KL's Mom

    KL's Mom is that person in the office that while a good worker can be a bit of a pill. She is an employee that starts out normal when she is single or married without kids, but after her first kid watch out. KL's Mom is now about 41. She had her first kid at 38. She like many other late mother's spends all of her time now wearing us out about her daughter (KL). I mean wearing us out. Of course she speaks as a complete authority on raising children despite the fact that she is not the first one to ever bear a child.
The amount of eye rolls that proceed whenever KL's Mom comes into the room and starts talking about her kid is unbelievable. She manages to include her child in any and every piece of conversation no matter how mundane from cats to catastrophe from diapers to dandelions. I wouldn't normally care so much as KL's mom used to come into my office whenver Bunch of Trees wasn't around and sit on my credenza and talk and talk and talk. (That spot is now semi-reserved for Tat Woman whenever she is wearing her Cheek Week pants and needs a 
place to rest her cheeks).
KL's mom is our contracts person which means our business managers are not her supervisors. Her boss resides in a completely different part of the company 15 miles away. As such and because she has to put KL into and pick her up from daycare daily, she doesn't usually come in until about 10:00am. Usually when she does get in she stops at Bunch of Trees office to wear her ears out about KL and then briefly stops by to open her office door, put her laptop down and then straight to lunch!
Bunch of Trees moans about this to the rest of us, but secretly likes to have the company whenever she wants to go shopping during lunchtime. (Usually Kohls or the Mall)
Note: Bunch of Trees shops a lot . Half of the stuff she buys she orders online and about 1/4 of that is usually sitting in her office at anytime creating quite a mess and providing plenty for anyone standing in her office to step on.

Shake that thang

Nothing new to post much today. A typical Thursday in the trenches. One thing of note did happen though.
Tat Woman who has no shame when it comes to her dress apparantly has some level of shame. We have recently gotten glass doors installed in our office space right as you come off the elevators. My Belle was sitting desk for a while and whenever Tat Woman comes out to the lobby , she always shakes her ass at My Belle as a way to joke with her. Well this time as she was right in the middle of shaking it, the elevator doors opened and one of the other employees on the other side got an eyefull. They say Tat Woman blushed two shades of red. I wonder if she blushed that much when she was getting her tat on her left breast? I think not.

Strange Parking behavior

At this Friday's usual boring meeting, I observed something. Since none of the big bosses were in this past Friday, the meeting was even more boring than usual. I was looking out the window to the parking garage next to our building. We have exclusive use of this garage, but it is not attached to the structure, and really being only two stories has really only the lower floor that anyone would want to actually use in this Summer's heat.
People from the building across the street use the parking garage too, even though they are not supposed to. We don't have any guards or permits telling anyone who should park there or not, so it really doesn't matter. (It really doesn't as last Summer a woman's brand new Lincoln Navigator was stolen from our very same parking garage one morning).
Tat woman started noticing what I was looking at and asked what the big deal was. I explained that there was a man who parks his BMW 300 on top of our garage each morning in the heat and then walks, not into our building, not across the street to the other company, but across the street and through the trees to the buildings on the far parking lot. (About a good 1/4 to 1/3 extra mile walk to his office. We couldn't decide why he was doing this as:
1) He was not really using the advantages of our garage parking ontop in the heat (he didn't even try and park under some shade trees )
2) There are numerous parking spots in the parking lot where his building is . (too many really)
3) He parked right in the middle of the top of the garage, not even near the side closest to where he was walking. Again, there are no cars located on the roof of our parking garage as the heat is too much.
Tat woman thought that it didn't make sense and the only explanation was that either he was trying to not show anyone at his office how late he was coming in, (it was about 10:00am) or he wanted to be able to drive home without anyone in his office knowing his departure time.
We got so animated about talking about the various theories, that KL's mom shushed us as she was trying to listen to someone on the phone. We conduct our weekly meetings from two offices simultaneously, so as to include as many folks as possible and since we have the smaller group, we usually have our phone on mute.
KL's mom will require a separate post to fully describe her. Let's just call her a 40 year old first time Mom of a 1 year old who feels that she doesn't get the respect due her from the rest of the higher up "men" in the office because they don't see her as anything but a pretty face.
I won't mention the fact that she ain't as cute as she thinks she is, are any of us late 30 year olds? She also has been spending a inordinate amount of time in Bunch of Trees office talking so much that some around the office wonder when she gets any work done at all.
She works from home one day a week, takes off one day a week and comes into the office the other three days.
As the typical late Mother she has already worn everybody out with the stories about her kid KL. You know the type, yapping about , daycare, feeding, playing, walking, burping etc. People have taken to turning and walking the other way when they see her coming. But that is for another post.

