Category Archives: Trabajo

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“Underwear in my backpocket, sure sign of the morning after”

I had one of my worst days yesterday. Found out I didn’t get a job I have been dreaming about since May. Two close friends of mine got the job over me, which is a whole new kind of confusing: feeling of disappointment for me but happiness for them mixed with trying to read this manual on how to cut someone’s brake lines. Talk about confusing. No matter how hard you try to prepare yourself you can never really know how it’s going to hit you until it happens. Kris and Shoshana, remember our Superpower discussion? One of my superpowers was getting every job I ever interviewed for. A much more useful super power than my text messaging and typing power. Alas, the glorious reign has ended.

On a more humorous note, since I looked and felt like crap all day yesterday I decided to dress up today so I can try that whole “Look good on the outside and maybe it will help me feel good on the inside” dealio. I may have made that up, but I have a sneaking suspicion my mom whispered it into my crib at night. Needless to say, I looked good today and felt much better. I forgot my blue shirt which immediately makes people think you are dressed up, but I also had a skirt on and ass-kickin’ boots, as well as a little mascara (gasp!). Many a compliment was given to me throughout the day and my spirits were lifting. I honestly couldn’t believe how much better I was handling things today in comparison to yesterday’s hourly cry in the bathroom and clothes that smelt like a bar (had to drink my sorrows away a bit the night before).

Even as I was walking to use the restroom for its actual purpose instead of as a giant kleenex, I thought to myself, “You’ve made it through and you’re over it. You’ve pulled your shit together. Well done, Toftie.” A few minutes later I was looking down at my underwear around my knees (they’re never really at your ankles) and thought, “Well, Toft, you spoke too soon.” Underwear on inside out. Underneath it all…I was still a mess.

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Pet Peeve of the Day aka I’m thinking of an even better place to shove that spoon

I have found that I work much better at home. I get more actual work done at my home computer in my sweats with no underwear on than I do at my desk in the tiny cubicle I share with a man whose amazing head of hair distracts me. I know what you’re thinking. You’re not wondering what’s so great about his hair, or why I don’t have any underwear on (but why would I, I ask you). What you are thinking is “Hey bitch, blogging doesn’t count as work.” And seeing as we were specifically told we couldn’t work from home, I want to take a moment to defend myself.

If I were at work, Amazing Head of Hair and I would be answering some jeopardy questions from my calendar right now. Questions like “what flower is also a nickname for liberals” or “who’s going to get this peri-op work done” (oh wait, no, that second one came from my boss). Then we follow jeopardy with a tuna melt sandwich from the roach coach (with fries of course). This means a trip out of the building down to the van that sells the sandwich, some chatting with other co-workers, then a trip back to the desk, followed by eating and internet surfing (because this is of course my lunch break). Then after that I feel sick from the tuna melt and fries (what was I thinking…each time) so when I hear another co-worker is driving to a place for food I say I’ll go for the company so I can grab a coffee or smoothie or fruit or something to make me feel better than the deep fried greasy skank that I am.

Now when I get back, it seems so close to the end of the day that I begin my ritualistic bitching about emails I’m receiving or work that I don’t think is necessary, to which Amazing Head of Hair listens attentively because he’s sweet that way and wherever he came from I think he was taught that you give your undivided attention to silly women rambling at their computer screen. This attention of course makes me feel like I need to say more. Before I know it, the day is done, and neither of us really seem to have gotten anything accomplished.

So, here I am skivvy-less in my bedroom and I have already taken care of half the stuff I need (that should have been done all yesterday). Which leads me to my pet peeve of the day. I’m just going to go ahead and post it inside this post because it seems somewhat relevant to my morning.

To set the stage, we must remember I’m at home, in my sweats, sans underwear (what a wonderful feeling), and ready to have a snack. So I grab the GIANT tupperware container from my fridge and sit down with a fork to gorge myself on the contents. It’s obviously not fries, although now that sounds good, but instead it is a big thing of fruit. I made stir fry last night so in trade my sister cut up pineapple, peaches, and strawberries for dessert. And when I say giant tupperware container, I’m talking the size of a basketball. But it’s fruit right, so I can’t feel like a total fat ass.

