Thursday, January 8, 2015

die Brandy die

I'm calling our energy company customer service. Someone named Brandy has answered the phone and I don't know if she's pissed about her stupid name or the Motrin hasn't kicked in for her menstrual cramps but she's a bitch. Or possibly her boyfriend finally admitted he cannot live with someone who has such a caustic personality.

There's no such thing as office etiquette anymore. Or the company purposely hires the most obnoxious person they can find to man the phones and make it so difficult that good citizens just simply give up.

Brandy's messed with the wrong citizen. I live for shit like this. I was born arguing and I'll probably die the same way.

Energy company people came to my townhouse association and installed new utility boxes behind our buildings. In the process they pulled several hundred dollars worth of newly planted perennials. As the grounds consultant I am responsible for anything on the ground - including torn up things with dirt clinging to their roots. I am not angry. I am calm. I just want to report my situation, be taken seriously and respectfully, and get my goddamn money back.

None of this was going to happen on Brandy's shift. She talked in circles, contradicted herself, didn't listen or retain well and her passive-aggressive approach was giving me the spins. She wanted something called meter numbers and I didn't see the point nor did I want to go sloshing through several feet of snow drifts and a -20 wind chill factor when it would make so much more sense to just give her the building numbers.

Only six of our fifteen buildings were affected but damn Brandy, I'm gonna tell you all the buildings need restoration, just because I want to take up as much of your time as I possibly can. Minutes and more minutes tick by and I can hear her typing, typing, what is she doing, is she enrolled in some college class so she can quit her pathetic job that she obviously hates and she's doing her mid-term paper? I finally grab my book off the end table. I can play this game, too, you sad, sad excuse for a human resources person.

What ever happened to professional attitude? Whatever happened to "the customer is always right?" Okay, I come from a long line of self-employed grandfathers and I know that is not true. But people should be able to talk constructively and work towards a solution. Brandy, if I don't get what I want, I'm coming for you, girl. I'm retired. I can sit on the phone all afternoon.


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

EDD-IEEE!

While in Jamaica my husband signed us up for a dinner party called Meet the Chefs. I didn't want to meet the chefs or anybody else for that matter. I would rather read about them in a newsletter or something in the privacy of my room. My husband should know better.

"I'm bringing my kindle," I announce at breakfast. "If I have to sit and make meaningless conversation with people I don't know, I need a back-up plan."

Luckily, I have downloaded some pretty interesting authors on my apparatus - writers like Nora Ephron, Caitlin Moran and the new kid on the horizon, Lena Dunham, all of 27 years old and directing and writing her own HBO series. Funny smart strong women. I started reading Lena's collection of essays and thought uh-oh, too young. I'll check back when she's 50 or more, when she's lived some, got her hands good and dirty. Then one afternoon I was dreadfully bored of watching Midwestern tourists downing fruity rum drinks and turning red by the pool and I gave Lena another try. This time she clicked for me.

It was like the first time I watched Raw with Eddie Murphy and he's wearing that silly lavender leather suit. What a bunch of pornographic sexist drivel, I sniffed.  And since I never watch anything once I tried again only to say, my god, that Eddie really understands women.
"Buck naked zebra bitch?"  EDD-IEEEE!


Lena writes things like, "her vagina looked like a three-day-old sandwich." I know. Only it's funnier when she says it.

In between books I take mental surveys of Jamaican resort life. Four women with fake boob jobs. No woman with 28" hips has breasts the size of these overly fertilized gourds. Women know this and we judge accordingly. Of course, men don't care. These incredibly out of proportion women must need to buy two bikinis. One bottom to fit those Brownie scout hips and another for the 42"DDD bra..

Only one guy in a Speedo, thank god and I actually see three separate people put their fingers in their mouths as if to gag. It almost makes me want to follow him around to see how many more people do this - but then again not.