Aug 21, 2007

Blocked!

Lots of tele-silence, or e-silence, or iSilence, or WiSi, as the kids are calling it these days. So I go to the public library to, you know, use the taxpayer-sponsored wireless to rectify the situation, when a strange thing happens. I put greatbiggirl.blogspot.com into the browser, and I get one of those No Access messages, with a little cartoon dog on it for some reason, and it says that all access to greatbiggirl.blogspot.com has been blocked. You know, because the public library's filter blocked it.

Now, I am by no means a technical guru, but I'm not exactly a Luddite either, so I knew if the site is suddenly blocked and has never been blocked before, then there must be a reason. So, like any good academic, I read the error message in its entirety. The little cartoon dog proceeds to let me know that my blog has been blocked because it falls into one of the "forbidden categories".

What is the "forbidden category", you ask? Malicious Sites.

Malicious Sites! Malicious! Sites! Well, okay, it fits the Sites part, but Malicious? Malicious?!?! Who judges the maliciousness of Great Big Girl? My nemesis, The Owner of The Company? (P.S. After much deliberation, I've decided his SuperVillain name is Little Bully.) How is this blog malicious? Was I too tough on the chuckleheads who call The Company over and over, demanding "WHERE'S JACKIE?!?!?!" Is it cruel somehow to lay out what you can reasonably expect a secretary to do for $11.50 an hour? Is it too down-and-dirty to tell it like it is about the plight of the pink-collar worker?

Now in most circumstances, I'd think getting one of my works banned was, for lack of a better word, awesome. Getting banned is a signal that you're on the right track, that you've hit on something honest and real and provocative. That's in most cases. But with this blog? Well, first and foremost, I thought this blog was funny--observational humor in which more often than not, I'm the butt of my own joke. Because that is also the majority of my life. But underneath all that, this blog is an example of me being discreet. For reals. For me, as those of you who know me know, this blog is the height of discretion, and I was really proud of the way I've resisted my impulsive nature during this first foray into publishing on the IntaNets and kept things, you know, low key. So unlike me. And all with minimal swearing--also so unlike me. I thought these entries were classic examples of a writer exercising restraint. As such, I can't even imagine the restraint necessary to Not Get Banned from my public library. Maybe I'd have to type with a straitjacket on.

So I'm left now wondering if I should go through the appeals system? There is, of course, a link on the Block Page that let's you submit a site for review by the system administrator. Is it selling out to ask that the public have access to your work? Or are you simply asking for a public institution (as in, the public library) that you support with your tax money, to uphold the First Amendment? I'm pretty conflicted about this.

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, really, I was a 17 year-old girl in this same little town, and the First Amendment was seriously threatened at my school. Seemingly out of nowhere, this small but very vocal group of adults--here's me being discreet and not giving the name of the group, although I remember it well--waged a war against every creative and expressive outlet the students at the school had--the newspaper, the literary journal (I was Editor-in-Chief of both), the student theatre group (honey, you know I was all up in that business), the student art club. Basically everything but sports. Everything where the students had a voice. And of course, and almost stereotypically, they challenged the literature we read in English classes: Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Johnny Got His Gun, you know the drill. In the primary proposal they put before the school board, they demanded that no class material and no student products (art, publications, plays) contain any language that a person would not feel comfortable saying in polite conversation to a minister, a drill sargeant, or a foreign diplomat. (I am not even kidding. I thought all you could say to a drill sargeant was, "Yes, Drill Sargeant, Sir!") I will remember that request until my dying day, and not just because I couldn't imagine what you would say in conversation to a foreign diplomat beyond, "So, what's it like being a diplomat?" or "So who determines what color sash you get to hang your medals on?" And sash color chat does not get a girl into college. And while some of the members of the group were parents of the kids at school, some clearly were not, which made me really uneasy, wondering why there would be these random people insisting that other people's kids couldn't read books or paint whatever they wanted to paint in art class.

So one day, another lifetime ago, The Artist Formerly Known as the 17 Year-Old Me decided something had to be done. A school board meeting was on the horizon, a meeting that would determine the fate of the Foreign Diplomat Small Talk proposal, and while I wasn't really sure what to do, I was the granddaughter of a former Union Steward with the Chicago Iron Workers, so I figured getting the students to band together was the best option. I got together with a couple of other newspaper kids--with the not-so-secret approval of our wonderful journalism teacher--and we drafted a statement about a student's right to educational freedom. We made petitions, and somehow got hundreds of students to sign them in the span of about a week--no small feat, considering there were only about 800 kids at my school. And we packed the school board meeting, figuring that people would feel less liberty to make hay with out educational futures if we were all there. A sense of accountability, you know. It was decided that I would speak on behalf of the student group as the Voice of Reason (being a policy debator, and all), that I would present what we felt our educational rights were and explain their importance to our development as future college studets, as productive citizens, as human beings. So reasonable. So I was covering the logos and the ethos, and the two other journalism girls each prepared speeches that covered the pathos, and they were quite good. And we figured other people would stand up and join in when the spirit moved them, which they did. There ended up being maybe a hundred people at this meeting, and surprisingly, there were a bunch of reporters, and, um, police.

And the happenings of the meeting are still very clear to me, much clearer than they have a right to be, having happened so long ago. The Foreign Diplomat Small Talk group spoke, and I spoke, and the journalism girls spoke, and some other students spoke impromptu, and I remember being really proud of how mature and well-behaved and even-tempered the students were when presenting their points, and I remebered being completely shocked when the some of the adults from the opposition resorted to insults and personal attacks, even getting downright mean, which, being naive and idealistic, I had no idea adults did at public gatherings. And near the end, I remember this guy, this guy none of us kids had ever seen before, show up seemingly out of nowhere and walk slowly to the center of the floor. He walked with his shoulders hunched forward like he was carrying something heavy on his back, and he had a scraggly, unkempt beard and a wild look in his eye. Everyone knew something was up with this guy. He then planted himself directly in front of me, his back completely turned on the entire board of education, and he stared directly at me, standing maybe two feet away, while he read from the bible a passage about a person who was sick, who was possessed by demons, and how the only way to cure the person of the demons was to beat him with sticks. And after reading the passage he explained that that's the only thing to do with the possessed, that the only thing they understand is a beating. There was no commentary about the proposal, or indeed about education in general. He just stood there, staring me--this round little 17 year-old girl, trying to be sophisticated in a suit jacket that I didn't fill out in the bust--right in the face and threatening to beat the demons out of me while a hundred people watched.

