Don't Be A Complete Tool

I don't have anything immature and angry to say about anyone during my day.  I was mentally composing a hate-filled diatribe about EmployeeVonMunchausen, but then I had my hair appointment and I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

I usually get my hair cut at whatever major chain of $10-Hack-Jobs-R-Us is most convenient at the time I work up the nerve to do it.  Recently, though, I remembered when I used to actually go to a person and not a shop to get my hair cut.  I missed those days. 

Especially when you consider the negative experiences I've had at these shops.  Pretty much everyone has to comment in a complaining manner about all the hair I have.  Yep, it's a lot.  It sure would be nice if someone who's job it is to cut hair were here.....idiot.

I've been outright told that my hair "was going to be a nightmare".  This is the same chick that told me that I have creepy zombie eyes and that she would be afraid to meet up with me in a dark alley.  Hmmm....you should be, but not because my eyes will shoot zombie lasers at you.

So I've been bugging every girl I know (who has good hair) for a recommendation.  The places these girls were going to were out of the way, or they were booked for months, or their recommendations weren't all that convincing.  I was getting frustrated.

Then Mr. A had a hair appointment with the wife of a coworker a few weeks ago.  I took him to the appointment and I liked her little shop, so we set up an appointment to do my hair.

My hair...is a fucking tool.  Okay, I will bitch a little.  Zombie lady was totally right.  It's completely ridiculous and a nightmare.  It's really straight and nice in the front, then all curly/wavy/birdnesty/ratty/clowny in the back.  It's really hard for me to do anything with, as you can imagine, so I just stopped caring about it. 

I had been curious about getting my hair straightened chemically for a while, but was always too chicken to do it.  Well, and I didn't have a hair lady before, so it was out of the question anyway, because you don't let just anyone do that to your head.  Especially when they're afraid of your creepy zombiness.

So, I would do a before/after, but I don't really have a 'before' that shows how nasty the back of my head was.  So here's a bunch of 'after'.



Someone is a total camera hog.

I'm a crab.  I mean, worse than usual.  I'm developing a cold, which I think is worse than having a cold.  Being almost sick, you know the worst is yet to come.  There's really not much you can do about it, but try to head it off with sleep and pills.

This stupid thing is taking its sweet time too.  An almost cough one day, an almost sore throat the next, a semi-stuffy nose in the meantime.  So, right now, tuning it all out is much more preferable than focusing on it and wallowing in my misery.

I think I'll listen to music:

Mr. A: You're just wearing your headphones so you don't have to talk to me.
Me: Yup, pretty much...
Mr. A: What are you listening to?
Me: Whatever I want.  It's a 60G iPod.  I have a lot of shit on here.  Right now it's Disturbed, but I think I'm really in a Sarah McLachlan mood.
Mr. A: How can you listen to Disturbed and then Sarah McLachlan?
Me: Fucking talent?
Mr. A: That's why you don't control the radio.
Me: Can I put my headphones back on now?

So, maybe I'll read:

Mr. A: What are you reading now?
Me: A book. Shhhhhh.
*5 minutes later*
Mr. A: Are you still reading the same book?
Me: Yes.  Surprisingly, I'm not getting very far.
Mr. A: What part are you on?
Me: The part where I slam your head in my book.

Or, perhaps I'll blog:

Mr. A: Who are you chatting with now?
Me: No one.  I'm trying to update my blogs for once.
Mr. A: Oh.  What are you writing about?
Me: I'm writing about what an annoying ass you are.
Mr. A: Ha ha!  You're a funny guy.

MisManager.  You've kept yourself out of my line of fire for over a month now.  That's got to be some kind of record.  Especially considering the fact that you've only been in the office for about an hour the whole time.  So, really, you've made it a whole hour without being blogworthy.  I think that's still a record.

It's performance review time.  Time for all my little work girls and boys to find out if they've been naughty or nice this year.  It's a fairly easy process, since we meet weekly anyway to discuss their performance.  There's only one snag: EmployeeVonMunchausen.

She's been a shitty mess the whole year.  When she does show up to work, she's a whiny, mopey, backstabby migraine-waiting-to-happen.  She's driving me to drink.

(Ooooh.  Fair warning:  I really, really mean that.  I'm sorta half gone already and I plan to kill more brain cells.  Like, the ones that are in charge of storing memories of her.  They need to die.  Violently.)

