Power Of Make Up

I don't wear make up because I don't want to set the standard too high for myself, but putting on a nice dress and blazer is different because I'm dressing for the job I want and it's out of respect for my co-workers and the work environment. Putting on make up has so many negatives for me. For instance, it requires me to wake up earlier, spend time learning how to apply it appropriately, and spend money on products and tools (I'm a cheap ass).

Recently, I purchased several Butter London nail polishes for a friend and I ended up receiving several beauty samples. One of them was Giorgio Armani luminous silk foundation and just for shits and giggles, I decided to try it out. And holy shit, it made my skin glow!

Here's what my skin looks like with the foundation:

And here's my skin before:

I don't think I have shitty skin, but I sure feel like I do when I look at the before and after. This can hurt my self esteem because I'm setting beauty standards too high for myself, and I'm not sure if I want to buy into society's standards even thought I have no problem spending several hundred dollars on a dress and squeezing my fat toes into heels. Pick and choose your battles they say, and I am opting out of this one.

Prolapse:

Scott wrote “prolapsed:” on the white board, turned to me and asked, “Do you get it?” “Yes, I know what prolapsed means, I –“ and then I erupted into fits of unladylike laughter. Ben, who is eleven years old, looked confused and asked, “I don’t get it. What does it mean? I looked to Scott and he walks away.

I am unfazed by this because I realized that this is one of those teachable moments that you have to seize because the American educational system is inadequate and broken. In fact, I consider it my civic duty. Somebody please drop the banner that says “The more you know” and release the balloons. Children, gather around, your aunty has a story to share.

An individual can prolapsed one’s vagina or anus. It can sometimes happen vaginally when a mother is pushing out the baby and she somehow pushes out her vagina. The same thing can happen with your anus, but in this case, it would be caused by anal sex or whatever.

“What!?” Young Ben exclaims.

This is where Scott steps in. I think he said something like “You know how when you shit you can push too hard? Well, you can push other stuff out besides shit. Google “prolapsed anus.”

There is something I can learn from here and I think it goes something like this, “Google, do you use it Motherfucker?”  

Not Awkward

One of my supervisors asked me to entertain her by telling her some random facts. According to her, I'm really good at that. All I could think of at that moment was a short article I read on the Holocaust, so I regurgitated that. It turns out that kind of stuff is really depressing, especially when your supervisor immediately goes on a rant about how people shouldn't have children during war.

Don't worry, I'm preparing an assortment of fun facts to be store in my mental rolodex to prevent awkward situations like this from happening in the future. See, I am proactive!     

Racist Or Not?

R: How did you get that bruise on your leg?
Me: Paintball.
R: Ping pong?
Me: Paintball.
R: Ping pong?

I'm Asian, by the way.

Over Heard Today...

M: You look nice today. What for?
J: Thanks. I dress like this everyday...
M: No you don't, I see what you wear everyday. 

There's Value in Evaluate!

I had a surprise employee evaluation yesterday, which is much like accidentally raping myself with a tampon. I love how my supervisor vaguely tells us that he’s reviewing our employee evaluations and will be meeting with us individually, and then bam, five months later, he yells for me to come into his office. There’s no heads up on what this meeting is about, but I get an uneasy feeling when I see that he’s sweaty and stuttering. I’m pretty sure I heard a banjo and a pig squealing as he closed the door.

It was just what I expected - another year of half ass excuses on why he can’t promote me. The first year was because I didn’t know enough technology (when asked what he wanted me to focus on specifically, he said everything), the second year was that I wasn’t assertive enough (through trial and error, I realized that actually meant that I had to come up with plan of actions and SOPs and let him take credit for it), and this year is I’m too mean and I need to take trainings. And like every year, I ask for specific examples on what I can improve upon and he launches into an hour long monologue about how he would hate to see me to be stuck in my current position. But this year, I wasn’t going to let him get away with that bullshit, so I really pressed for an answer. I ended up with, “It’s really up to you to decide what you want to do. I have to go now, I have a meeting.”

So my job is to decipher this message. The potential twist in the plot is that it’s all bullshit! I think I’m going to go with that because…ah, fuck that noise!    

ESL

Me: Should I cancel this?

O: Yes, done.

Me: You’ve already done it?

O: No, cancel it.

