Workplace etiquette: A poll about The Pigs and other disturbing behavior

Bare feets.

Loves 'em.

I'm not a foot person by any means, but what is cuter than a baby's bare foot? And there's something freeing about running around naked from the ankle down. If I lived in a warm enough climate, I'd go barefoot at home 365 days a year, no question. I love to let the pigs wiggle.



However.

Last week, I walked around the corner of my cube to the printer, which my team shares with an event-planning team in the next row of cubes. (I work for a giant corporation, so it isn't unusual to sit right next to people you never, ever interact with. Except when you're both at the printer.)

As I was waiting for my printed wares, around the corner came one of the event planners...in her bare feet.

Again: Big corporation. No one's wearing suits in our area, but neither are we preparing to attend a seaside campfire or lounge in a grassy meadow. Business casual is what we all subscribe to.

And this woman fit the bill, with her sweater set and gray trousers. Perhaps she was going for the fashion equivalent of the mullet: Business up top, party below the pant cuffs.

My reaction? "Ew." And then: "Ew! Ew ew EW!"

Because, first of all? While I absolutely kick off my shoes underneath my desk from time to time, it's just not right to expect my coworkers to bear the sight of them while taking an innocent stroll to the water fountain.

Second? There's no way there isn't some gross, funky stuff happening in corporate-office carpeting, and this woman is just asking for some kind of nasty fungal infection.

And third? Because she's flaunting her bare piggies all over our biz-nass, said fungal infection will eventually make its way into our (fabric-covered) cube walls, and I'll end up with pinkeye or staph or flesh-eating bacteria. Why is this woman messing with our cube farm homeostasis? Wasn't the fruit-fly infestation of 2008 enough? HOW FAR WILL IT GO, PEOPLE?!

As if that wasn't enough, the very same afternoon, this happened: I walked down the hall to the bathroom. Thankfully, we have separate bathrooms for men and women (as all public buildings -- and homes -- should), but we do have to walk right past the men's on the way to the women's. Right as I walked by, the men's door flung open, and a dude walked out...still tucking in his shirt and buckling his belt.

Wait, let me rephrase that.

A man walked out of the bathroom WITH HIS PANTS STILL UNDONE, shoving his shirt DOWN HIS PANTS with his hands while WALKING DOWN THE HALLWAY in full view of me and God and everyone.

I... Yeah. I couldn't believe my eyes, and I still can't.

So, friends, two questions for you today:

1. Is it ever acceptable to go barefoot at work? If so, please cite examples.
2. Why would a grown man who, presumably, has been IN THE WORLD, think it's OK to finish shuffling things around down there while walking down a well-traveled hallway?

Thank you. And a happy Monday to you and yours.

Inexplicable

Will someone explain to me why these guys now have ANOTHER show on television?

Two rapping brothers who are famous because of their awful dating shows, searching for Sasquatch and other legendary monsters in swamps and forests and...

Um...why?

Especially when the people who actually do this sort of thing for a living are FAR more entertaining:


The folks on Swamp People are just...real people. Not caricatures. Not wannabes. They just do what they've been doing for generations: Hunt alligators and fish and take care of their families and pass on family traditions.

Personally, I don't love the hunting/killing aspect of Swamp People, just because I hate the idea of slaughtering animals, period. But I do eat meat, so I can't be a total hypocrite. (Also, alligator is tasty.) The alligators aren't hunted for sport, nothing goes to waste, and the people on the show at least appear to do it responsibly and within the law. And they're...compelling personalities.

And they aren't rapping brothers who are famous because of their awful dating shows.

I'm sure not everyone agrees with me. Which is why Real and Chance: Legend Hunters exists in the first place.


Blech.

"No Appointment (or Personality) Necessary": A Play in One Act

SCENE 1

T's car, en route to the nearest largish town. It's the Sunday before Labor Day. My objective is singular in nature. It's been a long time coming, and, with an afternoon free, at long last I'm out of excuses.

And it's not as though I had to make an appointment or anything.

ME: (inner monologue whilst driving) I'm just going to pull up to the first one I see and go in. Enough already.

In less than five seconds, I spot one surrounded by familiar neighbors: Game Stop, Starbucks, a Verizon store. I park in front of the plate glass windows.

ME: (still with the inner monologue; I know it seems weird, but just go with it) It's going to be fine. Just because you ended up with a head that looked like one of those orange traffic cones last time, it doesn't mean something bad will happen THIS time. I'm sure the people here are extremely talented.

And anyway, you aren't asking for much. A quick cut. No frills. No 30-minute blow-dry. No overpriced products. Easy peasy. (Exits car, walks hesitantly across the sidewalk and grips the door handle, steels self, then goes inside.)

