Tamssmat

Check out my new favorite artist. I went to his show this evening and I can’t wait to get a few of his prints in our office. www.goodnight35.com. Pass him on.

I’ve had a rough week. First, there’s the one week out of each month that Amy and I have to complete billing on each client, get it through the 3-proof process and sent out to the clients. That’s always a stressful week. Most of the office isn’t allowed to talk to us during billing, that’s just all there is to it. So, I’m chugging along and before I know it, it’s already Wednesday. UGH. After work I went over to Mom and Dad’s house to get the vacuum cleaner and the door is locked. OK, no big deal that just means that Dad went in through the garage and Mom isn’t home yet. I unlock the door and go in and greet their dog (my sister) Cindy (or Pooper as I lovingly call her). This takes a little bit of time as we haven’t seen each other in a while an naturally, she’s extremely excited to see me. “HI POOPER!!! Where’s your daddy??” I wandered into his office, not there. I wandered into the living room, not there. I don’t want him to worry or wonder so I need to tell him hello too though he’s rarely as happy to see me as the Cindy Pooper is.

So, Mom then comes out of their bedroom with her jammies on and her hair all messed up and says hello to me. I said “Hi!”, happy to see her and that’s when the realization hit. LIKE A COLD HARD BRICK. “Oh my GOD what are you doing!?!?!!” She just kinda giggled at me. (Retch.) I told her I needed the vacuum and could she kindly go get it for me as I would be waiting outside effective immediately. She brought it out there and I was dumb enough to ask “can’t you two wait until bedtime to do that crap?” and her answer? It’s to tiring then. (choke, cough, bluch.)

I’m trying to contain the contents of my belly even now…two traumatized days later. I had no intention of speaking to either of them for a couple of years, maybe more. I got in my car on Thursday morning (the very next morning) and started on my merry way to work. Billing on my mind, forcing my parents far from it. About two blocks from my house, the car dies. ARG! So I sit there in the middle of Barry Road for a couple of minutes trying to decide what to do at that early hour, anything but call Dad and got it to start back up. PHEW!!! Dodged that one. Went to McDonalds to get my morning iced coffee and hit the highway. I make it a few miles at what I consider an appropriate pace when she dies again. On go the hazards and I lunge her to the shoulder and suddenly a cop is right behind me. Oh Lord what have I done now?? He comes up and asks if everything is all right so I explain to him that Dad recently fixed it (his comment, “there’s your first problem right?”) and that this has already happened once this morning and that if I can just let her sit for a moment, she’ll start right up. I’m fine, off you go now before you decide I’ve done something wrong and wand my blood. (You must realize that I have never really had a plesant interaction with an officer of the law. They always want to issue me a ticket. I didn’t even know they were remotely interested in my well being. Who knew??) So he said that was fine, asked where I was going, and said he was heading the same way (Well, now, sir, isn’t this sorta obvious as we are both going the same way on the highway?? NO Tammi!! Don’t anger the police!!) so he’ll just follow me for a while and make sure I’m OK. Start her back up, signal (because I’m a respectable citizen) and merge back onto the highway. I’m watching him in my rearview praying he’ll just go on about his business before he decides I’ve done something I have no clue about when she dies again. I HATE YOU CAR!! So we take the exit ramp and he pulls up next to me and asks me if I can make it to the QT and suggests maybe I should call my dad after all. “But sir!! You don’t understand!! I don’t wanna!!” What I really said, “thank you, I will”.

Fear and nausea swallowed, I called Dad and he said he’d come pick me up. He got to QT and tried to fix it and we thought maybe we could get it all the way to my office (which is convenient in that, the shop I usually take her to is right around the corner). We switched keys and he drove her while I drove the truck. She died on him so we left her in the parking lot and I climbed back into the truck with him for a lovely little ride on in to work. It’s uncomfortable at this point, I’m not gonna lie, I almost wanted to walk to work. What does he say to me as an ice breaker?? To the daughter he has so lovingly renamed “The Spicy One”?? “Sorry I couldn’t greet you last night.” DAD!! Ew!! Again my brain fails me and I ask “Why are you two doing that crap?? You don’t need to be making any babies!! WAIT, don’t even answer that one.” (Excuse me for a moment, I just threw up a little in my mouth.)