I knew that what was transpiring in those moments was indeed Very Important, and perhaps I even had a little glimpse into the future, since part of me knew right then that this would not be the last time I would find myself in such a situation: me, a girl with a demon in her mouth, facing him, an angry man wielding a stick. But what I didn't fully appreciate in the moment was the threat, what with me being 17 and still invincible, having gotten into more dangerous scrapes at that age than I would care to admit, but also having been able to talk my way out of each one of them, using bluster and wit, and occasionally, once I turned 16, a car. But once the meeting was over, I was basically rushed by a couple of cops. I've never been quiet about the fact that cops make me nervous, never having had a good experience with the police, even though I've never been busted breaking the law or anything. So I was confused and assumed that it was some kind of age discrimination, that they thought that because I was a teenager I was going to, you know, vandalize the school or key the cars of the opposition or something. I assumed they thought I was a threat, but after I finally gathered myself enough to ask if they wanted something, one of them said that they thought they should accompany me to my car. You know, he said, just in case. And I saw them both shooting looks over at the demon-beater guy as he disappeared into the crowd, and when I said, in my 17 year-old arrogance, that I was sure I would be just fine, they insisted. And they waited patiently while reporters came up to talk to me (another surprise) and yes, they escorted me to my car.

The whole business went on for quite a while, and even garnered national attention. I kept getting taken out of classes to talk to reporters and such who called the school looking for me, and instead of feeling, I don't know, important or something because of all of this, because I suddenly have the People for the American Way (a very cool, anti-censorship, pro-education group) calling me up during Film Studies so they can get the deets into their anti-censorship annual, I felt every bit like the awkward, rather innocent, teenage girl that I actually was. There would be these reporters talking to me, and even when it was from a big newspaper like the Chicago Tribune, I could tell that there was something they expected from me that I wasn't giving, and I could never figure out exactly what it was. Maybe it was that I didn't talk smack about the opposition (because really, I didn't know the opposition; I just knew the specifics of what they wanted to do to the school), or maybe it was because I didn't lose my temper or get all inflamatory ("Some crazy Chuckles threatened to beat the demons out of me at a school board meeting!") or whatever, but people all seemed a little disappointed after they asked me what I had to say. Because really, what I had to say wasn't that much: that as citizens, we should be entitled to our constitutional rights no matter what our age; that sheltering students from the world does not prepare them for the realities of it; that in order to become educated people, we need to be exposed to diverse, challenging, complicated work. You know. Whateva. And I got the feeling that many people were disappointed that what I had to say was not rabble-rousing, but reasonable if not simplistic, and that they were more disappointed that it was all completely sincere.

That was the kind of business that made me absolutely ache to leave this town all those years ago and never look back. And now I find myself back here again, and the ache to run away hasn't changed. This blog is not Catcher in the Rye. It's not Johnny Got His Gun or A Separate Peace or Spoon River Anthology or even Dr. Seuss. I realize that I am not the best judge of my own work, but since I deal so much with the mundane details of the every day, I'd guess that at its best, this blog is pretty amusing and at its worst, boring to everyone but me. But even in this town, a girl's got a right to be as boring and mundane as she wants to be. And she's got a right to do it out loud.

Aug 6, 2007

Hot Line

Right. So, I’ve been getting some serious phone action lately. Of course, I really want to call it “some sweet phone action”, but if I’m being honest, it falls way, way more into the creepy camp than the sexy one. And P.S., it’s from total strangers.

So, if I may, let me present Case #1:

I have a heavy breather at The Company. But here’s the awkward part: he’s a client. So The Breather calls up, and he’s always panting—either like he has just run a mile or is . . . how do you say in your language? . . . a couple of strokes away from the money shot. And he says who he wants to talk to, or he blurts out some kind of emergency, and then I transfer him to someone, usually with him still breathing just as hard as when I initially answered the phone. But the thing is, sometimes The Breather spends a good 20 seconds breathing before he even speaks. Count it out, people. 20 seconds is time enough for a full-fledged Extravaganza of Awkwardness when you don’t know if The Breather is going to place an order eventually, or if he’s just your garden-variety perv. And it has led to some awkward moments with co-workers, like the first time I had to ask another woman in the office, “Um . . . did I just transfer an obscene phone caller to you?”, all the while keeping my fingers crossed that please, please, little bitty baby Jesus, don’t let that guy be her husband. Here’s what happened:

Me: Welcome to The Company. How can I help you?

Him: (Panting. Really hard panting.)

Me: Ummm . . . The Company? How can I help you?

Him: (Still panting.)

Me: . . . hello . . . ?

Him: (Shouting from a distance, as if the phone is far, far away from his face.) I . . . NEED . . . MARY . . .

Me: Um . . . okay . . . um . . . one moment, I’ll get her for you . . .

Him: (Muttering under his breath, the phone suddenly very close to his face.) Maaaaary . . . niiiiice . . .

Case #2:

So this client? customer? whatever? calls up, and she’s giggling, which tips me off right away because apparently, people in industry absolutely never giggle. And she says to me, “Oh. My. God. You won’t believe it. I thought your number ended with a 5, not a 4, and I called it, and I got this phone sex line! It was this woman saying, ‘Hi, I’m Samantha, and I’m ready for some hot . . . chat . . . .’ And I didn’t know what to do!”

