Yankee Swap

I'm pleased with a gift idea for my company yankee swap. Yes. In December, around the holidays. Last year was the first one I'd been to, having only been with my company for five months at the time. I knew it was sort of an "anything goes" kind of swap. And being jokey mcjokerson, I didn't want to show up with a gift anyone would actually want. So, while at a car show last year I picked up a poster of a Nissan -- one of their sports car models. I got a cheap frame from Target and wrapped my present in copies of that week's Metro newspapers. I even included the pages with my 75% completed crosswords.

The person who selected my gift opened it with such gusto! I found out afterward that he was expecting it be a Farrah Fawcett poster or something more scintillating than the car. As with all yankee swaps, he had the option of switching with someone else but he didn't and so took home my brilliant gift. Perhaps he'd bring it next year to the swap! And maybe, this would be one of those amazingly awful gifts that makes its way to swaps year after year...

A week later, I asked him if he'd hung up the poster. Our conversation was in passing, as in, he never fully stopped walking in his path. Maybe he was in a hurry or just didn't think it was important enough to stand still for a moment. He told he me that the poster wound up in his garbage can... and continued to walk away.

I was crushed. To this day, I mentally give him hairy eyeballs. Well, I hope it's mental and doesn't outwardly show. His arrogance puts me off. And I've spent the last 9 months thinking on what I could bring to the next swap.

Yes. I really have been thinking about this for 9. whole. months.

I'd thought about super gluing $10 to a rock, making it unusable, to reflect how I felt my last $10 spent on the frame was treated. But then I'd have blown $20 on yankee swap gifts, further creating more waste.

Another idea was these mini orange traffic cones at my desk that have Volvo's logo on them. I typically give them to new hires who get a company car (yes, it is a Volvo). But since I'm the only one with the cones, it would remove all anonymity.

It came to me today.

I'm going to buy a bunch of non-perishable food items: pasta, soup, beans, tuna fish, etc. I'll get decent stuff, too, avoiding dented cans, etc. I'll include a note that says something like, "I was dismayed after hearing that the gift I thoughtfully brought last year was thrown away. Feel free to keep these items for your family, or donate them to a local food shelter, as there many in our communities that go without daily."

Boo-ya.

Area Woman Abbreviates, saves tm

Colleagues of local area resident woman Elena "Lany" Mamlok report that Mamlok is saving time by shortening the spelling of words.

"Thx", commented Mamlok. She went on to say, "At first I was worried I'd hurt the integrity of the English language.. but I've just saved so much time. Even cutting back on the ellipses helps."

To interview Mamlok for this article, she suggested we meet at the "Du Do" in Davis Square, Somerville, and grab a cup of coffee.

Studies have shown that the measures Mamlok has taken have provided her another whole minute over the past three months. Mamlok and her sister, Charna Mamlok Westervelt, also an abbreviator, combined their saved time and applied it to Cape Cod traffic.

"I'll admit, I was a little disappointed that I didn't use my time more wisely.. but there are still other ways I can get that back." Mamlok feels strongly that if she starts referring to the National Broadcasting Company as NBC, she will gain an additional five minutes by the end of 2010, since it's not a leap year.

However, not everyone is on board with Mamlok's verbiage. "I have no idea what she's saying half the time -- either in person or over e-mail", expressed a colleague who asked to remain anonymous. "And she also just sounds unprofessional. She calls a sandwich a 'sammich'. How does that save time? It's the same number of syllables. She just sounds like an imbecile." When asked to comment, Mamlok said she would have chosen "idiot" over "imbecile" to gain the milisecond in the long run.

Fun in the Office!

My office is really beautiful -- who ever thinks to say that about their office? I mean, this building is stunning, for an office building, of course. To promote the concept of openness, all the offices and conference rooms have glass walls. The conference rooms do have curtains, but the only curtains in people's offices are the window shades. I can see what my colleagues are doing -- the walls are see-through. (I guess that's redundant. Redundant.)

It's Friday. And it's a warm, sunny day. I'm at the point in the week where I'm only operating at about 79% if my co-workers are lucky. I'm having these grand delusions of running or skipping or trotting by my Senior VP's office waiving my arms hysterically just to see if he notices out of the corner of his eye. It's not really inappropriate office behavior... just different. And it may be a distraction, I suppose, but there are lots of other distractions that happen all the time here and I'm never one of them. I'm just sayin I don't think there'd be any real harm...

For fun...

I found this bathing suit while looking for a new two-piece one myself:
http://www.swimoutlet.com/product_p/11748.htm

While marveling at this suit, and the whopping $0.05 savings(!), I thought it would be funny to call up the live chat and treat it like a phone sex line (or how I imagine a phone sex line conversation would go).

I also, and I'm being serious when I say this, created a free "postlet" account. If you've looked on craigslist for either real estate or a new apartment for rent you may come across these pretty nice ad templates created by postlet. I was going to put up a big box (like refrigerator-sized) in the real estate section... on the corner of Somewhere and OverThere, provided there's no sudden gust of wind.

That's all I have at the moment.