Billing is now complete but I think I am scarred for life.

And I’ll tell you a little story about a girl named April and her dilemas at work.  Maybe you can even give her some suggestions on how to fix her prolems.

April is my sister.  She loves her job for many reasons but partially because she gets to work for the same company and in the same building as her husband Bill.  (Bill is so much a part of our family now that there are times that I think we all wonder how we went as long as we did without him.)  I’m not 100% sure about what it is that April does at her office but I know it has something to do with those big metal boxes that they put on trains to transport crap.

Let me give you some background first on April.  She’s the happy sister.  She’s the one that everyone can get to know and love and that everyone wants to be friends with.  This, I am at complete peace with.  I often don’t want to be friends with you people anyway.  I digress.  She’s the thoughtful one that always makes sure not only that you have a card on your birthday but that it also has a handwritten note in it saying just how she feels about you.  She makes random sounds just because she’s content.  She sings when she’s smiley.  The kind of person that makes others smile just by proxy, that’s what my sister is.  She’s said in the past a line from Ann of Green Gables and quite possibly other movies, “immitation is the sincerest form of flattery”.  Hopefully, if you don’t already know her, this little tid-bit helped.

So her boss Jamie and her work well together but they’ve been doing this for some time now.  Jamie has taken on quite a bit in her time there and April wants to take some of it off of her plate.  Namely, the things that Jamie maybe isn’t as good at as April would be or that maybe were dumped on Jamie’s plate when there just wasn’t anyone else to do it.  The problem is that Jamie is scared to give up these additional tasks.  Not because she doesn’t want her job to become easier, but maybe because she feels that it would reflect on her as a failure.  I’m not even sure what the reasons could be, just that there seems to be some fear there.  April is concerned however that the bosses above both of them will see this as April not taking the necessary steps to grow into this position and that it has been like this for so long that it is reflecting on her poorly.  How does she go to Jamie and say, “you’re not allowing me to take over this job”??  April needs to be able to step out of Jamie’s shadow and maybe even become her equal and I think that is what scares Jamie the most.  I don’t know the slightest way to begin to advise her.  I’m not tactical in these sorts of things AT ALL.  My tactic is to talk to the person but I’m also not very good at saying things in such a way as to be easy to hear.

Another thing that seems to be bothering my sister right now is that there are increasing amounts of coworkers that try to emulate her.  Now, like I said, she is so graceful at dealing with these things most of the time but I think that when it comes in waves, maybe its harder for her to figure out.  She’s feeling somewhat lost in her own office.  An office that she’s felt at home in for a long time.  Understanding that some of these people don’t know how to become as accepted as she is, and this is most likely why they behave the way they do, doesn’t always help.

So what do you, my readers think??  April loves her job and would not consider leaving it.  She has however considered just trying to be content where she is but with the ambition that is imbedded in us, that is an impossible task.  Frustration flows.  Answers are not easy and are very time consuming and while patience is a virtue of hers, she’s been trying to be patient all along and sometimes, you have to jump-start things.

1. Chris Collinsworth

We call him “plastic”. It’s more polite than “corpse” which is what he looks like. And what’s with that floppy hair he’s sporting this year??

2. Chris Berman

Whoop! I HATE that!! The whole “he - could - go - all - the - way!!” thing is over too.

3. Women

With the excecption of Pam Oliver and Jilian Barberie. All other should be told to stop. NOW.

Moving their way up the list pushing in on the top 3??

1. John Madden

Yeah, he teaches me things. Sure, the boy loves his games but he is just downright unpleasant to look at. Did anyone see that hip thrust he did a couple of weeks ago?? I threw up a little.

2. Terrell Owens

He’s really not all that. I was done with him two years ago.

3. The ESPN Monday Night Football announcers

I don’t even want to learn their names. They are ruining Monday nights for me with all of their chatter and nonsense blathering.

What do I LOVE about football?? BEER COMMERCIALS.