Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
When I decided to go back to grad school, I knew it was going to throw off my schedule. I knew I’d have to shuffle around my routine a bit. I planned to workout 1-2 day a week at work instead of with my swolmates. I knew I’d have to use Sunday’s as study days. I was ready.
Read MoreAlmost every summer during high school, I used to volunteer at the Yale New Haven Hospital. They have a really established program with hundreds (?) of volunteers, who come in for typically 1.5 days a week. I loved it, especially when I worked as a wheelchair retriever, which basically entailed me getting pushed around in wheelchairs while returning them to the dispatch area.
Read MoreBeing the youngest in the office means that you've got to build up your credibility and prove that you're more than just a kid fresh out of their starter job. Despite that your job may be to build out social media channels, which is a medium most don't value because social media is for millennials, it would be nice to get a bit of respect from your coworkers. Here's how to go about building that respect and credibility as one of the younger, but equally important, members of the team:
Read MoreI grew up on a computer. We'd play the lifesaver mini golf games after school, compete at typer shark during school and were given calculators by the time we hit middle school math. All this computer advancement makes anything less than advanced technology difficult to deal with. Here's five times within the last year alone I was too computer savvy for every day life:
Read MoreI've read a lot about diets and workout exercises. I once watched an entire workout video too (sitting down). Unfortunately, none of those activities help you lose weight. I've written about my weight before, so it's no secret that I'm not known for my skinny, toned bod. I'm not grossly flabby either. I'm somewhere in the comfortable middle with some pounds to spare. Anyways, we were talking about losing holiday weight at work, and BAM, we (well -- I didn't really do anything to help) organized a Biggest Loser competition.
It'll include sharing recipes, workouts and motivation. We'll bring in healthy snacks, take walks around the lake and verbally assault each other when we're trying to sneak some cookies into our mouths. All things I can get down with. I wasn't planning on taking it too seriously (I mean, I'll have to lay off drinking and eating donuts if I want to win), UNTIL I realized this is an outright competition. We're doing weigh-ins, sending around updates and paying a tiny fee so that the winner gets a huge prize.
Read MoreSo I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m one of the youngest employees at work (I can no longer say youngest because we just hired someone younger than me). Sometimes being young means that you lack authority, or it means that no one listens to you, but on the bright side, it puts you in perfect position to have a work mom! And, let me tell you, work moms are great. I started on the same day as one work mom, who would give me advice (not limited to work advice), bring me snacks, remind me about mom-ish things and even bought me lunch or breakfast from time to time.
But what’s even better is having multiple work moms. Everyone chips in to make sure I feel taken care of. And they complement me on my outfits because I’m so in-style, which is actually hilarious because nothing I wear is in style, but I have them fooled because they figure that must be what the kids are wearing these days.
My work moms also understand when I bring in cheetohs or brownies to our monthly breakfast, because "at their age they weren’t cooking either". Off the hook! And yes – I really did bring in brownies and cheetohs before to our breakfast.
Balanced with the fact that my work moms do actually trust me to do my job, and respect me when I am doing my work, being mom-ed is actually endearing. When I was talking about it with another younger co-worker, she said she didn’t like it. I get that they don’t treat anyone else this way, but let’s be honest; my work moms took care of me on my birthday when we barely recognize anyone else’s birthday at all. I’ll take the special treatment.
Life is like the spaghetti test. You just throw a handful at a wall and see what sticks. Take applying to a job. You write a resume and then send it to anyone who may hopefully read it. Well -- maybe not anyone, but when I was applying pre-graduation, it actually felt like I applied everywhere. I wasn't sure where I wanted to live or what I wanted to do, so that essentially left me applying to anything to which I was somewhat qualified.
Then, one of the noodles stuck to the wall, and I ended up with a social media contracting job in Richmond. And just like a done piece of spaghetti, it eventually fell off the wall. Sadly, that job fell off way too early, but at least I had found a place to live.
It may be the least scientific method to solving problems, but it the spaghetti method works. While you're spraying options everywhere, you'll eventually figure out what it is that you're hoping actually sticks.
I typically have three sets of headphones in my work bag. Why? Great question, I don't know either. But somehow none of them were in my bag today, and I was left headphone-less for an entire day at work. Here's exactly what happened in my head throughout the day:
It won't be THAT bad, right? I've forgotten my glasses before and found ways around that (scrolled in so close an old man with glaucoma could read), so I can handle it...yes.
Yes, I can do this. Here we go on our unintentional day of silence.
Phew, it sure is quiet.
Is that me typing so loud? Crap, I sound angry. People probably think I'm mad. Lighter on the keys, girl. Get yourself together.
Oh my gosh, people can actually probably hear me sighing all the time! They're going to think I'm fatigued. Well, I am so that's not that bad...
Wow, it's really quiet. I can't get over how quiet it is. I wonder what people think about all day that don't have music on usually.
Jeez, someone's breathing really loud. No wait -- that's just me again. I clearly have no cubicle decorum.