Anyhow, I open the container (still feeing a little rebellious that I’m planning to just sit and eat out of it like a trough) and what do I find? A big silver spoon sitting on top of the fruit. Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m not very picky or anal or anything like that. Honestly, my sister thinks I’m a slob and that I behave like a man most of the time especially when I don’t notice things like the newly mown lawn OR the blooming flowers OR that she just put toilet bowl cleaner in the toilet and how could I not have noticed that! (For the record, the toilet is for peeing and I had to pee. I didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom, because I’ve peed a million times before and I know how to do it in the dark, so NO, I did not notice the blue water waiting to be scrubbed.)

But I do have a few things about the kitchen and the fridge that put me in the less than male category. Do NOT put leftovers in the fridge with nothing covering them (and as my former roommate will attest to, another plate turned over on top of that plate of food does not constitute covering it: Tupperware, plastic wrap, some sort of smell blocker so my milk doesn’t taste like mushrooms or curry or fish.) I also don’t understand why even if you’re not going to wash the dish that you’ve set by the sink tonight, you can’t just rinse the food off so I don’t have to use sandpaper to get whatever that crud is off the dish.

But finally, I know you didn’t want to wash the spoon. I know exactly what your thought process was. You used that spoon for the salad, you don’t want to wash it, you leave it in the tupperware container with the fruit thinking that you’ll use it again when you get more fruit. Tell me honestly, that spoon is friggin’ cold to touch now that’s it’s been in the fridge all night. You know what else? It’s sticky as hell from all the fruit. Are you going to use it? I didn’t think so.

Just so we’re clear, I’m using this as a means to justify the fact I just ate all the pineapple. Sorry.

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The Abduction of Liz Bear

How many of you have met my Teddy Bear? You may remember her from stories such as “Liz Bear Hangs in London” which was immediately followed by the sequel, “Liz Bear Takes on Those Blasted French.” There was once an expose on her travels through Europe by rail and she’s even been featured in a Midwest local news article while there on research titled “Liz Bear and the Lake Okoboji Monster” (picture to come, waiting for copyright release).

After 28 years of love and travel, Liz Bear has gone through many an Extreme Makeover. It was hard to get her to lose the neck bandage as seen in the previous clippings, but she braved it and had a stuffing implant done with some fur grafting in the form of fabric stickons. Needless to say, when you go cheap (I told her not to get it done in East LA), you get bad results. When she arrived in Olympia for yet another work trip, she confided in me that beyond the vanity, she was merely concerned her insides were trailing behind her and it was not just humiliating, but possibly detrimental to her health.

Seeing as I love her dearly and would do anything for her, I marched right out to the best doctor (JoAnn Fabrics) and bought more fur grafting bits. Since I had left my operating instruments at home I decided to bring her into the clinic with me and borrow the scissors there. She said she would sit tight on my laptop and hang for the day in the Blue Cave where all the other Blue shirts come and go, while I went to work.

And then disaster struck. I returned to the Blue Cave at lunch, excited to begin surgery, and she was gone. Vanished! All that was left was an email with the following picture: Ransom Demands to follow.

Needless to say, I was distraught. Liz Bear’s life was in danger and worse yet, she wasn’t in her healthiest state! I sent out an email to all blue shirts, begging for her return and pleading with the kidnappers to treat her well.

Then bad turned to worse. The kidnapper (a Ms. Talbot) confessed, but only to inform me Liz Bear had been stolen from her! The next day Ms. Talbot received this in an interoffice mail envelope with the note: Who’s Katie going to blame now?

Ms. Talbot sent an email out informing all blue shirts of the terrible news that Liz Bear’s remains had been discovered and that a service would be held in her honor. I was appropriately devastated for a week and was even brought in to identify her remains.

