This is What We Get

Everything you've heard about Minnesota is true. This is a pic I took this morning. April 5.  No 50s until Wednesday.  Ugh.

In Other News...

It is officially colder than a witch's teat (whose lowest recorded temperature was 5 degrees ferenheit in February of 1972) in Minneapolis.  Today it is 21 below zero, and with the wind chill factor feels like 41 below.  Comparatively then, Barrow, AK is 43 degrees warmer which technically puts it into the "warm vacation spots" category considering you generally will want to go someplace that's at least 40 degrees warmer.  Pack up the beach blanket and sunscreen kids, we're going to the arctic circle!!

Watch out for the post holiday crash!!

Economic Tips for Hard Times OR eat Your Heart Out Suze Orman

Even with the economy being in the dumps and jobs being scrapped in the tens of thousands per month, the company I work seems to be weathering all of this ok (knock wood/laminated particle board). I think all of their "margin improvement" strategies are paying off. Here are some things my employer is doing to save money:

Office supplies? What office supplies? It's BYO from here on out.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, literally.

No need to heat the bathrooms, we're only taking off our pants.

Two sick days have been revoked.

We are doing twice the work with half the staff.

I am doing my best not to drown in a sea of ennui regarding the economic blitzkrieg wrought upon us by deregulation and corruption (aka the subprime mortgage crisis). Here are some things I am doing to pitch in and do my part to shore up the economy:

I am spending (hemorrhaging) money like it is going out of style; new phones, new nails, Xmas presents, a TV, game system, and a massage.

I am taking a class so that I will be certified to take a second job wiping drooly geriatric chins (among other things) so that I can then throw my supplemental income directly into the failing auto industry and buy myself my own car.

I am helping to send my spouse through a technical training program for two years so that in the future he will be able to adequately participate in our spending frenzy.

"How," you ask, "Do you stay afloat with all that spending?" Glad you asked, my friend. It's called "debt," and anyone can get into it if they try hard enough--or even if they don't. It's a process by which you are allowed to take merchandise home that you have not yet paid for, without being prosecuted for shoplifting. My spouse and I, for instance, have in our possession many items that we have yet to pay for and we enjoy them very much. Even so, we do have a tendency to bring home new items before the previously acquired items have been paid for, which appears to be a mild side effect of "debt." The only time this practice becomes dangerous is when a member of the household is rendered jobless, in which case homelessness can ensue. Hence my concern around the financial health of my present employer...

Merry #%!+$@ Xmas! And don't eat the yellow snow!

The Crimiss is Coming!!!!!!!

Viva Pandora!

Is anyone else completely obsessed with Pandora Radio? Right now I am diggin' on some Portishead. I think later I will tune into some Dylan or Beck. This THING, whatever it is, is so smart it can, like, read my mind and knows what shit I like to listen to. Sweet jesus jelly beans I should send a fruit basket to their headquarters. (Mmmm fruit...)

 

Finally something makes me happy...

 

The sweet delerium of junk food is losing its power over me, so it's good to have a backup. Has anyone else gained a shit-ton of weight since around, oh, September 17th?? I for one am packing it on and I feel like a blob, I feel like those Mucinex characters from the snot commercials.

 

I would exercise if I had any ambition, but I am wiped out every day! I have to quit whining and just get back to work.... Easy to say while I am sitting on my ass in front of Facebook. Someone kick me, please.

Creepy Romance

Looks like Queen Hoochie of my suburb finally found a sweaty desperate middle aged white guy to call her own. She's been tossing her hair and giggling like a mental patient at every chubby balding asshole the whole time I've been riding the bus. Last month she honed in on this guy with one leg, and he wouldn't have anything to do with her. She's fairly dense and must have thought one leg=easy prey. But THIS guy, he can't get enough. He was glommed onto her with three points of contact the whole ride home tonight.

I was having fun imagining thought bubbles over their heads. His: "Like the moth to a flame, like the hairball to the carpet, I will hover tirelessly, never will you be able to scrub me off of you." Hers: "I pretend to be interested in you so that I do not drown in the abyss that once was my soul... or was it my vagina?"

