in crazy town.

i’m assisting a woman (and her partner/son) with their small business out of her home all while dogs run freely around the work space playing catch with their toys and unfamiliar (and quite funky) smells waft through the air as she and her son argue allllllllllllll day long in russian. and when they’re not going back and forth she’s taking calls with clients on speakerphone reminding them that she’s multilingual. she spoke in spanish to one client a couple weeks ago and after she hung up she said to me, “did you hear that? i told you i speak different languages.” i didn’t even acknowledge her because really? where they do that at?

so you get where i’m going with this? it’s a maddening environment and one that i wish to escape with great speediness.

in other words, i’m ret to go, honey.

when i interviewed for this position i was told that i would be working from home and would only need to come to her home once or twice a month for meetings. sweeeeeeeeet!!! right? well see, it’s been a month and four days already and i feel in my gut that this whole “working from home” idea will remain just that, an idea.

there is a bit of a learning curve to her business so i’ve been told that there are things i need to know first before i am allowed to telecommute. it’s not that the job is all that difficult, it just involves a ton of different quick tasks that can happen at any point throughout the day. and it’s those tasks that irk my very being because at the core of it all i’m just not built in a admin-y kinda way. i don’t want to make calls for you to set up appointments or create fillable forms in word or stuff your 1,000+ envelopes that need to go out for marketing purposes (who still does that anyway??). but i do it because i gots billz and they need to be paid.

but still. her work style is frenzied and so unlike mine or anything i’m used to that i find myself working that thing called patience like nobody’s business. i’m not a patient person, like, not at all and don’t like feel as if i’m being tossed about like a rag dog either. for example, i’m given a task and i’m busy working on it and then it’s, “oh niki, go to this website so i can show you how to do…” this happens too daggone often and it’s not something i can ever get used to. i’m used to going into my job knowing what my work will be and completing my tasks for the day. not being spoon-fed assignments for hours. okay, do this. now, do that. alright, let me know when you’re finished with this so i have can you do that.

i’d much rather continue to update her wordpress blog that i put together for her and her other sites that need updating and managing her social media, which was non-existent before i started working with her. and hello, those are things i can do from home, right? one would think so. i own a computer. i have internet access. but i’ve been told that she has no idea when that will come to fruition.

it’s almost as if she thinks this is my first job and she treats every little task with such delicacy that i just had to ask one day, “did you read my resume?” i reminded her that i was the associate editor of a magazine for ten years, managed an editorial staff there. i was also in an editorial position for a academic journal at ft. belvoir. i managed an online community and it’s social media for three years. ummmmmm, i think i can handle making this call without your son telling me what i should have said or giving me tips on managing your facebook page when he has zero experience with social media. like none.

i’m sure this woman believes she’s created a lovely work environment. i have a desk and a chair and she’s welcomed me to use her kitchen at any time i feel like having a cup of tea or like making a sandwich or something.

BUT my desk is so tiny that i can’t cross my legs and that just drives a tall girl crazy. and her son’s desk is right.behind.mine. so he’s looking over my shoulder, micro-managing me all day long. have i mentioned that he’s 24 and working with/for his mom is the only job he’s ever had? that he has no idea what a real office environment looks like or how it functions? or that he likes to put his bare, naked feet up on his desk…about 12 and a half inches away from my left shoulder? have i ever told you how much being that close to other people’s feet just grosses me all the way out?

i haven’t dared to use her kitchen for lunch because (a) i can’t WAIT for lunch every day just to escape for an hour and (b) i’m just a wee bit grossed out by her dog’s pee pad that sits near the kitchen. i just can’t with her and that kitchen so i only use it for the filtered water that comes out of her fridge.

i may not be able to work from home but i have been home more lately. this new thing has been happening more and more in the past couple weeks on my new full-time job that’s been part-time since i started. i’ve been told to stay home or “skip the day” when she and her son have out of home office appointments. whaaaaat? skip the day = skip the pay and ain’t nobody got time for that! she’s screwing up my budget. and i’m really annoyed by the situation because the job announcement said it was a full-time job. so basically, it’s not full-time and let’s be honest, there’s really no chance of telecommuting.

crazy town. someone please get me out of here.

Bone Thugs -n- Harmony “Determination” (Director’s Cut) from Bobby Yan on Vimeo.

i was so geeked off of my idea to make a denim clutch that i didn’t even bother to dust the thing off. i was also so geeked that i didn’t bother to use the zipper foot for my sewing machine to put in the zipper.

can i just say here that i hate hate hate sewing in zippers for some reason? they were the most painful thing for me to do in school when i studied fashion design 50 million years ago.

but that wasn’t the end of my geeked-ness. nope, sure wasn’t. i also didn’t realize my interfacing was double-sided adhesive before i ironed the thing down. that meant that my lining was sticking to the inside of the bag, which just wasn’t going to work. i worked around it, but it turned out a little errrrrr…bulkier than i had planned.

see, sometimes i get so stoked about an idea that i just jump right on in.

yes, i goes in, honey.

full throttle all like, “today is clutch day!!!!!”

it’s pretty needless to add here that my clutch had some bumps along the way, but i think it came out rather snazzy for my first go at it.

all kinds of things.

i put on some music, pull a little this and a little that out of my boxes and i make my own kinda magic.

in dutch’s case, the weekend includes video game time. he lives for his video game time and he has quite a collection of games. naturally, there are some games (his dad’s) that are a definite no-no. that includes anything rated “m” for mature. he’s not even allowed to be in the same room when his dad plays these games.

we’re serious.

so last weekend we were hanging around the house. i was watching tv, dutch was playing his games, and i hadn’t fixed anything for lunch just yet so i decided to just order chinese. by the time the food came i was out of my mind hungry and couldn’t wait to dig in. i said to dutch, “i’m going to pass out in here if i don’t eat soon!” which got me to thinking, would my child know what to do if i ever had a medical emergency and really passed out?

so i asked, “dutch, what would you do if i passed out?”

dutch: play call of duty: black ops.

mama: what?!

dutch: and then i’d call an ambulance.

so much for a hero.