Thoughts, Rants, and Musings

[Jibralta]

Yes, Slavic people can be very rough. And for some reason, I appreciate it.

 

My friend was complaining to me about a Russian coworker being too pushy. I was like, "You have to push Russian people back. They like that." But she doesn't like confrontation, so she stayed unhappy.

 

My boyfriend is half Russian and half Welsh. We'll find out for sure in a few weeks when his DNA test comes back. He is unphased by me and my assertiveness. And he can stand up to me, which I need. I'll run you over if you let me. I don't want to; I just will.

 

What is hot iron vs cold iron?

[thealchemist]

Cold iron is more of a cold and calculated rage.

 

Hot iron is a more fiery and passionate rage.

 

Not really sure if those are real terms

 

My aunt married into a orthodox Russian family. They fit along with my Slavic family very well.

 

Drinking and loudly having conversations is a family pastime when we are all together.

[Jibralta]

My eyesight is definitely getting worse. I'm starting to hold things farther away from my eyes that usual because I am not focusing as well at closer distances. I also think that sometimes text looks fuzzy, in general. Lots of things seem fuzzier.

 

I went to the eye doctor yesterday, and she tested my eyes. She said my vision is 20/20 in both eyes, but she could give me a very mild prescription if I wanted reading glasses. She said I could probably just buy a pair of magnifiers from a drug store and it would be fine.

 

I wonder what my vision was before it went down to 20/20.

[Jibralta]

I got a new "mentee" a while back and things seem to be going well. The last guy was sort of a pie-in-the-sky type who (surprisingly) seemed to fear change and challenge, but this guy (Brian) is very pragmatic and does the things that need to be done.

 

Right now, I think there are five versions of Brian's resume floating around between me and my coworkers. That's four more than I would like to have floating around. I edited one copy, and I asked a guy in my office to review and edit another copy. Then Brian edited my copy of his resume. Then I told my coworker at the construction site about Brian and he became incensed and email blasted Brian's resume to about 50 people--after making some edits of his own. Today, my coworker heard back from a potential employer and made another edit to Brian's resume before sending it out!!

 

I'm afraid this may be getting out of control....

[Jibralta]

I’m pretty sure that I just walked down the hallway here at work with my skirt stuck in my pantyhose.

[reinventmyself]

I did that recently. I was leaving the building and entering the lobby. Luckily one of the female security guards chased me down.

Wondering how many had a chuckle at my expense before she caught me.

Oh well. I had to laugh too. What else is there to do?

 

I hope it was frilly pantie Tuesday :)

[dias]

No worries ladies. You made some men chuckle. It's a good thing :)

[katrina1980]

I’m pretty sure that I just walked down the hallway here at work with my skirt stuck in my pantyhose.

 

lol, not as bad as walking down the hallway (after leaving rest room) with toilet paper sticking out of your skirt!

 

Happened to me many years ago, and like reinvent, someone quickly noticed, took me aside and told me.

 

Whew! I believe I was on a first date with a new guy too! Fortunately he was waiting for me in the hotel bar and never knew.

[reinventmyself]

I remember being the sensitive age of 13, at the local rec center, playing ping pong with my friends and . . .boys!

There was one boy I had the biggest crush on.

 

It was winter. I had on a thick pullover sweater. I began to pull it off over my head and half way, just about the time the

sweater was covering my face, I feel a cool breeze. I froze for a moment.

Along with my sweater I had pulled up my other shirt as well, exposing my

bare stomach and my padded bra (I was a late bloomer)

 

I quickly snatched down the sweater and was met with applause and laughter from the boys.

I left almost in tears.

Wow. . I remember that like it was yesterday! Still makes me blush. . .lol

[katrina1980]

More embarrassing moments.

 

I was sooooo shy growing up, in the summer after completing third grade, I was at camp. A bunch of us were hanging in the room, watching tv, whatever.

 

I had to go to the bathroom so badly (only no. 1, lol), but was too shy to go because the bathroom was right off the room and I did not want anyone to hear me.

 

So I held it in. Well it got so bad that I couldn’t hold it in anymore and as I got up to head into the bathroom, it all came spilling out on to my jeans and floor! Right in front of everyone!

 

You can imagine my horror I was soooo embarrassed. When we got back to school after camp was over, my classmates were all talking about it and a few even made fun of me.

 

It took a long time to live that one down.

[Jibralta]

I hope it was frilly pantie Tuesday :)

 

Damn it, me too.

[Jibralta]

No worries ladies. You made some men chuckle. It's a good thing :)

 

As embarrassing as it is, I think it's funny also.

[Jibralta]

lol, not as bad as walking down the hallway (after leaving rest room) with toilet paper sticking out of your skirt!

 

That is bad. Almost happened to me not so long ago. Fortunately, I noticed before I left the restroom.

 

When I was in high school, I came back from the bathroom with toilet paper on my shoe. A guy who I had a massive crush on told me. He did it nicely, though, in a whisper. Then he said, "At least it wasn't hanging out of your pants." That's the first time it occurred to me that toilet paper could hang out of my pants unbeknownst to me lol.

