resumes are funny

I was skimming more resumes today, and I found a couple of tidbits I just had to share.

First, someone listed this under "Activities" at the bottom of his resume:

"Winner of doubles-competition and runner in singles-competition at Company X's yearly Table Tennis competition." [sic]

I think that's supposed to be funny? I hope? But I'm not endeared. I mean, I'd like to hear that you organized the thing, but telling me where you placed? At table tennis? That has to be "funny because it's absurd," right? Please?

Okay, so I guess the next person was using a template. At the top of the resume, I saw this string of nonsense:

123-456-1234 (p) - N/a (f)

This one took me a few minutes, but then I realized that they were trying to indicate "not applicable" for a fax number. Which, I mean, gahh. Template FAIL.

I also realized something about myself when I was going through these. Whenever I saw a gap in someone's resume, I would always scroll to the top to see if the person was female. Like, did she take off because she had a baby?

And then finally, hundreds of resumes later, I realized that I was being sexist. I mean, it's more likely that a woman would take off after having a baby, but it's not impossible that a gap in a man's resume could also be baby-related. Duh.

Later in the day, I found nothing at all amusing, and couldn't wait to run out the door at 5. I'm going to spare you the little stream-of-consciousness rant I wrote then. You can thank me in the comments.

i am one spineless, nerdy smart-ass

Okay, so recently there appeared a sign above the copier in one of our break rooms. It reads:

"Copy Machine Usage is for Business Purpose's Only!"

I've read the sign like a dozen times, but today was the first time I noticed the inappropriate use of an apostrophe on this sign. This sign, which someone printed out on pink paper, laminated, and then hung in a professional setting. Duh, people.

As soon as I noticed this, I had the urge to run to my computer and print a sign reading:

"Apostrophe for Posessive Usage Only!"

Then I did a wikipedia search for the word "apostrophe" to make sure I wasn't missing any appropriate usages, because there's nothing worse than being all snotty and correcting someone and saying something incorrect in your correction.

Turns out I was missing two basics (in addition to lots of ridiculous particulars that no one would really hold against me): contractions (e.g. couldn't) and abbreviations (e.g. gov't). But my sign doesn't pack quite the same punch when it reads:

"Apostrophe for Possessive, Contraction, and Abbreviation Usages Only!"

Usages? Usage? I can't decide, so I guess I'm going to have to give the whole thing up.

Not that I would actually be brave enough to hang the sign, anyway. There could be cameras! I could be called into offices!

top 5 reasons why yesterday was better than monday or tuesday

1. White cake with whipped cream frosting and chocolate mousse filling. One piece at the little corporate cake gathering thing, and one later while I scanned those stupid double-sided phone bills.
2. Something new and interesting (no, really!) to do at work: Reviewing resumes! (Quick tip to all job applicants ever: get yourself a nice, staid, firstnamelastname@gmail.com email address for job hunting, because seriously, people. The "quirky" "creative" address you give to your friends looks totally ridiculous on your resume.)
3. I got an examiner newsletter suggesting that I write articles about exactly what I was planning on writing articles about this month. I'm a total genius, and I rock at this job, even if I did only make $1.86 yesterday. How much did you make for writing an article about 5 new sitcoms that are airing this fall? Yeah, that's what I thought.
4. Getting exactly what I wanted for dinner. The Wii Fit board is going to weep on Saturday, but whatever, this is no time of the month for good choices.
5. Listening to Josh Groban on the way to work. Rolling my windows down and positively blaring Josh Groban on the way home. (Suck it, guy blasting hip hop in the car next to me!) Singing along loudly to all the Italian songs and feeling all smugly superior about it.

self-medicating with tween romance and dusters

Saturday was a nice day. I wrote a movie review for examiner.com and cleaned my kitchen while watching HGTV. Renovation shows always help motivate me!

Sunday started getting sketchy. I couldn't get certain parts of Breaking Dawn out of my head, and I started itching to read it for a third time. Michael and I went to breakfast, and then Michael went to work. I watched television or something for a couple of hours, and then I caved and read like 400 pages of Breaking Dawn.

Monday was just downright strange. Michael left for work early. I finished reading what I wanted to in Breaking Dawn (I lose interest when the action begins), and then I thought that maybe I should watch Twilight again. After ransacking the bookcases twice, I finally found it.