My number at work is one number removed from a phone sex line. And I thought it was kind of great, not only because it puts a little edge in the workday, but also because it also explained the unusually high number of hang-up calls I get. So since that revelation, I’ve been keeping track of the hang-ups, figuring, you know, they’re the dudes looking for Samantha, and I’ve had 37 so far.

But now that I’ve been counting, I’ve become offended more than anything else. 37 callers, and not one of them thinks I’m the phone sex operator?!?! Not one?!?! I mean, granted, I had to answer each call with, “Welcome to The Company. How can I help you?”, but surely one of them could have thought “The Company” was a front. One of them could have been so distracted by his, uh, immediate need that he didn’t notice the “Welcome to The Company” bit, right? Come on, don’t I have a phone-sex telephone voice?

Maybe I feel a little disappointed because to some degree, I’ve always considered a job as a phone sex operator as Plan B. Well, okay, more like Plan H, but still, it's definitely there on the Plan Alphabet.

Finally, Case #3:

And this is where I started wondering if that whole Be Careful What You Wish For business applies.

So around 3am one day, my cell phone starts ringing. I wake up just enough to think, “That’s Alejandro calling me from some strip club in Montreal.” And believe it or not, that was almost enough for me to shake myself awake and answer the phone. Alejandro has done this quite a few times before, and it has never been boring. Usually, he’ll try to shout to me over the music for a little bit, and then he’ll get distracted and pass the phone off to some stranger. And the new person chats with me and gives me a play-by-play of what the stripper dudes are doing. And while the thought of physically being in a room with naked guys on stage is almost enough to make me cry with the horrifying awkwardness of it—oddly enough, presentational public nudity, that kind of faux-sexy (read: actually the complete opposite of sexy) nakedness, makes me supremely uncomfortable from a kind of equality-based, social justice standpoint, since I tend to believe that if one person in the room is naked, then everybody should be naked—second hand narration of public nudity is actually pretty fabulous: “Okay, so, um, the fire chief seems to have concluded that something in the building has warranted some kind of fire code violation . . . right . . . oh, well, and it looks like the fire chief has decided that the violation can be remedied by taking off his pants . . .”

But I digress. That was all just to say that I thought the 3am call was just Alejandro out having himself a good time, but when I checked the Caller ID the next day, it just said UNKNOWN CALL. No number.

So at work the next day, my cell phone starts to ring. And since I’m still looking for a faculty job and my cell is the contact number on my CV, I grab it. The Caller ID says UNKNOWN CALL. No number. But I figure that maybe that isn’t too unusual, since I’m sure most of the colleges I’ve applied to are, from the standpoint of my phone, UNKNOWN. So I answer.

And there’s this man on the phone, “Hello, Lulu?” And I say, “Yes.” And he repeats, “Hello, Lulu?” even though the connection is perfectly clear. And then something happens that makes me realize that this call is Bad News.

Okay, so I think I’ve been pretty forthcoming about the patented O’Brien System of Self-Defense, of which one of the key components is:

If anyone ever says, “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you”, then RUN. Because really, the only people who say “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you” are actually about two seconds away from doing just that.

And pretty much right away, this man says, “Don’t worry—I’m a friend.” And in that moment, it becomes perfectly clear that anyone who says “Don’t worry—I’m a friend” is actually NOT YOUR FRIEND AT ALL. Now, I can’t exactly re-create the conversation for you, because the reconstruction of it is a little out of my depth. The man’s first language was not English, and it was also not a Romance language or a Germanic language, so his pattern of vowel substitutions and verb tenses was out of the scope of my regular dialect studies, so I’d hate to try to re-create it here and lead you astray. But here’s what he told me: He was “a friend”. He got my phone number from “a friend”. I did not know him. (And on that point, he got a little philosophical. When I asked, “Who is this?” he admitted that I do not know him, adding, “But who really knows me? I don’t really know me.” Well played, sir.) That I should not worry, that “it” would be “good”, and that “it” would not be “bad”. And he seemed to think that was worth reiterating, as he repeated it quite a few times during the short span we were on the phone.

And suddenly I knew, in that way that you just know things—like how you know when it’s time to get off the El right away, even if it’s not your stop; like how you know that this is not the right motel to sleep in, Little Miss Drives-Across-the-Country-All-Alone; like how you know that out of that little group of five kids on the corner, those two are the drug dealers; my friend Fifi calls it your Spidey Sense—I suddenly knew : this man thinks I’m a prostitute.

And the first thing I thought was, “This guy thinks I’m a prostitute?!?!”

And the second thing I thought was, “This does not bode well for my dating life.”

Jul 26, 2007

The Mystery Revealed?

Just a quick note here:

I was talking to my sister yesterday about where I should go to get my haircolor done.

[Tangent: Oh yes, I am a total Haircolor Whore. And I guess part of the reason I write so much about money on this blog, besides just being honest and talking about the things we're all probably thinking about but somehow not allowed to talk about, is because there are things that a girl requires. And she needs a little change to get her Tonics and Perfumes and Hair Dressings; her Gloves and her Fans and her Reticules; her Ribbons and her Crinolines and her Historically Accurate Sewing Patterns for Edwardian Under-Things. I am not even kidding.]

So my sister was recommending this salon in Milwaukee, and she said, "Okay, here's the number, so you can just call up and ask for Jackie."

And here's me:

"JACKIE?!?!?!?!"

Jul 23, 2007

Drive-By Truckers

Yeah. So. Above my desk there are these two sliding glass windows, just like the ones in some banks, or in those gas station kiosks where the customers can’t actually enter because they might rob the place. So pretty much all day long, I stare out of these two bullet-guard windows immediately in front of me. Immediately in front of the bullet-guard windows is the foyer (but if we pronounce it foy-YAY, it might take a little bit of the sketchy sting out of the gas-station glass), which is maybe six feet by six feet, and immediately in front of the foy-YAY is the glass door that leads out of the place (i.e. “to freedom”). On the other side of the glass door, there is some sweet parking lot action and a single evergreen tree, and beyond that, there is the rest of the industrial park. The sign at the entrance of the industrial park proclaims the area an “Executive Park,” but although admittedly, I don’t have much first-hand knowledge about whatever it is “executives” do, I don’t think it would require all the semi-trucks that are constantly coasting by my window.

