There is a precise sense of fondness that can be evoked by strolling down a quiet Village street with a dear friend. It is best to do so after eating brunch in a quiet place, when you have time to drink in all the sunlight streaming down through spare branches. The fondness fits into small places and will wait to be remembered some time a few years from now when a certain angle of light hits the curb in such a way that you’ll remember the uneven patches of sun peppering the sidewalk, the birds rustling in the eaves, the smell of bread rising, the distant wash of traffic circling the city. It will be much later, after the people you love today have grown into the people they’ve forever longed to be, that you will remember this day. And it will please you to no end.
Monday, 24 March 2008
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
1. I found out that I sold +$75,500 worth of fancy French lotions in the past five months. This made me sadder than I have felt in a long time.
2. In a rare act of penance, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed said fancy French lotions shop’s unspeakably filthy floor. Yes. That was me. I did that. I swept, then mopped, then finally scrubbed the floor with all the elbow grease I could muster trying to regain the soul I had so slavishly sold to the devil known as retail.
3. My university’s corrupt housing association tried to extort money from me. This is how they did it. They had a middle aged woman with the Relief Society Voice call me and demand February 2008’s rent from me. Her voice was sugary on the message but when I called up to talk to her she was no-nonsense, even steely. When I told her that I had never lived in Belmont (not blonde or rich enough—not to mention my car doesn’t have a fin) and, moreover, that I had not lived in Provo for something like six months she got quiet. Without so much of an apology she said goodbye and hung up the phone.
4. My university’s alumni association sent me a very important envelope bearing a red stamp that said “Mini Diploma Enclosed.” Oh how my roommates and I joked about how funny it would be if there was an actual mini diploma inside. Oh how we laughed. Even though the envelope was stamped with letters clearer than the noon day’s sun, I still wasn’t expecting the treasure that fell into my lap. It was, in the exact literal sense, a mini diploma. It is about the size of a business card and laminated. Both attributes will be real handy at all those cocktail parties I schmooze at—“Don’t worry Mr. Powerful Museum Executive, I’m a college grad! [Whip out laminated mini diploma, nearly knocking PME’s drink out of his hand in the process. Wipe any martini splatters off of protective plastic.] See? Proof!”
5. I survived a DC lockdown. There were police men yelling at us to stay in our shops, lock the doors, and stay away from the windows. There were a few K-9 units and some men bungling about in scuba-esque gear. It was an Unattended Box Situation. Somehow nobody panicked. In fact, my managers and I sat in the back room serenely listening to the sirens and yelling officers while we shucked cellophane and raffia into various neatly labeled boxes. It was like a modern adaptation of that one scene in Pollyanna with the housekeepers on the porch.
6. I got a job. A real job. It has, like, conference rooms and office suites.
2. In a rare act of penance, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed said fancy French lotions shop’s unspeakably filthy floor. Yes. That was me. I did that. I swept, then mopped, then finally scrubbed the floor with all the elbow grease I could muster trying to regain the soul I had so slavishly sold to the devil known as retail.
3. My university’s corrupt housing association tried to extort money from me. This is how they did it. They had a middle aged woman with the Relief Society Voice call me and demand February 2008’s rent from me. Her voice was sugary on the message but when I called up to talk to her she was no-nonsense, even steely. When I told her that I had never lived in Belmont (not blonde or rich enough—not to mention my car doesn’t have a fin) and, moreover, that I had not lived in Provo for something like six months she got quiet. Without so much of an apology she said goodbye and hung up the phone.
4. My university’s alumni association sent me a very important envelope bearing a red stamp that said “Mini Diploma Enclosed.” Oh how my roommates and I joked about how funny it would be if there was an actual mini diploma inside. Oh how we laughed. Even though the envelope was stamped with letters clearer than the noon day’s sun, I still wasn’t expecting the treasure that fell into my lap. It was, in the exact literal sense, a mini diploma. It is about the size of a business card and laminated. Both attributes will be real handy at all those cocktail parties I schmooze at—“Don’t worry Mr. Powerful Museum Executive, I’m a college grad! [Whip out laminated mini diploma, nearly knocking PME’s drink out of his hand in the process. Wipe any martini splatters off of protective plastic.] See? Proof!”