The Characters

Bunch of Trees-
Every office of any decent size has a person like Bunch of Trees. Almost always female, former or current supervisor (usually of a dept like actg where most of her underlings are female) but usually now just working for the business unit in whatever capacity is his/her forte. Usually this person has survived countless "reorgs" that would have any normal person too annoyed to stick around. Our Bunch of Trees has all of these traits. She is also extremely popular with most people in the building so her office/area becomes a kind of gathering place for people to come talk about any and everything whenever they have any spare time. (myself included) In order to get her work done with any regularity Bunch of Trees has to come in early (6:30am) to get a jump on the day. Loyal to the company, she isn't particularly ambitious enough to actually threaten anyone. This loyalty and her skill and connections with all her years of service make her a valuable asset to the group. Only occaisionly will she go off on someone about something or other that didn't go her way.
My Belle - My Belle is an admin that works for our dept. She does most of the work in support for our group. Very nice, dedicated, but not a pushover and thorough. She has to be as her cube is the second most popular around the office next to Bunch of Trees. She also comes in early to have an early, quiet breakfast with Bunch of Trees. My Belle does all of her work and most of the work of her boss NYWoman because NYWoman, her boss, spends most of her time setting up meetings and walking around the office talking to people in that order.
NYWoman works directly as an admin for the big boss, who is out of the office in meetings most of the time. More on these characters later .....(Next update , NYWoman, KL's Mom)

Some relief

Some slightly good news. I have been given a reprieve of sorts from my heavy load. I have talked my manager into hiring the woman who was put on furlough out at the other office to actually do the day to day support saving me from going out there on an almost daily basis. Thank God for small miracles!

Catching up a little

Well watch out what you wish for cause it just may come true. I have just been asked to support a new group that has six new tasks that I alone now have to support. It is still the Treasury dept, but now I have a new group to talk about and they have one woman who is a doozy. I still have to do my regular job, just with this added. I will have to get around to getting this blog caught up, but since late Feb they have literally been working my ass to death. 50-55hr work weeks with 1 hour travel each day out to the office and log in from there. Sucks to be me.
There is a new character out at the new office. She is the business manager out at the new office and although she doesn't directly support my task , she essentially controls a lot of my access to the financial information since the group refuses to give me native access. Don't ask, I am essentially out there begging for support on a weekly basis.
I will call her the "Shyster". More on all this later.

por favor

The other day, Tat woman asked me when I came into the kitchen whether I spoke Spanish. I regretted that I didn't and then asked her why she needed to have an interpretation.
She replied " I need to say , $600 cash". There you have it. I do not know what, but there you have it.

First real post

I would just like to say that this blog is a part of my imagination and if any "characters" I write about resemble any real people, it is strictly coincidental.
Here goes ...
Tat Woman
Tat Woman is .... well .... hot ! Hot in that Pamela Anderson sort of way. You know. A little bit too much make up, hard body, and unfortunately a hard face. Built like a Sherman tank. About 5'6", mid thirties, with green eyes (fake) , firm and subtle breasts (also fake) and generally overly tan and worked out (probably fake too) look that has been popular for years. Her hair is generally dirty blonde, kinda of David Lee Roth style if you will. Those of you Van Halen fans out there from the early 80's know that is not necessarily a bad thing. Old Diamond Dave knew his way around a mirror .
She came to our company as a temp about a year ago to fill in doing procurement work for a woman who went on maternity leave. The woman eventually came back , but read the writing on the wall and split to another job at a different company site. When you come back all fat and bloated from a pregnancy to your old job and a hot woman is currently doing it OK, you pretty much have to look elsewhere.
Here I should mention why she is known as Tat Woman. When she first started working for us and wore skirts and dresses , she would always wear high boots (over the calf). When the weather turned hot , we found out why. She has, on the out side of each calf, a tattoo that runs from her ankle to about mid calf. I haven't had the opportunity to see what exactly the tattoos are, but that will have to come for a later post. I should also mention that Tat Woman is one of those women, and there are many, that wears a lot of anklets and bracelets for no particular reason and can be heard from about 40 feet away coming down the hallway. She also wears various rings almost all of which are solid silver or silver with a turquoise stone. Do you get the picture?
I should mention here that Tat Woman is very good and professional at her job. She has to be as there are always new vendors and old contracts to close out. She has just not always been professional in her dress. The first month that she was here , she would favor one of two pair of tight pants/slacks for her look. I should mention now that these "slacks" were the same/similar material and fit as that of a dance squad for a NBA sports franchise as pictured here. From the knee down they were regular slacks, but from the knee up , lets just say, rah rah team!!

