It's not who's right but who's left

For the last few hours, my mind has been completely consumed by something that happened at work today. Not with anyone in my office, rather, one of our media partners that we work with on occasion. Technically, I am/we are the client. And the client is always right, right?

Until I moved to LA, I spent my career on the agency side, diligently practicing that motto with clients of my own, working with the creed that it's not as important to be right as it is to be left still working on the account. Now that I am in-house, I don't really have "clients," but I do work with enough media outlets, community partners, and Fortune 500 companies that I think I still remember how to treat them.

Since I have partnered with this media company, I have been given the run-around about a number of things, given conflicting answers to singular questions while other queries go entirely unanswered. Often, I've had to follow up to ensure that things get done, and more times than not I have felt that my requests are treated as an afterthought, reacted to rather than having been acted on in the first place. A few times, I've suspected I've been lied to, not because they hiding something, exactly, other than the fact that they don't know the answer. They are, at best, disorganized.

To be fair, though, the work has gotten done, and my company has benefited hugely from this partnership. So much so that I have tried to be patient, tried to overlook the discrepancies that, while driving me crazy personally, won't really affect the big picture. A few months ago, I brought my concerns to this company as calmly and rationally as I could, wearing my "I'm ready to listen to and understand you" hat, eager to be a good partner and team player. Never mind that very few clients had ever done the same for me in my former life. Never mind that if I had ever treated my clients the way this company treated me, I would be moved off the account, if not fired from the firm. But we were partners, and I needed to make this work. End of story.

Today I found myself getting fed what seemed like another series of lies. I emailed separately with my two contacts, and, as I've come to expect, they each gave me different, conflicting stories. So I called them out on it. Unfortunately, though, in the heat of the moment (I know, I know, never email mad!) my tone was more passive aggressive than professional, and I quickly received an email back calling me out on my tone, and calling me disrespectful to them - how dare I question their integrity?

And that's when I started to question myself.

Did I have a right to be bitchy? Yes, I was paying them for a service but they were granting us some favors in return. (Or were they favors? Honestly, I'm not really getting anything that wasn't outlined in our contract.) Was I expecting too much from our spread-too-thin 26 year old account executive who sent emails to me with smiley faces? Have things changed that much since I was on the other side that smiley faces are now acceptable in client correspondence? Or is that an LA thing?

Since I moved here, I have both struggled with and embraced how laid back businesses can be. I'm still used to working for companies that are run by perfectionists and expect the same. But out here, so many people seem to take an "eh, good enough" approach to their work. And while it's extremely gratifying not waking up every morning with a pit in my stomach, worried about misspelling a client's name on a memo or arriving five minutes late to a meeting, the downside is that I often feel like I'm conversing with college students.

Part of me feels like in New York, this behavior would never be tolerated. But then, I'm not in New York, and, as with men, if I want to be successful in LA, I drastically need to lower my expectations. Or, at the very least, take a chill pill.

Overall, the "LA laid-back" thing has benefited me - my quality of life is the best it's ever been. But today it affected my work, as I let myself act unprofessional, unbecoming of my own high standards. While I may have harped about the way I've been treated as a client, I've realized it's not about being the client at all, but about being a professional. I don't think this company is very professional, but by my passive-aggressive email today, I lowered myself to their level. And that makes me not nearly as good at my job as I remember.

Against all odds

Last night I did something I've never done before. I cooked myself a burger on the stove.

Well, actually it was a Chili Lime Chicken burger from Trader Joe's, but it was frozen, and I defrosted, sprayed my skillet with Pam, and nervously watched the burner as I prayed it would cook through, all by myself. Slowly, but surely, I assure you, I will learn to appreciate this "joy" of cooking.

(The joy of dish washing, however, continues to elude me, as my skillet is still soaking in the sink alongside the wine glasses my mom and I used four weeks ago.)

Last night I also ran into Tall Guy again. At the exact same place I ran into him last week watching the game. It was my friend Laura's birthday, and she, completely coincidentally, chose to have it at that same bar. What were the odds that I would go there twice in one week? What were the odds of him? What were the odds that my other friend Lauren would turn out to know his friend from college? What were the odds that with those odds, we'd still manage not to talk to or get introduced to each other?