~*~*~

SCENE 2

Best Cuts. With the exception of its name, it's virtually interchangeable with all the other walk-in hair salons: Great Clips, Fiesta Hair, Fantastic Sam's -- who is in charge of choosing the horrible names for these establishments?
Then again, no one's going here for the name.

In fact, I'm here for one reason and one reason only: I'm cheap. I'm buying what they're selling: No frills and no perks. Unfortunately, in my experience, that tends to extend to the stylists themselves, at least in terms of personality. Well, you know. Generally. Today I'm greeted by...we'll call her Confused-Looking Spiky Bob. Much like her predecessors, she does not disappoint.

CONFUSED-LOOKING SPIKY BOB: (Seating me in the washing-hair station chair, for which there's probably a technical name but which I'm too lazy to look up, and beginning to wash my hair) Is that too hot?

ME: (Unable to hear as scalding water is thundering around my ear holes) I'm sorry?

CLSB: WA-TER. TOO. HOT?

ME: (Slightly taken aback at being spoken to like a two-year-old) Uh...no. No, it's fine.

Silence.

Washing.

Washing, washing, washing.

More silence.

Odd hair flicking for undetermined reason.

CLSB: (Abruptly) Got kids?

ME: (Tearing focus away from odd hair flicking) Um...no. Not yet. We have dogs. You know, for now. They're like our practice babies. And we think of them as our kids, so...

CLSB: Oh.

Silence.

Conditioning.

ME: So...do you? Uh, have kids?

CLSB launches into a long explanation of each of her three children, their ages, the origins of their names, what they are best at in school and what their hair looks like, during which my responses of "Oh?" and "Uh-huh" are completely ignored.

As my eyes are hitting full-glaze mode, she leads me to her styling chair, capes me and gets down to business.

CLSB: So, what are we looking to do here today?

ME: Well, I want to get rid of some of this length--

CLSB: So you want to chop it all off, huh?

ME: ...n...no. I'd like to cut it shorter, but I still want to be able to pull it back. And still have some layers--

CLSB: So shorter layers all around the crown of your head, yeah?

ME: (Breathing deeply and trying to avoid rolling eyes) ...uh...no. Long layers. And some pieces around my face that are sort of bang-like, but not really bangs--

CLSB: So short with layers and bangs. Got it.

ME: Wait. Not bangs. just a few shorter pieces around my face. LONG layers. Still long enough to pull back. And I'd like it to be sort of choppy. Not all one length and flat or blunt or whatever.

Silence.

More silence during which CLSB looks even more confused than ever.

CLSB: ...what?

After repeating my description of my desired haircut, this time with fewer interruptions, she appears to understand. A few snipperoos later, the floor is littered with dark brown hair, my head feels about three pounds lighter and I'm politely refusing her offer to style my hair before I leave.

"No, thank you," I only think and don't say out loud, "I've seen your colleagues' attempts at 'styling' before, and while you may be the exception, I'd prefer to go through the rest of the day NOT coaxing a big brown, hairy football helmet through every doorway I encounter."

~*~*~

On the way to settle my bill, the subject of Labor Day weekend plans is broached. After listening to her perfectly lovely plans of pizza and the Wii with the kids, I mention that we'd just attended a party the day before and were still recovering.

ME: Yeah, we just need some rest. I retired early, but my husband stayed out pretty late, and we're both exhausted--

CLSB: Wow, you're retired? You don't look THAT old.

Silence.

ME: ...right. No. I'm not retired. I just went to bed early.

Silence, during which CLSB appears to be thinking really, really hard.

CLSB: ...right. OK. I'm, like, not good with ages. But you look really young and stuff. And, well, anyway, thanks for coming! And have a happy Memorial Day!


Exactly.

FIN

I take it back, Hollywood

For the past few years, I've been ragging on Hollywood for having NO original ideas.

Honestly -- it seems like nearly every movie I've seen or heard about in the past three years was a remake (and sometimes of an original that wasn't very good in the first place) or the movie version of a book (ditto).

For the past three weeks, whenever I turn on my TV, it's resting on Showtime -- which is INEVITABLY playing this movie:


I'm not kidding. At least eight times in the last three weeks, I wake up, turn on the TV and am greeted with this:

Here's the synopsis of the movie: An evil business executive {ooooh!} (played by George Lazenby) {...who?}, is releasing dangerous toxins {just...randomly?} and the Barbarian Brothers {...} set out to stop his evil work {presumably with their synchronized hair-and-pec-flipping routine}.

