They call her ol' one-shoe

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True Story. Just yesterday, I DID, in fact get my shoe wedged in the seam between the door and the step of the work shuttle that brings us back to our cars. I was already 3/4 of the way out of the van and managed to just barely avoid falling flat on my face. That still left me on my knees in the middle of the parking lot with only one shoe, though.

It would have been a lot more embarrassing if I hadn't personally found it so completely hilarious. All that time spent imagining that I could exit the van with the grace and form of an expert gymnast . . . What a waste!

Roommate Rumble

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So, a job in Connecticut must beget an apartment in Connecticut, right? 'Cause there's no way in hell I was going to drive to and from Jersey every night. Wasn't going to happen. So where does one who is broke, and relatively friendless find housing on the cheap?

Craigslist, of course! Except that the results of any given search on Craigslist varies greatly. I do not think the majority of people in the world are crazy, but I think it's safe to say that a solid percentage of the folks posting on Craigslist might just be certifiably insane. If they weren't insisting that I could only have a single visitor per month, then they had overzealous dogs, or were smokers, or just wanted too much money. And if none of these things applied, then it was in Bridgeport where there is apparently a magical zone where people will not rent to tiny white girls out of fear of what might happen to them. Curses!

Dis R-E-S-P-E-C-T

There isn't really much that gets my heart pounding more than being called into the boss' office and being told to shut the door. Because once that door is closed, people have not reason NOT to say some really incredibly offensive things.



Maybe I'm just soft from my days working out on the west coast (where they not only probably coined the phrase "passive-agressive", but they also have positive opinions toward taking "mental-health days"), but I was sure that working in some no-name boutique would at least be a little less militaristic than working at a company where I'm nothing but a number. Harsh.

The whole state's just one big (punch)line.

True Story:
I went to the DMV yesterday. I guess when people leave New Jersey, they don't usually come back, so there was a lot of confusion over which forms I needed to fill out and which documents I needed. Was I renewing my registration? Or maybe this would be considered a brand new registration? And by their account, I was missing 3 or 4 documents required to get everything done. Since I've just moved back to Jersey, I needed to redo pretty much EVERYTHING: driver's license, car registration and plates, car inspection. At one point, they also told me I'd have to retake the driver's written test. Which is about when I really lost it.

I decided then that the best way to handle the situation was to simply act like I didn't need any of those documents or special procedures. I figured, if they didn't know the appropriate work flow to give me what I needed, then the only thing standing between me and my fully licensed glory was them. Why not simply pretend that I knew what they were supposed to do and guide them accordingly? Surprisingly, that actually worked.

A quick aside about the NJ DMV. It takes roughly 3 times as long to go through there as it did in California. California was all about those deli-counter number tags. They assigned you a letter and a number and when you were called, they took care of all your stuff at once. In New Jersey, they are ALL about the assembly line approach. First the reception area. Then the document checkers. Then the counter, the waiting room, the counter again. And if you're really lucky, that's when you get to leave. If you came to the DMV for more than one thing, you need to start over again.

If the lines were short, it wouldn't be an issue. But due to budget cuts and the miserable economy, my county (which contains Newark) halved the number of DMVs from 4 to 2. Additionally, one of the remaining DMVs only does licenses, not registrations or inspections. Which means, 800k people are attempting to use this one DMV per year. Tell me that's not an infrastructure problem of the highest magnitude.

Something Fishy's Goin' On

When I first contemplated moving back to New Jersey, I forgot to account for a few things I had acquired since I had moved out to CA. Most notably, my fish, Leonard Nimoy, and what seemed to be about 40 tons of paper.


I'm not the kind of person to go buying pets and then abandoning them. the purchase of an animal is a special contract that says you're taking responsibility for their life and welfare. Even if it is something as mundane as a blue Betta.

Figuring out a way to transport my fish was a bit of a conundrum. There was no way he was going to fit into those little shampoo bottles with their narrow necks. No, what I needed were spice jars. I was sure I'd seen jars large enough to hold Leonard, but small enough to get through airport security. More importantly, I remembered where I had seen them: the Ace Hardware store in El Ceritto had sold me several spice jars for my spice collection while I was in housing for work. I desperately hoped they were 3 oz. or less. Sure enough, the label on the shelf said they were 3 ounces, even though the plastic didn't claim it anywhere.

I made sure that when I packed for the flight, I included the Ace Hardware bag and the receipt which claimed I had purchased three 3oz. plastic bottles. Exactly what I was carrying. It ended up not mattering. Security didn't ask.

Leonard Nimoy and I did raise quite a few eyebrows at the Oakland Security Screening, though. And I'm guessing that at 6am (or any time, for that matter), they probably don't see many people taking their fish on the flight with them. Dogs maybe; cats potentially; fish? most likely not. And a few of the security screeners got a good laugh seeing how freaked out I was when they joked with me that they had run him through the x-ray machine. I just about lost it!