Maybe like the odds of the Red Sox winning the World Series. Again!

Pop cultured

(I wrote the following on a rainy Saturday in November of 2003, sitting cross-legged on the couch in my tiny New York apartment. I don't know what, if anything, compelled me to write it, but I remember the words pouring out of my head practically faster than I could type. A year before I became a blogger, it was the first time I wrote out my thoughts as if they might be seen, as if I might do something "official" with this. Now, it is apropos of absolutely nothing, other than the fact that it starts off with a mention of bachelorette parties, and therefore has been on my mind since last weekend. Also, I have nothing else to write about.)

I’ve always said that when I get married I don’t want a traditional bachelorette party, at which a group of close girlfriends, heavily intoxicated and armed with tacky accessories from Condom World, promote the fun of sex toys and strippers for my benefit. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, when couples are marrying later in life, after years of having sex and in many cases, cohabitation, this still appears to be the preferred party formula. Maybe I run with a fast crowd, but vibrators had lost their stigma long before the popularity of Sex & the City, and my first male stripper experience in a Montreal “women’s club” at age sixteen was more than enough for one lifetime.

No, my idea of going out of singlehood in style is a huge party in my honor, at which every guy I’ve ever dated, liked, or even just ogled at the gym was in attendance to say goodbye. I realize this would never happen, of course, especially as by now most of my guests are married to women who would never let them attend, but I imagine it as a cloudy television dream sequence in which, oddly, they all have 1950’s haircuts and say things like, “Isn’t she swell?” And because I am a party girl at heart, I would make sure they all got sufficiently drunk and loose-lipped, and find ways to sneak one naughty smooch with each of them.

It’s not a matter of gloating, or some display of comeuppance that I seek. It’s just the feeling of being “worshiped” – a word I use loosely, but fondly - one last time before I commit myself to the ultimate act of adulthood, monogamy. [I have to note here that I think this is so weird now. If I were getting married, I would feel worshiped by my fiancee, right? Clearly my then-27 year old brain couldn't fathom that.]

If I ever went through therapy, the psychiatrist would probably tell me this desire for adoration stems from the lack of a steady male figure in my life. After all, my parents got divorced when I was five, and while I saw my father at least once a week, I did not develop a real relationship with him until I was older. I’d listen to the doctor long enough for him to write a prescription for something I would use later for other purposes, but I know the reason for my fantasy doesn’t stem from lack of a male figure. On the contrary; it’s the overwhelming desire to try and live up to the female figures of influence that I’ve bought into since birth.

Growing up, I was the only child of a Yuppie. My mother was ambitious, a go-getter, the single mom who ran a successful advertising business in Boston. In what was probably a subconscious attempt to spite her, I was the antithesis of motivated: I came home from school every day and locked myself in the TV room to watch hour after hour of bad television.

Some of my friends had after-school babysitters. I had a live-in housekeeper. The housekeeper’s role was duplicitous; naturally, she would cook and keep the house clean, but she was also responsible for keeping me safe and out of trouble. From the time I was five until I was twelve, we had an assortment of housekeepers, each staying about a year or two, until she could get her Green Card, or in one case, a better job working at the Friendly’s restaurant down the street. Hailing usually from Jamaica or Barbados, the housekeepers had an odd assortment of names, and over the years the guest room would be renamed to reflect its current occupant: “Heckle’s room” turned into “Olive’s room” which turned into “Raymond’s room”, and ultimately stayed “Raymond’s room” in our minds long after she left and it went back to being a guest room.

As if their names were indicative of their personalities, I thought the housekeepers themselves were weird. They used Vaseline in their hair, dutifully read the Bible, called me “hey Man” despite the fact I was a little girl, and made soup with the parts of the chicken that are meant, in first-world countries, to be thrown out with the trash. To show my disdain, I holed myself up in the TV room from the time I came home from school until the time I went to bed.

