Half Birthdays

I decided the Goforth family traditions needed a new item — half birthdays. As timing can be so convenient to suit our desires, my niece Olivia has her half birthday very close to my (very special) day of birth celebration. Wahoo! What fun we'll be having for decades.

Susan, Lisa, and Olivia came to my neck of the woods for the joint celebration. We planned an early dinner at a delicious restaurant on the Coast Guard pier in Monterey. Perfect for my lobster tail and entertainment from the barking seals for a dessert stroll down the pier for Olivia. I bought a Princess cake for O -face (green of course) and gave it to the waiter as we entered to refrigerate. When I ordered the cake I wanted to have a creatively groovy saying like "The Boo Turns Two and 1/2" (Boo is Olivia's nick name) but I ordered too early for the creative juice to activate in my brain.

During our dinner conversation, Lisa asked me how old I was. ""48", I replied with absolute conviction. Susan said "You're five years older than me, you're 49". Older sisters have a way of presenting their thoughts as the ulti'mate truth so of course, I was right. "Not," I replied, "I'm 48".  Susan looked at me with some confusion, "We are five years different." "No, four and half" I said. (Lisa is looking down at her plate and Olivia is playing with her French fries). Honestly, now I'm confused. We went through the high school and the graduation years, to the funny little ways we play with a new year and our ages, and the digits at the end of said new year. No way was I 49 with 50 looming in less the 362 days away. I subtracted the years in my mind. No way 49. As we dove into our meals, we silently double checked our ways of playing with the difference of years. Ok, true confessions. I added the years on my fingers, several times. Yes, I placed each finger, like I was playing a piano, one at a time on the table cloth. 1959, to 60, 61, 62, 63.... I really wanted to include my toes but they were clenched tight and I thought I might miss a year or two and end up at 28. 28 was a been there done that year which is better left to the past. Never the less, I counted to 49 on my lobster dripping fingers.

I tried to be nonplussed by the revelation. 49? What the fuck happed to 48? WHAT THE FUCK?  I was 47 last week, now I'm 49? Last year (or maybe the year before), I was actually carded at Trader Joes for buying a bottle of wine. Ok, so I was wearing my very cool sun glasses, and my gorgeous lips may have radiated youth and my cheeks are un-pocked but I really wanted to see the clerks reaction when I showed my id so I kept the shades one. Precious moment, he was shocked and said we were the same age! Yeah, but we have the no-wrinkle gene in our family as well as the convenient no-grey-hair smart-salon-gene. He, on the other had, needed a touch-up around the temples.

Back to half birthdays. Olivia turned 2 1/2. When the waiters brought out the cake, not only did they put candles in, they sunk the third one half-way down. How cool is that? Being carded at 47 and a half is also way cool, but then first experiences generally are. Happy half birthday to all. O-face came up on my lap and I proceeded to teach her how to delicately poke her finger into a cake to score the first bite.

Ahh, life is an adventure at every turn.

Bad Behavior

All of us, at one time or another, has exhibited bad behavior. My personal pet peeve is an asshole driver who cuts in front of me and then slows down to exit or turn. I had the idea once to mount a blaster-gun on the hood of my car, load it with paint fill balloons, and fire as needed. The paint, of course, was permanent. I thought it would be a good way to identify the assholes and take appropriate action. But then again, I suspect my car would look like a rainbow if everybody had one.

Bad behavior is not just limited to the road but is very common in the corporate world. I adopted a corporate job late in life. Because I was tired of being broke. The thought of being someplace at 8 in the morning was just wrong. Not to mention having a boss telling me what to do, when to do it, and how. It has been a wild ride for the past ten years but not without it’s moments. At my last job, I worked with a man who was a classic hypochondriac. I learned quickly never, ever to ask ‘How are you?’ The response required fifteen minutes of head nodding, insincere awing and practicing my sympathy look. I honestly don’t remember his name but Harold comes to mind. About 8 of us were in a meeting to review something that seemed important at the time but has probably been shelved by now. Harold was the key player and we needed his input. So, there we are discussing said important thing, all of us talking about our concerns, etc. I looked to Harold for his answer. Seeing my best disbelieving look, everyone else turned to the end of the table. Harold was sacked out. As he began not so gracefully catching the zz’s, one person snickered. Big mistake. In under ten seconds, we were howling.

“Harold?”

“Ah, Harold?”

No response.

We left Harold in the conference room. Who ever booked the room after us can deal with him. I went directly to my office, locked the door and rolled out my yoga mat. Harold was definitely on to something I thought as I headed for a nap.

Several years later, Harold was sacked. Not a bad thing (except if you were Harold) but he was out on disability leave when FedEx delivered the news. Not only was the supervisor (who happened to be a VP) bad, she was stupid as well. Canning an employee while out ill is a big no-no in California. Not only did he sue and win over a quarter million dollars, but he was reinstated with all back pay. He retired with a full package shortly there after. That buys loads of naptime. Oh and the VP is still with the company. Go figure.

Unfortunately, my friend Cindy worked in a cubby. What a hideous invention. No privacy. Cindy loved her afternoon naps and came up with an ingenious solution. She made a ‘wall’ of cardboard boxes and taped them underneath the cubby counter. If you walked by, they looked like very efficient archiving. Cindy crawled under her computer in the corner and wedged herself in the space made by the fake front. The only drawback, she once complained, was that the crappy cubby wall was next to a busy corridor. It took lots of practice to ignore the small shockwaves as people walked by. Her fort also had a yoga mat and pillow. I guess she knew Harold too.

Napping on company time gently nudges the bad behavior model. Depends on your point of view I suppose. Definitely not an HR Moment but rather embarrassing to get caught horizontal in the office. Especially with a yoga mat or a co-worker for that matter. One of the best vicious gossip to travel the office was about a temp worker, her supervisor, a blow-job and a stairwell. But that’s another story.

Bringing socks to a meeting falls into that grey area. Playing sock puppet games doesn’t. I was in a meeting recently with five other employees. Two of those folks are from a different culture, far, far, away but still on this planet. Two of the others were definitely off-planet, living in another reality. The Off-planet duo teamed up for a dramatization, The Sock Drama. Let’s just call them Sara and Jenni (two n’s, one i). Jenni pull out a pair of white, gym socks and tossed one to Sara. “They’re clean.” she laughed.

‘What the fuck?’ I thought. ‘Now this is going to be interesting.’ I sat back in my chair and waited. Jenni put a sock on her hand and Sara did the same. Lambchops they’re not. As if they had rehearsed this, they introduced their sock-selves as co-workers who worked offsite.

“I’m Dr. Noguchi.” said Jenni Sock

“And I’m Ms. Sachimoto.” Introduced Sara Sock

“I have a great idea. Let’s reassign staff to our office from the big house.” (big house would be us at the table).

“Oh, what a novel concept. I like it!”

“That way, they will miss the deadline and have to answer to us!”

“And we can let them know what idiots they are!”

Blah, blah, blah. They went on like this for about 5 minutes.

Now that’s an HR Moment.

Jenni is my supervisor. How sick is that. Where’s my paint gun?