[A quick tangent worthy of editor brackets[] instead of parentheses(): again, I don’t know exactly what “executives” do, but I do know that it involves wearing flashy ties and talking in these loud, booming voices all the time, even though everyone could hear them just fine if they used their “inside voices”. That, and for the ladies it involves a distinct lack of jewelry, while for the men it involves way, way too much jewelry. Oh, and it also seems to involve lots of *talking* about how much stuff has to get done, and lots of very quick physical movement—*grabbing* the pen instead of picking it up like a regular person, speed-walking to the toilet—as if the extra quarter of a second gained by grabbing the pen actually adds more time to the day. But, according to my observations, very little actual *doing* of stuff. Lots of blah, blah, I’m so busy, blah, blah, blah, I need a rush job, blah, blah, pressure I’m under, blah, without actually doing the thing and thus helping to alleviate the time crunch. Again, a totally limited understanding of these executive duties, but I’m pretty sure they don’t need semis just to talk too loud and speed-walk to the coffee maker.]

So despite the sign, I work in an industrial park. And often times, I find that I have completed the whole day’s tasks before lunch, or if I’m really unlucky, before my morning break. Then I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the day while I’m waiting for the phone to ring. Now normally I’d whip out a book, or at least a fashion magazine (see “Ya Get What Ya Pay For, Part the Second”), but as I have already indicated, the rules that apply to the rest of the work world don’t seem to apply to The Company, so I’m still a little tentative about everything I do. First I switched the radio station and then waited a couple of days. Nothing bad happened. Then I busted out the notebook and started writing. Nothing bad happened. But I’m holding off on the books and magazines as long as I can because once that cat’s out of the bag, it ain’t never going back in. So lots of the time I’m sitting there, trying to keep my mind active so it doesn’t atrophy like so much muscle. So I started keeping a list of the trucks that I see driving by my window each day. (I’m sorry to disappoint you if you actually thought this was going to be about the band Drive-By Truckers, who are decidedly more bad-ass than this blog. You can always check them out at http://www.drivebytruckers.com/.) I keep hoping that they—the trucks, not the band—will give me some insight into the nature of the universe, but so far all I’ve learned is that, for some reason, bread can ride in a semi, but Twinkies only come in a van. Here are the usual suspects:

Conway Freight

Plunkett Furniture

Roadway

Healthy Life Bread: “Bread Is The Answer!”
[Note: Is bread really the answer? Is that the secret I’ve been searching for all these years?]

FedEx Express

R&M Trucking Co.

Unlimited Graphix

Hostess Twinkies
[Again, technically a van, but the Twinkies still deserve a shout out.]

TopLine Furniture Wholesalers

Home City Ice

Dayton Freight

RPC Disposal

ViTran Express

Corporate Express

Bonnie Plant Farm

USF Holland

Yellow

Quast

WM Waste Management

Exide Technologies

JafRate

McLane Distribution

Keebler: “A Little Elfin Magic Goes A Long Way!”
[Word to ya motha, Keebs.]

Jul 11, 2007

Ya Get What Ya Pay For, Part the Second

Yeah, everyone knows that the market value of certain job skills are entirely dependent on the local economy. In A Town Near You, $11.50 an hour could get me significantly farther than it does in the Greater Chicagoland Area--although it still wouldn't help me make my student loan payments. So, given my current location, I thought I'd make a list of things you could reasonably expect me to do for $11.50 an hour:

1. Remove staple. Remove staple. Remove staple.

2. Insert staple. Insert staple. Insert staple.

3. I will competently file all manner of papers in alphabetical, numerical, chronological, or, if we're getting a little fancy, reverse chronological order.

4. I will answer phones--even multiple-line- switchboards--promptly and politely. I will answer basic questions. I will happily transfer you to the relevant party.

5. I will responsibly operate the paging system: "Chuckles, you have a call on Line 1. Chuckles--Line 1."

6. I will greet visitors with a smile, and I'll let you know they're here. I will even lie and say you're not here, when really you just. Cannot. Deal. With them. Right now.

7. I will stuff, post, and mail envelopes. (I secretly love operating the postage machine.) I will not, however, lick the envelopes to seal them. Side note: Once when I was temping, an office manager actually expected me to lick 574 envelopes for a mailing project. Never again, people. Never again.

8. I will participate in Office Craft Time. You know, I'll fill out the little Pendaflex folder tabs. I'll create your temporary signs--or "signage", as they maddeningly say in business. I'll make your Safety Star of the Week awards. Again, back in my temping days, I worked at a "solid-surface counter top" factory, and I was once asked to cut 100 4-inch diameter circles out of steel wool. I have no idea what they were used for, but I received endless compliments on how great they looked.

9. I will Solve Unexpected Problems As They Arise. I promise, I'll come up with something. I will not just sit there with dead eyes and a little bovine gum-smacking thrown in for good measure. The solution may be unusual or unnecessarily complicated or Not What You Want To Hear Right Now, but I'll figure something out. A solution you're delighted with? That costs extra.

10. I will respond promptly and calmly in the case of an emergency, including--but not limited to--the performance of the following actions: calling 911; applying direct pressure to excessively-bleeding wounds; keeping someone immobile in case of a potential bone fracture or spinal cord injury; treating shock; keeping someone calm and alert until the ambulance arrives; performing the Heimlich Maneuver. I will not perform CPR, as I've forgotten how, but if an employer wants to send me to a paid, two-day CPR course, I'll gladly go.