My reality, then, was heavily filtered through our RCA television set. Before I was old enough to even understand the premise of Three’s Company, I was captivated by Chrissy’s allure, and as such practiced her laugh/snort, copied her hairstyles, and memorized her bad jokes. I hated that I had brown hair like the practical, second fiddle Janet. A huge fan of The Brady Bunch, I aspired to be Marcia (beautiful) or Cindy (cute), but never Jan, the freckled, insecure misfit. In second grade, when the other girls had Strawberry Shortcake or The Care Bears on their lunch boxes, I had Daisy Duke, Bo and Luke. At an early age, it was clear to me that the most desirable qualities a girl could have were bouncy hair, quick wit, and often, half a brain.

I practiced adopting those qualities alone in my room in front of a mirror, on the playground with friends, and in a one-man stage show using my Star Studio for anyone in the living room who would watch. I never cared much for Barbie or dolls - they were inanimate objects. I craved action in the form of soap operas, talk shows, and bad 1970's comedies.

Of course, by the time the social forces of middle school propelled me into the reality that everyone else shared, it was too late. I had spent my youth soaking up the messages in angst-ridden John Hughes films, aspiring to be a popular high school cheerleader, believing that relationships with my seventh grade classmates would be just like the ones seen on General Hospital. I had no clue.

In a sense, television helped me grow up and understand things before many of my friends. I was watching older people do mature things, and retained those images. On the other hand, because I spent so much time alone with my characters and imagination, I didn’t learn until much later how real humans behaved.

I've long since learned that having half a brain usually only works on TV, and I've even embraced my inner Janet. I do get discouraged, however, when I see how often The Bachelor goes for the dimwit.

Don't call it a comeback

I got back earlier today from what surely seemed like the world's shortest trip to Boston. I flew out on Friday morning, arrived Friday night, and turned back around at 5:30 AM this morning. Somehow, I was in Boston for less than 36 hours, and managed to be on an airplane for 12. And I wonder where my weekends go...

The occasion was my friend Maria's Non-Bachelorette Party. A modern girl, Maria wanted to forgo any of the usual activities that might surround a bachelorette party - no frilly veils or Life Saver t-shirts or male strippers for her. Rather, an intimate group of us gathered for manicures, pedicures, dinner and drinks - refined activities for the classy broads that we are. Well, mostly, until we surprised her with the penis cake. But other than that, it was a very tasteful - and tasty! - affair.

I managed to sleep for a few hours on the plane this morning, so rather than relax or attempt to get my chores done this afternoon, I threw caution to the wind and went out to watch the Red Sox win Game 7 of the Playoffs and qualify for the World Series. Go me! I'm not a sports fan, really, and wasn't even much in the mood to drink, but I do like boys in baseball caps, and our post-dinner drinks in Boston bar last night reminded me of a few things. One, Boston guys are hot. Two, Boston girls are generally not. Three, I have spent far too many weekends in a row inside, at work, or away from home to have any sense of a social life, and if I want to legitimately complain that I don't meet anyone, I should actually try leaving my house for once. So I did.

I didn't meet any boys there, but I did see this guy. And what's weirder than the fact that I saw him was that I came home tonight to find a new comment on that exact post - that I wrote six months ago. I was going to look it up anyway for the link; and yet I opened my email and it was staring out at me from my inbox, a not-so-subtle reminder that maybe I should introduce myself. The night out did me good, though, reminded me how nice it is to NOT think about work for once, or rely on the ABC Sunday night line-up in order to wind down. As much as I have been wrapped up in other things this fall, I am looking forward to placing an emphasis on my social life over the next few weeks.

It feels long overdue.

Night and day it's Cinderelly

Today is the first day in more than a week that I finally feel like myself. I don't get sick often, and when I do it is usually a doozy - it hits me hard and strong, but I'm over it almost as quickly as it started. Not this time. This time, I started feeling it in the back of my throat last Sunday, it moved up into my chest by Tuesday/Wednesday, and lingered there and with a dull, constant headache and dizziness that started over the weekend. Nothing bad enough to really confine me to bed or anything, just annoying for long enough that I started to worry that maybe my body chemistry had changed and I was now going to feel like this forever. Neurotic, much?

Anyway, I've gone back and forth on sharing the details of the event, mainly because I try not to talk about work too much on here. I'm not exactly anonymous, and while I don't have anything bad to say, I AM in public relations - it would be a little ironic if I were the reason something got out about my company, but not in the way I'm pitching it to the media. In any case, I'm not sharing anything that isn't public knowledge by now, so here goes.

