Rant

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Spring Cleaning, or Rather, Spring Airing of the Grievances

Today is the first day it hasn’t rained pretty much ALL April. (Although as I type these words, the clouds seem to be gathering, so the sun may not LAST.)

And yet it has jumped straight from 40-degree-thunderstorm to 78-degree-mugginess which is not FAIR. I would much prefer a scattering of 60-degree days that inch up the temperature scale, sort of gathering momentum, before leaping into summer weather.

Not that the weather CARES that it is being unfair, mind you. The weather NEVER CARES.

But the weather – not to mention a lot of busy-ness at work that I have probably whined about enough – and yet will likely whine about AGAIN, just to warn you – is making me quite crabby.

Usually when I sent a venting-type email to my mother, I feel much better about things. There is a lot to be said for getting things off one’s chest. So today I am going to do a Spring Cleaning of My Current Grievances. You are welcome to join in, if you are so inclined.

(Do not confusing this with ACTUAL Spring Cleaning. Which I DESPERATELY need to do, and yet will likely avoid until September or so. I HAVE done quite a bit of Spring Laundry, though. And approximately zero Spring Folding of the Laundry. )

Grievance 1:  First on my list is the guy at our grocery store deli. He is just horrific. He has no sense of urgency whatsoever, and I swear it takes about 15 minutes for him to slice one pound of meat for you. Probably it is more like five minutes, but it FEELS like 15, because he is so languid about every. single. movement.

But that’s not the worst part. No, the worst part is that he doesn’t LISTEN. I have had multiple experiences with him (he seems to be the ONLY person who works in that deli!), so I know now to speak very loudly and clearly when giving him my order. But it doesn’t do much good. I have to repeat myself several times throughout the process, because he will inevitably turn to me once he’s painstakingly removed the turkey from the case… and slipped the plastic wrapper off… and walked it over to the slicing machine… all as though he is moving through glue… Only then he will ask, “Was it a half a pound?”

“No, a pound,” I will call.

“Two pounds?”

“NO. ONE pound!”

He also has seemingly no concept of slicing varieties. My husband likes his turkey shaved. And – on the rare occasion that I get deli meat, which is usually salami – I like my deli meat very thin sliced.

So I tell him this when I tell him what I want and how much. “One pound of low-salt turkey. Shaved, please.”

When he asks (again) about how much I want, I usually also tack on how I want it sliced as well. In hopes that it will get through to him. “NO. ONE pound! Shaved please!” Because I KNOW that if he’s forgotten the amount, he’s likely forgotten the shaved part as well.

But it doesn’t matter. We always end up with thick slabs of meat.

Once I asked him to re-slice it. “I asked for thinly sliced,” I told him, as politely as possible. (Although I’m SURE my face was bright red with frustration.) So he did. But you know what he did with one pound’s worth of thick slabs of salami? He THREW IT AWAY.

So I feel horrible about THAT. I mean, I don’t want to be responsible for perfectly good food going to waste, you know? So since then, when he’s inevitably cut it wrong, I bite my tongue and complain loudly about it to my husband. For DAYS.

And then, also inevitably, he will weigh the turkey and there will be one-and-a-third pound instead of the one pound I’ve asked – repeatedly – for. But by then I am so exasperated, I just take it and pay for a third more meat than I asked for or can eat before it goes bad. I mean, it’s just going to go in the trash ANYWAY, if I tell him it’s too much, right?

Okay, I lied. The worst thing about him is not that he doesn’t listen. The worst thing is that he doesn’t CARE.

It is very clear by his demeanor, his tone of voice, and his actions that he is completely indifferent to his job and the people he’s serving.

And that INFURIATES me. Because if you are getting paid to do something, at the VERY LEAST have the decency to feel bad… or even just a little GUILTY… when you royally screw it up.  Or at least APOLOGIZE instead of rolling your eyes or staring at me incredulously, like this is the first rather than tenth time I’ve told you something.

Yes, I know. Everyone has a bad day now and then. But this guy is like this EVERY TIME.

