A Flower in the Prison Cell Makes All the Difference, Don't It?

Are you sick of me whining about having to commute now?

Let's do something more fun, shall we? Let's talk decor. Namely, what do you do to make your cubicle feel like YOU?

I figure there are some basic dos and don'ts. Do keep it tasteful and simple. Don't put up religious stuff or advertise how much you like booze. But I'm just not sure how to go with it beyond that.

I have a home office that my awesome husband built. Did I mention he's awesome? Because he BUILT IT! Sadly, I am not awesome and because I tend to end up watching a lot of TV on the couch, I didn't really decorate it. My office now looks more like this.

Organizers: UNITE!

Obviously, I can't keep this kind of trashiness in a cubicle at work. So I want something orderly, personalized, something that will make me feel as at home as I can possibly feel.

Naturally, I went to Twitter first and got these great responses:

So, definitely pictures of my kiddo. And here are a few other odds and ends I have lying around that I'm considering putting in.

We call him Chairman Oink.

Also, I kind of figured I'd step into this century and give Pinterest a shot. I didn't find a lot that I feel I could realistically do, but there were a few nice ones:

I like the idea of some wallpaper.

I really love the idea of these hanging portraits. Maybe smaller ones w/ photos. But kind of serene.

Doesn't this just look so tidy and beachy??

So, share your wisdom, oh cubicle/office dwellers. How do you decorate? What's your favorite thing in your cube? Are there no-nos?

Driving Into Different Territory

So, some of you may already know that my full-time telecommuter status has been revoked. Come October it looks like I will be back in the office full-time, and it's got me more than a little stressed. The autonomy and work/life balance of working at home has been something I have come to cherish.

The fact that my new commute (about 40 minutes) will come right before winter offers me little in the way of consolation.

Consider this article on how it's more difficult for women to commute than men.  At first I found the premise sexist and kind of absurd, but then I really thought about it. While my husband doesn't love driving all over creation for his job, he's rarely stressed about it. Because I am the one who usually picks Wee 'Burb up, because if I can't, I have the sexless sister wife to back me up. And then, of course, my parents help out at least once a week. He doesn't worry about dinner being late because I'm the one who prepares it and cooks it well before he's even on the road.

We've both taken for granted that since I've been a Mom, I've been working at home.

The article puts it succinctly: Researchers attribute women's heightened "sensitivity to time spent commuting" to our "greater responsibility for day to day household tasks (including childcare and housework)."

I have gently broached the subject with Scott in terms of us re-regulating our life. While it made sense for me to do household chores and cook while I was home (because I could do them on a lunch break, or because I could start work earlier and have more time to prepare dinner, etc), we'll now both be on the road, stuck in traffic, racing to see which of us can pick Wee 'Burb up before having to hand the daycare a late fee.

I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I'm not sure he is, either.

Do you agree that commutes are harder on women, especially working moms? Have you had this kind of switch? If you went from working to staying at home, did you just start assuming housework? How do you divide chores if you both work outside the home? Is your entire weekend spent cleaning and catching up?

Cubicle Condundrums: An Etiquette Guide

I didn't post on Friday, though if I am being honest, you may not have noticed. And that's okay.

Honestly, after a week of barely escaping a major downsizing with my job, getting a new boss, being cordially invited to the office where all my new co-workers go and barely escaping with my telecommuting status intact...I just didn't have it in me. To be 100% honest, the posts I put up last week happened to be ones I already had in draft.

My energy was sapped.

I am grateful for my job, grateful for some new opportunities, but still in a bit of mourning for the co-workers who didn't get so lucky. Good people in bad circumstances.

I was able to get a little tension out by having some fun on Twitter. Because, really, if you can't have fun there, you can't have fun anywhere.

It took very little time for me to remember why I hated having to work in an office. As I began to complain about overhearing very personal things about someone's pregnancy and weekend plans, I must have hit a nerve because Twitter blew up with people sharing their cubicle nightmares.