I'd heard the audio commentary was kind of ridiculous, so of course I decided to listen to it. I enjoyed it, but I didn't actually get to watch the movie, since they were talking over it, so I decided to watch the movie again. Or listen to it, really, since I also re-cleaned my kitchen (there were new dishes to be done, I needed to clean the counter and stove again, etc.)

When the movie ended, I played it again. I cleaned the living room (I even dusted!) and cleaned the bathroom. The movie ended again, and I played it again. I straightened our bedroom, and then there was nothing else to do, so I sat and watched the end of the movie. For the third time, not counting the first time with the commentary. I was kind of afraid to turn it off, I think, like I would have a panic attack if I didn't distract myself enough.

I teetered between distracted and downright miserable yesterday. I can't really believe I got so much done yesterday. Usually when I'm unhappy I just want to curl up and do nothing. I think the same thing that made me watch Twilight three or four times yesterday also made me spend the whole day cleaning. Like I needed to be busy with something so that I wouldn't be forced to think.

Michael was feeling pretty down when he got home, too, so we went out to dinner, and then to Target, where we bought the first season of Mad Men on DVD. We joked about being miserable, and I pretended to hyperventilate. We watched two episodes at home, and then it was time for bed. I read Infinite Jest before I went to sleep, instead of Twilight (which I had re-started before dinner), because really, my use of Stephanie Meyer's crack had been excessive enough.

i was not abducted by aliens last night

Last night a nightmare was pretty much inevitable.

Ever since seeing the trailer for “The Fourth Kind,” I can’t stop seeing the pixilated face of Dr. Abigail Tyler, and hearing her say “Someone… or something… came into my room… and took me away.”

For most of last night I had to sleep on my left side or my back, because I was just too freaked out to have my back to the bedroom door. I tucked my blanket around my body carefully, even though I was hot. I thought about how alien abductions only happen in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like there was going to be a spaceship hovering in the middle of town, right?

But I was still nervous, because I’ve watched all the UFO shows on television, and I know the scientific explanation for alien abduction: sleep paralysis, a state in which your mind has awoken but your body remains paralyzed. That would be reason enough for panic, but many people also have some horrifying hallucinations during the experience.

I feel about sleep paralysis the way my brother feels about killer asteroids. I wish I didn’t know it exists. Even when I can completely convince myself that I won’t be abducted by aliens (which is a tall enough order when you’re lying alone in the dark), I still have to worry about having the experience of being abducted. Does it even matter if it’s “really” happening if the experience is horrible enough?

I did fall asleep, eventually. I didn’t experience sleep paralysis, but I did have a really strange nightmare.

Here’s the premise: Michael Jackson is sleeping in a bed with a married couple. He may have been sleeping at the foot of the bed like a dog, I’m not sure. Later, the couple are telling someone (a documentarian?) about the noises that MJ made while he was sleeping. You see an image of him asleep and hear these strange, high-pitched noises. They play it back slower, and you hear him calling for his mothership, or something.

And then I woke up. Not in a cold sweat or anything, but kind of freaked out. Still seeing the sleeping face of Michael Jackson. I told Michael I had a nightmare, and he snuggled me. Then I told him I had to go pee, but I was afraid to leave the bedroom.

I expected him to pat me on the shoulder and tell me it would be okay, but he actually offered to come out with me. When you’re with someone for a long time, your displays of affection change. Instead of buying me flowers or jewelry, Michael waits in the living room while I pee so that Michael Jackson won’t get me.

The moment was ruined a little bit when we got back to our bedroom and Michael said, "Don’t worry, the real Michael Jackson will come down in his spaceship and kick his ass.” After a second I understood that he was making a South Park reference, but I still yelled at him. “That’s not funny! We don’t say the “s” word at night!”

Despite Michael's lapse in judgment, I did get back to sleep.

the most gourmet thing i made today was instant cocoa

1. Pour about 1-1/2 tbsp of cold water into a styrofoam cup
2. Pour instant cocoa into the cup. Push the sides of the packet in gingerly, about 10 times, to make sure you get every last molecule of cocoa into the cup.
3. Hold two 7" stir sticks as you would a whisk, and whip the cocoa into the water until they form a paste. Be sure to run the stir sticks along the edge of the cup, as you would with a spatula, so that no dry cocoa clings to the side of the cup.
4. Fill the styrofoam cup to about 2/3rds full with hot water. You should see a chocolatey foam at the top.
5. Holding the two stir sticks like a whisk again, whip the cocoa and water again, being sure that the stir sticks are scraping the bottom of the cup thoroughly, so as not to leave any super-chocolatey deposits there.
6. Pour cold water into the hot chocolate until the temperature is as hot as it can be without being uncomfortably so. You should be able to take a sip, but not a swig, without burning yourself.

why i love it when it rains while i'm at work

I was at reception, and people started coming in and warning us about the clouds coming in from... I was about to say the west, but I actually have no idea from which direction they were coming. They were coming from the right, if you were looking out from the reception desk. If I had a new iPhone I'd use that fancy compass to tell you, but I don't, so I won't.