I remind myself every time I go to the deli that I MUST remember to get this guy’s name so I can make a formal complaint. And yet every time, I am so thoroughly MADDENED by dealing with him, that I either forget to look or, if I have looked at his name tag, his name is driven completely out of my brain by the RAGE.

I ALSO know that if I’m not going to complain about the guy, that I don’t really have anyone to blame for my irritation but myself.

And usually – I’d say 98 percent of the time – my husband and I shop at a different grocery store so we don’t have to deal with this dude. A grocery store that is 15 minutes away rather than 5 minutes away. But sometimes, when we’re in a hurry or when the closer store just makes more time and economical sense, we go there anyway.  And I get irate all over again.

That’s what happened to inspire this particular grievance. I went to the grocery store last night to buy food for the weekend, and I thought to myself, “While I’m here, I should get some turkey for my husband!” (He eats turkey sandwiches every day for lunch.)  But then I caught a glimpse of the deli guy as I approached the deli… And I got so pre-emptively upset that I just scrapped the whole getting-turkey idea. We have peanut butter and jelly at home. My husband can eat THAT.

Grievance 2 (do not worry, this is a MUCH shorter grievance): I very much dislike when people give me unsolicited work advice when they really don’t understand my work. (And I’m not talking about YOU Internet. If I ask your advice on things, it’s because I WANT that advice.)

Grievance 3: When I am stressed out and busy and working late into the night, my body responds by making the limited sleep I AM getting very fitful and interrupted.

You’d think that I could stay up until 3:00 am one morning, wake up at 7:00 am the next morning… Work until midnight the next night… And then get a good solid eight hours of sleep until my alarm buzzes at 8:00 to put me back on track for normal non-sleep zombie life.

But you would be wrong. Because my mind is so overloaded by Stuff to Do that it prevents me from actually FALLING asleep until 1:30 or so… And then I wake up after a work nightmare at 3:30… And then again at 5:00 because my husband rolls over… And then again at 6:00 when my husband’s alarm goes off… And then I can’t actually fall back asleep until 7:00, only to wake up again at 7:30 and give up and go to work.

This has been going on – with slight variations – ALL WEEK. The fatigue and the accompanying brain fartiness just keep compounding until I am next to worthless. I have such a hefty sleep debt that, even though I FINALLY slept well last night – from midnight until 11:00 am – I am STILL TIRED. Blargh.

Okay, I’m sure that I could dream up MORE grievances, but I will resist. And I will force myself to come up with three things that are positive in an attempt to counteract the irritation and over-tiredness.

Positive 1: My mother sent me a BEAUTIFUL vase of spring flowers, totally by surprise, and sent with them a little box of chocolate truffles for my husband. (He thinks flowers are stupid and also LOVES chocolate.)

Positive 2: My husband is DONE with fellowship interviews!!!!!! I am so excited about this and also just… tired. It was so exhausting for ME, I can only imagine how arduous it was for my husband, who actually had to do the interviews.

Also, he only had to work until 1:00 today, and when he is finished with writing his sign-out, we will get to spend the rest of the day and ALL DAY tomorrow together!

(By the way, in case you are curious at ALL about the fellowship application process, I plan to write a nice long post all about it.  But not until after my husband has [hopefully] matched in June to a fellowship program.)

Positive 3: Even though it was gross outside, I did do a brisk mile or so of walking today. And I was charmed to see that some enthusiastic daffodils have said “to hell with the rain!” and decided to bloom anyway.

Happy weekend, Internet! May it be full of positives and free of grievances.

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Did You Get That? Poor Subject Line Choices RUIN Friendships

You want to know something that annoys me?

Okay, that seems a bad way to begin.

How about this…

You want to know something that will make your life easier and more organized?

Make your email subject lines specific.

Say I have a question for you about, hmm, buying a kangaroo.

I would email you with the subject line “Buying a Kangaroo.”

And you would email me back under that same subject line. And any time we discussed the intricacies of kangaroo buying, we would do so under the “Buying a Kangaroo” subject line.

Then, at any time in the future, I would easily be able to search for and find the emails on that subject. You know, to forward to my other kangaroo-fanatic friends. Or whatever.

