I'm thinking of recording this...

...anyone have any equipment?  It's a parody of Taylor Swift's "We are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and is a good summary of how many ladies feel about politics this week, I believe.

I remember when you Repubs said, ladies,

The war on women isn’t really real, now we’d 
Love it if you’d let us tell you what
You should do with your bodies. (What?)
Then you came around again and said
"Ladies, we miss you and we swear we’re gonna change, trust me."
But remember how Paul Ryan tried to say
That there are different types of rape? We’re not stupid.

Oooh we gave to Obama last night
And oooh, for the last time we’re telling you, we’re telling you

We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
You can go on Fox News, spew some more lies, have a Tea Party

And we are never ever ever ever gonna vote for Romney.

Like, ever...

Remember when we tried to call you out
And you insisted that you only care about
The e-conomy, which actually would be helped if you
Stopped trying to take away our healthcare.

Oooh, we gave to Planned Parenthood last night
And oooh, for the last time we’re telling you, we’re telling you

We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
You can go on Fox News, spew some more lies, have a Tea Party

And we are never ever ever ever gonna vote for Romney.

Oooh yeah, oooh yeah, oooh yeah
Oh oh oh

I used to think that you could get it together
And I used to say, "Never say never..."
Huh, so Todd Akin goes on the air is all like, "I misspoke”
And I'm like... "I just... I mean this is exhausting, you don't even know how the uterus works,
and I am never voting for your party. Like, ever"

No!

We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
You can go on Fox News, spew some more lies, have a Tea Party

And we are never ever ever ever gonna vote for Romney.

We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney
We are never ever ever gonna vote for Romney

You can go on Fox News, spew some more lies, have a Tea Party

And we are never ever ever ever gonna vote for Romney.

How to impress people at work without having a clue what you're doing (a response to Molly Templeton's call for "how to" articles by women)

Here's how to impress coworkers and bosses at your company without having a damned clue what the hell you're doing.

1.  Memorize all the acronyms.  This doesn't necessarily mean you have know what all the acronyms represent; just remember the acronyms themselves and use them as often as possible.  Why?  Because nobody has the damnedest idea what any of them could possibly mean.  However, if you throw enough of them around, you will *sound* as if you know what you're going on about, and people will treat you with reverence and fear.  If anyone is ballsy enough to ask you to define an acronym, no problem - simply comply and define said acronym with yet another acronym.  This has never failed me.  For example: 

Me:  Hey, Bob, are you going to the sync at 1:30 on the GBS team's HBC project council?

Bob:  Yeah, I think so - what's the HBC project council's mission again?

Me:  Oh, last week at the GBS team's weekly PSS meeting they explained how the HBC council will be working to refine the XPC's PSM ratings framework.  (Awkward pause) Oh, did you not make that meeting, Bob?  

Bob:  *Mumbles unintelligibly and shuffles away*

2.  Always be rushing somewhere.  Nothing gives the impression that you are very busy and important more so than being constantly in a hurry, even if you're just going to the kitchen to get a coffee to sip while reading gossip blogs back at your desk.  I once knew a woman in my office who jogged everywhere she went.  She would literally *sprint* from her desk to the printer - which was three feet from her desk - at least four times a day with such an expression of thunder on her face that one might imagine her printouts contained nuclear codes or the location of Osama Bin Laden's secret lair.  For over a year, we all assumed she was the busiest and most productive worker on our team - until one day, I happened to amble by while she was sprinting over to the printer and discovered her collecting a stack of Banana Republic "Friends and Family" discounts.  After watching her for a few days, I realized that most of her printouts were for coupons, movie or theater tickets, and pictures of her kids.  She still works at my company and has been promoted to manager.   

Well, I sure learned my lesson.  Today, when my Fandango ticket for the Dark Knight Rises was printing, I booked it over to that HP DeskJet in record time.  The admin who sits across the hall from me was visibly impressed.

3.  Know how to do v-lookup and a pivot table.  Excel baffles most people, me included.  However, I can do a v-lookup and a simple pivot table.  Therefore, most of my colleagues think that I am a GENIUS.  It has been scientifically verified that 98.23% of individuals outside of the Finance department at your company don't know how to do anything in excel other than scroll, add an autofilter, and look stuff up using ctrl-F.  However, if you can do a v-lookup, a pivot table, or both, and get someone to see you doing it, you will never, ever get fired.  Why?  Because, my friend, you have got mad technical skills that your department cannot lose.  That, at least, is what they will say in your performance review.  

