media, everything you have ever said, done, linked to, or ranted about is cached away somewhere in the dark bowels of the internet. On a more human note, unkind words you’ve spoken, silly errors in judgement, and countless day to day interactions are also stored away in the collective memory of your friends and associates. Nothing is really lost.
Which is why you have to be so careful! I’m not saying there isn’t room for mistakes in life (because good luck with that!) but I am saying that people need to step back and reflect more often on whether or not their actions are wise ones. It won’t protect you from everything, but occasionally it may protect you from yourself.
Unless you ascribe to reincarnation, we don’t get do-overs. We get do-betters. These can be wonderful in and of themselves, much of the good in the world has come from them, but they are not always nice experiences. You are responsible for all your actions; you can’t disavow them, you can’t be made immune from them, and there is no “Undo” button. Be smart out there.
Yours with love (sincerely this time),
C.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
Minions? Are you still reeling from that happiness bomb that J. dropped on us collectively? Is your soul still singing with glee? Are visions of crumpets and home dancing in your heads? No…just me? Well, thrills happen but ridiculousness is eternal. I’ll update you on plans soon, but in the meantime, here’s a cheap laugh at my expense.
In my current fog (plus the fact that I’m a bit thrown off since I worked yesterday on the holiday and my coworkers and I are running on different mental timelines), I answered the phone today to a perky voice declaring, “Hi, I’m Jane Smith, calling from The Universe.”
I’m horrifyingly embarrassed to tell you this tale, but my brain didn’t compute this one very quickly
“The Universe.” I repeated stupidly.
“Yes, I think I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a while now.”
“Ah.” Praise Odin my backup generators didn’t fail me. “How can I help you?”
“Well we’re working on something big right now, and we’d like some police involvement.”
“Of course.”
“Could I set up a meeting with Lt. Citrus for next week for a brief interview?”
In the area there are multiple newspapers, some of them with laughably grandiose names: The World, The All The News That’s Fit to Print Times Gazette Post, and…The Universe. I was not, in fact having an existential crisis. I’m still beating my head on my desk at how long it took my brain to catch up to that. Wonky holidays and happiness, kitten, make a potent combination!
“L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs….”
– St. Bernard of Clairvaux
A student borrowed a flatmates’ bike. Unfortunately she didn’t know the combination to the lock, and couldn’t ask for it as the flatmate was currently on study abroad deep in the rain forests of South America. She’d sent the flatmate an email asking for the code and was waiting for a reply. In the meantime, the student still had to get to class, so she rode the bike to campus and decided to take her chances by leaving the bike in a bikerack unlocked. (Editor’s Note: please don’t do this, it’s terribly foolish.)
Sadly this tale has an unfortunate end, but not in the way it usually does. Usually a member of the unwashed criminal underworld steals the bike, sells it to a pawn shop where it is sold to a dealer who stuffs the tires with drugs and uses it to take his cargo across the border. Or so I surmise.
This time, on the other hand, some nice person decided to try and help her out and locked up her bike for her. She showed up in our office in tears asking us to cut the cable so she could get home.
The road to hell, kittens…
“If you have a job without any aggravations, you don’t have a job. ”
~ Malcolm S. Forbes
Things that make me sigh:
When an officer stands at the copy machine for several minutes staring at it before turning to me.
“C., it says open drawer one and add more paper. Why isn’t it printing?”
“Because you need to add more paper.”
“Ok.”
He stands and looks at me for a long moment before I realize what he’s really asking. At which point I have to leave the dozen files on my desk, the background check, and the wage changes, to walk ten feet to a cabinet labeled, “Paper,” and put a few handfuls of paper into drawer number one.
Things that make me raise an eyebrow.
Said officer watching me do the whole spiel before saying, “Well, that was easy.”
No kidding.
“You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”
– A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
Upstairs neighbors have a pipe burst.
Spent lunch hour (and then some) cleaning up the damage of said pipe burst.
Now have to stay after work tonight to make up for the time spent cleaning up said damage.
Car needs a hose repair.
Did an hour of zumba and an hour of spinning last night – therefore can’t walk properly.
Scrambling to get all work assignments done (despite burst pipe) because I’m going out of town to visit my brother this weekend (which of course isn’t a trial at all, but in the light of other recent events is now significantly more complicated).
Still have to wrap a present for a couples shower tonight for Drill and Trixie, and pick up an ordered veggie platter.
And to top off today’s police news: bee swarm descends on campus – chaos ensues.
“A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”
~ Coco Chanel
Sitting at my desk, I asked one of the officers to review a background check I was running for him. As I reached for the file I was suddenly arrested by a sound of heavy sniffing behind me. Puzzled, I turned around and found him with an embarrassed look on his face.
“Sorry,” he said, “I just caught of a whiff of your perfume. It smells really nice.”
I felt my eyebrows lifting. “Ah. Thank you. But-”
“That was more than a little awkward, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s never speak of this again,” he said firmly.
“Sorry, I fully intend to tell the ladies, which pretty much guarantees you’ll be hearing about this for a couple of weeks at least.”
“Damn it.”
Yes, awkward, but really funny if you know the man, and not nearly on the creep scale of this guy.
*For the record, she-minions, Chanel. The classics (apparently) never go out of style.
“There’s one thing more powerful than your magic and that’s knowledge. And I know something you don’t.”
“And what is that? Dude?”
“Daylight Savings Time.”
– Hocus Pocus (1993)
I suffer from Daylight Savings Time Affective Disorder, apparently.
I just referred to one of of our sergeants as senator.
Everyone, back to bed.
Small Dog Syndrome 