By the way… It totally doesn’t bug me if your email subject line says “hi” or “It’s Friday!!!!1!!1!11” or “OMG guess what?!?” or whatever. I send those emails all the time. But they are generally a) to my mom and b) not really about anything specific other than a little note to say, hi, the weather is snowy, I am making spaghetti for dinner or whatever.

But when there is Something Specific at Stake, I think the specific subject line is pretty much a necessity.

Yet so many people refuse to use them! They often completely IGNORE the subject line field, when it can be SO VERY USEFUL!

I also firmly believe that email conversations are excellent (in gmail, one conversation under the umbrella of a single subject line takes up one line in your inbox; I’m not sure what happens in other email services, but I think you’d have 20 lines in the inbox, all with the same subject line)… BUT if anyone involved in the conversation switches the subject, it is critical to begin a new email with a new subject line.

I mean, say we have been going back and forth about kangaroo buying, and then all of a sudden you want to know if we are still on for dinner next Tuesday and where exactly should we go?

Well, I think that requires a new subject line – something like, “Dinner Next Tuesday.”

Here’s why…

  1. If I see YET ANOTHER email from you about kangaroo buying, I may not open it right away because I am sick of talking about the stupid kangaroo… thus missing your important question about dinner and inadvertently snubbing you and completely ruining the friendship.
  2. If I forget, between now and Tuesday, whether we agreed to go to the new Thai restaurant or Olive Garden, it will be difficult for me to find the answer without bothering you again. Because why would I possibly open an email about buying kangaroos to find out about our dinner plans?

Along these lines, please, for the love of god, don’t just randomly pick out an old email and click reply because it’s easier than remembering my email address. That is what “Contacts” lists are for. Or, if you MUST do that because the old email has the exact right list of people in the CC field or whatever… please take the extra five seconds to delete the old email and replace the old subject line with something new.

Because there is nothing weirder than getting an old email that says RE: That One Scrubs Episode that doesn’t reference Scrubs at all and is, instead, about the best place to rent skis or something.

Oh! That reminds me of another way to make emails easier and better!

Try to stick to one subject per email.

Maybe this is more of a work-type issue (although I’ve certainly run into it with personal emails), but it happens All the Time.

A few years ago, a gal I supervised would send me emails with a bunch of different things in them at once. Like… She’d ask me a complicated question about how I wanted her to complete a project… And then in the same email, she’d ask who was the best person to contact about an HR issue… And which three people I wanted her to include on a weekly report she sent out… And then she’d ask me how my weekend was… And then a question about how to perform a certain function in Word.

So what I would do was break them apart. I’d respond to her project question – in an email with the subject line “Response to Your ABC Question about XYZ Project” – in one email.

Then I’d respond to her Word question in a separate email – with the subject line  “How to Do Footnotes in Word.”

Then I’d break her other three – smaller – questions into numbered bullets and answer them all in corresponding numbered bullets.

Then I would encourage her to ask questions like that in the future – giving big, complicated questions their own email, and asking multiple small questions in numbered bulleted lists.

She didn’t like me very much, if I remember correctly.

But! In any event! That is what I do when I write emails. A boss showed me how to do it a billion years ago. And it enhances clarity immensely.

And along the same lines…

Please don’t respond to just one or two of the 5 questions I asked you. I promise that I broke them out in a very clear, numbered list and I need answers to ALL of them, it’s not a “pick and choose” type of thing.

Maybe you don’t have an answer to one… Or you don’t have an answer YET… But please, for the love of lobster, just SAY THAT. It’s better than answering two of the questions and leaving me to fret over whether I should take your lack of response as “no” or “I don’t know” or whether I should email you back and risk getting an annoyed “I’m working on it” response.

Wow. I cannot believe that I just wrote 950 words about how to write emails. Clearly I need to get out more.

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Are You Sick of Me Talking About This Yet? Because I Am.

Guess what happens next week, Internet?

That’s right!

Thanksgiving Day of Football and Feasting!

I am ready. I am pumped. I am psyched.

I am totally going to kick some Thanksgiving ass, Internet.

But my poor mother-in-law… I think she is worried.