Me: Can you forward me that e-mail?

O: Actually, it’s already been done.

Me: I don’t see it?

O: I’ll send it to you right now.

I have conversations like this all the time with my supervisor. It’s frustrating because he’ll inevitably become upset and tell me, “Do not misunderstand me!” In that case, does that translate to no means yes and yes means no? I understand that ESL speakers may find it difficult to convey ideas at times because I’ve had to deal with my ESL parents my entire life. For instance, when I graduated college, my mom told me that I needed to hang out at UCSF so I can find a rich doctor boyfriend to be dependent on. I was like, what the hell? All my life, my mom told me to stay away from “the boys” and then suddenly she tells me that I need a rich doctor boyfriend immediately? Something must have been lost in translation so I asked her to explain. She patiently explained to me that “dependent like you go back to school to become doctor and he pay for it.” Oh wait, that wasn’t a misunderstanding.

My mom has been speaking English for the past 26+ years, and I have to commend her because English is hard bitch to learn. Cantonese doesn’t have all the phonemes in the English language (this is why t’s, d’s, and l’s are difficult for Cantonese ESL speakers) and it’s difficult to translate certain words in English so I understand that the inability to articulate what you mean is stressful. My English is pretty atrocious despite the fact that I’m a native speaker and you know that whole thing about black kettles. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to chill the fuck out and be more understanding. Now, I need to work on those de-stressing breathing exercises I learned on YouTube…      

Pat Robertson Is Law

One of my supervisors went on a mini rant yesterday about how her daughter’s teacher violated her amendment rights by telling her that she can’t write about God. She goes on to tell me that she wrote to the American Center for Law and Justice and was informed that her daughter’s right was infringed upon and was also encouraged to sue. Now, I’ve never heard of American Center for Law and Justice, so my supervisor pulled up the webpage and showed it to me. I was alarmed when I noticed that there was a blurry YouTube image of a man that resembled Pat Robertson on the home page, but my supervisor assured me that the website was very reliable and informative. She even encouraged me to check it out, but “don’t check it out if you like Obama because there’s a lot of Obama bashing.” Erm…yeah…I just weakly smiled and walked away.  

For those of you who don’t know, students in the state of California can freely express their religious beliefs as long as they are not disruptive, so I’m all for her daughter talking about God and Jesus in school. However, it worries me when someone believes media mogul Pat Robertson is more credible than the ACLU. But then again, she thought this video was the real deal - 

I had to explain to her about CGI because she’s never heard of it, and even then, I knew that she didn’t believe me. But come on, the shadowing and the ripples in the water were so off!

I’ve always believed that no question is a stupid question because when you’re asking, you’re learning. But how does one transition that to critical thinking?   

          

You Know You Work In Research When...

you look up, there's no ceiling.

The Quarter Life Crisis

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher. My mom told me I couldn’t be a teacher because I would be poor. I was horrified, so I resolved to stop romanticizing myself as Ms. Honey (that's a Roald Dahl reference for the noobs) and find another career choice. I thought being a counselor would be awesome because psychology was the only thing that interested me.

In college, one of the requirements for graduation was a civic duty class. We had to find a volunteer job that was related to our field of study that would help us figure out what we wanted to do in the real world while serving the community at the same time. It took me no time to figure out that it was impossible to find a volunteer position at an esteemed institution because the waiting list went around the block like a dirty trick. A couple weeks in, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer for a “possible” call back, so I  sucked it up and signed up for a position at the YMCA in the Tenderloin.

I was initially a tutor in the computer lab. The kids came in after school and were allowed to play online until 4pm, which was when they had to start on their homework. Every week, I came in and sat in my corner and fearfully asked the kids to log off MySpace and pull out their homework, and they always said the same thing – We don’t have homework. Maybe I should have been more assertive, but when you’re in a room full of 13-year-old boys who were twice your size with facial bruises, you just meekly nod in agreement. I complained to my supervisor and he told me that I couldn’t do anything about it, but it was at least better than being on the streets. I quietly continue to baby sit them for a few more weeks before I asked the director to transfer me.

I ended up playing scrabble with grannies who were former prostitutes and immigrants, and it was great! I learned so many new things from them, but honestly, they didn’t need me, and at times I felt that they were trying to entertain me. I went back to the director and told her that I wanted volunteer with the kids in a way that was meaningful, and that’s how I ended up cooking for them.