5. I survived a DC lockdown. There were police men yelling at us to stay in our shops, lock the doors, and stay away from the windows. There were a few K-9 units and some men bungling about in scuba-esque gear. It was an Unattended Box Situation. Somehow nobody panicked. In fact, my managers and I sat in the back room serenely listening to the sirens and yelling officers while we shucked cellophane and raffia into various neatly labeled boxes. It was like a modern adaptation of that one scene in Pollyanna with the housekeepers on the porch.
6. I got a job. A real job. It has, like, conference rooms and office suites.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Right before I moved to DC, a friend told me about his Perfect Days Plan. Basically, he takes the last Friday of every month off from work and spends it having the perfect day. This allows him to have at least twelve guaranteed perfect days a year. How he spends them varies but he’s been known to take a nap in his living room filled with clean afternoon light. He might also cruise around town with the windows rolled down, elbow crooked and hanging out in the wind. So casual, so effortless, so…perfect.
I like his plan very much and have been devising all sorts of ways to implement it in my own life, however stealthily it may be. I fully encourage you all to do the same.
I like his plan very much and have been devising all sorts of ways to implement it in my own life, however stealthily it may be. I fully encourage you all to do the same.
Monday, 10 March 2008
 |
| How to High Five Diagram via Wired |
Mostly my company communicates by using a series of alpha-numerical abbreviations of the kind most often seen in a lazy teen’s text. Today, for instance, was Q4 s4s M/SA training. Essentially a corporate version of “U R 2 dum 2 sell stuff”, this fourth quarter “Selling for Success” session meant I’d have to dedicate five whole hours of my life to our basement (a.k.a. “company conference room) with its spores, lung crushing fungal odor, and John, our wide-eyed British trainer who insists upon wearing an ill fitting checkered shirt tucked into a pair of wrinkle-proof five pocket khaki pants. He prances, purses his lips, rolls his eyes, and guffaws in such an exaggerated way I’ve been caught staring hard at his back trying to find his battery pack. He is 40 years old.
I’m not sure exactly what went down since I zoned out a few times, but I do know that we spent a good hour or so role-playing certain sales situations. I spent the majority of this time reeling in disbelief. One particular exercise had us look at four different pictures of four different people. We were supposed to come up with ice breaker lines that we could ask them upon entering the store. This supposedly led to conversation (or “customer engagement”), product demo-ing, and (theoretically speaking) a fatty sale. One picture was of an older woman wearing a bless-her-heart pastel tent dress and clutching—in a vacant zomboid manner—a wilted daisy. I looked desperately at my coworkers trying to solicit an eye roll or suppressed giggle/cough worthy of such an image but all I saw were ten complacent heads bobbing on ten complacent necks. I heard phrases like, “Oh my! What a lovely blouse, where did you get it, my grandmother got me one just like it, looks like we’re twins!” as an example of a sufficient ice breaker.
During the three hours leading up to our lunch break I heard people scream “BONUS!” and slap fives not once, not twice, but six times. If they weren’t shouting “BONUS!” and high-fiving they were saying, “We do this, sell that, be this, force smiles to GET BONUS!!!” I have never felt so corporate in my life, not even when I was selling knives to lonely housewives and racking up plaques at an actual pump-up-the-sales-team district conference.
The sad part was that towards the end of the three hour stretch, when I was nearly overcome with the desire to inhale the three pizzas that were innocently sitting on the table waiting for the lunch break, I started getting really into it. At first I’d throw out the Captain Obvious no brainers. But with lunch so close I could taste it, I became Sally Sales Associate. I demo’d as though I was being secret shopped by the CEO himself, I smiled brightly, tossed my hair, and made my eyes twinkle appealingly. I even—and I could kill myself for doing this—high fived and yelled “BONUS!” This was done so realistically and vigorously that I actually found myself high-fiving with my manager. That was when I realized that I was willing to do literally anything for a free lunch.