Then on Sunday everyone received the following email from Liz Bear:

Hello all! During my traumatic kidnapping I managed to escape my evil captor by MacGyvering my way out of the Blue Cave. I stacked up a pile of to-do lists and some discarded classroom summaries, then jimmied the door open using nothing but a log-in card. To throw the evil Ms. Talbot off course I interoffice mailed the remains of some other poor sap of a Teddy Bear to her, then seeing an opportunity for much needed R&R, I joined a band of renegade Barbie dolls and headed to Hawaii. Boy can those ladies party.

Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll bring you back some souvenirs and maybe I’ll only get one body part pierced while I’m here. Disregard the “cigarette” in my mouth, it was all for show. I swear it.

And just so you all can quiver with jealousy, here’s a picture of me with my new lady.

Alive and kickin’,
Liz Bear Toft

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Ted, stop glaring at me.

Working in Olympia for the next two months. Staying in a hotel all week except on the weekends. Tired tired tired. Loving it though. Can’t get myself to blog, but have lots to say.

Maria and Ted are trying to encourage me. We’ll see if I can get back to this. Just not right now. 🙂

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Bring Back Nap Time!

“I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.”

Okay that may not be true for me, but some days it feels like it, especially this week. When we get to the end of an implementation, the staff stop having questions for us. Once in a while you’ll hear someone yell “Blue Shirt,” but the question will take between 2 seconds and 3 minutes to answer and then you’re back to wandering the halls hoping for a disaster to hit one of the computers. Some departments have more questions than others and I wander to those (even though I’m not assigned to them) hoping to steal a few from the designated blue shirts. But guilt forces me back to my self-reliant wing of the hospital to hold up the wall.

Because of this there are too many of us roaming around so we have what is called “admin time.” This is when you take turns leaving the floor and going to work in the “blue cave” (our room in the basement which we temporarily use as a home base and keep all of our laptops). Working in the blue cave is brutal. It means sitting in a dark room where a few people are working their asses off and a few others are pretending. Meanwhile, other blue shirts wander in and out disrupting the silence with silly comments, unnecessary salutations, and general useless time wasting tasks. Sometimes you are that blue shirt. Other times, you are actually working on some project or another.

Today I had admin time. After surfing on my laptop with a snack in hand I found my eyes fighting to stay open. I grabbed my keys, headed to the garage, climbed into the back of my car, and took a 20 minute combat nap. I feel ten times better for it and, after grabbing a bit of salad and chips, I headed back up to the floor to relieve my other brain-dead compadres. Now I’m refreshed and ready to answer any question. Admin time has a whole new meaning for me now.

I just have to figure out what to do to make my presence needed on the floor. “What’s that doc? All your smartphrases disappeared? How strange. Well, don’t you worry. I can work on that for you.”

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Katie and her Groundhog climb back in

As some of you may have surmised, my birthday was Monday, Groundhog’s Day. On Sunday night, I had a great dinner at St. Cloud in Madrona with Scott, Tonja, Piet, and my sisters. Despite a few sisterly tiffs, it went fairly well and the waiter even sang Happy Birthday to me in a shockingly amazing voice. Thanks Aaron the waiter!

On Monday, my actual birthday, I was stuck in a new employee orientation all day in Tukwila. But my day was brightened by numerous text messages and voice mails wishing me a happy birthday. As well as a cute pic message from Johnny to my phone. Thank you everyone who remembered. I was amazed by the outpouring of kind thoughts and it made my day a little better. Unfortunately I had an exam and project due on Tuesday so after my work day I went into the office until 10:30pm and worked on my project.

Another thing, which seems to happen often on my birthday, is that I was sick. Still am a bit. I think I got my bad cold from Tonja because I didn’t give her much sympathy when she said she was sick and I even said, “I never get sick, let’s go hang out.” So there I was on my birthday feeling crappy and working all day. Then on Tuesday I took my exam and felt sicker, and then came Wednesday when, after popping some vitamins before training, I found myself in the bathroom hovering over the toilet with dry heaves. Needless to say, my teacher sent me home and, much like my brother the groundhog, I frowned at the shadow of my birthday and climbed back into bed.

