Introducing Ho-bag

There's a fairly new girl in the office, whom I've decided to call Ho-bag. She annoys me to distraction. ManThing doesn’t understand my (infrequent, but sometimes strong) need to be catty.

What is the anonymous blog for, if not that?

Ho-bag is the type who wears the cloud o' perfume that I can literally smell from four feet away.

She is the epitomy of What You Shouldn't Wear To The Office. Her pants are so tight you can see thong-line (which is kind of against the point?!?). She favors the shoes that have straps that wrap up your leg. Today she has on a long skirt- with slits halfway up the thigh on both sides.

She's a touchy-feeler; when she comes over to say hello, she runs her hand down your arm. Guys and girls. Ew. Get off me.

She's not terribly bright, either, and perhaps that is the real reason she annoys me so much. Supposedly, she has seven years experience (the same as me), yet she royally screwed up REFLECTED CEILING PLANS which I then had to do over. 74,000 square feet worth.

She dots the “i’s” in her name with little circles. Gag.

Recently, she got in a car wreck on a Monday, and hurt her leg, yet didn't file a police report or go to the doctor. She asked me about a doc-in-a-box four days later, because her abdomen was hurting, but then wanted to know if they were open on Saturday. Go to the doctor, idiot!

Also, because I'm stuck on my current crappy project until December 15th, I missed out on the chance to be on a design team for the next project. Guess who is on the design team.

The female PA that Ho-bag and I are currently working for doesn’t like her, because she does crappy, half-assed work at a snail’s pace. One of the male PA’s in the office has said he “just loves working with her.”

Gee, I wonder why.

Even though, in architecture school, I once was told I needed to "draw more like a man," I hate to play the "woman card." But, I also hate it when floozies like Ho-bag waltz in and get what they want; while I'm working my ass off instead of shaking it.

Stupid male-dominated industry. Underneath all that fancy edumacation, they're still just a bunch of good ol' boys.

Hack n' Snort has dubbed himself a Hurricane Rita expert after looking at the Weather Channel's website. He keeps pontificating on Rita's path to anyone unfortunate enough to get too close to his desk.

Shut. The fuck. Up.

I’m really fucking tired of living from paycheck to paycheck.
I’m sooooo glad I got my Master’s Degree. (/sarcasm)

To give you an example: I get paid tomorrow. My entire check is going to the house payment, and I won’t get paid again until the 7th. I have negative $48 until then.

I'm getting misty here.

I have been given my first design assignment here at Humongo.

Drum roll, please...

A covered walkway.

This is serious business. I have the office’s copy of Drastic Standards, and everything.

I’ll be sure to make everyone proud.

Project A will never. Leave. The damn. Building.

Today was supposed to be the third attempt at getting Project A out of the building.

It is now 2:40.

Electrical guy's not yet done with his drawings. Once he is, we still have to print 11 sets of his stuff and assemble them into the rest of the 11 sets.

The PM hasn't told me where/ to whom the drawings are to be sent to.

I have to have the drawings ready by 4:00 to get them in the overnight mail.

PM is in a meeting until 3:30.

Do the math.

Sigh.

I was so wrong.

Coffee.

Baby.

How could I have even thought of giving you up?
Can you ever forgive me?
Will you please take me back?

You will?

C’mere then, you sexy bitch. Let the make-up sex begin.

One of the major skills in slacking effectively is moving the mouse just often enough so that the screen saver doesn't come on.

Oops.

Starting over on Project A, again.

Kill me.

Seriously.

Never mind.

My evil plan has been foiled!

I arrived at the office at 7:00 again this morning, only to discover that Hack n' Snort was already there! Damn him! He usually doesn't make it in until 8:00. I wanted my hour of snot-free peace!

To add to the pain of Monday, I'm not having any coffee today. The weekend caffeine withdrawl headaches are getting to be bad.

Think good thoughts for me.

You will all be happy to know that I have given up on the Hack n' Snort tally. It became too annoying to even be funny anymore.

And on a totally unrelated subject, I may die of a heart attack, but at least I'll get to keep my boobs.

the ass-crack of dawn

I have a deadline tomorrow, so last night I thought I would take some work home and catch up. Problem was, due to a hard drive crash a few weeks ago, I needed to reload AutoCAD onto my machine. I realized I no longer had the serial number or CD key to my, uh, bootleg copy. Oops. Rather than trek back up to the office, I decided to come in early this morning.

5:00am
Alarm goes off. Please kill me.

6:02am
Start drive to work. No school zones active yet. Score.

6:20am
Please be open. Please be open. Please be open. Yesssss…buy Caramel Macchiatto with much-needed extra shot.

6:30am
Arrive at office. Take the Good Parking Space, which unofficially "belongs" to a really nice guy in the office, but dammit, I want it today. The next 90 minutes are guaranteed Hack n’ Snort free. Score again. I could almost get used to this.

8:27am
Still Hack n’ Snort-less! It’s my lucky day…except for the fact that I’ve been drawing stair details for the last two hours, and I’m not done yet.

8:42am
Damn. He's here. Today’s count begins.

9:35am
Finally finish stupid stair details.

1:45pm
Starting to wear down a bit. Self-medicate with Twix bar.