Since my desk is surrounded by cubicle walls, I took a field trip to a friend's desk to watch the clouds rolling over. These clouds are so thick and black and low that I'm kind of expecting death eaters to come flying out of them. Now that I'm back at my desk, I can hear the patter of rain on the ceiling.

The rain is something interesting to look at, something to listen to. It's a reason to be really glad you're in the building, because right now you're protected from being out in that. Instead of sitting quietly at their desks or making phone calls, everyone is talking about it. "I hope your windows are up!" Lots of laughs. I'm not really participating. I'm just sitting at my desk, glad for the storm that has made my day a little more interesting.

i just can't help myself

Predictive text is just an endless font of humor, at least to my mind. But I promise this post will have something for everybody: humor (at least for nerds like me), trivia (I was going to say "education," but who am I kidding?), and bacon!

So, Jen and I were texting about Wegman's. When you can send and receive up to 1,500 text messages per month, you don't have to be picky about what topics warrant texts. (Stop judging me!)

Jen had said that she likes Wegman's, but that it can be annoying that they card everyone who buys beer (including her father). I texted back, "that's kinda hilarious, Stan getting carded."

Except "carded" was my phone's second guess. The first guess was "barded." Which totally made me picture William Shakespeare delivering a smackdown to some poor soul, exclaiming "You just got barded!" I'm seriously laughing out loud right now just thinking about it.

Then I got to wondering why my phone would come up with such an odd word. I mean, the past tense of the verb "bard?" Instead of "carded?" Is bard even a verb?

But it is, oh it is! The first definition dictionary.com gives me is too boring to share, but the second!

Cookery. to secure thin slices of fat or bacon to (a roast of meat or poultry) before cooking.

I still can't imagine having occasion to use this word more often than "carded," but I kind of wish that I did (mmm yummy bacon-wrapped meat mmm...).

getting philosophical

When I was younger, I believed that…

• “telling time” meant knowing what the time was – like, psychically. I thought adults just knew what time it was. I don’t know what I thought all those clocks and watches were for.
• not being able to speak a language (e.g. I can’t speak Spanish) meant that you literally couldn’t make the words come out of your mouth. Learning to speak the language, in my mind, meant learning to make the words come out.
• you couldn’t die while you were inside, because your soul would bump its head on the ceiling on its way to heaven. (It occurs to me that I also apparently believed there was a heaven, and that, should I die, I would go there).
• even though every driver in the world seemed to manage their cars, I would need a car with the driver’s seat in the exact middle of the cab. I think there was one such model in production in the world, and I supposed that I would have to buy it.
• my dad could drive to any city in the continental US without a map or directions of any sort, using only road signs. I didn’t understand how he could talk to us and read all those super-important signs at the same time.

Things I believed about high school when I was in middle school, about college when I was in high school, and about the post-grad working world when I was in college:

• I would be thinner.
• I would have more friends.
• I wouldn’t do or be all the things I didn’t like about myself.
• I would finally be an adult.
• It would be much harder intellectually and much easier socially and emotionally than it actually was.

That first list makes me smile. How magical the world, and the adults in it, seemed when I was little!

The second list is a little angsty, but still amusing. You would think by college that I would have figured out that I've always looked forward to the next period in my life as the one in which I would be transformed, my problems solved. I had discovered that the world wasn't magical, but I still held out hope that time, and its influence on us, was.

Now that I've passed through all the milestones that I had been counting on to turn me into a normal person who has her shit together, and I am not at all a normal person, and my shit is wildly scattered, I know better.

It could be tempting to turn motherhood into that next phase of my life that I look forward to and trust to fix me. I have to be vigilent against thinking like that. The changes I hope for will have to come through effort, not this magical transformative property of time that has yet to pan out.

That's a big responsiblity, but liberating, in a way. I can't sit back and wait for my life to fall into order, but neither will I wake up one morning and find myself an unrecognizable Stepford wife. My life depends on my decisions. How scary. How great.

has my obsession with sms jumped the shark yet?