And, finally, the most surefire tip of them all: 

4.  Stay signed into your work chat 24/7.  Sure, you won't actually be working, but there's no better way to show your team that you are a workaholic who puts the company's welfare above your sleep and personal sanity than that little dot next to your name being any color but grey at all hours.  Even the "orange" of idle is better than nothing, because, for all anyone else knows, you just stepped away to get coffee.  You'll be back!  Or maybe you're on a videoconference or a Skype call.  Who knows?  All anyone (and the IT department) knows is that you (or at least your computer, phone, or tablet) are connected to your corporate network at 3 a.m. PT on a Wednesday - and that shows commitment, damn it. 

Enjoy your corporate success!

  http://the-how-to.tumblr.com/

Insanity

Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."


So why, when it comes to gun control, are we 100% certifiably batshit insane? 


Every single time we read of another shooting massacre in the news, the debate begins, and then is almost immediately quashed by the gun lobby and the nerves of our political leaders who are terrified of upsetting the subset of the population that believes that pretty much anyone should be able to legally purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition.  Politicians offer half-baked statements, celebrities compose grammatically sad tweets, the pundits' heads spin around 360 degrees, and after a few days the NRA bristles and flexes its muscles and everyone shuts up. 


The same rhetoric comes up every time: states rights, the 2nd amendment, the vision of the Founding Fathers (who never even conceived of automatic weapons, by the way), the spectre of tyranny, blah blah blah.  "If the victims had had guns, Mr. Psycho wouldn't have killed as many people"; "Guns don't kill people, people kill people!"; "From my cold, dead hands!"


By no means do I believe that Americans should not be able to purchase firearms for personal defense.  I personally would never want to own a gun, but I understand why someone would - if I were, say, a single woman in a remote urban area living alone in a corn field in an impoverished hovel, as opposed to a single woman in a crowded city with neighbors on top of me, I might feel differently about gun ownership for myself.  However, I simply do not understand why one needs an automatic or semi-automatic weapon and thousands of rounds of ammunition for self defense or hunting.  You don't buy that kind of weapon unless you believe your are going to to have the opportunity to shoot a shit ton of people.  And honestly, if you think that opportunity will arise, you are either a hardened criminal or YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY.  So why are we surprised when these weapons and ammo are purchased by crazy-ass mother fuckers who KILL A SHIT TON OF PEOPLE? 


This pattern will not change until we stop doing the same thing, over and over again. People will continue to die unnecessarily in tragedies like Aurora, Columbine, and Tuscon until we make it illegal for private citizens to purchase automatic and semi-automatic weapons.  


Don't get me wrong - gun control is not the only thing we need to get right in order to make gun homicides a thing of the past.  We need to address the poverty, unemployment, and cycle of gang violence that lead to so many violent ends of the young and helpless in our cities (Chicago is having a particularly tough year when it comes to gang violence).  We need to ensure that those in domestic situations where violence is a threat have an avenue to get out and get support and keep themselves and their relatives (often children) safe.  We need to lift everyone up educationally and economically; a rising tide keeps all afloat. 


But in the wake of Aurora, when everyone is saying it's "not the right time" to discuss gun control, I have to respond by saying FUCK THAT.  No, regulating automatic and semi-automatic weapons at a federal level won't stop all gun violence.  It won't stop all criminals from obtaining these weapons and killing people.  It won't necessarily prevent every potential psycho from killing innocent people in school, or at a movie theater, or on a crowded street.  However, *not* banning these weapons isn't working, either.  If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, we are definitely insane when it comes to gun control.  The fact of the matter is that every single weapon and piece of ammunition and equipment the shooter used in Friday's massacre was obtained legally.  How could a ban on the weapons and ammunition he used have made the situation worse?  How??  Experts have already noted that had his semi-automatic weapon not jammed in the middle of his spree, many more could have died.  Imagine how much less damage might have occurred if he hadn't had such a weapon on his person at all. 


Insane, isn't it?

27

So it's been a busy month - the holidays, my birthday, Katy Perry and Russell Brand's divorce, the return of Downton Abbey to American television. A series of truly watershed moments!