I submit a few to you:

E.T. No Phone Home

Courtesy of The Random Blogette, who experienced a co-worker who only used speaker phone for all their calls, I submit to you rule #1: thou shalt not use the phone above a reasonable volume. Also? Don't use said phone for personal things.

We almost all have cell phones now, take a five-minute walk to a private area, outside, or in your car to do your personal business.

When I was in the office, there was a chick we referred to as "Rectal Chick" because we heard such horrific details about various medical procedures she was undergoing. When she got pregnant, all bets were off. I think I may have known before her husband did. She proceeded to do nurseline calls discussing very unpleasant symptoms, interviewed daycares (when she was approximately 10 weeks pregnant) and tell every client how tired she was all the time.

While I worked at the office I planned a wedding and bought a house, and I can count on one hand the number of times I EVER spoke about those things on the phone in the office. Much less something as personal as my lady business.

No Hour is Happy Outside of a Bathroom

Courtesy of Terri at Creative Pathways, rule #2: thou shalt not hold cocktail hour in your cube.

When I was in the office, I had the grave misfortune of having a cubicle right by the bathroom hallway. Not wanting to be so tacky as to hold a conversation in the bathroom itself (vulgar, that), ladies would convene and lean AGAINST my cubicle walls and continue to host "personal" conversations. That word is in quotes for a reason.

What makes otherwise rational adults think 4-foot-carpeted grey walls insulate people from your very private thoughts? I do not wish to know your son has problems with coke and is marrying a common street whore, I actually have work to do!

I went so far as to put up a sign saying "Working Area: Quiet Please" and someone had the unmitigated gall to lean AGAINST the sign so long it fell off, while regaling coworkers with tales of her messy divorce.

Groom in the Proper Room

Also courtesy of the Random Blogette, who desperately needs a telecommuting situation, rule #3: bathroom behaviors are for that room and that room only. I've experienced the gamut of this behavior, including putting on perfume, deodorant, letting one loose, loudly blowing noses...but the worst ever was at one of my first jobs when someone would constantly cut their nails. I pray to everything holy it was their fingernails, but the CLIP sound haunts me to this day. Honestly? I'm a bathroom habit prude. I do not put makeup on in public, I do not allow Scott to cut his toenails in front of me, and I close the bathroom door whenever humanly possible (I do have a toddler now, so those boundaries get pushed). Although you are there for half your day and it may feel like it, your cubicle is not your house. And it certainly is not your bathroom.

I'm sure there are a million more, so while I try to get adjusted to a new life and count my blessings, please share with me what your office no-nos are.

Guest Post: Lola Putting the “Cure” in Manicure

You guys, Lola is leaving me for the Motherland this weekend. She'll be gone for two weeks. We chat daily...hourly, in fact. Minutely, mostly. And here you'll see what exactly it is we chat about. I promised her we'll start a fund for her bail if for any reason she's detained in Russia and not allowed back.

 I don’t know if many of you know this, but Stephanie and I love to waste company time. Really, slacking off is never quite so much fun at home, when you’re at your leisure and free to wallow in your own crapulence – i.e., check Facebook, catch up on your favorite blogs, visit stupid sites and Google random things. Personally, I always feel like I’m wasting precious time – I could be vacuuming! And hey, the car needs a wash.

But at work, things are different. You’re not going anywhere, not for the next 8 hours anyway, so you might as well make the most of it. I think this is how people who were stupid and/or lazy enough to go into crime end up getting law degrees and writing best-selling books while in prison. Back on the outside, there are convenience stores to rob! But here, it’s just you and the bunk! So why not attend Harvard Law by correspondence? The prison return address alone makes your admission essay a shoo-in.

So on a lazy Thursday in prison…I mean the office, Stephanie and I got to talking. Strictly girl talking – nail polish, to be exact. And we both love and adore OPI, not least of all because of their colorful (no pun intended) shade names.