Now, she would never say it to my face that she is concerned, Internet. But she has been doing a lot of asking if she can help.

I believe this comes from a genuine desire to help me out. She is a very nice, helpful person, after all. Plus, she is an experienced Thanksgiving Hoster.

But I am guessing – and keep in mind that this guess is coming from a bona fide control freak – that she is feeling a little anxious about not having any influence on the Thanksgiving proceedings.

“So,” you say, “let her help! Help is awesome!”

To you I say, “Wow. You don’t know me at all.”

Allow me to stress a few things about me, the Resident Control Freak:

1. I have a tiny, nay MINUSCULE kitchen. It is seriously only big enough for ONE PERSON. Believe me, I know this from experience. My husband and I have cooked/unloaded dishes/unpacked groceries in that kitchen together many times. And he is a person I don’t feel bad about yelling at/bumping into/accidentally stabbing. (KIDDING.) (Sort of.)

2. I am very, very particular about many things. I have serious, specific ideas about washing dishes, washing vegetables, and handling meat. I care about where you put a dirty dish (on the right side of the sink) and where you set a vegetable (on the left side of the sink, preferably on a cutting board) and what you put IN the sink (ONLY dirty dishes and things you intend to put down the drain). I care about which dish towel you use to dry your hands or dry your dishes. I have very strong feelings about cleaning as you go. I even have TWO scrub brushes – one for dishes that go in the dishwasher; one for dishes that are to be handwashed. Are you getting the picture? CONTROL FAH-REAK.

3. I would so much rather be stressed about Making Food than be stressed about Whether You Are Following My Thousands of Weird Rules.

In an ideal world, I want my in-laws to come over, sit in front of a football game, eat the appetizers I will have thoughtfully prepared ahead of time, and WATCH THE GAME. Or snooze. Or chat. Or read a book. Until I announce that dinner is ready.

Oh my god, Internet. Do you not feel intense sympathy for my in-laws?

In response to past episodes of my whining about this holiday, you have thoughtfully recommended that I hand over a certain side dish to my mother-in-law to make… Or that I ask her set the table… Or any number of very smart and thoughtful and practical suggestions that will make her feel needed.

And to all of them, I pooch out my lower lip and say, “NUH UH. I don’t wanna.”

This is where you roll your eyes and think, “Holy cats, lady. I would give my left kidney for a mother-in-law who is helpful/someone to help me with Thanksgiving/an excuse to boss my relatives around.”

This is where you sigh loudly at me and say, “Just LET GO a little, weirdo. It’s not going to kill you if someone else makes the mashed potatoes.”

But Internet! I want it my way. Pout, pout, foot stomp.

I want to be a good hostess. Being a good hostess means making your guests comfortable. In order to make my guests comfortable, I need to be in control. But one of my guests also wants to be in control. So I can’t make her comfortable without relinquishing control which means I won’t be able to make her (or my father-in-law) comfortable.

And then my brain explodes.

Just to see if I can sway you in my favor just a little, let me add this:

My in-laws are flying here. So any food item they contribute to Thanksgiving would have to be [a] brought on the plane (is that even possible? I mean, can you put a tray of stuffing through the security x-ray?) or [b] bought here (and seriously, HOW is something store-bought going to be as good as something homemade?) or [c] made in my kitchen, which we have previously established as Not Possible Without My Being Dead or Unconscious.

And lastly, a tiny (or not-so-tiny) part of me wants to prove to everyone – to myself, to my mother-in-law, to whomever else who remotely cares about this ridiculous drama I’ve built up for myself – that I can do it. That I CAN make Thanksgiving dinner – from scratch, start to finish, by myself – without burning down the apartment or poisoning anyone.

What is it that they say about pride goeth before the fall and whatnot?

I don’t even know if I want advice or commiseration or if I just need some assurance that we will all get through this without hating each other or throwing a pot of yams at the wall or dealing with the horror of setting a peeled potato on the right side of the sink.

But I would like your thoughts. Even if your thoughts have nothing to do with Thanksgiving at all.

(Although fair warning: I reserve the right to respond to “Sheesh, girl, just give your MIL something to do” comments with a big ol’ pout face.)