My office is actually split up into two sections a small group and a larger group. The smaller group, mine is located in the open area and the larger group is behind closed doors because of the secretive nature of clientele info. There has always been a dress policy that stated , no jeans, t-shirts, strapless tops (for the women) or sneakers (except Friday's) and what could be described as a business casual attire every other day. This rule had been largely ignored by everyone on the other side and most people on my side with dozens of folks wearing jeans and sneakers pretty much everyday. No holes, mind you, these are decent folks. We recently got a HR representative at our location after having to deal for the past two years with the old rep located in another state ! Coincidentally , about 3 weeks after she arrived , there was a new e-mail stating that the business casual dress code must be adhered to everyday but Friday by everyone, even for those folks behind the "iron curtain" (who would not normally be seen by visitors) What a stink this brought up! Folks were in an uproar over this news as they claimed that they would have to pony up $$ for an entirely new wardrobe! I should mention here that my small group of about 8 people have always had to adhere to business casual and that the dresscode is entirely sane for any company this side of the 1970s that wishes their employees to be taken seriously in any office working environment. The fact that grown people are crying about being forced to change clothes from their weekend attire to attend work is silly. But my real reason for bringing this up is to talk about HR in any relatively large company. First a lesson for anyone who has never worked for a large corporation before and who thinks that HR is the dept that is put there to help out the worker. HR is not there for the benefit of the employees, HR is there for the benefit and protection, I should add, of the company. (Watch out for those lawsuits and help us document/flag those troubled workers for later dismissal) They are almost exclusively worked by women with a rah rah- let's- get- together- and- have a- meeting about what we don't like and what I don't have the power or inclination to change. Don't you feel better ? No ? Oh well, would you like another session? I have had maybe 2 HR reps that were even helpful in getting us qualified candidates to interview in the 15 years that I have been working as a professional. We mostly find the best ones ourselves and then have to handhold HR to send the proper paperwork and letters to the candidate in a timely manner before they give up and take another position.

How do I have enough time to write about all this? I had previously been working 6 projects doing budgeting and preparing monthly reports for all of them and dealing with all the hassles that come with them by myself. I am not bragging the work kept me busy, but now I have only 3 tasks, one of which has just ended this month and another which will end sometime in the first quarter of next year. All of my current tasks combined is not on half the size of one of my earlier larger tasks. It's weird when the dept of govt that I support, the Treasury, collects money and revenue for the govt , but is getting cut back and not properly funded in a time when the country needs funding (tax revenue). We are not talking strong arm tactics folks or stealing $$ from the hardworking Libertarians, they need more people to just send out more notices to people who owe taxes and may not even realize it , but alas the current climate is to cut cut cut and let the beast starve, even if the beast is owed food if you will. Oh well , enough for one day the next entry will talk a little more about the personalities in the office.

Getting this thing started

Oh well, might as well get my first post started on this "blog" thing that I have been putting off for over a month now. I have been waiting to start this thing off for fear of someone reading it and getting upset. Basically this blog , if I ever decide to continue to keep it up , will be the goings on in my small office in Northern VA . I work for a government contractor at a relatively small office in the Northern Va area and have noticed that some of the employees I work with are a little bit on the funny and interesting side. This will hopefully be an account of the goings on of my co-workers. These are strictly my observations and names will be withheld to protect the innocent and the guilty. I will use only aliases that best fit the physical, emotional or annoying characteristics of those I write about.