I was a shit cook, but I’ve seen my Popo cook enough times to know that you could saute anything with onions and garlic and it would be delicious. For the first time the kids acknowledged me and I think one of them even used my real name! And who doesn’t like to hear that my “shit smells and taste hella gooood.” But by then, I only had a couple more weeks left, and when my last day came, I was thrilled that I didn’t have to step foot in there anymore. I realized that I couldn’t make a positive impact in these children’s lives because their basic needs were not being met. Honestly, who cares about homework when you have to worry about where you’re going to sleep that night or where your next meal is going to come from.   

This changed how I felt about my career choice and I knew that I didn’t have the strength or patience to be any kind of a counselor. I quietly graduated and found a job in research pushing paper. I’m 26 now, and still don’t know what to do with my life.  

Bitch Is Just A Nickname

Our admin group is probably not the friendliest, especially with The Russian who uses her OCD issues as a defense mechanism and T-Rex who hordes and dispenses office supplies according to her personal merit system. I have to admit, I'm not very nice sometimes, especially when assholes come up to me and tell me that I need to buy sugar for coffee IMMEDIATELY or when people call me by the other Asian's name. So it's really no wonder that people have special nicknames for us, but I was surprised to find out that my nickname was The Short One.

There are five women in this department, and all of us are petite, but I am the tallest of the petite! You can argue that I'm over reacting to this issue, and I have to confess that this probably stems from the shame I've felt about my physical underdevelopment in my child, teen, and part of my young adulthood years. Ladies and gents, I didn't lose the baby fat in my face and develop breasts and hips until I was 22. I also experienced a roughly 1.5 inch growth spurt. I'm not a ravishing beauty, but at least you can see that the mosquito bites on my chest vaguely resembles female secondary sex characteristics.

You know the typical rite of passage into adulthood where you got pissed face drunk and slutted around with your cohorts and you finally felt like a man or woman? I didn't do any of that, but when this physical transformation came, it was as if I was finally initiated into this exclusive club! But more than that, it was certainly a relief when the number of men my grandfather's age sexually harassing me dropped to a trickled. So to call me The Short One makes me feel like I'm a 12-year-old boy again, and to castrate me verbally like that makes me butt hurt. On the bright side, I'm not The Angry One or The Old Asian Bitch.

Shit Just Got Real

Personal note from T-Rex to us. Passive aggressive much?

Medicate Me

Based on an informal survey, a couple people (re: co-workers) think I might be depressed, but I honestly don't know because I tend to use my rock bottom moment as my baseline. I'm not on some stranger's rooftop pissed face drunk, so I feel like I'm doing ok. Just to make sure, I decided to get a second opinion. I would ask my closest friend, but she's in Chicago right now. But you know me, I'm just an attention whore and I have no sense of personal boundaries, so I asked my co-workers. Both said yes, maybe. And there there are the several people who have recommended that I start drinking because I was so stressed about work. But I'm not sure because my outlook on life is this: life is shitty and you suffer the majority of the time. Maybe that isn't so healthy? I'm going to call my doctor, but I haven't picked up the phone yet. Is this what being an adult is all about - calling your primary care physician for meds?

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Is That Grounds for Termination?

One of my co-workers has been MIA for the past two weeks, and when she finally came in today, her eyes were red and full of tears. I assumed the worst. Maybe her grandfather passed away or her partner was in a horrific car accident. Even though I don't know her very well, I sent her an e-mail and let her know that if there was anything I could do for her, let me know. Alright folks, I may be a bitch, but I'm not totally heartless and I really meant what I said. She wrote back and asked for some help locating a box of tissues. T-Rex likes to hoard all the good supplies so instead of handing her a box of tissue made from fine brillo pads, I unscrupulously snatched a box of name brand tissue from under T-Rex's desk. I know, sacrilegious! I'm not really good with crying vaginas, even mine own, so I just stood there awkwardly while she sobbed into the box. Yes, into the motherfucking box. Mid sob, she takes a break to ask me if I want to see her guinea pig. I think it's a strange request, but the girl is a mess, so I say sure. I'm faking oooing and ahhing noises over numerous pictures of an obese guinea pig when she erupts and tells me how her guinea pig is dying and she just haven't been able to work because of it. I gave her a pat on the shoulder and walked away. Bitch is cray.