I snapped a picture of them with my phone all sneaky and undercover like. Initially I had posted the photo after blurring their faces. I did that mostly so I can't be sued, but I'll tell you that I did it to salvage the last scrap of dignity that they were just going to plunder from each other anyway. Then officer Hubby read my blog and made me pull it down because he was freaking out over the subjects accidentally stumbling over it on the internet. Damn!

A Crass Thanksgiving

I am grateful:

...that I do not have to work holidays schlepping coffee, ringing up rich bastards' groceries, standing in the freezer counting pies, or re-hanging the same clothes over and over in a rank-ass fitting room.

...that I do not have to pay for my big screen TV till next year.

...that my hubby hacked my iPhone and I can modify the crap out of it.

...for my paycheck.

...that there's only 25 minutes till lunch.

 

If today were a person...

I'd punch it in the face!

Two Words...

FUCK YEAH!!!!!

VOTE!

For Obama, of course.  

Presidential elections make me anxious.  They didn't used to, but the last two elections were totally corrupt and left the Democratic candidates looking meek, impotent, feeble, incapable, and chickenshit.  Really, I am still so pissed I could throw the entire thesaurus in there and still not effectively express what I felt about the dems each time they conceded without fighting for a recount.  They didn't want to look like bad losers and hurt their political futures.  Well, Messrs Smartypants, nice job keeping up the momentum. See you soon on VH1's Where are They Now?

 

SO right now I'm a nervous wreck because I feel like the Republicans are going to pull out their bag of dirty tricks to help Maverick the Marionette and his pet Princess Prissy Pants of Weirdotown, Alaska. One possibility I can hope for is that the GOP might not be as fevered about McCain who is running on their ticket and at the same time insisting that he is against much of what they stand for.  But then again, he is still an aggressive proponent of the upward redistribution of wealth disguised in business growth rhetoric that the GOP loves so much.  

Tonight I'm staying up late to watch all the coverage and I took tomorrow off work so I can sleep in a little.  I like to watch the numbers roll in and I hope they run in Obama's favor!

I Love Halloween!

I Love Halloween!

 

I like to watch all the spooky movies, my all-time favorite being The Changeling with George C. Scott.  I love carving pumpkins, and I am going to try to talk my sick hubby into doing this tonight but he tends to be a bit of a spoil-sport when he's full of snot. And I am SO excited for the live Ghost Hunters marathon episode on Friday!

 

Last weekend we joined hubby's friend Nick and Nick's LTGF Kate to a Halloween haunted-house thing called "Scream Town."  I learned that I don't do any better with these now than I did as a child.  Even though it was pretty hokey I still had my hubby's hand in a vice grip and I even peed myself a little.  I'm sure Nick and Kate think I'm lame now, but I guess having creepy costumed people jumping out of the dark isn't for everyone.   

 

There were four features but I begged out of the third because it was just too much for me even watching from afar this chainsaw-wielding maniac chasing each group out of the exit.  Really I was done after the second one (where I peed), but got talked into going through the fourth attraction that was, for me, the worst of them.  Partially because my nerves were shot and I had a wet spot in my undies, but mostly because of the strobe lights and the narrow, 8-foot high, day-glo orange hazard fence maze full of horrible clowns that I had to squeeze past.  One of them wouldn't leave me alone even after I pushed his rubber nose in (I was warned earlier, "No touching ma'am").  Then I started to get dizzy and nauseated from the lights so Hubby escorted me out of the emergency exit with mister clingy-clown right on his heels.  Good times...

 

I always thought it would be the coolest thing ever to go ghost hunting with all the cameras and gadgets, but now after this weekend...  Although, real ghosts are less likely to wield chainsaws or wear rubber masks, so I still really want to try it! I'll just wear a leak guard. 

I love "F" words, especially "Ffffffr...

I love "F" words, especially "Ffffffrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiday!"

 

Today my direct supervisor came by to ask me to hit her with a question about our job that I might be afraid to directly ask senior leadership, and I couldn't think of anything.  She looked at me quizzically and asked, "You sure there's nothing on your mind?"  I told her there's plenty on my mind, but nothing I would ever be afraid to ask. I told her exactly what my concerns were around how company performance is going to play into our salary and bonuses for next year.  Why would I be afraid to ask that question? 