We took a stab at coming up with some potential ones, which this is where we discovered that we may have a great career ahead of us in marketing. And so, I bring you The 10 Greatest Nail Polish Names OPI Will Never Go For. (Just so you know, these are mainly on the subject of animal noises – Wee ‘Burb has been rebelliously learning them in French to annoy her mother. But hey, that’s a whole separate blog topic.) So here we go:

#10. “Pre-MOO-nition pink”
#9. “RIBBIT-tickling red”
#8. “WOOF-it-down grey”
#7. “Can I BAA-row a Feeling white” (Kirk Van Houten, you’re our homeboy)
#6. “You bel-OINK to me blue”

#5. Then, an obligatory PSA: “NEIGH-borhood watch black”

#4. While we’re on the subject of horses: “after-NEIGH-n delight”

#3. A big of magic: “Occult-it like I see it lavender”

#2. “MEOW, that's lovely pink”

#1. And, the ultimate, the Numero Uno (drum roll please): Growl-and-Eat-Humans Green (bears). Stephanie, I can’t take the credit for that one, it was all yours!

Any other gems we’re missing? (P.S. if any OPI execs are reading this, my resume and portfolio of other brilliant ideas are available upon request. Lola loves OPI, y’all!)

Embroidered Pillows and Other Workday Fun

Because I have a desk job, and said desk is at home without other human contact, and I am a human being who occasionally needs human contact, I have a tendency to e-mail my friends throughout the day.

I e-mail one friend in particular about 20 times a day. Typically it’s random inanities of our day. But occasionally one of us whips out a one-liner that causes the other to reply “would you please embroider that on a pillow for me?”

A few examples:

One of our boss’ baked us a pie. The pillow-worthy reply: “all my boss bakes is controversy.”

"This is my career. I cannot be attached to wackiness."

"Outlines are for chumps"

"Ovens are weird. Covens are better."

"People suck."

Turns out we're trendy!

Office Space: What I Learned About Myself

Well, thanks for all the positive remarks both on and off the blog. I did manage to get through the work party, and people at least pretended to be impressed and appreciative.


I have to say, the biggest surprise was how completely draining it is going into work when you are used to working at home.


I know, I know, for those of you working in an office every day, the world’s smallest violins are coming out to play me a sad song. But seriously, here are the Top 3 Things I Hate About Working in an Office:


1. No Escape from a Bad Hair Day. I’ve mentioned in the past that my hygiene suffered so immensely when I started working at home that I instituted "work pajamas". So two days before I had to go into the office, I realized I had no clean clothes that were work appropriate. While I was feeling quite pleased I fit into my clothes, which I had tailored at my wedding weight, I wasn’t so pleased about the dry cleaning bill. Or having to bandage blisters at night because I am so unused to wearing heels now. There’s just this pressure to look at least as good as the bright-eyed 20-somethings with their black pants and cute heels. At home, I only have to look as good as my puppy and 8-month-old who is covered in drool thanks to teething hell.


2. No Escape from Small Talk. Don’t get me wrong, I like people. I’m so high Extrovert on the Myers-Briggs, it’s not even funny. But I really can’t stand small talk. There’s only so much “oh this rain is good for the plants” or “wow, traffic was so crazy today” before I just want to fake a seizure to liven things up. I could always talk sports with a few of the guys, but even that wears thin after awhile. Now, as you’ll see in my next point, I don’t want to share my life story to anyone who happens to be putting cream in their coffee in the break room, but it’s just tiring having the same conversation over and over again.


3. No Escape from Overshare. One of the main reasons I am working at home is because they had nowhere else to seat me in our office and I complained CONSTANTLY about the noise. There was a chick in the cube across from me who was always talking on the phone about things nobody should hear about! Let’s just say I am fairly sure I knew she was pregnant before even her husband, and she was so descriptive about the different exams she endured due to “issues” with her pregnancy, that she was simply known as Rectal Chick to anyone who knew me and heard me talk about her. Also, the people who didn’t talk in the bathroom stalls (and seriously, why is that going on? Do your business, THEN talk) would start (or sometimes continue) their deep discussions right by cube. Many just leaned right on the wall, right on the sign where I wrote “This is a working area, please do not hold private discussions here.” Apparently your latest medical issues and drug-addicted children are…not private? I don’t know. I just know if you worked at my company, I probably heard something you didn’t necessarily want me to hear. This is why happy hour was invented, people. Take it outside with a glass of wine, thanks!

