Recently in corporate bullshit Category

I've been hoping to start writing up again, because my life should be full of new and exciting things with my big move to Finland.  But instead I've had the worst couple of weeks in recent memory.  Allow me to recount for your entertainment:

• My lease was up on August 31, and I had to move out of my house.  I am now bumming guest room space off friends and co-workers.  I opted to do this to try to save my company money, thinking it would just be for a week or so.
  
  
• On August 24, we overnighted my work visa application to the Finnish consulate in Los Angeles.  We were told it would take 4 weeks to process, maybe less.  I got word two weeks later that the packet had finally arrived at the right office in Helsinki!?  Apparently someone in LA left it sitting on their desk that entire time.  The 4 week processing time hadn't even begun...and I had been homeless for a week already!
  
  
• On September 2, I was staying with a friend in Columbia City, which meant I got to take the new light rail train in to work.  My office typically buys us monthly transit passes, but they were late for September.  I was riding the train when the cops boarded to do their little fare audit...I pulled out my pass only to realize it was the one from August.  The cops escorted me off the train at the next stop. 
  
  
• On the morning of September 3, management announced more layoffs at work, but this time only affecting my group.  This included the guy who sits next to me who is one of my favorites.  This was totally out of nowhere, and very upsetting.
  
  
• On the afternoon of September 3, I stepped away from my desk for a couple of minutes in a hurry, and forgot to lock my desktop (which I'm usually very good about doing).  It's a standard office prank to jump on someone's machine who is stupid enough to leave it unlocked, and send an embarrassing message to a distribution list.  A guy from IT sent the following message out to the Analytics alias from me:
  
  
  
  What the IT guy didn't know was that I had reconfigured my Outlook to my new email address for my new client.  So instead of going to 20 or so people that I know at my Seattle agency...it went to hundreds (thousands?) of people that I don't know at an agency that is all over the world.  Awesome.
  
  
• On September 10, I arrived at my latest accommodation, house/dogsitting for my new boss.  I thought I was done with the shittiest week in recent history, and then it happened...my week became LITERALLY shitty.  The dog got a nasty case of diarrhea, and shit all over the living room floor.  On three different occasions.

My shitty week, punctuated with actual shit.  Amazing.

A few weeks ago I was in a workshop on how to become a better presenter.  It went like this:

• We had to prepare a 5 minute presentation
• We had to present it to the entire class of 30 people (all while being videotaped)
• After presenting, we had to give an immediate verbal self-assessment
• This was followed by a verbal brief assessment from two of our peers
• Which was followed by a verbal critique from the expert guy leading the workshop
• Then rounding up the 30 index cards of written comments from all the peers in the room

It was an incredibly stressful, nerve-wracking day.  We all did reasonably well considering we're not seasoned presenters, and we all beat ourselves up terribly about how bad we thought we were.  Enough time has passed that last night I finally had the guts to watch my DVD.  I did okay.  My presentation was on how to better manage your inbox, and although I talked too fast because I was nervous, it was...okay.  My peers gave constructive criticism, and I learned a lot about better ways to get my point across to a room full of people, and how to create an accordionly-organized deck so that you can adjust your presentation to be longer or shorter while you're in the middle of giving it.

But the main thing I learned?  I learned that I am overcompensating for my Texas accent so bad that I sound fucking Canadian.  I didn't even recognize my own voice.  I need to identify the words that I am covering up for the worst, and restore my speech back to its Texan glory.  But I don't know how...I honestly don't even realize that I'm trying to cover up my Texas accent, so how can I stop myself?  I guess I should call home more often.  And perhaps watch more Gary Busey movies.

Ignoring for a moment how odd it is that this was scheduled for Valentines Day...I had my first official review at work today.  That is always nerve-wracking, even when you're doing a good job and you know you're doing a good job.  I supposed there is just something generally unpleasant about being judged.

First, I must quickly interject that the atmosphere at work is extremely, extremely casual.  Tshirts and sneaks.  Ponytails and gum-chewing.  Cussing and drinking.  At your desk.

So to dilute the awkwardness of the day, me and one of the other guys on my team decided to be way too formal about this and to try to confuse and/or flatter our boss.  So we both came to work today in full-on business suits.  He has on a tie.  I have on heels and earrings.  It feels like 1984 IBM corporate headquarters in here.  Or like Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen could come walking around the corner any minute, talking NASDAQ or communicating in that broker sign language.

And it totally backfired.  Instead of thinking it was cute/funny that we took this so seriously, our boss was really disgusted!  She wanted to send us home!?