Better Living Through Jealously

One of my duties is to process reimbursements, so people often misunderstand the power I hold. I’m not the one who decides on the policy or the one to reject their reimbursement, but they think I do. I agree that I should have those powers because I wouldn't have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and get really excited for free shampoo samples. A lot of the things I advise them to do is based on experience and knowledge of the policies. I'm not trying to screw anybody over because guess what? We work together, so we're on the same team! In the past, I had a couple PIs who insisted on doing it their way. And yes, it pissed me off that they thought they knew my job better than I do. But you know what, I’m just a lowly administrative assistant who laughs really hard when their reimbursement is delayed or even better, rejected!

I’ve processed reimbursements for crazy shit like a 10 pound bag of sugar for a “dinner party”, six roasted chickens for “dinner” for two, lodging in Monaco (seriously, what business requires you to be in freaking Monaco!?), and every single lunch that my boss takes me or my co-workers (this one is suppose to be a secret). But you know what baffles me? When they attach e-mails with too much information or fail to black out unnecessary information on their credit card bills. The worst offender? My boss. I don’t want to know that my boss invited his friend out here so they can swim in the frigid Pacific together, that what his wife spends at the salon equates to my bi-weekly paycheck, that he has colon issues that requires frequent check ups, or that he calls him mom every day (this shouldn't be strange to me considering that he has confessed that he’s always pining for her approval).

It makes me feel awkward to know such intimate knowledge about my boss. I don't want to go into the break room and see him chow down on prunes and think about the colonoscopy he had last week. But perhaps I have the wrong perspective. Now, let me try on my egomaniac boss's shoes and ponder a bit. Hmmm...maybe it’s because he knows that I love to live vicariously through him? Why else the intrigue in my poor childhood? The disgust at my inability to procure organic strawberries from the Farmer's Market? That must be it!

I'm also pretty sure he's not aware that identity thief is rampant these days. Good thing this employee takes the time to black out and shred his personal info.        

Bitch, Don't Interrupt Me

I work on the VA campus, so you can imagine the hoops we have to jump through if we want to order drugs. Don't get me started on isopropyl...Anyways, a huge issued came up today and I called an emergency meeting to resolve it. Once all of us were there, T-Rex starts spewing some random shit about her portion of the project. I was livid and call her out on hijacking my meeting. Her response? "I'm not finished yet. You interrupted me."

The thing that really got to me is that she assumed she knew what I wanted to discuss because she has had ten years of experience and knows everything. It's not just today, it's been almost everyday day for the past two years since I've been here. She has refused to listen to my feedback, put me down, ridiculed me, intentionally withheld information from me, and so on. I guess that's what happens when you're on the bottom of the totem pole, but why do I get the worst of it from other women?

Is That In My Job Description?

Last week, I got in trouble (not trouble trouble, more like you’re in a world of shit trouble) with my boss because according to him, I had failed to follow up on a particular agenda, but it’s really a classic case of “save face.” He had asked me to review, edit, and gather signatures for an agreement. I did what was requested and e-mailed him the final agreement. I assumed that the project was completed when I didn’t hear anything about the issue. I’ve already presented the smoking gun, so if you’ve guess that I’m wrong, you’re right! My boss blew up at me, and instead of talking to me directly about it, he had his right hand woman talk to me. The conversation was extremely confusing because she didn’t know all the details. But in the end, it really didn’t matter that I didn’t do anything wrong because I should have known to follow up on this project and asked him where this agreement was suppose to go (it had turned out that he had forgotten to send the agreement to HR and thus had delayed the process), even though he did not specify anything beyond “return revised and signed agreement to me.” So ladies and gentlemen, it is my job to anticipate the needs of a moody, diabetic Guatemalan. Why do I feel so violated?     

The Heavenely Scent of Lysol

Engineering came over today for inspections, and when one of them saw the state of our restrooms, he immediately got on his radio and loudly proclaimed, "Good grief, the bathrooms are a mess! There's trash everywhere, there's nobody servicing this! Where's the housekeeper, is he on his break? I mean, this is just embarrassing!" The promise of a lemon scented bathroom with toilet and paper towels is a little overwhelming right now, and a tear is sitting on top of my left lacrimal caruncle and it's threatening to spill over. So guy who works for engineering, I salute you!