11. I will generally maintain a light, pleasant office atmosphere, which, let's face it, is the receptionist's highest (if unspoken) purpose. I'll laugh at your jokes, no matter how bad. I'll small talk the salespeople. I'll do the Non-Threatening Flirt with the delivery drivers. I'll basically try to make your day a little bit happier. Because really, why else am I there? Okay, besides the paycheck.

And for the extra $0.50 . . .

11.50 If pressed, I'll make coffee. But it's going to taste pretty bad because I never get the water-to-coffee ratio right .

Now of course, this list is not exactly representative of what I'm currently expected to do at The Company. As previously discussed, my dollars-to-duties is way, way off. So if you're only forking out a measly $11.50 an hour (in the G.C.L.A.), here's a list of what you can also expect from me:

1. I will not manage, snitch, hassle, or hustle. You want a little hustle? Then pony up, cheapskate. And no, you cannot pay me enough to snitch.

2. I will spend a lot of time daydreaming. My most recent go-to daydreams are about:

2A. Throwing an old-school tea party, with Afternoon Dresses and lacquered trays and petit fours and sugar in little cubes and those crazy tri-level serving dishes where each level is a smaller circle than the one below it.

AND

2B. Standing down in the pit of a raucous concert and making out with some random, anonymous boy in front of the stage.

3. I will make liberal use of whatever distracting media is in the immediate area. If I have unrestricted, unmonitored access, I will surf the Inta-Nets and the Inter-Webs during any downtime, no matter how small. I will find a radio, and I will listen to it all day. I will not set the station to "the Lite" or "the Mix" or "the Lite Mix" or "the Mix Lite" or whatever the hell. I will sing along with all the songs I like, and if I really like a song, I will chair dance.

4. I will write paper letters to my friends. I will write notes for blog entries.

5. I will play helpless or plead newness (as in, "Sorry--I'm new here!") if customers try to get me to do something that is either vastly complicated or not my job, even if I figured out how to do it a couple of weeks ago. And no, I won't tell you where Jackie is: "Sorry--I'm new here!" There is no Jackie. Get off my jock.

6. I will play ignorant about office politics, conflicts, and pet peeves, even though I learned all about them my first week via SuperHuman Eavesdropping.

7. If you yell at me, or a customer yells at me, or anyone else in or around the office vicinity yells at me or otherwise expresses anger/vents frustrations/conveys displeasure in anything even approaching a yelling fashion, I will do one of two things:

7A. I will go blank. I will get that look of frozen shock on my face. I won't be able to respond for at least a full 60 seconds after you stop yelling, long enough for your shouty-shouty to hang on the dead air. And then, I'll only be able to respond in a simple sentence like "I don't know" or "I was at lunch" or "But I don't use the men's room". I will be completely incapable of any higher brain function, let alone address any of the content of your tirade.

OR

7B. I will cry. Right then. Right in front of you. I will not be a soldier. I will not run to the bathroom. I will not take it like a champ. I will cry giant, raindrop tears, complete with big, snotty sniffles. And if it makes you feel terrible or guilty or awkward or uncomfortable, then it serves you right for being such an ogre. For 40+K, I'll take it like a champ.

8. I will not come in early, and I will not stay late--unless, of course, I'm getting paid overtime. If, by some strange glitch in the rush hour universe, I happen to arrive at work 10 minutes early, I will sit in my car in the parking lot and put on makeup while listening to the stereo until it's time to punch the clock, or in the case of The Company, until it's time to stick my eyeball in the retina scanner. There will be no freebies.

9. When I run out of stuff to do--i.e. the envelopes are all posted and the phone isn't ringing--the I will read fashion magazines. And if it's really slow, I'll bust out a novel. Just like the Office Babysitter.

10. I will make lots of lists. Stuff to Do Tonight. Stuff to Do This Weekend. Stuff to Do Someday. Countdown to Quit Day!. CDs to Buy. Mix Tape Play Lists. Books to Read This Summer. Books to Read Before I'm Too Old To Remember Anything I've Read. Important Concert Dates. And so on, and so on.

11. I will conduct my personal business. I will write out my bills and make doctor appointments and make hair appointments. I will check my phone. I will text my friends. However, I will not check my personal e-mail because I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING, YOU INTER-WEB-MONITORING BASTARD!!!!!

And for the extra $0.50 . . .

11.50 If I'm deprived of basic human rights, like unmonitored access to the Inta-Nets, and I've run out of everything else, I will sit and do absolutely nothing, seeing just how long I can remain perfectly still. Because really, you get what you pay for.

Jul 2, 2007

Ya Get What Ya Pay For, Part the First

Right. So, I know it’s totally gauche to talk about money, but you know I’m going to do it anyway.

When I was applying for the tide-me-over-until-later job, also known as the oh-crap-I-have-exactly-zero-dollars job, I was looking to make somewhere between $12 and $20 per hour. Depending on where you’re reading this blog, that may seem like wishful thinking, but in the Greater Chicagoland Area, that’s an entirely realistic range for your receptionists and general office support staff with a few years of experience (which I have). Receptionist-only gigs run near the bottom of the scale, while office support and “administrative assistant” gigs run closer to the top. Even the temporary office positions pay about $14-$20—no college degree needed, just a couple of years of office experience and the most basic of computer skills. Were talking “Experience with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office Suite a plus”. Now, this is not because Chicagoans have a greater appreciation for the contributions of office workers, but rather because it’s just so damn expensive to live here. Rent in my county is insane. Not San Francisco insane, but still.