Christmas break was a two-week long sleep, food, and wine fest and it was AWESOME. Turning 27 was less awesome. As I confessed to several on my friends on the anniversary of my birth, that age always makes me think of Charlotte Lucas (Collins). For the 1.5 male readers of my blog, Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth Bennet's best friend in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She is, according to Ms. Austen, "a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven," and her life SUCKS HUGE BALLS. She is, at 27, considered to be a near-spinster. She is plain and poor, and not particularly romantic. Her main accomplishment in the course of the novel is marrying a fat, stupid, and annoying parson after he is turned down by her friend and his cousin, Elizabeth. She ends up living a somewhat comfortable but sad existence, contriving ways to avoid her husband by sending him on errands in the parish and distracting him with the garden. Elizabeth, as anyone with a modicum of estrogen in their blood will know, ends up marrying Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is rich, handsome, brilliant, and passionate. Elizabeth is twenty years old.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would REALLY like to not be Charlotte Lucas, but on this latest birthday I can't help but think of her. It's less about who, if anyone, I marry, but about accomplishment. In the world of Austen, marriage is accomplishment, and the younger you are when you accomplish the better (and less despicable) you are. Things aren't that different today, at least as far as accomplishment goes. You got Mark Zuckerface and all his kin making billions by age 22, and you gotta feel a little loserish when you're toiling away in a job that positively bores you and still have student loans to pay off. At age 27.

I know that this is just maudlin reflection and I've also had a few glasses of wine in preparation for tomorrow (a couple really hard meetings happening), but if there's anything I can take from it it's that I probably should spend less time thinking about Jane Austen characters. Seriously, they died at, like, age 40 and didn't have electricity. What the fuck did they know?! Moaaar wine!

For real, though, I want my 28th year to be better than my 27th. I'm not dead yet, but I'm not getting any younger and there really isn't time to waste. At least if I don't want to I don't have to marry a stupid fat parson, so, silver lining?

The Worst

So the past few weeks have just been The Worst because of work. I'm tired, stressed, confused, disorganized and, somehow, completely and utterly bored. Absolutely nothing about what we're doing at work is interesting to me. No. Thing. Org stuff? Boring. People stuff? Boring. I honestly think my apathy is beginning to affect outcomes for individuals and the team, which is really bad objectivly, but personally I just don't give a shit lol. None of what I get paid to do seems to matter and the only reason I accomplish anything at all is to avoid getting yelled at by bosses, colleagues, clients or all of the above. My job is pretty much supposed to be about solving problems, both big and small, for teams and for individuals. Though these problems are annoying, they are at least supposed to be somewhat interesting, and they used to be. Now they just feel like another obstacle between me and my bed.

I know this isn't depression; I'm back on meds and they're doing their job (though being exhausted from the commute and the endless email/ping/call cycle is a factor). This is, quite simply, what my job has become and since my life as an almost-27-year-old single woman is, for better or worse, currently all about work I am just not happy and everything is The Worst. This is my life: I get up between 5 and 6:30 am, depending on meetings, shower and dress, pile into a crowded bus for an interminable shuttle ride to Mountain View with sometimes-annoying and/or smelly semi-strangers, so I can spend my day alternately staring at a screen or in meetings trying to solve problems I don't care about in order to avoid getting yelled at by people I mostly dislike. After anywhere from eight to twelve hours of this, I get into a somehow even MORE crowded bus for an even LONGER ride back to the city. I then work and watch TV and pass out by 11:30 pm. Rinse and repeat; this is my life. It is boring and exhausting and The Worst.

I don't know precisely what I'm going to do about it, but I can't do this much longer. I have exactly nine days until a much-needed vacation. I need to think things over and come out the other side of it with a solution. I'm wasting my life, quite honestly, doing something I really, really don't like and not even feeling useful while doing it. Change is a must.

And I know, it could be worse, I could be unemployed or live in a 3rd world country or be Herman Cain victim; I get it. I know I'm a privileged, entitled, white upper-middle-class Ivy-league-educated whiner. But since I don't really believe in a god or anything I really just have this life to be happy in, and I don't see the point in being so miserable anymore. I've pretty much been hating what I spend most of my time doing since college, and it needs to stop. Over time, this job has just become uninteresting and devoid of any happy moments, and so unless I start to get something out of it again I need to change. I'll keep you posted.

ch-ch-ch-changes

It's been a while since I've posted, so here is the rundown. Since July 2011, I have:

1. moved to San Francisco

2. eaten a lot and drank a lot

3. gained 10 lbs

4. seen everything change at work

5. seen everything change at work again. Today.