On that note, if anyone has tales of rock bottom or what you did to get a free lunch, I would love to hear. Mostly to put me out of my personally designed corporate hell :)
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
So there’s this Starbucks I go to every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday (which are lotions shop days, LSDs from now on. Giggle.) My manager usually sends me scuttling into whatever inclement weather that happens to be puking itself over the city in order to pick up two big (venti? I’m not really down with the lingo yet, despite my Starbucks frequenting) “Awakes.” I have no idea what that means, but my manager downs them like you would not believe.
Anyway, this Starbucks looks like a basic Starbucks—you know, glass counter with eerily preserved cupcakes and scones, frazzled barristas shouting over the screeching steamer, etc., etc.—but a little smaller. Like all the seating areas are shrunk to a size befitting of America’s Favorite Family (side note: how could TLC just arbitrarily assign that title to such an undeserving family?), or at least the parents of America’s Favorite Family.
It wasn’t until a few weeks into my LSD routine that my friend broke the good news to me: there is Extra Seating Upstairs. And not just ANY extra seating—it’s plush, rich people’s library chairs complete with a Real* Wood Burnin’Fireplace extra seating. It’s basically revolutionized the way I spend my lunch hour.
The best way to get up to the extra seating is to go at 1 or 2 p.m. This is when it’s busy enough for the Starbucks people to be too preoccupied to notice that a certain kid has zoomed up the stairs without buying anything in order to take a nice, leisurely nap with her feet up at the fire’s hearth. I’ve been known to do this on more than several occasions, as have a few of my favorite street people. The guy who wears the hospital bracelet and neon-laced Reeboks is a particular gem, as is the bearded gentleman who always warmly refers to me as "My angel, so far from heaven."
But the point of this whole set up is this: I’ve got company. Sure, there’s the usual prep school kids gabbing on their cell phones and an occasional minor-celebrity sighting. But there’s also a dead-on Mr. Spock look alike who always sits in this one orange plush chair with his ear pods on, newspaper rustling, and glasses pushed halfway down his nose. He always chuckles to himself as though at any moment he could be beamed up to the Enterprise itself. We have yet to make eye contact but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that one day Spock will put down his paper, pull out his ear buds and begin to bond with me using one of his (in?)famous mind melds.
And yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia. Don’t be a hater just because I never, not even once, joined the Larr-bear in his Trekkie adventures.
*Might actually be holographic or granite wood with gas fire, giving off the illusion of rustic wood burning fire
Anyway, this Starbucks looks like a basic Starbucks—you know, glass counter with eerily preserved cupcakes and scones, frazzled barristas shouting over the screeching steamer, etc., etc.—but a little smaller. Like all the seating areas are shrunk to a size befitting of America’s Favorite Family (side note: how could TLC just arbitrarily assign that title to such an undeserving family?), or at least the parents of America’s Favorite Family.
It wasn’t until a few weeks into my LSD routine that my friend broke the good news to me: there is Extra Seating Upstairs. And not just ANY extra seating—it’s plush, rich people’s library chairs complete with a Real* Wood Burnin’Fireplace extra seating. It’s basically revolutionized the way I spend my lunch hour.
The best way to get up to the extra seating is to go at 1 or 2 p.m. This is when it’s busy enough for the Starbucks people to be too preoccupied to notice that a certain kid has zoomed up the stairs without buying anything in order to take a nice, leisurely nap with her feet up at the fire’s hearth. I’ve been known to do this on more than several occasions, as have a few of my favorite street people. The guy who wears the hospital bracelet and neon-laced Reeboks is a particular gem, as is the bearded gentleman who always warmly refers to me as "My angel, so far from heaven."
But the point of this whole set up is this: I’ve got company. Sure, there’s the usual prep school kids gabbing on their cell phones and an occasional minor-celebrity sighting. But there’s also a dead-on Mr. Spock look alike who always sits in this one orange plush chair with his ear pods on, newspaper rustling, and glasses pushed halfway down his nose. He always chuckles to himself as though at any moment he could be beamed up to the Enterprise itself. We have yet to make eye contact but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that one day Spock will put down his paper, pull out his ear buds and begin to bond with me using one of his (in?)famous mind melds.
And yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia. Don’t be a hater just because I never, not even once, joined the Larr-bear in his Trekkie adventures.
*Might actually be holographic or granite wood with gas fire, giving off the illusion of rustic wood burning fire
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