Deleting Rows in Excel

Cambridge

Local area resident woman, Elena "Lany" Mamlok, has decreased her effort by nearly 50% in manipulating a file.

"So I get this data dump of a report once a month and it's not formatted for anything useful. It costs me at least a day to reformat into something pretty... well, pretty as far as Excel can be attractive," Mamlok whined.

This particular step is where Mamlok deletes over 100 non-consecutive rows. "There's practically no data integrity left by the time I'm done deleting all this crap. I mean, the amount of human error in this process is huge."

Mamlok went on to state that this report does eventually make its way to Senior Vice Presidents in her company.

When asked if she could further explain how she cut her manipulation efforts down dramatically, Mamlok said, "Well, I used to highlight the row and then right click and select delete. Now I just right click, which selects the whole row and gives me the delete option at the same time. So I just saved half."

Half, indeed.

"My wife's pregnant, so she needs an SUV"

Ugh, no she doesn't.

I manage a company car program for a pharmaceutical company. Our field employees (sales reps and medical positions) who visit doctors, patients, and hospitals have company cars.

I'm continually amazed at the requests I get from employees.

We offer three solid vehicles -- all of which are nicer than the car I drive -- so it's hard for me to empathize with employees when they insist the trunk space isn't big enough or they MUST have a third row of seats.

These are work vehicles. And the last time I checked, sales people weren't bringing their children on their sales calls, nor were they carpooling with colleagues. Of course employees can use these vehicles in their personal life, but that's a perk; it's not the standard we're using in our vehicle decision-making.

My parents drove sedans and managed to fit me and my sister (who was likely still in a car seat when I was born) just fine in their cars when we were young. They didn't even have a station wagon and the only time they drove a mini van was when they moved us to college or the time we drove from CT to Atlanta to visit family.

This person who told me his wife needs an SUV is actually really friendly and seems pretty level-headed. I hope he ends up choosing the hybrid sedan we offer.

Plant Life

I cannot keep a plant alive.

A few years ago I had a ficus tree and a Philodendron. Neither lived past the age of two months under my care. The ficus passing was particularly hard to reconcile.

So, I thought maybe I'd gotten better at caring for plants since it's been five years and I'm older and therefore, should be wiser.

A few months ago, I had a beautiful orchid, which I was told wasn't that difficult to keep up, at my desk. I've seen other orchids in the office and I've consulted with their owners for tips. I even asked the gardeners who maintain the lovely live plants on my floor. But a few short months as an orchid owner proved too much for me. Alas, my orchid whom I'd named "étoile" rotted.

So I'm at it again! This time with an ivy! Nothing says Cambridge, MA, quite like a beautiful ivy. And lucky for me, I hear they like to be dry.

Good. But how dry is too dry? I got off to a bad start with Ivy when I accidentally over watered her. And I was told to let her dry out and only water once a week. Okay. Well, when the leaves started turning white and then tan and lost any semblance of green, I thought, maybe it's time to water Ivy again.

This was last week and I shook off all the dead leaves, which now leaves (ha ha, LEAVES!) a pretty sparse looking plant. Sparse and dry. When I watered it last, I brought it to the bathroom instead of the coffee counter/water cooler where there's a full sink. I was embarrassed by my parenting neglect and thought the ladies' room would be empty. I have never seen it more crowded! I guess all the women on the floor decided that 2:30 was the time to use the lavatory. So, I'm trying to water Ivy and make small talk and of course I have to hear advise on what to do.

Just shut up! I didn't want to hear it!

I don't comment on others' clearly bad decisions at the office -- like wearing a scrunchy in their hair, or tapered suit pants.

Okay, I'm petty and off the subject. I'm just staring at Ivy wondering how I might right the wrongs...

I can't wait for the season to start!

I'm talking the rugby season. Like everyone else in New England, I'm sick of the snow (but still feel entitled to complain though I make no plans to move from the area in the near future). My reaction is that I want to tackle someone. Hard. Our first match (North Shore Women Rugby) is Saturday, March 28th. Less than a month away. We've been practicing indoors so we're all getting fit (and fine) but aren't tackling and only minimally rucking and mauling.

Sunday, I'm hoping to get outside, toss the ball around and, yep, tackle someone. It will be three weeks until game time and I'm nothing if I can't tackle someone -- it's key for the position I play.

Argh -- I can't wait! I wish the spring were here! I wish we were playing games already!!!

Some Thoughts

I'm wearing a button down collar shirt today that I got a few years ago, and I think it's time I took this work shirt out of rotation due to the yellow stained underarm areas... I'm trying not to spread my arms too much today so I'm avoiding describing anything that would require large sweeping hand motions and I'm lucky not to have any meeting or conferences or any interactions that require I raise my hand.

I've almost finished my personal email account transition from hotmail to gmail. I'm enjoying, but am still confused by, the conversation collapsing feature -- especially when it's to or from email addresses in which multiple people are involved. I'm on two email groups and it takes me a bit longer to realize if I've read a message or not.

My last admittance makes me sound like an imbecile, but to be fair, I have a horrible short term memory.

