Goals for February

I realize it is already the 7th of February, but who says we can only start goals the first of the month?  🙂

Here are my goals to accomplish between now and March 7th.

Health

1. Zumba at least 4 times a week
2. Participate in at least 2 zumba events

Work

1. Get better at checking everything at work before sending it out
2. Clear off my desk daily

School

1. Get homework finished early for my English class

General

1. Work on Ancestry 10 minutes a day
2. Be more diligent about posting (WordPress) every day
3. Build a vision board

 

Comments About Weather

Being as how most of you just met my coworker, L, through yesterday’s post weather, I thought I’d give you a little background on our ummm relationship in today’s post.

**BE FOREWARNED – THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE POST – I APOLOGIZE, BUT THERE”S NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT**

I started working here in 2004.  During my first week almost everyone in the office tried to “warn” me about L and her horribly nasty attitude.  I brushed their comments aside trying to give her a chance without their comments seeping into my head.  That first week was tolerable while she trained me telling me every 5 minutes that I needed to take all notes on sticky notes (I really don’t like sticky notes) and highlight different items in my notebook (I abhor highlighting).  I would explain over & over that is not the way I think & I continued putting items in my notebook.

I soon realized that she spews hatred for anything different than her personal protestant beliefs (isn’t the message of Jesus love?).  A cow0rker had just adopted an Asian baby.  One of our coworkers, who happens to be Asian, helped decorate for the party we threw for her.  He put up different Asian symbols, and one of them was a small paper Buddha.  L walked into the room and completely flipped out shrieking and yelling that she couldn’t be in the same room with idols and that we absolutely HAD to remove the Buddha from the room.  Everyone was shocked that she caused such a scene and the Asian coworker took the wall decoration into his office.  Of course she has no problem entering Asian restaurants where there are Buddhas present in many different areas of the restaurant, but I digress.

Fast forward 2 years and J had a baby.  YAY for J, B & their beautiful little boy M!!!  J’s husband comes from an extremely large Italian Catholic family where the tradition is the have the baby’s dedication in a Catholic church.  She invited a few people from the office and L once again flipped out on us.  She explained to J that she couldn’t possibly raise that child in a Catholic home because Catholicism is a cult and her child will go to hell because of this baby dedication.  Who says such a thing to a new mother?

Even more disturbing is that she’ll see something in the newspaper and start spewing hatred towards people she’s never met because they have a different lifestyle, or beliefs, than her own.  I’ve learned to never, ever, go into the break room while she’s eating and reading the newspaper.

As assistants to the partners of our firm, one of our tasks is to collect accounts receivable.  I usually send an email that reads, “In looking through our invoices, I don’t see where XYZ was paid.  I do hope it wasn’t lost in the mail.  Could you please check on this invoice and let me know the status?”  I do everything through email because I like to have a paper trail to look back if someone says they didn’t receive something.  Anyway, I usually get a response of, “Oh no, I’m so sorry, I’ll check on this right away” etc.  Her method isn’t nearly as effective.  She calls the client and the one-sided conversation goes something like this… “I was calling about this invoice XYZ…Well it’s 30 days old and I need the payment…You’re responsible for this payment, not the person taking out the loan, so you need to send me a check today.”  It only gets worse, but you get the idea.

On top of everything else, she has extensive health issues (due to her weight), she constantly complains that she has no money while asking everyone how much things are, and she has an hour long argument with her daughter over the phone at least once a week during regular work hours.

I’ve tried, tried, tried to be nice to this woman.  I even did a 30 day trial of trying to be nice to her every day, but at one point I just gave up.  I’m now not necessarily rude, but I’m not overly friendly either.  If she asks how my weekend was, I say good & leave it at that.  If she asks how I’m feeling, again I say good.  I find that if I leave responses to one word, or short sentences, I can tolerate her.

Again, I’m sorry for the negativity of this post, but thought it would explain L a little better.

Weather

Ever noticed that when the temperature dips, the mercury rises, it rains, or snows, people always feel the need to state the obvious and/or complain about it?  I’d be willing to bet that the weather is the most complained about phenomenon out there.

There is a woman that works in my office that has very little social interaction outside of our office and her church.  She doesn’t have groups of friends that she meets out and about, so church and co-workers are her life support.  Any time she walks in from being outside, she states the obvious about the weather and then complains about it.  If it’s raining, she complains how wet her purse got.  If it’s cool, she complains that her fingers are like ice.  If it’s warm, she complains that it’s just so darn hot.  Nothing satisfies this person.

The funny thing is that I’ve started responding with the opposite of the complaint.  Raining=our water table desperately needs the rain.  Cold=there are fewer mosquitoes & flies the colder it is.  Hot=I absolutely love the heat!  Guess what happened?  She no longer complains to me about the weather!

How wonderful it is, that most people are off work today in the US (unless you work for my company) and that is the day this week that it rains.  The roads were empty this morning.  All drive thrus were empty today, and the ponds and streams all around me are getting back to their “normal” level once again.