My company's flagship store relocated this summer to a new space in Pasadena. Construction was set to end at the end of September, and I had scheduled our grand opening party for more than three weeks later. We had been working very closely with the retail design firm in charge of the construction, and were assured that everything would be done on time, and we would, in fact, be set to open early, before the party, to work out the kinks.

The end of September came and went, and our store was no where near finished. (You'd think maybe I'd have learned a lesson from the last time we opened a retail space, and maybe given myself like a month's more time?) The major, structural things had been done, but the internal installations and fixtures, it turned out, hadn't even been ordered. The design team we had been working with fired the person in charge of our project, and hadn't bothered to pick up the pieces. We were less than two weeks out from our event, and learned that we had no counters, countertops, shelves, sinks, wall graphics, or any of the other details we had talked about for months.

Under the gun, though, and by some miracle, all that got done. Shelves were ordered and came two days later. Countertops were cut and driven up overnight from Arizona. Wall graphics were printed, and the sinks, chairs, and other accessories arrived within hours of the party. The problem, it turned out, was with our permits. Because our installations kept getting pushed back, we couldn't get the appropriate people in to approve the store. And until we had our fire, electrical, and building approvals, we couldn't actually move anything in. Like the 200 boxes of product we had sitting in our warehouse, just waiting to be unloaded.

We didn't end up being ready for the inspections until Thursday morning. That would be the day of the party. The contractor and his crew had been working around the clock for days by that point, but there was just that much to get done. The fire chief was scheduled to come that morning, but the building and electrical guy had given us the window of 12 to 2. So, best case scenario, he approves us at noon and we have just under six hours to stock the entire store, decorate for the party, and change into our own attire for the event. Worse case scenario, we fail inspection and have to cancel the event, hours before it's scheduled to start. And I didn't mention, I wasn't just throwing this party on my own. We partnered with a magazine who was helping us secure catering, alcohol, celebrities, etc. So if we failed inspection, we also would have failed a major commitment and I would have honestly wanted to quit my job, leave the profession, and never set foot in Pasadena again.

Fortunately, we got the mid-case scenario, which was that the building and electrical guy came at 1:45, spent half an hour in the store making us worry, and then finally gave us the green light at 2:15. We had less than four hours to turn this empty space into a functioning, attractive retail store and party atmosphere. And this, my friends, is when my life turned into a movie.

No director yelled "Action", but immediately extras stormed the stage. We had our entire office involved at this point, and there were about 4 cars parked outside waiting to unload boxes of product from the warehouse. Like on an assembly line, they'd unload on the street, some of us would carry in, and others would unpack onto the shelves. It was chaotic, yet entirely under control.

Not five minutes after the building inspector left, the first party rentals arrived, and so did my contact from the magazine. I had so fearfully pictured a scenario in which I would have to break the bad and embarrassing news to her; now, I only needed to convince her that of course an event would be happening here in 3 and 1/2 hours! Don't you worry! I said, as I, giddy with newfound relief, wiped the sweat off my own brow.

Earlier in the day, we had assigned each staff member a specific job. Some unpacked product and merchandised them on the shelves, others broke down boxes, others swept up or decorated for the event. Like Cinderella's mice, my 15 or so coworkers worked frantically to make the impossible possible, and, at 5:45, we were more than presentable.

It was a great party. Partnering with the magazine allowed us to do some other things we wouldn't normally do, and we had an awesome turnout. But I think part of the success was a result of the energy that bounded off every one of us - the company employees who had spent the first half of the day on the edge of their seat, and the second half working physically harder than I think any of us have in a long time. I've never seen such large smiles, genuine grins, on the faces of my co-workers. Everyone was on a natural high, myself included, and that energy radiated out to our guests. I've felt team bonding before, but I can't remember the last time I was so bursting with pride over the company I worked for. It was a great feeling.

I've heard about adrenaline before, how it takes over and makes you feel like you can do anything. It took over around 2:15 PM, and lasted throughout the night. I had been too nervous to eat much breakfast or lunch that day, and by the time the party came, I was too naturally high to be hungry. I drank some leftover wine once the party ended, and that, on an empty stomach, left me feeling sick for days, or at least exacerbated whatever illness was already festering.