 

I've never been afraid to speak my mind to superiors, even to the point of getting myself into trouble.  I remember attending employee meetings at Whole Foods and all the cashiers would be pissed off about something and spout off about how they were "totally gonna bring it up in the meeting."  Of course no one would so I would appoint myself advocate and speak up.  And when the leaders would push it back to the group to see who else felt this way... crickets.  Bunch of chicken shits.

 

But not everyone has been telling people how it is since the minute they learned to talk.  Throughout my early r'epertoire you will find such hits as, "You have pimples ALL OVER your face!  Didn't you hear me? I SAID..." and "That lady is FAT!" and the oh-so-memorable encounter with the crazy lady on the bus with the enormous "Big Bird" sunglasses, "Look mom, a MOVIE star!"  You would think that I would have grown out of this, but no.  Fast forward to me at 15 in a blackout after drinking half a pint of Blue 100 sitting next to some guy at a party, "God, you have PUBIC hair growing out of your HEAD!" and laughing maniacally. 

 

Lesson learned: the courage to speak your mind is just as often a curse as it is a blessing.  In those moments I am still blessed with being in the presence of people with a great capacity for compassion who understand that I am just an idiot. Like that poor death-metal-loving-trench-coated soul I was harassing said to me, "Yeah, I get that a lot." From the whole blacked out night this is one of only a few episodes I remember and I felt like a total ass the next day.  Even now I'm lucky enough to have a husband who can tolerate my spouting off--to a point. 

 

So, you know, (gum smacking) I'm working on using my powers for, like, good instead of evil (envision me channelling Roseanne Barr there if you will). And I think it's especially useful at work because if I don't stand up for myself, who will? Granted I have to curb certain tendancies and exercise diplomacy that does not come naturally if I want to HOPE to keep my job.  

 

Without a job, Fridays are meaningless!
 

Sit On It, Wipe It, Flush It Down

I'm working in a building partly inhabited by people who are not properly toilet trained.  Every time I walk into a ladies' room on some floor other than the one I work on, I have to evaluate several stalls like I'm Goldilocks; this one's too poop-smeared, this one's too pissed on, this one's too clogged with fifty paper seat covers... Ah, this one's just right because the goddamn door doesn't close.  Corporate life is the shit!  That was a pun...

The Numbers Are In

I learned this week that our call volumes are up 600%.  No wonder I'm so tired and cranky and gained 10 pounds.  People have been pulled out of their regular jobs from across the company who used to work on phones as far back as five years ago to pinch hit for us.  Basically they will help reduce wait times, but we'll have a huge mess to clean up correcting all their errors.  And then it will be tax season, oh goody.

You would think I'd be feeling secure in my job right now from the high demand, except we are busy at the work of losing money hand over fist.  I'll likely be the violinist fiddling away as the ship goes down like those poor fucks on the Titanic.

Palin: about as smart as a box of hammers... only twice as chatty...

If she were interviewing her for a job, and this was her response, I don't think even Best Buy would hire her.

"Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that's not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are...

"... our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation."

 

SOOOO Not Amused

I am freaking exhausted.  Every day I come into work it's the same story: (and Linka, I know you can appreciate this) there are anywhere from 20 to 120 calls waiting.  It lasts all day long, and to each one  I have to bear the same bad news, "No, we can't give you your money until we get it back from Reserve."  And not just the on the fund that broke the buck, but ALL of their funds are on lockdown, no money in, no money out.  Can you imagine??  Telling one caller after another that they or their client can't have their cash.  Holy shit.  I think I've been torn about 50 new assholes, I'm like a hunk of fuckin' swiss cheese over here, EASE UP.  

Though much to my surprise, many advisors are showing some level of compassion and have been cooperative on all the new transactional restrictions.  And some are even expressing some misplaced sense of camaraderie due to relying on us so heavily during this surrealist financial circus and have been throwing all propriety out the window.  They call up and speak to me in very familiar terms... if this were football they'd be calling me by my last name and slapping me on the ass... instead they're calling me "babe" and "hon."  Fuckin' odd.  And it's not just advisors, I had Dustin from the bond desk this morning say "I love you!" to me instead of "Have a nice day," or "Thanks for calling."  I guess desperate times call for desperate endearments.  Or something.

