Getting To Know Me: The Office (Walls)

I'd forgotten that I had this sign.


It was hidden by the new desk that I got.

I had to smile when I saw it recently. It reminded me of how it came about.

It was soon after I started working at the job I'm currently at. My co-worker Paul and I shared an office. He and I became fast friends, and would spend moments throughout the day talking about our childhoods, our likes and desires, our home lives, love lives, and introspecting.

I can't remember now what exactly was said. I seem to recall saying something during one of our conversations about me being an ass or pretentious. I don't recall if I was telling him that someone had called me an ass, or if I sometimes felt like an ass, or as if people thought of me as such. It seems we were in one of our light-hearted and good-humored yet introspective moods. I just remember Paul telling me (I'm paraphrasing here. It's been a long time), "You're not an ass. You can just come off as pretentious and arrogant. I'm not saying you ARE pretentious and arrogant! You're not! But to someone who doesn't really know you, you can come off like that."

I laughed and laughed at this!

And so I made this sign:



"I'm not an ass. I'm just pretentious and arrogant." And I hung it over my desk. (We work in a small, relaxed office. We are an online business and don't have customers coming into the office, so we don't have to worry about appearances for the sake of business.)

But the bosses wife evidently complained behind my back that the sign wasn't "professional". She complained to Paul, who mentioned it to me. I ignored her complaints.

Then one day I came in to find this over my sign.



"I've got class. I'm multifarious and elegant."

Paul had created this sign and taped it over my old one.

When I moved to my new office, I posted both signs.

Getting To Know Me: The Office (Shelves)

In an attempt to share a little of myself, I am sharing my office, which is where I spend so much of my life. I already showed my desk. Today I show my shelves.

First and most importantly, the top shelf is the regular home of Snoop Dogg when he is not out adventuring.

He likes to stay on top of things and see what is happening all around him.

Also up on the shelf is Mr. Wonderful and some pictures.

Mr. Wonderful was given to me by my mother and says things like:

You know honey, why don't you just relax and let me make dinner tonight?

Here, you take the remote. As long as I'm with you, I don't care what we watch.

I seem to be lost. I think I'll pull over and ask directions.

The pictures include a pic of my ferrets that I used to have, Koti and Pogo.



Below this shelf is my stuffed spider.


Anyone who knows me knows that I have arachnaphobia, and am therefore fascinated by that which freaks me out the most. So I am terrified of and yet fascinated by spiders.

To the left of the spider are a few items. We've got a photo of my brother, a flamingo egg, and some cube people.






On the right is a pic of Mom and my bro and I, and a red hippo given me by my mother.


The bottom shelf consists of an Onion book and a sunflower box that my mother made for me.


If you aren't familiar with the Onion, you can check out their website. They do "spoof" news stories. My favorite is "God Answers Prayers of Paralyzed Boy: 'No,' says God." This book was loaned to me by the same co-worker that moved away and left behind Snoop.

The Sunflower box was made by my mother, and I use it to hold my class supplies for when we do classes on the road.

There's my little pewter manatee, which is a reminder of the day last year when we went kayaking out at Manatee State Park and had a close encounter with a manatee.


The manatee spent probably twenty minutes with us, even laying on it's back under our kayak and licking or gnawing on our kayak, occasionally snorting water on us. It was a great experience! Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera that day, as it was our first day kayaking and we feared we would get our cameras wet. So my only reminder (other than my memories) is this little figurine.

In the center of the shelf is a bin of supplies, and on top is a toy car. This car was given to me by a security guard at my last place of business.


The guard was always teasing me about my old car, and I would joke with him that if I ever flipped over in a ditch, I would be one of those people that would survive off of the stuff in my back seat and on the floors. So once on a trip to Disney he "bought me a new car".

Last but not least, there is the thank you from a client, Squidward from Spongebob Pez dispenser...


...a puzzle box...


...and a gooey and sticky heart that you can throw at the wall or window.


So that's another scary glimpse into my mind and world. Dare you return for more?

Breakfast Club Identification

Do you guys remember the movie Breakfast Club? Anyone of my generation must remember. It was one of the biggest movies of our generation, and is STILL one of the big movies of our generation.

I was just mentioning to a blogging friend what character I always identified with. My boyfriend and I were recently sitting around and discussing who we identified with, and who other friends would "be". (We've also done this with the show "The Office".) Here's a refresher course on the cast of the Breakfast Club, as outlined on Wikipedia:

Andy Clark: (Emilio Estévez) Andrew is the film's athlete, in detention for beating a fellow student and taping his buttocks together. Andrew, like Claire, is ashamed of being in detention and is used to the better end of social life at school. Andrew hates his father for pushing him so hard to succeed and even wants his bum knee to give so his father could not drive him to be the best athlete.
Claire Standish: (Molly Ringwald) The princess of the group, in detention for skipping class to go to the mall. She is used to being sheltered by her group of friends and doting parents who only pamper her in order to spite each other, a fact of which she is painfully aware. Claire is caught between her parents who seem to use her to get back at each other. Claire eats sushi for lunch. She shares a kiss with Bender at the end of the film, after much conflict between the two.
John Bender: (Judd Nelson) The criminal of the group, in detention for pulling a false fire alarm. John Bender starts many of the events throughout the film. While he is hostile at first towards the others in the room with him, he defends Allison against Principal Vernon ("She doesn't speak, sir."). Despite Bender's constant needling of the others in detention, they lie to Vernon to protect John after he escaped his solitary confinement (exacted when he allowed himself to get caught in the gymnasium while the others ran for it) and snuck back into the library through a ceiling vent. At home, John is a victim of child abuse, particularly by his father, who administered a cigar burn to his arm for spilling paint in the garage. His antics and smart mouth wind up earning him an extra eight weeks of detention.
Allison Reynolds: (Ally Sheedy) The basket case of the group, in detention apparently because she had nothing better to do. She is the most socially isolated and claims to have no friends. She hides her face under her hair and the hood of her parka when frightened, and amuses herself by using her flakes of dandruff as snow on a picture she draws. For the first half of the film she is quiet, save for occasional squeaks of fear and a few random outbursts, but later on she opens up, particularly to Andrew. Allison's lunch consists of a sandwich made with Pixy Stix powder and Cap'n Crunch cereal. She disgusts the others while making and eating it. She is the least hesitant to talk openly about her home life and is not afraid of being different. At home, Allison is a victim of child neglect by her workaholic parents, and as a result carries a large bag with her to school every day in case she feels like running away. She claims to be in therapy, but because of her compulsive lying it is unknown if her claim is true (considering that she had previously convinced Claire that she was a nymphomaniac who was sleeping with said therapist).
Brian Johnson: (Anthony Michael Hall) The group's brain, in detention for bringing a flare gun to school. He tries to keep the peace. At home, Brian is pressured by his parents to be a perfect academic. Brian's younger sister is being raised to be exactly like her mother. Every grade has to be an A, regardless of what the subject is. In an effort to get some relief, he takes shop on the mistaken assumption it will be easy. Brian, assigned to create a ceramic elephant lamp that will light when the trunk is pulled, receives an F when the lamp fails to light. In despair, he brings a gun to school with suicidal intent. It turns out to be a flare gun, which goes off in Brian's locker, destroying the locker and the elephant, and landing Brian in Saturday detention. Brian uses the standard 'girl from Canada' story to escape ridicule for being a virgin.

So what role did you play in high school? Who do you identify most with? My boyfriend identifies most with the braniac Brian Johnson.

Who do I identify with? Why the Basket Case, Allison Reynolds! Not that I was as weird as her. I didn't have neglectful or abusive parents, wasn't a compulsive liar, and didn't entertain myself with dandruff snow art. However I was quiet and different, and embraced those differences and didn't fear them. In fact, I relished them! I was telling a fellow blogger about my fingerless gloves and oversized jean jacket that I used to wear. I also wore these funky white shoes that had snaps on the side, and rolled down at the ankles to reveal Chinese writing. Even though I would occasionally get detention for smoking in the girl's bathroom or outside the science building, or for skipping class or being late, I was always respectful and polite, and a favorite among my teachers. They knew that I was sensitive and harmless and shy, and forgave me my little trespasses.

And I hung out with the bad boys like John Bender. "Different" enough for you? Do I qualify as an Allison Reynolds?

Who did you most identify with? Which character were you in high school?

Getting To Know Me: The Office

I thought that I would show you the rest of my desk. Well, not all of it. It is REALLY a mess. I work on piles on top of piles. But here are a few of my goodies.

This ladder is for my lovebird Odie who sometimes comes to work with me.



This is my duck Frenchie that quacks the children's song "Frere Jacques?"



These are photos that I took of my cousin's kids, plus my aunts and mother.



This is my desk organizer. (Organizer? What a laugh!) I have yellow tape, striped paperclips and colored clips. It also has a stress doll that a friend brought back to me from a trip, and a little Steve Irwin figurine board that my Mom found and gave me back when I was a Crocodile Hunter addict.



And this is a fortune from a fortune cookie, taped to the base of the organizer. I taped it there many years ago. It's one of my favorite sayings.



In case you can't read it, it says "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil ignorance."

And these are my two chimps.



The one on the right does a wild chimp scream when you squeeze it. The one on the left was given to me by an old employee about 9 years ago, to keep my guy company.

So that's it. That's all that is of interest on my desk. I'll share the rest of my office later on.

Getting To Know Me: The Office

I thought that I would take some time to show you a little of myself through my office. Today I show you my desk.


Yes, I have three monitors on my desk. They are attached to two computers. The two monitors on the left are what I use each day to do my job. The one on the right is connected to a computer that I only use for demonstration webinars. I also have two more computers in my office, although only one of them is really ever used at this point.

Here is a closer shot of my screensaver.



I came upon this shot while reading a touching story of an abandoned monkey which had bonded with a pigeon at an animal sanctuary. I just love this picture!

So that's it for today. It's late and I'm tired. I'll continue to show little bits of my office and myself later.