So when I went a little wild flinging my resume around on the monster.com, I kind of lost track of the places I sent them to. That, plus the fact that lots of companies go through third-party recruiters, and others sign up as “confidential companies,” although I can’t understand why, unless they have something to hide. So, companies would call me, and I’d have to pretend that I remembered sending my resume specifically to them, which was fine, but made me a little dizzy. When I did apply to an MRI clinic? Did I really apply to be a bookkeeper at Peterbilt? So when I was contacted by the human resources department at the Funny Factory, I was kind of confused, but it was for a straight-up receptionist gig, which I could do in my sleep, so I was excited for the interview. Plus, debtors’ prison was looking more and more like a reality, so I was pretty much ready to accept the first offer I got, provided it was above my absolute bottom-line, which was $10 an hour—although I couldn’t remember even applying for a job that paid $10 an hour.

The next day I went to the Funny Factory which, appropriately enough, was a Factory that made Funnies. Well, more like it personalized funnies. You know, you could get 10,000 glow bracelets with “Jackoff’s Family Reunion” printed on them, if you were so inclined. I aced the interview, and at the end of it, the human resources lady said, “Just so you know, the position starts at $11.50 per hour.” And I have to admit I was disappointed—it was the lowest-paying position I interviewed for—but I was also desperate, in the wallet area, anyways, so when I was offered the job the next day with a start date of the following Monday, I took it without hesitation. This girl needed a paycheck. Plus, I was only hired as reception—answering phones, transferring calls, greeting visitors. That’s it. So I figured it was okay money for the job.

When I showed up for work the following Monday, however, the story had changed. Recognizing my potential to do more than “just answer phones” or some such hooey, the Funny Factory had filled the receptionist internally, and my job? “Well, let’s not give you an official job title yet,” Human Resources told me. (I still don’t have one.)

The first couple of days I spent exclusively “doing paperwork,” as they called it, which sounds kind of advanced, but actually could have been done by a trained chimpanzee, or any vaguely simian animal, as opposable thumbs were the only real requirement for the task. Each day, I was given a knee-high stack of packets of paper stapled together. My job was to remove all the staples (usually three or four), separate the individual papers into piles (usually three or four), and then re-staple papers (in a new configuration). Remove staples. Separate. Re-staple. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. All day long, minus one half-hour (unpaid) lunch, and two (paid) 15-minute breaks.

I tried to make my task mythic by pretending I was Sisyphus, doomed by the gods to push the boulder up the hill only to have it roll right back down the other side. Remove staple. Remove staple. Remove staple. Insert staple. Insert staple. Insert staple. It didn’t really work, though. As much as I’d like it, nothing I do is ever really mythic. I once did a lingerie fashion show in the auditorium of a middle school (yes and yes, and yes I did) on the day that the US officially declared war on Osama Bin Laden—that got a little close to epic, but never anything near mythic.

After a couple of days of that, though, I guess my mad stapla skillz proved something or other, and the next thing I know, my days are split between a couple of The Owner’s businesses—half days at the Funny Factory, half days at The Company. At the Company, I became the Office Manager (but without the official title)—phones and greeting, yes, but also invoicing, shipping, order follow-up, ordering supplies. And back at the Funny factory, I was tracking down discrepancies on the monthly charge card reports, creating and sending proofs that “have to get to the client right now!!!!!”, and I was supposed to “hassle the salesmen” about getting their proofs to me on time. Totally manageable but, coming back to my original gauche point, far from the job I interviewed for and accepted, and far, far, far too much responsibility for $11.50 per hour. But by then I was kind of stuck—I needed the paycheck, but I knew I was totally getting taken for a ride. What's a girl to do?

If you’d like to talk to a chump, press 1 now.

Jun 20, 2007

The Art of the Telephone

Here's a little tip for anyone who ever has an occasion to call a business establishment:

Be nice to the receptionist. Secretary. Operator/administrative assistant/office support staff.

Not just not-rude, but actively nice. And for the record, Smarmy Salesman Pseudo-Nice is only marginally better than not-rude. So really, nice. You don't have to kiss ass, just nice. If you've never called the place before, make like you're on a first date with someone who is not only hot, but also gently funny and kind to animals. Say hi, give your name, and act like a regular human being, if not because you actually are a regular human being, then because you recognize that the woman answering the phone Has What You Want. Remember, the secretary is The Gatekeeper.

And while I'm at it, let me chuck you another one.

Tip #2:

If you're told that party you've called for is currently on the phone, and would you like to leave a message in their voicemail?, never demand to speak to them "immediately". Because that ain't gonna work. And no matter how much you play on the windbag about how "it's really important", and no matter how many times you use words like "pressing" and "urgent", you're still going to hit a brick wall. Every time. The reason is two-fold and simple: 1.) If the secretary says the person is currently on the phone, then the person really is currently on the phone, and 2.) unless you own the business, sign the paychecks, or possibly fix the computers, no one is going to dump their current phone call for you.

Now, somewhere out there beyond the InterWebs, on the other side of a Compaq monitor from 1999, I hear a solitary, blustery "But . . . but . . . well, but I . . ." No dice, big fella. Not even for you.

Quick reality check: Dude, you're calling about acquiring Products. It's funnies. Or promotional pens. Or carpet samples. Or getting a Service. Photocopying. Back waxing. Whatever. No one's going to die in the two minutes it's going to take for So-and-So to call you back. I give you my word.

And since I'm on a roll, I won't even charge for Tip #3:

When the receptionist takes your call, all "This is The Company. How can I help you?", don't spoil the moment by demanding:

"IS THIS JACKIE?!?!?!?!"

or

"IS THIS KRISTA?!?!?!?!"

Chances are, you're wrong. And that makes it awkward. Then you have to get into, no, it's not Jackie. And it's definitely not Krista. And if you're all, hey, hey, but that's how I roll, then . . .

Tip #3b:

At lease nice it up with a "Hello there . . . IS THIS JACKIE?!?!?!?!"

And finally, Tip #3c:

Whatever you do, and in the name of all that's holy, do not follow it up with . . .

"WHERE'S JACKIE?!?!?!?!"

Dude, I have no idea.