For all the pain and obnoxiousness they put you through when you're rushing to make your flight, at least the screeners still have a little bit of a sense of humor.

I'm a Survivor

True Story:


You have to wonder about a company that seriously considers asking its workforce who they would eat first in the case of desertion. You have to wonder about it even more when this company considers this question to be part of "team-building". Personally, I'm not too thrilled that 140 of my coworkers now know that in case of a dire emergency, I would eat coworker Keith. This doesn't make them trust me more, and knowing who they would eat doesn't make me like THEM any better.

Where back at headquarters, so I'm back on a M-F schedule and working 8:30-5. I'm still working on adjusting my schedule.

This comic clearly depicts 4 of my coworkers. I don't think the women will be too unhappy with their portrayal. I think they're sorta cute, and they always are impeccably dressed. The managers however??? My dad thinks I drew one of them kinda girly. Ah well. There's only so much that facial hair can do. You all know that drawing males is not my strong suit. Plus, their clothes are always so boring.

I'm home for the holidays! Hurray!

Today is the first day of the rest of my life

It's official. Today, the people in my position in Northern California are all becoming hourly employees, and therefore, legally "exempt". And all the joys that go with that.



There are a lot of whispers about what this all means for us. Let me enumerate:

Pros
1) Paid commute time! (we were already getting paid for mileage)
2) Shift differential! (not so great for the night shift, which is only apparently getting about 30 cents more per hour than the evening shift)
3) Extra pay for working on national holidays!
4) No more responding to Payroll emails!

Cons
1) Only 30 minute lunches (No more going out for lunch).
2) No combining breaks.
3) We must clock in and out. We've got only 3 phones in our command center and there's as many as 30 of us on duty at a time.
4) No more leaving early if there's nothing to do.
5) No more taking lunches together and the first lunch of evening shift must be taken at 4:20pm.
6) All time worked and commuting time must be signed off by at least 3 people.
7) PTO requests (even PTO that's already been okayed) has to be submitted through a faxed form to several parties who all have to agree it's alright for you to go missing for a day or two.

Seems to me, there's a lot more down than up, but then, I'm a pessimist. On the other hand, it's looking like I'll be getting paid a good bit more, based just on commuting times. Of course, just 12 days from today, we go back to Emeryville, and we don't get paid commuting time OR mileage. Lest you think my company actually LIKES hemorrhaging money.

Bending the Rules

Now that we've been at this hospital for over 3 weeks, there is REALLY nothing to do there. I mean, it's ridiculously slow. Naturally, being an intelligent individual, I am endlessly searching for something to keep me occupied. Unfortunately, nothing is allowed by our "managers". damn. Now we're at a really really small hospital in Manteca. There are more of us than there are nurses! So we get thrown off the floor because we're crowding them.

Twist of irony: I drew this at work two weeks ago, and I am posting this update from work now. MUAHAHAHAH! I'm subverting the system!

Ameritastic!

On Nov. 4th, I wasSO ready to vote. And after the terrible, terrible disappointment of last time (I mean to say, I believe I threw a chair at someone when I found out Kerry had given up on the election), I was SO ready to have it go well. I have thought long and hard about all the regional measures on the ballot, though I'm only voting YES on one of them. I had also looked up the regional candidates and their stances, particularly on abortion, environmental proposals, and education. This was a great Election. I'm psyched for January!!

A Sudden Rush

The generalities of work:

It could be better.
It could be worse.
Overall, I'm just happy I'm getting a paycheck. On the other hand, an 8 hour shift with nurses who are constantly stressed out and don't really want you around... well, they could be paying me more to deal with that sort of thing.



For the uninitiated, my job involves teaching the nurses at a local hospital how to use the new computer system the health-care company just set up there. They have to use the system for EVERYTHING. "Go-live" was on February 9th, that was the first day all the people in the hospital were required to use the program. No more paper.

Study, Study, PANIC

One would assume that if one was in a training class for four months and the average time required to pass the training exam was approximately one month, that one would be quite over-prepared by that time.

The day I drew this, we found ourselves in the awkward position of being trained in the SAME. EXACT. CLASS. as we were in the month before. Same topics being covered. Same doctors teaching us. They didn't recognize us at all. It was as incredibly mind-numbing as it was the first time.



Then, one of the head honchos came in at the end and quizzed us (this happened last time, too, so it wasn't much of a shock). But he decided to act offended that we didn't know how to do anything in departments aside from our own (if "Lisa" works in the emergency department, why on earth would she care to know how jerky a surgeon is going to be when she doesn't know where he should click to learn his schedule. "Tanya" wouldn't be interacting with surgeons anyway!).