I have a selective accent. I like to say words with "orr" like I'm from New York. So, I'm hArrified about my hArrible short term memory. And, since I live in Boston, I might admit that I can occasionally act retaahhhded (although I really don't use that word -- only to illustrate my comment). Wicked.

Somewhere between graduating college five years ago and the present day, I've become less "screw the man" in my ideology and a bit more mature... or I guess practical in my thinking, which is unfortunate. Somedays I wish I could be less concerned with adult matters -- saving for retirement, making car loan, student loan, credit card payments on time, worrying what kind of home I'll be able to afford when I eventually get sick of renting. I wish I could return to the screw the man Lany of yesteryear... and not feel compelled to work a 40 hour, Monday - Friday job.

I love and hate reuniting with people on Facebook, because there's that part of me that compares myself to my old classmates. I hate that about me. I also hate that my friendships with some people make me feel inadequate -- and not because of anything the other person has done, it's just a difference of priorities, and therefore different lots in life.

This time I've spent writing my thoughts should have been devoted to a project that I really don't like at work. It's not the work so much, but that I'm not the one to make the final decision... I'm just doing the research. But once that decision is made, I'll have to be the one to hear the complaints from the stakeholders.

I wish more people would send positive comments. (I'm thinking about this project at work.) I just wish people thanked each other more... or thought first before making stupid remarks. And I wish I had the balls/stupidity to finally tell people that I DO think they're fucking morons, and I wish they were just as dumb to think that I was kidding, so that I wouldn't create a bad relationship.

I went to a casino for the first time ever on Saturday and won a little bit of money playing black jack, thanks to my mom's guidance. It was such a rush, holding the chips in my hand when I went to cash out. This will be a very occasional outing for me... and I'm glad to have waited this long to ever go. I think I have an addictive personality about some things... or to be more positive, when I get into something, I do it 100%. So.

My birthday is coming up and I'll be 28. I'm overall content where I am in life, but I always wonder what the next is for me.

I've been collecting redeemable bottles at my desk to help out my rugby team's bottle drive fundraiser and it took me practically three months to collect $2.

I can't wait for spring to be here. I could be having an awful day, but if it's sunny and mild outside, that silver lining trumps all. My body was tricked last week into thinking it was spring and while I had nothing spectacular to look forward to one particular day, I was just so happy. I can't wait for that Saturday or Sunday to come when I can walk outside without a coat -- just walk around my neighborhood and people watch while I eat ice cream.

I locked myself out of my home this morning and disrupted my morning routine. I LOVE my morning routine. I am anal retentive or mildly OCD about getting ready for work. I am absolutely not being sarcastic when I say I enjoy keeping a schedule in the morning. And since this morning's circumstances delayed me about 40 minutes (closer to the time more people leave for work), my favorite neighborhood coffee shop was busier (yes, though delayed I stopped for coffee), and the T was that much more crowded.

I'm now going to return to my research project.

Taxes

I just attempted to prepare my 2008 taxes online. I've done it myself for a few years and it's been straightforward: I'm single with no dependents, I only have 1, maybe 2 W2's, and I haven't owned anything of significance. I also never reported the interest paid on my student loans, which I know means less of a return for me, but I couldn't figure it out (I'm not very good with holding onto forms I get in the mail)... so anyway, it's never been all that confusing.

The only differences this past year were that I bought a car and reported the excise tax paid and I bought (and sold) company stock through my employee stock purchase plan.

So, I don't get who these people are that both Turbo Tax and H&R Block are talking about when they say they've found their clients an additional $2500 of returns. Do you have to own a home? A hybrid car? Have 3 kids? Be a student?

I have no idea. I know I'm not one of them, though.

Prospect Street, Cambridge, MA

This morning is an example of the quintessential New England wintry mix.

Commuting is easy for no one between snow covered sidewalks and slush covered streets, it's a day best spent in your flannel sheeted bed surrounded with books, music, movies, coffee, and, if you're lucky, a cat to curl up beside you... and if you're even luckier, a loved one to share your coziness.

Well, since I didn't have the foresight to bring my laptop home last night, I trudged into work.

On any other day, walking ten minutes down Prospect Street to the Central Square T Stop would be no big deal. Even in the rain, this is manageable, not ideal, but manageable.

Ugh, today sucked. I guess drivers didn't realize that they would still splash the pedestrians on the sidewalk. This time, it wasn't just rain water it was dirty slush that actually sticks to your pants.

And, I've said this before (not in blogging but to myself... and my therapist) Cambridge does not have enough sewers... neither does Somerville! You know where the sidewalk descends to meet the street? Why is there no sewer there? My only thought is it has something to do with the subway. Those puddles are practically of manhole depths! And you have no way of knowing how much of your foot will be submerged unless you just walk right through or see the poor guy ahead of you have his entire calf engulfed.

When I decided to write about the morning's commute, it was intended as a call to drivers on Prospect Street to stop being self-centered schmucks and move away from the puddles in the lane closest to the sidewalk, especially when they see pedestrians brace themselves by using their umbrellas to cover their legs.

So, there's that, but this has also turned into a call to city planners: I beg of you, I plead you, to research the feasibility of more sewers!