The only thing that made it better (besides everyone’s birthday messages) was the fact that accompanying a great gift from my mom of a gift certificate for a cooking class, she also sent me my teddy bear, LizBear, who I had left in Oak Harbor. So there I was, curled up in bed with LizBear, and I was glad to have her back. 28 years together and sometimes I think she’s holding up better than I am.

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Non-profit work?

Alright, here’s the deal. I need suggestions on where to look to find possibilities for my post job volunteer or non-profit international work. I know there is the typical “Teaching English Overseas” deal, but I was thinking something different from that. And maybe for a shorter amount of time. For example, my friend Elizabeth went to South Africa for three months to help build libraries. That sounds good, but I don’t end my job until the end of September so I need to have some options. Probably looking for something that would start after the new year.

So I am hollering out to all you non-profit bunnies: Use my comments! Give me suggestions!

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Amateur Director

Whew! What a week. The video went extremely well considering how frustrated I was with it and how much I wanted to keep fixing it. At about 5:30am I finally just curled up in Kris’ bed and surrendered to the video as is (Kris was on the couch, zonked out by 11pm due to a hard day of travel that started at 3am). I must say, Kris has one of the most comfortable beds around, and I’m pretty in love with my own bed, so that says a lot. Still, his bed was not comfortable enough to make my few hours of sleep feel like more. Therefore, I ran on adrenaline for the presentation (during which Kris had to troubleshoot technical difficulties with four laptops and the projector, thank god for him) and got through it fairly well. But now, as we all remember from college, the day after is always harder. Hits you like a brick and you start to see tracers every time something moves in front of you. Who needs drugs? Sleep deprivation is cheaper.

My reward for all my hard work is this very Blog Kris designed for me. Since I wouldn’t let him touch the video and only used him for consulting on my ideas, he kept himself busy with this. You should have seen some of the cool designs he tried out. The night went sort of like this: “Hey Kris, come tell me if you think I should edit this part of the video…” “Hey Katie, come look at this template I’ve created for your blog…” “Hey Kris, do you think this song sounds okay for the video?” “Hey Katie, I’ve completely changed your template now, check this out!” “Hey Kris, I’m going to blow my brains out if I can’t get this to sync up…” “Hey Katie, let me tell you all the wonders of PHP, it’s way cool…” “Hey Kris, everything you are saying to me right now is coming out ‘blah blah blah’ so let’s focus on me, me, me and my video…okay?”

Well, something like that anyway. What a guy. The blow my brains out part comes to you care of Gary, who managed to work that phrase into my repertoire.

But what I’ve realized through the 30 odd hours of editing, is that I truly enjoy the whole process and regret that I ever strayed from the hobby. I remember in college I tried to get a job right away in the video productions department (not sure what they were really called, but that’s the side of it I wanted to work in) and the guy said he would love to have me since I had editing experience from high school, but due to the fact I was NOT on work-study, he couldn’t hire me. So we all know what job that sent me to. A sweet little local video store. And now look where I am. Well, okay. I guess the video store didn’t have any effect on my life in a negative way, but just think what path I may have followed, had I only been given the opportunity to fuel my interests and build some skills. Hell, I could be a female David Lynch by now. Or at least doing wedding videos on the side (ick.)

So this is my first real blog and I hope it was interesting for you. I’m off to pick up my friend and former co-worker Aaron Smith at the airport. He’s flying in from Maine because he desperately missed Seattle, as well he should. And as odds would have it, my sister Maddy is flying in on the same connection flight through Atlanta, so I get to do two favors in one easy shot. I love it.

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Videos and Blogs -Sleep

Kris and I spent all night working on a video. Well, really I spent all night on it; all he did was work on my template, which I guess gave him a multitude of problems (what’s this about CSS acting all funny?) He has to teach a journaling class in the morning, and he should be working on that, but instead he slaves away for me. Ah, the joys of having geeky friends. Tomorrow we give our big presentation, which I’m very nervous about. Yikes.