Jun 13, 2007

Here Comes the Flood

So here’s how it goes:

I come home from The Company on Friday, all ready to slap on my Tiara of Truth and tell it like it is about the life of the working girl. (And that’s the working girl, not the “working girl”.) As soon as I walk through the front door of my parents’ house, my mother says, “Oh, the basement flooded last night, and a bunch of your boxes got wet. You might want to check them.”

Of course, I instantly go into denial, O’Brien Style. Because the basement can’t possibly have flooded when I had the foresight to call home from work to ask the Ps to go to the basement and check if the sump pump is working. And there’s just no way all of my worldly goods could be sitting in a puddle of water all day long, while I’m obliviously sitting at a desk, slinging invoices and flipping phone lines. How could that happen? It couldn’t happen. Because it just doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately, my denial only lasts about 12 minutes. And then I start to sob like the world has come to an end. Curiously, Great Big Girl is silent during all of this. Could it be that her powers are neutralized by water? Or just that Irresistible Persuasion Beams cannot, in fact, persuade a flood away? Could floods be her kryptonite?

So I go down to survey the damage, and it is not pretty. And since I really wasn’t supposed to be living at home in the first place, all my stuff had been relegated to the basement, so all the stuff that got destroyed is mine. I know it’s totally gauche to talk money, but we’re talking some serious money. At press time, I’ve lost over a couple thousand dollars worth of books alone, and I’m still working on the mess.

I am devastated. Devastated. So I’m hauling stuff up from the basement and just bawling the big boo-hoo, trying to rescue things but trying even harder not to get more and more upset by each new item I find destroyed by the flood: My hand-written (and only) script for the original version of Body of Knowledge. Hard copies of all the gorgeous e-mails you sent me. The rough-draft scribblings of a poem I wrote for you during a union meeting. Everything I wrote before the age of 24, just a soaking mass of wood pulp and runny ink.

And really, the most important things in my life are all little scraps of paper: the pictures of us trimming the tree back when I was living at Tart Central. My souvenir from that time we went to House on the Rock—a little paper prediction from the Automaton Fortune Teller, warning me to stay away from a dark-haired man who wears a lot of jewelry. The opening-night card you gave me that’s really a 30th anniversary card. The flowchart I drew up to predict your behavior at my Prohibition Party—the one I never gave to you because I was afraid you’d think I was too nerdy and childish. The Queen of Hearts playing cards I randomly find on the ground—always in my immediate path, always the Queen of Hearts, like a sign from the Universe.

Gone.

So I call up Trudie. (Again, it’s really easy—it’s just like Trudy-with-a-y, only you use an “ie” instead.) And I leave an uber-casual message, like I always do when I ring someone up in a panic, only to get hugely embarrassed about my panic once I hit a voice mail recording. Trudie calls me back, and I give her the scoop, and she’s really good about it and lets me rant:

“I just need one Good Thing to happen—just one Good Thing to give me some kind of hope—between the Faculty Job Search and the Living at Home and the Living in the Suburbs and the Being Completely Broke and the Alleged Video Camera in the Ladies’ Toilets at The Company (yeah, more about that later) and now a FLOOD?!?! I just need. One. Good. Thing.”

And while I’m pitching my little fit, I’m also rifling through my rescue piles, and I reach into a bag of performance art supplies (no, really)—in this case, mainly packages of colored tissue paper that have somehow resisted the water. And out of the bag I pull a full-sized Almond Joy candy bar, completely dry and, judging by the date I bought the tissue paper, approximately eight months old.

And yes, I ate it.

Could it be that Hope has a creamy, coconut center?

Jun 6, 2007

The Origins of Great Big Girl

Here’s the secret:

I’m actually not always myself.

Whenever I got angry as a teenager, I’d close my eyes, and I could actually see an image of myself or whatever shooting straight out of my body and into the air like a missile, and once it reached its pinnacle, it would explode, but not into a million little sparks of color. Instead, it would explode into a vast, miles-wide version of me. And then, high highhigh in the air, tall as the sky and wide as the whole county, I’d bellow in a voice that vibrated the earth and shook the squirrels right out of the trees:

I. AM. SSSOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAANNNGGRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

And I could see the tiny little people on the ground, their faces tipped up to the sky, and I could see the understanding in their eyes: Damn, that big girl is pissed off.

It was really confusing for me as a teen because I saw that un-bottled-genie version of me every time I got angry, or pissed, or righteously indignant. Every time I felt wronged or saw someone else being wronged. There she was, bursting from my body, trumpeting the truth that my soft, human body couldn’t seem to manage. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I found out who she was—that she was the other me, the superhero me. That she was:

Great Big Girl: Feminine Avenger!

Great Big Girl: Pink-Collar Hero!

Now, I’m basically a good-natured girl. I’m reasonable, logical; I like to have a laugh. I like to think I handle most situations with effective, if somewhat unusual, methods and a goofy, bumbling charm. But then there are Those Times—you know, those times when you find yourself in the middle of one of those absolutely ridiculous, This-Is-Such-Crap-That-It-Must-Actually-Be-A-Movie-And-Not-My-Life situations. Those times that are specifically engineered to try to get a girl down. And as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes The Man gets me down—particularly when he has his big black boot on my pink-collared neck. That’s when I feel the transformation.

Great Big Girl: Feminine Avenger! First began her work in A Town Near You, when she used to roam the streets with her do-gooder cohorts in the Genius Patrol—most notably her superfriends known as The Love Handle and Little Sister: Champion of the Underdog!. They stayed out late and fought injustice, all while drinking cocktails and bantering wittily (and drinking more cocktails) in their fiercely accessorized costumes. At the time, nobody knew that Great Big Girl was also a Pink-Collar Hero, since I—Lulu O’Brien—was a mild-mannered graduate student and teaching assistant then, rather than a mild-mannered secretary. And as such, people assumed I had origins in the middle-class, rather than the truth—that I was the big pink baby of a blue-collar family. So instead, Great Big Girl was simply a Feminine Avenger. She fought for the ladies who were wronged in love or bullied by bosses or who, for one reason or another, simply needed a girl to get her back. She became notorious for her favored Shove-and-Run technique, in which she would locate the offender in a public setting, push him down, and then disappear, leaving said offender to be ridiculed by passers-by for having been pushed down by a big girl.