OH MY GOSH! I MAY HAVE MY HEADPHONES IN MY CAR.
Let me go check. No wait, I'll wait to lunch. Get yourself together, you can do this.
Everyone else sits in silence all day, you can do this.
Phew silence is pretty silent. It's making me tired. I need more coffee. Is three cups of black coffee bad? No, I've read about it and it's not.
Okay, I will definitely get my headphones. This is making me stir crazy. Maybe I can play it really softly and no one will hear it.
Yup, definitely playing it out loud. And it's really loud. I need those headphones.
I don't know how people do this all the time. Screw it...going to get my headphones. I don't need to prove that I can do this to myself. Someone invented headphones for a reason.
Bye silence. Until next time. Oh wait, no-- I hope there isn't a next time.
Cazey texted me a link to this album this morning, and it's been a stellar addition to my work day today. So stellar that I wanted to share it on here, which I usually don't do. I think I speak for both of us when I say it's highly recommended: http://www.mtv.com/artists/vance-joy/#vh1
My only real problem with this album is that I had a chance to see it performed live and I missed out! He was at Firefly it turns out, as was I, but I didn't know about him at that time. Such a moment of FOMO and a total bummer. Here's hoping Vance Joy comes to my town, or any town near me.
Let Cazey and me know what your thoughts are about Vance's new album in the comments. Any chance you'll be buying it? I know Cazey will be buying it and giving it to me as a gift. Well, maybe not that second part of the sentence.
By Cazey Williams, guest blogger I intern remotely for a consulting company and have to log 20 hours/week. The best/worst part about this arrangement is, I set my own hours – which is an overwhelming proposition. While I have flexibility, I also have to commit to when I set those hours, and, like most millennials, I am a commitmentphobe. Every week I email my boss when I’ll be working, and every time I feel like Ariel giving away my voice. What if I want it back?
Why am I telling you this? Because my hours aren’t actually an exact 20 hours/week. They just have to average 20 hours over a month. So at the end of August, I had worked enough overtime that I only needed to work (wait for it) 13.5 hours. *hand raise emoji*
I happen to plan my life down to details like needing to cut my fingernails. (For real, in college, I would put on my daily to-do list “Drink water.”) So this week I happen to know I have too much going on to comfortably fit in my 20 hours. You type B’ers may say, “Well, I have the rest of the month.” But a person who schedules when they’re going to get their daily dose of hydrogen and oxygen cannot be reassured by that thought. No, no, it’s the beginning of the month; I should frontload my schedule, so at the end of September I can relax aka work less than 20 hours. It would not do to work less than 20 hours this week. (Plus, the rest of my September is sorta popping out of its jeans, so I’m already anxious about other weeks.) The point is, I have to work 20 hours this week.
So I told my boss that I would work this past weekend. On Friday I submitted my 14.75 hours for August (even worked a little more than my necessary 13.5 hours) and volunteered to work on Sunday and Monday (today, Labor Day) and then normal hours on Tuesday throughThursday. Why is this important? Because I’m sacrificing my three-day weekend. But I will not be under 20 hours at the end of this week, so I can breathe without a paper bag on Friday when my friend visits. (I’ve never actually done that – used a paper bag, that is.)
Except. Pause. What was yesterday? Yes, Sunday. But what was the date? Yes, exactly. Fucking exactly. August 31.
I DIDN’T NEED TO WORK.
Can we repeat, I didn’t need to work?
And when did I realize this? Well, yesterday, on August 31, I woke up, declined brunch invitations, worked out, declined an invitation to go the river and lay out, and put on my watch (which has the bloody date – mind you, so does my cell phone, which I’ve been looking at since I woke up) and headed to my neighborhood Starbucks. I found the perfect window seat – like, I had sunlight to mimic that tan I turned down – ordered a Trenta (which, this is a future blog post, is a big deal because I only drink coffee two or three times a week) that set me back $4.51 (pumpkin spice in it, baby – because I thought it was September), and I logged onto my work computer. And that, ladies and gents, is when I saw the date.
I knew Friday was August 29. And Saturday was August 30. How did I forget 31 days has August? BUT HOW?
And so now you, the reader, thinks, “Well then, just pack up and go home.” But – but – but there is a big project due to a client on Tuesday, and unless I slaved away on Sunday, August 31, the project wouldn’t be done in time. (And I could have just worked longer hours today on Labor Day, but I felt that would be too much labor on my faux holiday.)
Insert gun emoji. Insert bomb emoji. Insert an emoji that just can’t express all my feelings.
So where did all this leave me? Sitting facing the sunlight through a window, simultaneously drafting this rant while devising a Facebook status that succinctly describes this FML situation and will earn a satisfactory amount of likes, texting my friend if she’s left for the river yet, listening to a girl order an "extra hot" latte on a 90-degree day, and sakjhkdsjhdslkhdglkghdgsd.
Stalemate, baby. Stalemate.
Happy Labor Day.