6. ended 3-day-old diet to eliminate 10 lbs in order to drink in the daytime on a bocce ball court. Today

As of tomorrow, I have a new boss, new clients, new everything. I've never met my boss before and I'm apprehensive - I haven't heard anything bad about this new person, but nothing good about her either. And, once again, I'm reporting to a woman. *Sigh.* Despite his faults, it was good to have a male boss for a bit. Sometimes women just don't like me. Must be the boobs?

The main issue with this woman is that she is a level down from old boss, so I'm a bit worried that I'm going to be relegated to shit work again for the next year. I'm not opposed to shit work as a general thing, but I am opposed to the fact that those who do shit work are expected to be on call 24/7 to accomplish said shit work at a moment's notice, and I'm sorry, but I'm not doing that again, at least when it comes to HR shit work. That stuff doesn't mean enough to me anymore to put my life/sleep pattern/TV schedule on hold for it. If I leave and go to a new industry/team/life, then, yes, I will start over at the bottom of the totem pole and will expect to be accountable for all things at all times, but I haven't been promoted twice in three years to regress two steps backward now at this company and in this role by making fucking HR decks no one will read at 1 am on a Tuesday.

I dunno, I guess part of me feels like I royally fucked myself over by moving to SF. I undoubtedly would have been given a very different role today had I remained in NY, likely a meatier one. That combined with the gaining of the Ten Pounds of Shame makes me worry that I made the wrong decision this summer. Then again, would I really be happier in NY right now? I would probably still have roommates (UGH DEATH) and still be sitting with some toxic people at work. I don't know, I'm almost home on the shuttle and am going to go for a run to clear my head. Maybe things will make more sense later.

WARNING WARNING RANT IMMINENT

So, it's hot out and the thunder outside is thundering its ass off, and my stomach hurts, and I decided to have a drink anyways hoping it might help my stomach - which was just so not a good idea - so I figured it was a good a time as any for a RIDICULOUSLY ANGRY RANT.

The basis for my rant is as follows: the world is generally shitty for women and it sucks hairy balls. Some cases in point(s?):

Companies that sell expensively disheveled clothes to hipsters think that a board of directors that is all white and all male is not indicative of a diversity problem. Or, you know, not even just a generally shitty idea when you're selling clothes to HIPSTERS.

A prominent FEMALE doctor thinks women should "think twice" before becoming doctors, because they are selfish bitches who dare to ask for time off to give birth and go to the occasional PTA meeting.

This bullshit. Don't even get me started.

Also, I read this book, Unnatural Selection, a couple weeks ago and it's been depressing me ever since. Basically, its premise is that the third world is extra-fucked (or not, depending on who you are) because there is a dearth of women due to sex-selective abortion and female infanticide that will increase violence and bride-buying and forced prostitution in some of the world's most volatile regions. GREAT.

So basically, here's where we are: it's 2011. We had a viable female candidate for the presidency of the United States, women are graduating from college in record numbers, women make up the majority of the Western workforce, and yet we are still fucked. It doesn't seem to matter, honestly, how much we succeed, we're always fucked up the ass. We learn science and go to school and become doctors? We're betraying the profession because we expect maternity leave so we can, you know, perpetuate the species. We go into business and sales and move up the ranks? We have to prove, once we reach a certain (read: childbearing) age that we are still serious about our jobs and haven't deteriorated into fat, soft, simpering baby-making machines. We run for President? We have to justify our damned pantsuits (THEY. ARE. FUCKING. PRACTICAL. OK?) and the fact that our husbands were fucking, well, everyone behind our backs because this somehow reflects badly on us. We're too pretty?, Well, then we must be dumb and can't be taken seriously. We're not pretty enough? Well, then, we should just fucking kill ourselves, I guess because we're not worth the space we take up on the planet unless guys want to fuck us.

I know that my grand total of three readers will most likely agree with me as I believe they are all women and gay men (I don't actually include my mother in this because she will object to the amount of swear words in the post), but I just want to say for the internet to hear that the belief that women are no longer second-class citizens, even in the U.S., is a bald-faced lie. And it really pisses me off because, at this moment in time, I really can't see how to fix it. Sigh. The end.

XOXO!