But it was so worth it.

The lows, the highs, I am already missing the angst I felt exactly a week ago at this time, when I sat, commiserating with Matt, over the fate of our next 24 hours. It's times like this, like that, when I love my job, and can't imagine doing anything else.

Delirious

My body hates me.

When I work too hard, I get sick, and I worked like mad this past week. When I couldn't drive myself into work on Friday until 11 AM, and then had to nap for two hours on the spare couch in our office, I thought I'd simply drank too much the night before on two-days worth of an empty stomach. But 48 hours later, 24 of which were comprised of drug-induced sleep, I'm still feeling feverish and phlegmy and unable to concentrate on much more than the basic cable line up. It's not just the physical, but the emotional. The work that went into Thursday's event, then the success of it all followed by the energy it generated for Friday and Saturday had my adrenaline pumping so high for so long, today my seratonin levels finally crashed as well, leaving me in tears just watching reruns of Project Runway.

The good news is that while my body may hate me, I'm loving my body, my loss of appetite having left me feeling thinner than I have in years. So this, I guess, is what they call the stress diet. I can live with that.

The days of my life

Sorry I have been MIA. I've been working like mad on an event that, to use a few cliches, went off without a hitch but practically by the skin of my teeth. In eight years working in PR, I've done A LOT of events, and trust me when I tell you that I've never experienced anything like yesterday before.

Anyway, it was wildly successful, but the highlight of my night was meeting one of my childhood soap idols, "Kayla." You may recall my fondness for her from this post I wrote last year, and I was thrilled to learn that she was even nicer and more beautiful in person than as seen on TV. I am just as smitten now, as ever.

Grouchfest 2007 - Now with Extra Cranky!

Maybe if I just purge all of my grumpiness into one post, I can finally get rid of this cloud hanging over my head. If you don't want to risk my negativity wearing off on you, I suggest you go read something else. Like my horoscope, and let me know when it's going to lift.

I was a grouch this weekend. No specific reason, really, other than PMS. I don't usually get PMS, at least not in a way that affects my mood (only my weight!), but this month it seemed to come at me with a vengeance, amplifying all of my irritations, as if to make up for all the months I coasted through comfortably content. I'm also a bit stressed about work. Not in a bad way, like something bad is going to happen, just in a I-have-two-events-this-week-in-a-store-that-isn't-done-yet way. The work itself is going fine; it's the three weeks of getting up early and staying late that have finally started to wear on me. None of this is stuff I haven't done before; in fact, this was what my life was like in New York. I guess that's why my mood suddenly seems to match it.

I've noticed something about myself since I moved to LA. While I have generally become much more laid back and relaxed about the big things (work, boys, life), I have become incredibly neurotic about the smaller stuff. Ridiculous things like making sure I go food shopping, or that my apartment is clean, or I that I read every single magazine and trade paper that comes to my attention, even though no one is making me but the obsessive-compulsive person inside my head. An unfinished to do list stresses me out, and when I get stressed, I shut down.

It's funny. A few years ago I might have dealt with stress by meeting up with friends or drinking wine by myself in the apartment. Now, though, when I start feeling like I have too much on my plate, I physically begin to crave quiet, want nothing more than to be alone, free of obligations, to control what little of my life I can. Even if that's only going food shopping. When work gets busy, as it has been, or I have too many social events in a row, I'll make a sweeping gesture of declining plans, swearing off friends for entire weekends. And while that always sounds like a good idea on Friday, by Sunday afternoon I am entirely bored of myself and wondering what fun I might have missed.

So that's kind of the dichotomy I found myself struggling with this past weekend. Initially I had planned on staying in all weekend, because, in my mind, I had a ton of stuff to do. (In reality, "a ton of stuff" was only like 5 things, but they needed to get done or I'd be very stressed out.) Part of me wanted time alone, but I was so unusually cranky, I couldn't stand the thoughts running through my own head. So I forced myself to go out on Friday night, but then was so exhausted on Saturday, I couldn't get all my stuff done. I felt my anxiety grow as the day passed and I had only Sunday to settle my chores.