After its fourth surprise appearance, I decided the fates apparently wanted me to check out this movie. Thirty seconds in, I decided the fates apparently hate me. Oafish, non-acting twins? Check. Annoying, wish-they-were-Macaulay-Culkin, non-acting younger twins? Got it. AMAZINGLY bad early-90s clothing and hairstyles? Quadruple check. Plotline that makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, and yet somehow is featured constantly on one of the supposedly "premier" movie channels? OH heavens yes.

If this is what Hollywood does when left to its own devices, I owe it a giant apology. Remake The Honeymooners 'til the cows come home. Do a new, preachy version of The Goonies where a gang of kids fights Corporate America and saves the dung beetle. Make a new Pretty Woman for the geriatric set starring Gene Hackman and Dame Judy Dench.

There's no use thinking for yourselves, Hollywood. I see now what can come of it. Just go back over there, stay pretty, and keep churning out those Twilight movies.

:)

The wide, weird world of the office atrium

Alternate title: You do know we can see you, right?

I work for a large corporation, and the building where I work (one of many around the world) is huge. Enormous. At any given time, it houses about 8,000-10,000 employees. It's a sea of cubicles, and you and a friend could easily work there for years without running into one another.

And instead of being your typical high-rise, it's...a low-rise. It's no more than four floors high at any given point, and I've been told it's about the same length as the Empire State Building lying on its side.

The result: We have this great, open, skylighted atrium running all the way through the center of the building, connecting all the different wings and hosting a Starbucks, a bunch of other little shops and common seating areas.

Employees use those common areas to take a break with a co-worker, take a personal call, meet with potential new hires or just chill for a moment. All perfectly appropriate.

However.

Some employees don't seem to grasp the concept that, not only is this a public place where people can, in fact, see you, it's also WHERE YOU WORK. It's an extension of your office. Unless they work in another location, your boss and his boss and her boss could walk past you at any time.

And yet, I saw these things in the atrium JUST YESTERDAY:

• A woman in a chair, with her shoes kicked off, in the fetal position, sleeping. Possibly drooling.
• A grown man picking his nose and then looking at it intently before wiping it on his pants.
• A girl wearing a cutoff sleeveless shirt and much-too-tight pants that showcased her belly rolls (again, this is a corporate office), while YELLING at someone on her jewel-encrusted cell phone.
• Three people high-fiving each other and laughing hysterically and loudly, then leaping over a group of chairs to go back to work.
• Three 30-something men playing hacky-sack as they walked from Starbucks back to their wing of the building.

I don't work for Google, or a dot-com start-up, where we have pinball machines in the break room and our employers encourage a sense of whimsy when traveling around the building. This is a global financial corporation. Where, presumably, professionals work.

If you only went by what you see in the atrium, you'd think this was the mall, where people just come to hang out.

Or possibly the circus. Because I also saw these things in the atrium yesterday:

• An 80-year-old lady wearing red high-top sneakers and a flowered hat.
• A man with a handlebar mustache and a red armband (I think he'd just finished giving blood, but he could have been one of those old-timey weightlifters).
• A woman in a purple velvet pantsuit.
• A lion tamer.

OK, I'm probably lying about that last one. But the other ones were absolutely true. And I'm almost positive I saw a dancing bear in the gift shop. Or maybe that was one of the tech guys.

Brooke Shields is a shyster

Full disclosure up front: I am probably the last person on earth who should be writing anything about makeup.

Foundation makes me break out. Blush makes me look like I should be crawling out of those tiny cars with my fellow circus clowns. Lipstick...just calls attention to the fact that I have no lips.

But the one thing I do wear is eye makeup. And while God gave me big brown eyes, He didn't see fit to also grant me long, beautiful eyelashes to match. So when I hear the siren call of a mascara commercial pimping "Fuller, longer lashes!" I sit up and pay attention. I have gone through multiple drawers-full of tried-and-failed lash lengtheners, lash strengtheners, lash plumpers, lash fullifiers... It's like my own personal Quest for the One True Ring.

So I'm watching TV the other day and I hear Brooke Shields start giving the usual "longer, fuller, darker" spiel. LATISSE®! It's fabulous! It helps you GROW MORE LASHES! It's backed by science! And experiments! And...scientists who do experiments!

But...wait. A prescription? Irritation? Permanent pigmentation? A list of side effects that lasts longer than the rest of the commercial?

Why, Brooke Shields? (I have to refer to her by her full name. She's Brooke Shields.) Why are you promising lash superstardom, only to sour it with a 30-minute disclaimer about how this product is probably going to make my eyeballs fall out?

