I've mentioned before,

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

but it’s worth mentioning again:

I have a new job.

It’s my old job, but with more responsibility, and more work and a little more money.

I’m a supervisor.

When I got this (temporary) promotion, Sue went to the Berkeley Public Library and took out books on effective management. From the eighties. It’s actually quite amazing how the same ideas are relevant today, even though they didn’t have computers back then.

Can you imagine?? Maybe you can. I used to have a job where I had to process hundreds of thousands of records and it took so long I read Atlas Shrugged while I waited.

So, new job. For the first few days I’d leave and I wouldn’t make it to MLK & Alcatraz without bursting into tears. I’d remember nostalgically what it was, oh that week before, when I knew what I was doing, and when I was doing it. And how long it would take.

I now supervise two departments of which I know almost nothing about the operations of, and which are both at important stages in their lives. Our 75th anniversary!! A fundraising golden year the likes of which we will not see for 25 years! And don’t even get me started on IT. If those resources were used effectively…

So, anyway. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t cry anymore, but most days are really just painful. Sure, the challenge is good. And I’m learning so much. It’s amazing to be part of such an important phase of an organization that I care so much about.

Blah blah blah.

I wonder sometimes, and it might be so, if these reactions are what I’ve heard of as growing pains, and comprise yet another indispensable reality of these ever still formative years.

internet shopping

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Internet shopping requires that you do your research.

Rather, it pays that you do your research.

For instance, it was because of my obsessive reading of the reviews of the Vostro 1500 that made me know to choose the Intel wireless card because the default (which costs the same) has trouble connecting to the Internet.

And the obsessive reading of the reviews for the laptop desk thing that I finally decided to get, is, like the reviews suggested, wobbly. But useful. I’m down.

Anyway, the thing that makes the trio, is…

Seriously…
the cancer pink balance ball I got to use as a chair.

Life is perfect!

so,

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I had a strange request the other day.

You ever get those strange requests? It’s like 9 a.m., and you’re checking your email with your head weight on. You know, the head weight that sets your spine for the day, and has changed your whole outlook on life. The one that your chiropractor requires you to wear for twenty minutes at the beginning and end of every day. That one.

So, you’re checking your email, and a little flustered already thinking about the day ahead. You got this promotion you didn’t really want, though you wanted it anyway, and now it’s stressing you out. Go figure.

And there it is. A long email from someone you haven’t heard from in awhile. Someone who was once very dear to you and whose absence was very much a subject for this blog. Someone who has given you years of entertaining stories, and……

You knew he was engaged. He told you over Christmas, and you weren’t surprised. It was years ago, and you’re so over it.

But then, here he is, asking you to be his maid of honor in leiu of a best man. In lieu of a best man!

What are you going to talk about?

Recount the first dinner you had together where you thought you were going to go out, and instead he said, “Well. Do you want to have what I’m having for dinner, or do you want to have something else?”

To which you responded, “Um. What are you having for dinner?”

1 can of salmon, wild.
2 apples
1 orange
16 tablespoons of peanuts
32 ounces of water

No, no that story is not appropriate. Neither is the one where you told him that you thought he’d sold your relationship short after he’d broken up with you with the line, “If you were on my maintenance crew, I’d have fired you by now.”

Cause you were always fashionably late.

Still are. It’s one of those endearing qualities that makes you so reliably unreliable.

The upshot: Come August 18th, I’ll have fashioned a speech out of none of my favorite stories, and maybe some mutual friends share.

At least I have some time. I might join Toastmasters so that I might present my speech with the greatest of ease. Not that I really have trouble with public speaking as long as I have a drink in me.

Cheers to BOOZE!! Oh, I mean, my ex-bf and his new love.

Andy Warhol On Blemishes

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Andy Warhol, in his Philosophy, distinguishes between temporary blemishes, and those that intrinsically mar your appearance. He maintains that should, for instance, one have an overwhelmingly large nose for their face, this is apparent to everyone as something that is rather unfortunate, and needs not to be acknowledged. Temporary blemishes, however, should be acknowledged so that your companions understand that the way you look just at the moment is not indicative of the way you look normally.

With that said, let it be known I have far more pimples than usual of late, but this is not normal, and I’m sure it’s due to stress, and not a permanent disfiguration by any means.

so.

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

it seems to me,
that what I’ve learned from all my cults and other self-improvement type weekends,
(besides the ever-indispensible personal experience)
is

that a fight cannot occur without two people.

and,
most likely,

that

the two people that are fighting–
when it gets to that point where they are seriously clashing–

it’s because they both believe that they are correct to such an inordinate degree, that…

there’s a complete disconnect.

you’re standing in different dimensions,
this impermeable pane between you.

it lets in sight,
sound,
video,
but no,
actual,
shared space.

And the consequence may sometimes be,
perhaps,
and unavoidably,
that

the space was never shared to begin with.

why oh why,… do I have to go…and take these gigs??

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Today I found myself at the Peninsula Home and Garden show.

Where else, but in a sponge booth.

Now, last time I sold sponges I employed the Thin Air Approach to try and convince people to watch my demo. Today, I used a call I’d only hesitantly employed before: Feel the Super Sponge! Three minutes of free entertainment.

I especially targeted the baby boomers with beers. I have to say, it was pretty successful. I realized, though, that my default, Feel the Super Sponge! It sucks and I’ll show you how! is inappropriate with the elder generation. I need to work on that.

After all these years, I’m good at selling sponges. I enjoy it, even. When I have a good crowd of young and old, and I can wave the sponge above the little one’s head and show it doesn’t drip. The grins on those little ones faces!! And I’m better at tailoring the demo to the audience. I am, however, still working on instilling that sense of urgency that if you neglect to use the Super Sponge to suck spills out of the carpet, the mold and the mildew that will build up in the floor boards will endanger the lives of you and your family.

But it doesn’t matter how convincing I am, or how essential sponges actually are to our good health, because you can’t sell sponges when there’s nobody there.

Damn rain. And economy.