[Jibralta]

I quickly snatched down the sweater and was met with applause and laughter from the boys.

I left almost in tears.

Wow. . I remember that like it was yesterday! Still makes me blush. . .lol

 

Awww, I would have died too! I was super sensitive about those things.

 

I had something similar happen to me when I was in kindergarten. I am well over it at this point and I no longer blush thinking about it...

 

What happened was, the teacher was droning on and on and the whole class was mesmerized. Except for me. I was bored.

 

I was wearing a corduroy dress and somehow I decided that it would be a great idea if I could pull the dress up over my head and back down again before anyone noticed. The first time I did it, no one noticed. The second time I did it, I lifted it so high that my arms almost got stuck above my head. But I shimmied around and got the dress back down before anyone saw.

 

After a moment's reflection, I decided to tempt fate a third time. Well, the third time I did it, my arms did get stuck above my head. As I desperately tried to shimmy myself unstuck, I heard the teacher exclaim, "Jibralta!" So, of course the whole class saw.

 

The teacher fixed my dress.

 

I don't remember anyone laughing or anything. The kids in kindergarten were kind of like cows. They just stared and blinked at everything. I just hated being exposed (even though I did it to myself).

[Jibralta]

It took a long time to live that one down.

 

One of my friends peed in a puddle when we were on a two-day field trip in middle school. During the trip they took us on this never-ending nature walk. It lasted for hours in the pouring rain. Everyone was soaked. My friend had to pee really bad, but there was no bathroom and no toilet paper. Plus she didn't want any of the boys sneaking up on her. I can't remember how this happened, but she ended up sitting in a puddle. I don't know if she fell or what. But she peed! in her clothes! She told me, laughing. Then she asked me not to tell anyone. And I never did. Til now.... but this doesn't count!

[thealchemist]

When I met my wife in high school we had astronomy together. She sat in the row in front of me.

 

She had just came back from the bathroom and had sat down. I had a few squares of toilet paper from the roll we used to blow our noses'.

 

I set it on her chair as if it had been stuck in her pants and fallen there.

 

I then got her attention and pointed to it.

 

She was rather embarrassed, we both had big crushes on each other at this point.

 

It was actually what sparked me hanging out with her between classes.

[Jibralta]

Aw, that's cute.

[SherrySher]

We had rest time in kindergarten, and it was somewhere around just before lunch. But seeing as we only had half days we went home at lunch time.

I always had the same routine, go home, pull off my dress and put on my play clothes, everyday.

I got so used to it that I didn't even think about it.

 

Well during our rest time, I actually fell asleep and the teacher turned back on the lights and told us all to get back up.

I was still more than half asleep and did my usual routine, take my dress off to put on my play clothes. only to realize when my dress was half way off that I was still at school and half asleep.

Some kids looked at me and laughed while others looked at me in shock. I woke up pretty quick and was mortified "Um, hi , yeah, I'm the weirdo kid getting naked in class." lol, Ah well.

[Jibralta]

Haha. Did anyone remember that growing up? Nobody remembered my little incident. At least, not that I know of.

[Jibralta]

my mother had a heart attack which went un-diagnosed for several days, resulting in severe damage to her heart muscle.

 

I pinched this from another thread because I didn't want to derail the thread with my tangent.

 

My friend's husband (Tim) had a similar experience. He's in his early 40s and seems perfectly healthy. So it was a huge surprise to everyone when he had a heart attack last November. Fortunately, he recovered.

 

I only recently learned that Tim had been having the heart attack for days and had been misdiagnosed repeatedly. When he first started to feel the symptoms on a Monday, he went to his doctor. The doctor hooked him up to an EKG. After reading the results, the doctor told Tim that he was ok: it was just stress or indigestion, etc.

 

Tim went to work the next day (Tuesday) and still felt strange. He walked out of his office and into the parking deck and just stood there, wondering if he was crazy. Then he went back into the office and finished the day.

 

On Wednesday, as he was getting ready to fly to LA on business, Tim suddenly felt absolutely certain that he should not get on the plane. So, he drove to the hospital. They hooked him up to an EKG and once again diagnosed it as something other than a heart attack. But then they did a blood test. They found proteins in his blood that indicated that he was having a heart attack.

 

That's how he found out!

[Jibralta]

During my previous career in a Dunder-Mifflinesque office environment, my manager (Rachel) occasionally coached me on my "tone." She said that I was very brusque with people, and it especially came out in emails. I was always confused by this, because I thought I was being professional. I just excluded small talk and filler lines like "How are you," and "Have a nice day!"

 

Now that I think back, I realize that Rachel was kind of brusque herself in that she would often mow over people who were trying to explain things.

 

But she was quite a good boss overall, and I did learn a lot from her. She had a great way of framing an issue so that someone would look at it from another angle and realize that it was absurd. If only she could have helped me like that with my brusqueness....

 

But it doesn't matter now, because I work in an environment where everyone is brusque and no one's feelings get hurt. Very few people are rude or inconsiderate, but there tends to be rapid-fire exchange of information without any social niceties to cushion the barrage. If someone from my old office worked in my new office for a few days, they'd probably get bruised.