Don't Listen To Your Friends

I've made a choice to stop being a whiny bitch and look for a new job. I'm terrified of the unknown, but I need to suck it up and do it. It's not like I need the money and I have resources to find another job. I work hard, and I know I can meet challenges successfully, but you'll never know that if you've ever interviewed me. I comb blogs and friends for tips, practice in front of the mirror, and even have a mental Rolodex of examples of my virtues, but the moment I step into the room, my voice will start shaking (once it was so bad that my teeth were chattering like it was below freezing) and my pits become drenched in the most vinegary sweat.

One of the most common tips my friends give me is that I need to act like I know shit I don't know anything about. And being the dumbass I am, I followed this piece of gold nugget today. So when my interviewer asked me about my skills in Excel, I made it sound like I shat Excel rainbows on a daily basis. So when his follow up question was "Can you please tell me what the "and" function does?" I freaked out and sputtered a few mumbled words out, but I knew I was done. I feel like an asshole for lying, and I should have gone with the truth. So I've learned my lesson, and from now on, this bitch is going do me...is that how the saying goes?

It's Dificult Because You Make It Difficult

We have no reliable janitors at work. Probably because the organization we must use hire these awesome guys straight out of prison or rehab. So we frequently run out of toilet paper in the bathroom, have an ant problem because the trash is never taken out, and the carpet is disgusting because vacuuming is only done once a month if we're lucky. So it's really up to employees to do all these wonderful things, but nobody does it for free. The incentive is not appreciation of a clean workplace but a gift card in small denomination either at Applebees, Safeway, Red Lobster, Red Robin, Chili's, or Starbucks. All very classy and delightful choices I might add. But you know what, as cheesy as this is going to sound, the best rewards come when your supervisors or co-workers notice and appreciate the extra things you do to help the team. I don't do what I do for the appreciation, otherwise I would be one bitter asshole, but it's nice to be noticed. But you know what's better than appreciation? When your boss comes in with a Costco bag size of chocolate treats and starts throwing them onto the desks of employees he values. No chocolate was thrown at me, and I'm butt hurt. I don't work with my boss directly like many of my co-workers, so I don't expect him to include me in lunch outings or try to have a conversation with me when I bump into him in the break room, but what a dick thing to do.

Smells Amazing, Taste Like Crap

We had a site wide meeting for our department today. It's one of those moral boost pow wows, but mostly it provided an audience for my boss to pontificate his achievements. I also like to mention that it was accompanied by complimentary bagels and coffee to entice the enthralled because I certainly was. The meeting did provide a wonderful opportunity to train myself to nap with my eyes open. Toward the end of his hour long speech, I was rudely shaken awake by one succulent line, "I think if you're upfront and honest, your people will be more loyal to you." How I wished my supervisor was there to hear those magical words and take it to heart. But fortunately, I live in reality where the only thing I could do was sip my black cherry tea that smelled wonderful, but tasted like nothing.

Bread And Butter

You know the co-worker that is disliked by almost everybody in the office? Well, there are several in my office. One of them is E because she has selective cleaning OCD. Sure, she'll loan you a pen, but she'll make a big show of taking out her Cost-Co size isopropyl  and sanitizing it before she places it back into her writing utensil tray. But I've seen that bitch drop a Star Burst, rise it off, and popped it into her mouth! I think everybody knows that she's passive aggressively telling you that she doesn't like you, so it's not rare to stumble upon an occasional bashing on this particular individual. But you know what is uncomfortable? When your supervisor does it. Sure, I could have joined in because everybody knows that I love to hate, but remember my resolution? So I did what most people would do - kept my fucking mouth shut and listened. You always have a choice, and I could have said that his comments were inappropriate, but I choose to stay on my supervisor's good side because in the future, I might ask for a raise or a recommendation. And that's how the bread is buttered.

You So Cray

You know you work with crazies when...

1. Your boss sends everybody a fascinating paper on "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments."
2. Your supervisor tells your new co-worker about her crazy cat obsession (everything from how she had to put down one of her cats a year ago because she was pooping everywhere and how she likes to collect strays) on her second day.
3. Your co-worker insists that you change the font for the weekly minutes because she finds it offensive.