In any case, all the doctors started freaking out that we didn't know anything and "Go-Live" is in just 9 days, and our exam is in 2. It's a little late to question your teaching methods, no?

Awfully Glad to be Unhappy

2 Months in to work, it was not going too fantastically. I'd come home very depressed when my shift ends at midnight. And one night's conversation with one of my 'managers' didn't much help. The way things are done at this company really frustrates me sometimes.



I'm trying to let it go though. This was drawn on my last day of work before my "weekend". It'd been 7 days straight, where I'd been doing day shifts, alternating with evening shifts, and it's hard to adjust. I was tired and cranky.

DO NOT WANT

This is how my I felt during my Job Search in October. I was so over finding a job. I'm not even going to talk about it anymore. I had just renewed my NJ car insurance (exorbitant!), and I miss some of my east-coast peepz (I'm a tiny white girl... I'm not sure I can use the phrase "peepz" but... eh. what the hell). Really, I was ready to resign myself to hoboism and crawl into my crappy cardboard box on Vine. Making friends? Also apparently overrated.

But hey, look at me, I can be an optimist too!: Plus side - I have some version of all the clothes drawn above, including that super sassy suit in the first frame, although it's got pants, not a skirt. I'm such a fashion plate, I amaze even myself.

EDIT: And as always, events did not occur as shown. This is just a reflection of how I feel.

My New Muse

Since returning to California I've been reunited with some friends I met back in August and also made some truly awesome new friends.



Skedaddle the chinchilla belongs to one of my old-new friends, but I didn't meet Skee 'til October of last year. He's adorable and clearly my new muse. He just hops all over the place, explorin' and being unbearably cute. I often cannot contain my *squees of glee. Until October, I'd never seen a chinchilla in person before, so this was an unexpected and welcome surprise. So soft and fuzzy.

I'm now making plans to have a chinchilla someday when I retire.

So generic question to OKC land out there, what's your favorite kind of pet and why? Do you think you'd want a different kind of pet when you're older or do you think your preferences will stay the same?

The Ice-Weather Cometh!

The nights are getting colder (some nights it's as low as the 40's, though by day we're still in the 70-80 range)! It reminds me of my times in Massachusetts and right about now is when I would start breaking out my autumnal clothing and remarking on the relative nudity of the UMass campus:


It's true. I always felt like a bit of a prude, comparatively, when I was on that campus. On the other hand, I have no desire to catch a cold or pneumonia or anything. I remember reading an editorial article in the UMass Collegian about the signs of spring. It was basically some guy, lauding the beginning of "skirt weather". I had an intense urge to send in a nasty letter-to-the-editor about how such articles encourage unsafe behavior (dressing scantily has it's drawbacks, you know), and blatant chauvinism. But then again, there's some 10,000 coeds on the campus, and they're gonna dress however they like, regardless of what one incensed Smithie writes in their newspaper. On the other hand, there's another 10,000 male undergrads all kinda hopin' for booty shorts and skirt weather.

I officially own all the clothes I'm wearing in the drawing , which is pretty awesome (This includes the octopus hat, which is one of my most prized possessions and knitted especially for me by a friend). I never used to be so fashionable!

My profuse apologies to any UMass coeds who may happen up on this entry and feel objectified.

The Prom Dress Poisoning

"I'ma smack you up, B*otch!"

My Boxwarming Party

This didn't come off as funny as it seemed in my head. But maybe that's because this comic took me a whole 2 weeks to get together. I'm a loser. This was the last day before I left California to go back to Jersey. It was starting to grow on me. Just a little.

Cue Futuristic Music!

If I really don't want to live in a box in California, I'd better be making a small fortune and not eating (so as not to waste resources).

It's apparently really hard to find a nice place for less than 700k.

Incredibly Vague Harry Potter Spoilers

I'm well aware that most people here probably don't give a damn about HP. I'm ok with that. I'm just gonna take a moment to reflect. I'll be quick, I promise.

I just finished book 7. I have to say I didn't like the ending much. But aside from that, I feel really sorry for Ginny.
Poor Ginny.



Why does everyone treat Ginny like she's nothing? I'd be furious if I were her. J.K. Rowling spent 6 books setting her up; oh, she's a great flier, oh she casts powerful hexes, oh Slughorn thinks she's amazing. And then at the end of the 7th book, nothing. Waste, waste, waste.

They could totally beat you up if they wanted to

I did in fact get a chance to try Kangaroo meat when I was in Australia, both the jerkied kind and steak. The truth of the matter is, kangaroo is just not nearly as tasty as beef. My theory is that they use so much of their bodies hopping, there's just not much fat on them.

But they ARE super cute. And they're so... hoppy! I noticed a lot of animals in Australia hop. It's sort of a theme for them. They get extra awesome points for it, I guess.