But Great Big Girl has grown up. She has honed her skills. In addition to a Pink-Collar Hero, she has officially become a Force To Be Reckoned With. Here's why:

Great Big Girl shoots Irresistible Persuasion Beams out of her magical push-up bra!

She hypnotizes her target with the swaying of her hips!

She scores all the secrets with her SuperHuman Eavesdropping!

She lulls aggressive scalawags to sleep with her Soothing Telephone Voice!

She neutralizes her enemies with her Surprisingly Disarming Smile!

And here’s what’s what:

Great Big Girl does not get flustered or upset. Great Big Girl does not get bullied. And Great Big Girl does not fall for your tricks.

Instead, Great Big Girl says, “Hey hey, slow down, big fella. Where’s the fire?”

She says, “Hey Chuckles--quit riding my jock. Can’t you see I’m working here?”

Listen, Great Big Girl’s not going to take any of your guff, ya see? So why don’t you just turn around and take the ShoeLeather Express right out a here, Buster.

In short, Great Big Girl has the skills to Get By.

And girls, she’s got your back.

Jun 4, 2007

How Did I Get Here?

I never would have expected this.

Never in a million years.

Here’s the dish:
Despite all of my juvenile protestations—and frankly, a number of adult protestations as well—I have moved back to my hometown in what I call the “Greater Chicagoland Area”, which really means the “Far, Far North Suburbs”. If you take 94 North towards Wisconsin, past all of the posh suburbs littered with private drives and trustifarian kids and grocery stores that hire minimum-wage laborers to remove your items from your cart and place them on the conveyor belt for you; past the social-climbing suburbs with their shiny Hummers and obscene mansion-sized houses on sad little split-level ranch-sized lots; way up to the suburbs that have no real industry and therefore no real hope—that’s where my people come from. That’s my hometown. The town that I couldn’t wait to see the back of. The town that couldn’t hold me when I was twelve years old, let now that I’m t . . . well, let’s just say now that I’m older. And somehow, I’ve found myself back here.

I now live in my Hometown. (P.S. With my *parents*.) I work in an Office. For a Company. Which is mainly a Factory that provides a Service. I commute an hour each way, each day. I’d say that I punch the clock, but I actually punch in my Social Security numbers, followed by the pound sign (#), and then stick my hand into a CIA-style hand scanner. (Seriously. But more about that at a later date.) I have no Official Job Title, but I’m basically a secretary. I do receptionist duties—multi-line phones and all that. I do accounts receivable. I maintain customer files. I get paid by the hour. Very little. You know, your classic pink-collar girl.

Here’s how I was blindsided:
Last fall, I defended my doctoral dissertation. At the very end of August—just in time to make it impossible to find a faculty job for the ’06-’07 school year. At the time, I was also homeless. My lease had run out in the middle of August, and having no job lined up in A Town Near You and, honestly, no sight of the future beyond The Defense, I opted not to renew. I packed up all my stuff and stashed it in my parents’ basement and lived basically as a squatter. My friend Esmerelda had skipped the state several months earlier, and her condo still hadn’t sold, so although the realtor wouldn’t allow me in the building from the hours of 8am to 10pm, I was free to crash there post-10. As long as I was out by 8. So I did. Me, a suitcase, an air mattress, and a Hot Pot. (P.S. There was running water.) So during the days I hung out any place where it was socially acceptable to stay for a long time and not buy anything—meaning lots of time in libraries, Barnes & Nobles, and antique stores. Coffee shops were pretty useless because they expected you to buy something eventually, and this girl was flat. Otherwise, I’d find a place to park and hang out in my car.

So that was that. Squatting for about a month, and then once I defended and deposited my dissertation—becoming Doctor Lulu O’Brien, thank you very much, or Lulu O’Brien, Ph.D., if you prefer—I spent some time driving around, visiting friends and family because hey, I was done, and I had a little time before and Artist-in-Residence gig I had lined up Out East. And when the time came, I hopped in the Biggest Pickup Truck Ever and drove Out East with my friend and partner-in-artistic-crime, Trudie. (That’s just like “Trudy”, only with a “ie” instead of a “y”.) We crashed out with my friend Clark (who is actually a superhero, too, but more about that later). We hung out and made some art and ate pierogies, since they love a pierogie out there.

That was a month, and a few days flying solo on the road, but then suddenly . . . nothing. I had nothing to do. But perhaps more significantly, I had no place to live. I had some cash from the residency, but not enough to rent an apartment, and since I have two cats—Rudy and Baby Girl—I couldn’t exactly live in my car. (And believe me—I tried to figure out a way to make the car work, but a tiny little space with a litter box built for two? Not pleasant.) So my parents suggested I live with them. Insisted, really. And seeing as I had no other options, I accepted.

I spent a couple of months hiding out in my 8 x 10 room, mainly sleeping and watching BBC America. And every re-run of every Law & Order series ever invented. Then I started spiffing up my CV between L&O marathons, and I started applying for faculty jobs for this fall. But then my meager funds ran out, so it was time to get the Placeholder Job. You know the Placeholder Jobs—the ones you get to get you by until Something You Really Want To Do comes along. Some people wait tables. Some deliver pizzas. Move furniture. Sling lattes at Starbucks or fold sweaters at the Gap. Me, I Temp. Usually. But what with monster.com making it so easy and all, I found myself sending out my temp resume to regular office positions.

Which is how I ended up at The Company.

But here’s the question:
What’s a girl to do when she finds herself financially stuck in a quiet, unassuming life, pretending to be a quiet, unassuming secretary, when in reality, she has a superhero inside?