For the first few days in hell, good ol' Jim was feeding us free lunch, but that gravy train has screeched to a halt as of Tuesday.  Which, I guess, is fine with me seeing as how I've gained back 8 of the pounds I worked my ass off to lose and God knows I don't need any more freakin' pizza or Jimmy John's.  Mmmmmmm.... Jiiimmmmmyyyy Johhhhhhnnnnn's....  Clearly I'm not one of those people who lose weight when they're stressed!  If I was, I'd look like Nicole Richie.  I'd rather have chocolate, bottom line people.

Good lord, I just want this week to be over... Just ONE more workday... I think I can, I think I can, I think I can... Someone pass the cake frosting, I'll just eat it with a spoon.

Mortgage Hangover

The marketplace chaos is made up of a million little shitstorms. I've had the worst week ever at my job and it's all Lehman Bros' fault. One of the money market products my brokerage firm used was Reserve Funds, who were invested with bad Lehman debt securities to the tune of $785M and on Wednesday some of their funds broke the buck.

Which for clients of the firm means that if they had $1000 sitting in cash on Tuesday, when they woke up on Wednesday they had $970. And on Thursday they had $950. CASH. How do you lose cash?  Who knew that a money market could tank? I guess we all do now.

What exacerbated the issue was some apparent insider trading, so our company is suing the Reserve Funds. They were gonna break the buck anyway, but leaking it ahead of time really killed it.

Since Wednesday I've been fielding calls from anxious advisors about what in the hell they are supposed to tell their clients. Well, it's going to have to be the truth Guy, they lost cash. It's gone. Sure there might be a settlement, but we started doling out checks last week on an SEC ruling that was handed down in 2005. Three and a half years passed before people had their accounts restored in that case. So long, in fact, that they now have no idea what these checks are for. This money market situation is likely to be much the same. So, Guy, your client did effectively overbuy mutual funds by $31,500. Yes, really. Sure, I know the money was there when you placed all their trades, but on settlement day the money just wasn't there anymore. Sorry....

Over the past few months I've seen people scrambling for the relative safety of CDs, but even those aren't granting absolute sanctuary. Indymac being a perfect example. Good thing they were FDIC insured. If they didn't learn any time in the past they know now to go straight for the FDIC insured cash.

Economists, bloggers, and people on the bus are predicting that we're on the verge of another Great Depression.  The only things missing are the breadlines and orphanages filled to the brim with abandoned children.  Unless, of course, you look at Nebraska's current situation with their Safe Haven law which has encouraged several parents to abondon a total of 14 children at hospitals, and of course the $700 billion breadline that every financial firm in the country has queued up for.  Hmm, do I smell financial ruin?

The Dust Settles

Our landlady raised the rent on our poor asses just as we were trying to get everything together to get Hubby into school.  It was enough to prompt us to move:$95 a month.  Is that bitch crazy? Yes.  

Everything she told us when we initially moved in proved to be complete fabrication.  She said she wanted to get away from renting to students because they turnover so fast and do more damage to the property so she would prefer to rent to professionals like us.  But every apartment that turned over in the year we lived there--which would be every single one of them--was rented to groups of students.  She said she wasn't a slumlord and that if something wasn't working or up to code to tell her right away and she would fix it... give or take six months!  And last but certainly not least, she said she valued us as clients and appreciated the care we took in the apartment--but she sure didn't try to retain our tenancy.  And who is now living in our old place? You guessed it, a herd of students.

Meanwhile, we took a deal on a little sheetrock box apartment in the suburbs: "look and lease" and you get the first month of rent free.  It worked out swell financially.  It's cheaper with more amenities and is still within a half mile of the bus going into the city.  It's an apartment complex, which I hold in the same esteem as a trailer park, but I'm starting to get over it.  It's maintained really well and the view is freaking spectacular off of our little 10'x6' deck.  And it's so quiet I can actually hear my TV.

But I'm already homesick for my grownup looking apartment with all the beautiful woodwork and buffet and new kitchen and bath fixtures.  I miss than no one will be able to "drop in" on the way to someplace anymore.  My sister Alyssa and my brother Mike ganged up on me, chastised me, and called me a loser.  I could just cry. But such is life, this wasn't the first time I had to pack up and get out of an apartment I liked so I'll adjust.

Hey, you know, I just cheered myself up remembering that I took the next week off to avoid the Republican National Convention.  Fuckin' republicans.  But now living out here in the 'burbs I don't have to deal with it at all!  Nice.