It’s Getting Hot in Here

On By esbrathIn Newspaper Articles, Philadelphia WeeklyLeave a comment

Okay, not really. In fact, it’s snowing outside, which I have to admit I’ve been looking forward to.

I know I’ll be verbally bludgeoned for saying such a thing here in the land of trash trucks as snowplows, but I’ve missed the winter white. It’s true! Granted, years of hoofing it through knee-deep expanses of the stuff, or straining my eyes driving through flakes that begin to resemble warp speed, should’ve left me wanting no more.

But I must be a glutton for punishment. And should we get some real accumulation, I’ll be out there in my mittens, taking a break from the hectic pace I’ve been keeping.

I’m absolutely thrilled that I’ve been working my tail off, but the breakneck speed I’ve been going at for the last few months has left me aching for a vacation.

That won’t be happening anytime soon, however. In addition to a slew of articles in the works, I’m up for a national gig authoring a food website. I’m gunna’ keep it mum for now – it’s me and four other kitchen geeks – but should it land in my lap, I’ll be sure to let y’all in on it.

Until then, enjoy winter, stay warm, and before you know it, we’ll have the heat to whinge about! J

the write stuff

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When I was a kid, I used to sit at the kitchen table with my mom, gram and other assorted relatives and just listen. It was never racy stuff about the sorts of things people do that warrant whispers and hushed tones. More often than not it was random comments on the mundane existence of one member or other of my extended family. Yet I always found it interesting.I have to wonder if my early fly-on-the-wall behavior was a precursor to my adult eavesdropping tendencies. Were I a different person, I suppose I’d have headed off for the Hollywood Hills ages ago to nab a gig telling on the famous for some trash rag or other.Fortunately for all the Britneys out there, I’ve turned my attention to everyone around me, which, I think, is even more fun. Well, maybe not for the person sitting behind me on the subway.

Hell, not even always for me, as I don’t really want to know half the things people feel more than comfortable blurting out in public. But, thanks to the electronic leashes we are perpetually yammering into like a horde of banshees with advanced tourettes, I know more about many of my fellow citizens than I ever wanted to.

Yet I never know what tidbit of information I’m going to pick up on. And considering the fact that I bailed on the grey-walled cubicle farm I’d been sharecropping for two years this summer and ran headlong back into journalism, I need to know what’s going on.

Any source of information is a potential story in this 24-hour news cycle we live in.

It’s been a bit slow, I’ll admit. I’ve kept my head buried up to my ears in approved quotes and PowerPoint presentations for so long sometimes I don’t even recognize the world outside. But, I’m getting my news-nose back, and sooner rather than later I should be back in full storytelling swing.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to eke out a few assorted pieces:

Grabbed a page of Men’s Health online, my first foray into the national publication fray. I’d been harassing… er… pushing my editor to let me write about MRSA, the mega bad superbug that’s been infecting otherwise healthy people like gangbusters, for a while. Finally, he relented.

Also wrote a story I’ve been dying to write for several years now. Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, N.Y., is the epicenter of Tibetan Buddhism in the western world simply because it’s the Dalai Lama’s North American seat. The lama’s visit to the region in October, coupled with the construction of a new facility for the monastery, finally gave me a reason to write about it.

Slackadelphia

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Is it the warm, summer air… Oh, who am I kidding?

Is it the hot, humid, sticky air that makes your lungs feel like
they’re filled with honey and skin slicker than the ocean surrounding
the Exxon Valez that is making me lazy?

Or could it be something else? A lack of willpower, lack of drive,
get-up-and-go winner takes all sort of deficit that’s causing me to
stare, blindly, at my monitor while scanning craigslist for a coffee
shop job?

A-ha! Coffee shop job? Wait just a minute…

Continue reading “Slackadelphia” →

Lazy Days of Summer? Oh Shit!

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I don’t actually know what happened to her.
I’d like to say I knew, that I saw her one day on the street, passed out with a brown bagged bottle at her fingertips. But alas, I do not know.

 The way this life works she may be found somewhere else in the blogosphere, terrorizing another poor, delicate soul with her angry shriekings and bipolar demands for the unreasonable. But alas, I do not know what has happened to the Shrill.

But I do know that she is gone, no longer darkening CorpraCo’s hallways. Whether it was her own doing, really, is unsure, but I can certainly speculate.

Continue reading “Lazy Days of Summer? Oh Shit!” →

help me! help me! the end is very effing nigh!

On By esbrathIn evil boss, hateful bitch, hohstile workplace, impoverished worker bee, need money nowLeave a comment
So I bet you’ve wondering what happened.
Oh, it gets worse. It gets so much worse…

Since that fateful afternoon, when I narrowly escaped the slobbering jaws of managerial rage, I’ve had time to reflect upon the errors of my ways, thanks to three weeks’ reprieve from cubicle hell.