I've done some research (by which I mean I've spent six minutes skimming the Latisse website; that's how I roll), and while the "possible increased brown iris pigmentation that is likely to be permanent" is disturbing, this freaked me out the most:

"Also, it is possible for hair growth to occur in other areas of your skin that LATISSE® frequently touches."

Um.

So...since I am super-uncoordinated and am likely to accidentally smear this stuff everywhere...I'm going to end up with HAIR on my eyelids, the tip of my nose and the middle of my cheeks?

And, it might not work at all. OR, it might only work on one of my eyes and not the other. And then my friends will all start calling me Half-a-Tammy-Faye-Bakker.

AND, even if it worked for both eyes and I didn't look all wonky and lopsided and hairy, the super-lash effects stop as soon as I stop using the product. So I'd have to keep using (and paying for) it forever.

I'm sort of feeling like my short, stubbly, non-prescription-enhanced eyelashes are A-OK.

I'm disappointed in you, Brooke Shields. I really thought you were better than this.

Then again, you were married to Andre Agassi when he was wearing that fake mullet, so clearly your judgment was already in question.

Soapbox Theatre: I really, really, really, really, really hope none of my friends who are parents would do this.

(This story is a few days old (or possibly slightly older), so you may already be aware of it. But I just heard about it, so I'm annoyed NOW. Hence...)

What is becoming of our nation? SERIOUSLY.

A California school banned dictionaries for students. (See story here.)

Why? Because one of the students found a definition for oral sex, and parents were outraged.

OUTRAGED!

OK. I am not a parent. I have never been responsible for shaping and guiding a tiny person's value system.

But if and when I am?

I am not going to encourage things like banning the dictionary just so my little person can be shielded forever from something I'm too afraid to address with him or her myself.

Because that's what this reeks of to me. Sex (in all its many forms) is a thing. In the world. That people do. Every day. It is OUT THERE. It is EVERYWHERE. There is NO shielding kids from it, not if they're going to live in the world.

In my (admittedly inexperienced) opinion, it's a parent's job to take what is in the world and explain it to their kids. Help shape their opinions of the world and everything in it. Not that you're going to take a three-year-old and give him an explicit explanation of oral sex, of course -- that would be inane. But common sense should allow you, as a parent, to come up with a way of explaining things, at an age-appropriate level, to your child. I'm not going to pretend it won't be awkward. But it is (in my opinion) one of your responsibilities as a parent.

Taking away a dictionary that the school had purchased for advanced readers? Is cowardly, I think. We're not talking about a novel with subject matter designed to titilate. This is a dictionary. A learning tool. It probably also includes definitions for "behead" and "episiotomy." You can bet none of those parents want to explain to their first-grader what those words mean, but you can also bet that those words wouldn't inspire a parent to demand the dictionary be banned.

This kind of thing? Makes me depressed. I don't want a world where kids grow up without ever learning about things that make them uncomfortable. That is part of the world they are IN. There are so, so many things in the world I disagree with. But it just isn't feasible (unless you're Amish, which: more power to them if they can do it) to keep your kids away from everything the world has in it.

Instead, you just have to try to prepare them as best you can, keep talking to them and pray. Pray and pray a lot.

Can we not blame the dictionary?

Because, seriously? From the resumes I've seen from some recent college grads, and from some of the e-mails and Facebook postings and whatnot from that generation (and several others), the one thing we do NOT need to be getting rid of is the dictionary.

OK, so down off my soapbox I skip. I would love to hear from some of you who are parents: Am I totally off base? Do you agree? What would you have done in this situation?

P.S.: In the interest of full disclosure: After catching major (justified) flak for banning the dictionaries, the school did decide to allow them back, although parents can ask for their kids to use an alternative dictionary if they are still too freaked out by Merriam-Webster.

Seriously, what is wrong with people?

"Authorities have said Mendez admitted setting Brewer on fire. According to an arrest transcript, the boy said he made a 'bad decision.'"

That's from this story about three teenagers who poured alcohol over another teenager's head and then set him on fire. The kid has second- and third-degree burns over two-thirds of his body (the picture above shows some of his injuries) and will need surgeries, rehab, months of recovery. As one of his doctors said, this was a life-changing event.

Supposedly, the dispute was over $40, a video game and a bike.

Honestly. What is wrong with these kids?

I refuse to think things like this can simply be blamed on violent video games, TV and movies. Right? This sadistic behavior with seemingly no regard for consequences? Being able to SET SOMEONE ON FIRE and then say you simply "made a bad decision"?! Where does that come from? How do you get to that place?

I really don't get it.