I taught my phone a new word!

You see, this afternoon I was fucking hungry. Not just "hungry", not "really hungry", not
"freaking hungry", fucking hungry. And I texted Michael to tell him as much.

I fought my phone every step of the way, sure that it would protect my dignity from my darker intentions. No I don't want an e, I want an f. Not ft, fu. Not fu2 (because, again, seriously, why would I be trying to say that?), fuc. You get the picture.

Michael quickly realized that this was not a drive home from work, make dinner for an hour, then eat kind of night. This was a go to a restaurant to prime my hedonistic tendencies so that he could talk me into a Nintendo DS (on sale at Target!) kind of night.

Next I needed to text Jen to find out if she was in. To explain why I wanted to go out to dinner on a Monday night, I repeated again that I was fucking hungry, but this time I didn't fight. I just typed in "3825464," and what should come up?

fucking

My phone still doesn't know how to spell "defrosted," or "damn" (no, I don't mean "econ"), or "fuck" (no, not "dual"), but my phone can officially say "hell," "shit," and "fucking" without putting up a fight.

This was my great victory for the day. We're going to forget for a second how sad that means my life is.

another skill for the resume

Today my boss sent me an email (in reply to an Excel file I had sent her) that cracked me up. Here's the first sentence:

"Nice matrix!"

Whatever the hell is going on with my life, at least I've got that going for me.

the obligatory "my vacation was fun" post

Top Ten Things I Loved About My Vacation at Otakon, in Baltimore:

10. The drive was about an hour and a half shorter than I thought it would be. Aside from a long detour in Delaware in search of alcohol, the ride was fast.

9. Crab chips. I always forget these exist until I go to Maryland, and then I remember I love 'em. I was both amused and disappointed to find that dehydrated crab is not an ingredient in crab chips.

8. Seeing a seahorse, sharks, dolphins, and jellyfish at the aquarium.

7. All you can eat seafood at Phillip's. Shrimp, mussels, crayfish (which Alton Brown informs me I didn't eat right, like, at all), and plate after plate of crab legs. Yum.

6. Raymond, our waiter the second time we visited Phillip's. He came up twice and slid a plate onto the table filled with things we wanted. He also asked us about the convention and recommended another one we should go to. Also, he was cute and Jen totally embarrassed herself by asking if she should put a heart by his name on the comment card when he was standing right next to her.

5. Discovering Sergeant Frog. Kero!

4. Fan parodies. Fans splice scenes from various anime together and dub it over with a song, the audio from a commercial, etc. Especially funny was the "That's What She Said" spot, set to the audio from a commercial for "The Office."

3. Cosplay. I would say at least a third of the people attending the convention came in costume. We saw some really great ones, including an Optimus Prime who was at least ten feet tall, and a couple of girls wearing glorified underwear or less (in the case of one girl, tissue paper crossed around her chest). We would love to bring Andy and Daniel next time and dress as the characters from Sergeant Frog.

2. A workshop where we learned how to draw chibis. Also, laughing at Michael's chibis. (I'm sorry, but seriously.)

1. I wasn't at work! Thank you God!

lady, you have no idea

This morning, one of my coworkers was describing to another what happens when you have an MRI. She described how they slide something over your face, and how it made her really claustrophobic, so she kept her eyes closed the whole time. "And then they pulled me out of the tube to inject the dye, and I thought they'd taken the head thing off, and I opened my eyes, and oh my God!"

And I wanted to add:

Yeah, and then your eyes got all scratchy and bloodshot
and your nose and throat and chest suddenly fill up
and it's kind of hard to breathe
and you can't help but sneeze, but you still try to stay as still as you can
and your right eye gets all purple and swollen and shiny
and when they say your name you think they're talking about you, not to you, because you're all disoriented, and they come running in thinking you're not breathing...

or maybe that's just me?

Yes, MRI's can be really scary, but yours sounds like it was pretty normal, so maybe you should quit your whining.

a post that's not about birthday presents of the netbook variety

Today a vendor asked me which name he should put on my order, since my email address and my signature don't match. Which reminded me of something funny that happened when I got back to work from my honeymoon.

One of the first emails I sent with my new married name was to someone named Jean-Philippe in Canada. He wrote back:

"Did someone give you a new name for Christmas?"

I replied: "Sort of. I got married on New Year's Eve."