How did I come by my much needed break from the never ending grind of the corporate machine? By landing my sorry ass in E.R. at midnight later on that dreadful day.
Continue reading “help me! help me! the end is very effing nigh!” →

Adventures in Managerial Animosity, Part I

On By esbrathIn corporate hell, cubicle farm, evil boss, schizophrenic boss, unemployment lineLeave a comment

It probably sounds weird. In fact, it’s pretty much straight up sexism I’m talking ’bout here. Because either way, no matter which way you shake it, 99.9 percent of the time, I just can’t stand working for a female boss.I apologized…

I know, I know! I can hear my fellow feminists, gasping in shock and shrieking that I am a traitor to my kind; Benedict Arnold to the estrogen army’s equality-focused grrl power cause.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not some uterus hating suit chaser, nor do I believe a woman’s “place” is anywhere – house, office, the freakin’ fields of Iraq, I don’t care. I only know what’s right for my life.

But what I do believe, without a doubt, is that from the time we’re old enough to tie our pink-trimmed, cartoon character bearing, sparkly, light up shoes, we’re well on the way to growing into fingernail-wielding, back stabbing, catty-with-a-capital-C bitches.

Granted, not everyone turns out that way. There are plenty of women out there who make the 9-5 grind the challenging-in-a-good-way, collaborative, worthwhile experience it should be.

But some chickies take the mean girl trajectory all. the. way.

Continue reading “Adventures in Managerial Animosity, Part I” →

Monday Morning

On By esbrathIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today we had the unique pleasure of participating in an all-day meeting. None of us knew why we were there, not even the Tsumommy. Never mind that she’d called the meeting.

I took half a Xanax. I’d learned from hard experience – accompanied by the occasional errant mid-meeting yoyo of drool – that a slow, steady buzz is preferable to losing control of one’s facilities in front of the coworkers.

I can’t say I’ve ever loved my job – a failing economy coupled with my wanderlust means I have no choice but to be okay with any gig that’s even mildly creative, pays the bills and doesn’t give me a bleeding ulcer.

And things were cool until the bloated bigwigs who’d hired the Tsumommy got so many complaints about her they were forced to notice. In classic bait-and-switch intimidation style they fired up the smoke machines and stepped away from admiring themselves in the mirrors of their Lexus and BMWs long enough to take out one of their own.

Unfortunately, the fall guy was my boss, and now the Tsumommy is my keeper.

©2007 SoftPretzelLove.

Scorched Cubicle Campaign

On By esbrathIn corporate hell, overbearing boss, suicide by paper cutLeave a comment

It is a scorched cubicle campaign. Herman Miller ergonomic chairs scattered across the great gray expanse, smoke wafting up from the stain proof fabric.

I’ve been working as a corporate shill for nearly two years and have witnessed the kind of business decisions that even The Office would take offense at. But “CorporaCo’s” latest antics have brought the paper-pushing circus to a new low.

I have no one to blame it on but the Tsumommy. She waddled into our sorry lives, and the department’s top job, a few months ago, knit discount rack suit clinging to every lump of sedentary flesh. So far she has left confusion and destruction in her wake.

She has little more than the perfunctory bachelor’s-level education, but somehow she’s been granted the decision-making key to the highest level in our cube-rat lives. And like the kind of meddling mother who will read her child’s diary with the justification that she’s the boss and therefore can do whatever she wants, she does just that. Anything and everything on or near any desk is hers to rifle through as she feels fit. Not even the Blackberry is sacred: dare use it in her presence and she’ll grab it out of your hands. God forbid you’re writing about her…

I thought I was selling my soul by taking the corporate job… I was wrong. It was merely marinating.

©2007 SoftPretzelLove.

Back in the Blogger Saddle

On By esbrathIn Hair Club for Men, lecherous creeps, roller derby3 Comments

So I’ve done the unthinkable in this intravenous Internet force-fed world: I’ve quit MySpace.

It’s true. Deleted my profile, clicked the button and just walked away. And, surprise, it was easier than I thought.

Until the night sweats…

I’ll gladly admit that the main reason I bailed on the behemoth breast-fed on Murdoch’s corporate teat was twofold, and neither is terribly flattering.

First off, it was really taking over my life, pushing me to the point of constant obsessive paranoia, where the slightest decrease in friends sent me scurrying to my friends list to try and determine who the defector might be, wringing my hands wondering what I might have done to offend them.

The other, more insidious reason was the creeps.

Before I became a roller derby darling my profile suffered a steady onslaught of balding, middle-aged divorced men in acid washed jeans wanting to “talk”. Invariably they had a child, or six, and nearly all included photos that featured them proudly preening before a truck, motorcycle, or some variation of a gas-guzzling recreational vehicle.

With derby, however, the voyeurs became more interesting, and while it was flattering to find myself the object of desire of many a derby-loving dude, it quickly spiraled out of control, and I found myself perpetually on the receiving end of nonstop missives from lecherous paramours-in-waiting who seemed oblivious, or unconcerned, with the fact that I’m in a deeply committed relationship.

So, I simply walked away and headed back here, where I should have stayed from the get-go.

Granted, I’ll post a new profile on the WalMart of the Internet eventually, only this time I won’t be quite as forthcoming. That’s what I’m here for… be sure to check back. I’ll be here…

©2007 SoftPretzelLove.