3:15pm
Dammit. One of the engineers called some existing pipes to our attention. They are unmoveable. We are not going to issue tomorrow, after all. Dammit dammit dammit!! I want this piece of shit out of here!!

4:38pm
I'm calling the count early. Hack n' Snort a very busy day today; we even have 3 catchphrases!

SNORT: 32
SS: 1
IBhon: 3

Today's final count:

SNORT: 30
SS: 1

And, in the bonus round, 1 disturbingly audible fart. I sit 2 cubicles, or about 12 feet, away.

I took a step toward pulling myself out of spending the next 34 years (I'm already counting down to retirement) in a deep dark hole.

I asked what the necessary step is for me to be a designer in this firm, despite the fact that I haven’t designed one single thing since school. The whole time I was engaged in this conversation, I had to keep chanting inside my head, “keep it together, bitch.”

I hate how I’m wired to cry everytime I get into a stressful conversation with someone. It’s just another stupid thing about being female.

Is this all there is?

Foul mood = whiny post.

Skip it if you’re sick of the whining. It’s likely all things I’ve whined about before.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

What is the point, really?
I find myself, for lack of a better explanation, bored with life.

Each morning I get up, against my will, hating the still-dark sky, to go to a job I hate. I put on clothing that is marginally corporate-acceptable, but I’d rather wear pajamas.
Why not? It’s not like I ever see clients. Why should I wear a suit?

Because I’m poorer than I’d like (and more often than not, running late), I usually forego a trip to St@rbuck’s for good coffee, instead choosing to drink the shitty stuff at the office. Then, I spend the day trying to convince myself to do something useful, even though I couldn’t give a crap.

I realized long ago that I would never be a great designer. I will always be nothing more than a drone. I will continue to come to work every day, sit in my cubicle, and overhear the conversations of designers who sit six feet away from me. They are 3-5 years older than I am. I made a few wrong turns in my career path. Obviously.

I’ve tried to get a former coworker of mine hired on, so I could at least get a referral bonus. He’s a good worker, and has experience similar to mine. The company passed him over, but has since hired several people referred by employees who have been here a few months or less.

Hack n’ Snort, who is an idiot architecturally, has begun playing golf with some of the higher-ups. I feel that this puts him at an advantage with the management. I don’t play golf.

I have no dreams. Try as I might to find something to aspire to, I come up with nothing even remotely attainable.

After work, I go home to a house whose payments have us under an oppressive thumb. I often think of selling it, just to improve the financial situation. We don’t have the money to do anything to fix it up to our liking. We simply continue to pay, and simply exist within it. Also, it smells of dog piss that ManThing can’t smell.

I do laundry.
I watch crappy TV.
I wash dishes.
I sit.

I am 31, and I can barely walk right now. Thirty-fucking-one. I have never had any trauma occur to my hip, yet it has ceased to function properly. I’m in physical therapy. When I first stand up and begin to walk, it feels like I’m 80.

My digestive system is 12 kinds of wrong. I've been to a GI doctor, and had every test you can have, yet he found nothing. It doesn't seem to matter what I do or don't eat, I just have problems. The bathroom and I spend way too much quality time together; or not enough, dependent on what form of torture my stomach plagues me with at the time.

I am a good driver; I’ve never had an accident, or a ticket. My insurance premium still goes up with every renewal.

The new movies all suck.
I’m too fat to wear the clothes that are in style.
I’m too much of a realist to think that an optimistic outlook could possibly work.

I don’t ask, “what is the meaning of life?” I ask, “what’s the fucking point?”

Raw Fish Sell-out

I felt like a bit of a hypocrite today, when I accompanied the PM and Spec Guy for sushi at lunch. I thought, “it’s wrong of me to let PM pay for lunch (which he often does), after the anger I vented against him in an earlier blog entry.” Never mind the fact that he doesn’t know about said blog entry.

Turns out I had no need to worry. PM, Spec Guy, and I ended up splitting the bill three ways.

I’m cutting today’s count short, because I’m feeling a little nauseated, and I need to tune out his snot-sucking, or I may hurl.

Here’s today’s abbreviated tally (4 hours total):

IBhon: 1
SNORT: 23
SS: 2

It turned out to only be a Half-Week of Suck. Yesterday (and so far, today) was better.
I’ve printed my drawings, I want to go home.

But, since I can’t go home, I’ve made up a new way to cope with the constant annoyance that is Hack n’ Snort. I’m going to hyperfocus on his verbal tics and utterances, and keep a tally of them. It’s like a game to me now. I have a list of what I’m counting, and I’ve created “stock market” symbols for each. I’m almost reluctant to leave my desk; for fear that I will miss a snort, or an “HnS catchphrase!”

Here is the list of what I’m counting:
“Let me ask you this.” - LMAY
“I’ll be honest with ya.” - IBhon
SNORT (a.k.a. sucking back snot)
Scary Sneezes - SS (People on the other side of the building can hear these things, I’m sure of it.)

Today’s tally, as of 10:45am, is as follows:

LMAY: 1
IBhon: 1
SNORT: 18 42 (Friday's final count)
SS: 1

I can’t believe I’m excited about this. My life is so very sad.