All I can say is tonight I am happy to be setting out my work jammies and putting my little coffee pot on for 7:00 a.m. My coffee, not the company swill. Another little thing I learned about the office? People like their coffee weaker than my resolve not to eat the Snickers bar in my office-provided lunch. Not good times.

The Troops are Descending!

All of my out-of-town co-workers are coming to Minnesota for a meeting this coming week, and I thought it was a good idea to host a little get-to-know-you cocktail party the night everyone arrives. Two weeks ago when I brought this idea up to my very enthusiastic boss, it seemed like a great idea. A week ago when I finalized plans, it seemed like an okay idea. Today, it seems like a really, really, REALLY bad idea.

What I didn’t know two weeks ago was that because most of my co-workers are traveling from the East coast to get here, they’d essentially be gone for most of Tuesday and most of Friday traveling back and forth. Well, apparently our clients don’t care about that? Can you believe it? I mean they want to sell their wares while I am trying to get ready to host a party. The nerve! And since I am one of the few who doesn’t have to travel, I am the fortunate individual who gets the privilege of handling all the deadlines that interfere with the travel dates. A lot of deadlines. 12-hour-day deadlines. Ripping hair out deadlines.

So, yesterday and today were spent making up for the week of things I was supposed to do last week while I was tearing my hair out and nearing the point where I hit the fetal position and curse the day I ever said “I love entertaining, it’s no problem.” Turns out, it’s not super easy to cram a week’s worth of stuff in two days. Particularly when you have a baby who clings to mommy like a spider monkey on a football. I can barely go to the bathroom without a meltdown, much less clean my house, get the food, plan the food, and clean the entire outside of my house.

Right, the outside of my house. Have I mentioned I haven’t exactly developed a green thumb? Or that we sort of never replaced the patio chairs we borrowed, and then returned? The list of things we’ve been too lazy or too cheap to do all of a sudden piled up, and this is pretty much what our day consisted of.

Thank GOODNESS for my husband and friend, who helped while I dealt with aforementioned spider monkey half the day. Apparently Wee ‘Burb doesn’t love sitting outside while mom plants flowers. Apparently she wants food and attention or something. Rotten kid.

Anyway, so that’s my explanation as to why I haven’t posted, and it serves as a warning to anyone local that if you do hear screams of “what the hell was I thinking??” it’s just me reminding myself to never volunteer again.

In Which I Confess, It Must be Embarassing to be Married to Me

I always make attempts to be glamorous. I would start a new job, and vow to refresh my lip gloss and makeup every two hours. I would set out jewelry to match every outfit. I would carefully put product in my hair and style it just so.

About a month in, I barely remembered to swipe my dry lips with chapstick, I would keep the same pair of earrings in for weeks at a time, and my hair never saw daylight from underneath the ponytail or bun.

It was the same with working at home. When I started working at home, I created a routine. By golly, I would get up, make my bed, brush my teeth, exercise, and make a glorious pot of coffee to start each day. About a month in, my routine looked something like this: snooze on the alarm until exactly 5 minutes before I had to clock in (the time it took to start up my ancient computer and get on the exhaustingly slow VPN). No time to exercise, and what’s the point of brushing my teeth if I am just going to have Folgers coffee? Showering? Meh, optional. Very, very optional.

When I moved in with Scott, I tried very hard to cover up this slovenly exterior, made a good show of at least being showered by the time he got home, hiding the remnants of my cheap coffee in the freshly emptied dishwasher. Well, you can see where this is going. But he married me anyway. A fact which, possibly, he regretted last week when he brought one of his new co-workers for a visit.