His question was cute, it made me smile. It also gave me a really evil idea. JP doesn't know how old I am, and I was really tempted to write back, "I got a divorce. That's my maiden name. Thanks for rubbing it in."

what i do with my brain while i work

Sometimes, my job doesn't take up a lot of mental space. While my body is scanning, renaming files, typing in spreadsheets, etc, my mind tends to wander. I hear songs in my head over and over and over, make budgets and resolutions, and daydream about the strangest things.

Like what to name my netbook. You know, the one everyone I know is going in on for my birthday.

Ideas:

1. George. Because I will love him and hug him and ... call him George.
2. Giorgio. Because if I call him George, my mom will say "when you say George, all I can think of is your uncle George, and ew." It'll be a little in joke and won't work my mom's gag reflex.
3. Gigi. Because Giorgio is getting too masculine. Why couldn't the netbook be a girl? But wait, not Gigi, because I want to name my daughter Julia, and Gigi is actually a really really cute nickname for Julia (especially since one of my nicknames is Kiki). And if I name my computer Gigi, then I won't want to call my daughter Gigi, just like I can't name my son Gabriel because I named a cat Gabriel.
4. Sammy. Short for Samsung. Cute, simple, androgenous. I like it.

So actually, I spent the last hour of work 1) doing work, 2) naming my netbook and 3) nicknaming my as-yet-unconceived daughter. That's what I call productivity.

i will hug him and squeeze him and call him george

My birthday is still 3 months away, but I know exactly what I want. No need to create a wishlist, because I only want one little thing: a Samsung NC-10 netbook.

My laptop is currently unusable because of battery issues. Sure, I could solve that problem for $80, but my laptop would still be big, heavy, five years old, and weighed down with a ton of stuff I never use.

I've had a netbook revelation: I am the user for whom the netbook was invented. I want small, light, simple, and fast. Thanks to Google Docs, I can perform every function I want to with only a web browser. I'm a "coffeehouse user" as one reviewer put it, and the netbook is the perfect computer for me.

And the Samsung NC-10 is the perfect netbook for me. It's compact and light, but still sports a 10" screen. The keyboard is 92% of standard size and comfortably laid out. The battery life is great at 6+ hours.

Also, it matches my phone. Sold!

P.S. The picture is a link, for your convenience. :)

hi canadians!

I finished preparing the rent for all of our US locations, got the Treasurer to sign it, and went into Excel to send the spreadsheet to Accounts Payable.

And then I saw this folder: Canada Rent.

To which I said: "Oh, oops!" And then laughed hysterically, because forgetting to pay the rent for our Canada locations is kind of more than an oops.

I'm sure you're really super important to our business, Canadians! I'll try hard not to get you evicted!

know your place, huffpo!

Dear huffpo (Huffington Post),

Love your site! The Daily Show recaps are brilliant, and I love love love the photo galleries of Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy! Your style section is where it's at.

But, umm, we need to talk. During my lunch today I innocently opened your site, and you hit me in the face with this headline: "Jobless Numbers 'Devestating,' Worse Than Expected." The thing is, sweetie, this is not what I come to you for. Unless you want to tell me about something ridiculous Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin did, I don't want "news."

I clicked away to the Style section, and you showed me three pictures: Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama, and Robert Gibbs with their "manbags," Obama and Bobby Flay grilling, and Hillary Clinton makin' it work with her arm cast. Yes, this is the light entertainment I was going for.

So I'll make you a deal. I'll start opening your website using this URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/style/ And you keep anything "devestating" away from me.

Love you to pieces!

Kiki

my stomach has a guardian angel

I had just sent my mom a text message when my boss asked me to do something for her.

The text message read: "Omg starving!"

My boss's request? Move the chips, cookies, and drinks from the conference room to the break room "so that people can eat them."

What's the opposite of FML?

high-octane typing

Yesterday, I was assigned 500 lines of data entry to complete. The person who was assigning it kept 500 lines to complete herself, and gave 500 lines to the receptionist. She told us that she would check with us this afternoon to see whether it seemed like we would be able to finish by the end of the day Thursday.

I scoffed. I vowed that I would be completely done before she asked this afternoon.

Right now, I'm looking at line 314. Despite the cramps in my shoulder from sitting in the same position and hitting the same keys over and over for hours, I may not finish today.

But I saw something at lunch that tempered my disappointment. The receptionist is on line 84.

Okay, she probably had a ton more distractions than I did, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, blah blah blah I win!