So, all the warnings, write-ups, calls to H.R. and the frustrated meetings where we mutually stop each other from choking every ounce of life from her body means exactly nothing when it comes to an actual formal review?  Isn't this supposed to represent her overall performance for the year?  So why are you telling me to improve her ratings in areas that she is a cunthair away from being fired over?

(Firefox is telling me that cunthair is inappropriate.  I apologize.)

Attendance:  she is on a final written warning.  Final, to me, says "Fuck up one more time and I'm going to shitcan your worthless ass."  Final, to you, apparently says, "You only need some improvement and we're very disappointed, but we're behind you 100% sweetie!"  I'm not changing her Unsatisfactory rating.  I'm not going to postpone the process for another week so we can consult H.R. after I've already spoken to no less than 2 H.R. reps, one of which was the head of H.R. herself.  You're not winning this one.  Get the fuck over it.

"B-b-b-b-but, it's like we're punishing her twice for something she's done."  Hmmm.  Except that a performance review is only a discussion tool.  It's not like court where you have to worry about double jeopardy.  We can totally talk about a horrible performance more than once, cross my heart and shit.

Time Management: she's the laziest piece of crap I've ever had work on my staff.  She also likes to throw everyone else on the staff under the bus because she can't get shit done.  It's evidently everybody else's responsibility to make sure that her work is completed in a timely manner.  Her biggest problem is that she volunteers to do every little shit project under the sun -- so long as she can avoid her assigned duties.  You say that this Meets Expectations.  On what planet?  We've had to strip her of all responsibilities with the exception of one report every Monday and 2 reports on the 16th of every month.  Last time I bitched to you about her, what was it in regard to?  Oh yeah!  The fact that she still whines about not being able to get that done.  Unsatisfactory.  I had to remind you that she just pulled that blame-shifting bullshit on you this morning before you left the rating alone.  You really do have the memory of a gnat, don't you?

Communication:  She won't talk to me unless it's a complaint about you.  She won't talk to you unless it's a complaint about me.  She tries to assign me her work.  She sends 'all employee' instructions to the staff.  Unsatisfactory.  After pulling out copies of all the memos and other documentation of every instance of this over the last year, you stop fighting me on the rating.  Good girl.

Self Development:  Again, we've had to strip her of almost all responsibility.  She's sort of anti-learning right now.  Unlearning.  Whatever.  This would be the opposite of where we should hope the staff will go. Unsatisfactory.  I felt bad for you at this point.  I mean, I was seriously kicking your ass all over the place on the rest of the ratings, so I let you have this one Needs Improvement.  I'm such an awesome person. 

(I don't even remember where this is all going.  Vodka, you've done your job.  You get an overall rating of Outstanding.)

*with extra exclamation points, to make sure that Wen is paying attention*

Motorcycle riders of Phoenix, hear me now!

From this day forward, no one gets to whine about us car drivers that don't see your dumb asses until you clean up your act.  This would include the following:

1. Stop riding the solid white line between the carpool and the 'fast' lane. 
2. The emergency median is not your private lane.
3. Do not cut across 5 lanes of traffic at 96 MPH.
4. Racing....seriously?  There are tracks for that all over the valley.  Go find one.

Until this stops, I will not shed a tear for the smear you leave behind.

Yeah, I'm talking to you assholes.  The ones blocking all the parking to the office I worked out of today.  You're very lucky that it A) wasn't my office and B) MisManager was afraid of you or there would have been a swarm of tow trucks out to haul away all 7 of your work trucks and (if we could somehow manage it) your steam roller and cement truck.  (Oh, and the cement truck -- double parked in the handicap spaces.)


Don't think I won't.  I'm just as douchey as the manager from Waiting when it comes to that shit.  Just ask the manager of the apartment building next door who told 15 of her tenants to park in our lot when they repaved.

I made some tow truck company very happy that day.

I am still amazed somehow at the levels of assholery people can sink to.  I should be immune.  My actual opinion is that I'm 33 years old, and in all my years I should have come across every kind of twat-faced scum monkey on the planet.  I mean, surely, eh?

Now that our ordeal with our daughter is over, and I've gotten some sleep, I'm finally able to write about the pricks we shared a hospital room with.