I hear “are you decent?” and him walking through the door with company. I look down. Red Sox t-shirt, pajama bottoms. “Yup! I sure am!” I went down to greet them with no shame.

This is not going to endear me to the Suburban Working Moms, but I have invented the concept of Work Pajamas. Maybe invented is a strong word, although they do say necessity is the mother of invention, and my Work Pajamas are a necessity. This is my last vestige of hygiene when I am working at home…I do not work in the PJs I slept in. Yes, they are pajama pants. Yes, it’s an oversized t-shirt. But…and this is VERY important…I did not sleep in them.

I forget the outside world may not consider this the height of hygiene. Not that I think men expect to come home to Donna Reed in heels and lipstick, holding a cocktail while fretting over a roast. But maybe they have the right to expect the little woman to be slightly put together.

Or the right not to have this conversation with their co-worker: “I’d really love you to meet my wife and baby, I just…well, I should warn you, I don’t know what she’ll look like.” I’m imagining a horrified look on the co-worker’s face, thinking he’s already dogging his wife. Is he going to smack her around in public?

Scott quickly backtracks: “No, I just mean…well, she has these work pajamas…”

An Open Letter to Suburban Working Moms

Dear Suburban Working Moms: I know you’re out there! I’ve seen you hurriedly dropping your kids off at daycare (I’m the one in the sweats and sneakers…nice heels, by the way). I see you frantically cramming groceries into your cart with your kids hanging on your nice blazer (seriously, nice heels, where’d you get them?). How you must hate me while I quietly go about my shopping with nary a care about wayward sugar cereals making their way into my purchases. How you must look down upon my own uniform of track pants and t-shirts.

But you see, in many ways, I am just like you! I’m the Work at Home Mom, and I’m not feeling the love. I’ve been trying since Wee ‘Burb was 3 months old to get into your circle somehow. I’ve signed up for Mommy and Me classes, tried fruitlessly to find later hour storytimes. I’ve scanned the paper for fun weekend things to do with babies under 1 and NOTHING! Yes, I know they’re little blobs with no attention spans, but how else does a mommy find new friends?

What I do get is constant ads for story hours that last from 10-11 a.m., calls apologizing that once again my Mommy and Me class has been dropped from 5-6 p.m., but hey, do you want to join the one from 1-2 on Wednesdays? Despite what you, and frankly some days my husband thinks, I work! I truly do. Yes, it’s in my jammies, and yes it’s a flexible lifestyle I know many moms would kill for, but I work pretty damn hard and I miss my kid as much as the next mom. In addition to the standard working mom guilt (I suck as a mom, I suck as a worker, my brain is fried, if I read one more children’s book I will hurl, if I read one more sales “messaging” piece that has the words “customer-centric” in it, I will hurl), I’m also filled with insane guilt every time I throw a load of laundry in before a conference call. And yet even worse guilt when I don’t.

Every mommyblog will tell you, it’s lonely out there! My single friends live in cooler places, my married friends with kids have married siblings with kids, or married friends with kids that live closer. So I’m looking for you, fellow working moms! Are you all gathering somewhere I don’t know about? Is that why my classes are constantly getting cancelled? Is that why my only options to bond with my kid and meet other people is going to a park? Cuz I tried that and apparently nobody else thinks it’s the greatest idea to stick a 6-month old in the swings. Plus, frankly, you all scare me! Do you think I’m a stay-at-home mom slumming it with you working folks to take a break from my playdates?

Wee ‘Burb and I are planning our swim classes starting in this week at 5:30 p.m. That’s evening time, mommies! After work, even for those of you with real jobs (seriously, wear your heels, I want the details!). Please don’t let me get another call saying it’s cancelled. And when I’m there, do your level best not to judge me for my bedhead and sneakers…the truth is, I clean up okay (I know a great place to get discount shoes, just ask me)! And I work just as hard as you even if I do go to work every day 50 feet from my bed.

Love,
Suburban Work at Home Mom with the Same Guilt as You!