 

Anyhoo, even though I never quite got it right in my old career, I do still try to be aware of my "tone." And I remembered Rachel today, when I had to make some people understand something without bashing them over the head.

 

It happened during a project meeting. We were discussing an issue where a client was going to lose a portion of their project's funding because they failed to comply with one of the rules. The funding was coming from a government agency. The rule was that all steel components must be manufactured in the United States. The component in question was a sheet pile.

 

This issue has been ongoing for months. The client is pointing its finger at us (the designer) and the general contractor. The general contractor is pointing their finger at us. Our position is that this issue is not and never was our responsibility. Our structural engineers have repeatedly explained why the non-domestic sheet pile was specified: the domestic versions do not have a tight enough interlock.

 

Late last week, we got an email from the government agency asking if we flagged the non-domestic item in the drawings or the spec. I wasn't involved with the project design or spec writing, so I had to defer to the civil and structural engineers for an answer. The structural engineer fixated on one word in the agency's email ("interlock") and went on and on about why the product was chosen. He was racing ahead without fully reading and digesting the information. to make matters worse, this conversation was taking place over a conference call and communication relied entirely on the words that we were speaking.

 

It was very frustrating, and I was losing my patience because he is a smart man and this is not a complicated concept, and I'm sick of people not reading their emails carefully. I just wanted to yell at him and be like, "Read the f-cking email g-ddamnit." (God, I'm glad I didn't indulge that whim. Because it probably would have come out even worse, like, "Can't you f-cking read??? Read the f-cking email!!!!"). But I held my tongue and reminded myself that it would be completely inexcusable to do that.

 

I remembered Rachel, and how she mowed over people when they were trying to explain something. I've met this guy once, and I've been in a few meetings with him. My impression of him has been that he has a great desire to be heard. So I took a deep breath and said, "Adam, I understand what you are saying and agree with you. We can put it in our response. But right now, we just need to know if the agency was notified about the non-domestic material at the time of design."

 

Well, he shut right up just as if I turned a faucet off! He said, "No... I don't think we did. Let me open the email and read it..... I see. No, we didn't tell them. But we did include a provision for as-equal component."

 

I am so satisfied by the outcome of that conversation. I think I'm making progress on the diplomacy front :)

[SherrySher]

Haha. Did anyone remember that growing up? Nobody remembered my little incident. At least, not that I know of.

 

No one recalled as far as I know. Kids have like a two second memory for most things that young, (thank goodness).

[SherrySher]

"Can't you f-cking read??? Read the f-cking email!!!!"

lolololol

 

I am so satisfied by the outcome of that conversation. I think I'm making progress on the diplomacy front

Yaaay! That's progress for anyone trying to deal with a knuckle head. Well done!!

[Jibralta]

I have a neighbor who is a cop, and he is awful. His name is J. We live in an apartment, and J lives across the hall. There's a no-overnight-street-parking ordinance in town, but J parks his cars on the street for weeks and even lets friends and family members park their cars there, too. He also parks his police cruiser in the lot and lets it run there for hours while he sits inside his apartment. So, he's like that.

 

About two years ago, J would BLAST his music in the evenings so that we couldn't hear what we are watching.

 

After really a couple of months of this, my boyfriend and I were at our limit with J. My boyfriend went to talk to him. J gave him an attitude, but agreed to keep it down. Well, he didn't. So, a couple days later, I set up my phone to record a video. I held it at my side and knocked on his door. I said, "J, could you please turn your music down? We're trying to watch a movie and we can't hear it."

 

His response was, "I'm a good neighbor to you."

 

I thought that was kind of threatening, but I smiled at him and said, "J, you're the best neighbor."

 

Then he looked down and noticed I was holding my phone. He kind of changed his tune at that moment. I still smiled at him like he was the best neighbor on the planet.

 

He turned his music down. We could still hear it in our apartment, but we could deal with it.

 

A couple weeks later, he started dating this woman who is his on-again off-again girlfriend. His behavior improved immensely. And by that, I mean he stopped blasting his music. Because he still let friends and family park on the street overnight and he still hid in his apartment while his cruiser ran in the parking lot -- although he started hiding it behind the building instead of parking it in his own spot.

 

A couple of days ago, I heard him on the phone in the hallway shouting, "B*tch, you don't tell me what to do!" (Did I mention he refers to women as b*tches? Yeah, he does). I thought, Oh sh-t. Their relationship is over and he's going to start blasting his stereo again....

 

It's really freaking stressful. I really don't want to have a confrontation with him again. But I don't know how to call the cops on a cop.

[dias]

Sometimes it's good to call the cops on a cop. If they want to keep their job they have to be careful. If you sue him for example or publish a video with his awful attitude (like you did-good move) he will tone down a bit (as he did). Now, if he is the sort of cop who does drugs and stuff, he could be vindictive. Based on the fact that he calls women b*tches he is certainly not the best person on earth. Thing is, cops have guns and guns provide a sense of power.