To get this out of the way, they were there because their 5 month old daughter had some sort of upper respiratory infection.  The baby was on oxygen and every cough sounded like a death rattle.  Both my husband and I were in anguish over that little baby almost as much as our own little girl.  This, and this alone, kept Mr. A and I from practicing some cunt punting.

We didn't get into the room on the first night until 3:00 or so in the morning.  It's normally a time that people choose to sleep, so I was expecting not to see our "roommates" until we woke up.  Not these guys.  They were up watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  Even before I knew what they were watching, I could hear it.  In the hallway.  Once in the room, I expected that these jerks would see that someone else and their sick kid was being set up in the room and turn down the volume.

I am so fucking naive.  They kept the TV going at a volume that could only have been intended for entertaining the whole hospital.  At the time, I was just glad to get into a room with my kid and I was so tired that I fell asleep regardless.

Now, everyone knows you don't actually get rest in the hospital.  Nurses have to appear every 15 minutes and look like they're checking something because they love that look of half-asleep indignation on your face.  Not to mention the general hallway chatter that ends up permeating the door, the PA screeching (literally one of the pages that kept sounding while I was there: "Attention: This is our routine test of the PA system."), the medical equipment beeping, and cleaning staff busting in on your ass to remove all that trash you accumulate at 4:00 in the morning.  What I'm getting at is that we didn't need Mr. and Mrs. Vampire to join in on the fun.

Throughout the next day, I learned something interesting: Mr. and Mrs. Vampire actually do sleep during the day.  Ha ha muthafucka!  Not anymore.  That day my poor girl got introduced to something she's never experienced before: an anal thermometer.  I won't go there.  I think it's abusive to stick things in a kid's ass.  At home we do an ear or armpit temp.  Once the end of that thermometer hit my kid's butt, she let out a scream that woke up coma patients in China.

Then in, what I'm convinced was, complete retalliation, they waited until my daughter was asleep and then invited 6 of their closest family members over to visit the baby.

>Bitch break: We were declining visitors.  Why?  Because what our kid had was contagious.  I'm not sure exactly what the hell virus that little baby had, but Mr. and Mrs. Vampire were hacking away in a way that lead me to believe that their child was also very contagious.  It was good to note that they weren't just being inconsiderate of us because we were strangers.  They didn't even ask what was wrong with our kid until the end of day 2.  They thought she broke her leg.  Despite a noticeable lack of cast or bandages. Despite the fact that she was walking to the bathroom to go potty...Anyway, my break is over.  Back to work<

Now there are 8 adults milling around this sick baby's crib.  They're all talking and cooing at the baby and not paying any attention at all to the fact that there was a sleeping preschooler in the bed they had to pass to get there.  Then I hear the weirdest thing coming from over there: "DIE!-DUH!.....DIE!DUH!....DIIIIIIIIIIIIE.....DUUUUUUUUUH!"  What in the everlovin' blankity-blank....?  I couldn't figure it out, but they kept saying it, emphatically.  DIE!DUH!

Finally, I noticed the patient board on their side of the room when I got up to take an Aleve for this brain-ripping headache I had for some reason: Dayda.  That's the kid's fucking name.  They named their precious child Die-Duh.  The bottle said I could have another Aleve, so I did.

After the family reunion was over, we got settled in again and Mr. A and I switched places.  He stayed with SuzieSicko for the night and I went home to remind our other child that he has a mommy.

When I went back the next morning, Mr. A was about ready to choke a bitch.  After 13 years of marriage, I recognize the look on his face.  He hadn't slept much, so I was asking how the overnight went.  Apparently, some time between midnight and 1 a.m., the Vampires called their family to chat.  Then put them on speakerphone to talk to the baby.  Aw!  Hubby got treated to his own heartwarming rendition of the DIIIIIIE! DUUUUUUUH! song.  Sweet!

The fam was back to visit the baby early the next day.  It's a great thing that I thought to bring some coloring books and crayons to keep my kid distracted because they kept moving the divider curtain to block our TV.  I'm going to highlight that in red to illustrate the color I saw every time I had to get up to move it back.  Fucking pricks.

We were discharged later that day and I was very proud that Mr. A somehow managed to remember to get out a very sincere, "We hope your daughter gets better soon."   I wasn't going to say a word to them.  About the only lesson from my mama that stuck was, "If you don't have anything nice to say to someone, don't say anything at all."  A friend of mine refers to it as "The Thumper Rule".  I was invoking that like a motherfucker on my way out.