Sunday I had plans for brunch, but was so consumed with satisfying my to do list, I was a short circuit the whole time. Quite honestly, I was a bitch. Seriously, I didn't recognize myself, was crawling in my own skin!

Did I mention that one of my chores was running? And that the reason it got pushed to Sunday was because my hip, despite feeling fine after my run a few weeks ago, is still hurting? So I haven't been exercising as much overall, at least not cardio, and I have to wonder if that isn't helping to contribute to my disdainful disposition.

I also have a confession to make. I am getting tired of this blog. I am tired of listening to myself wax nostalgic or witty or wistful, hearing sentences form in my head not as actual thoughts, but as leads for my next post. Will this make a good post? I wonder at least once a day. I am getting tired of the Internet in general, this whole social networking thing, this ability to be searched and found and followed and judged. Don't ask me why - after three years, I suddenly crave anonymity. Maybe I feel like I've gotten all I can from it; maybe I am just in a deeper ditch of writer's block, I don't know. I'll never stop writing. I just don't know where I'll do it.

Maybe because today was a holiday for some people, Grouchfest didn't stop when Sunday's sun went down. I woke up this morning feeling two things: 1.) Sick - Yay, sore throat! My body is rebelling! Glands are swollen as we speak.

2.) Sad. I was a lot of things this weekend - cranky, stressed, tired, overwhelmed - but sad was not one of them. I haven't been outright melancholy in a long time. But I woke up from a dream in which an ex-boyfriend was telling me that he had gotten engaged, but that his fiancee was simultaneously suing him for being unfaithful. He wasn't even unfaithful, really, he just took a year and a half to decide whether or not he really liked her, during which time he was always calling me, telling me he was ending it, and when could we get together? (That part really happened.) So in my dream I was asking him why he did a 180 from the summer when he claimed he broke up with her (also really happened) to ask her to marry him? He answered because she had stuck around long enough and he just figured she deserved it. And that's why he was allowing her to sue him, because he figured he made it hard enough for her before, might as well make it easy now.

I woke up with a pain in my gut, sick at the thought I might have lost him for good. Except that in real life, I haven't talked to him in months, and haven't had feelings for him in much longer. Yet I wanted to call him immediately to find out if he was engaged. But of course I don't want to know. I'll never call. I woke up feeling like I had lost something very precious to me. Even though it was never really mine to begin with.

What I've felt like all weekend

Even I'm sick of myself.

More Random Tuesday Goodness

- Honestly? In 2004, could we ever have imagined that Kevin Federline would turn out to be the better parent?

- At the risk of asking the obvious, what is the point of the "poke" application on Facebook? I'm not being facetious, I honestly just don't get it. Is it a flirting thing? If so, then why am I getting poked by a.) a married girlfriend who never accepted my friend request and b.) some guy I don't know at all but is married with kids? I mean, why don't you just send me an email?

But you know what - don't bother. Like Hilary, I've recently found myself entirely over the whole concept of both Facebook and MySpace. What will I do with my free time now? Maybe converse with people in person, I guess.

- When I lived in NYC, I constantly had to take my shoes in to get re-soled. I took them wherever was most convenient, but I remember friends saying, in passing, "Oh, I have the best shoe guy!" I never really understood what made one shoe guy better than another. All they ever did for me was replace my heels, reinforce the toes, and give my old kickers a nice buff and shine, usually for $15 or less.

Well, today I learned that you can't recognize a good shoe guy until you go to a bad one. I'd put on a pair of wedges I'd just gotten back from the cobbler, and realized, only after I left the house, that they seemed unnaturally high and wobbly. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the new heel tips he put on were about an eighth of an inch higher than the originals. A small amount, sure, but enough to make my foot arch at an uncomfortably high angle. I tripped twice at work alone, and no, I hadn't been drinking. I suppose I could have just been unused to the arch, since my former heels had worn down some; but, if that was the case, the cobbler should have reinforced the toes too, to balance them out. Boo for bad service.

- How is it that three friends can call me in the span of a 10 minute shower, but when I sit alone in traffic for an hour and a half, not a single person in my address book can pick up their god damn cell phone?

- Finally, I'll leave you with a cute picture of me and my mom from this weekend, because, you know, I haven't posted about her at all lately. More photos are here.