A Year In Review

We come full circle.

I Got Hired!

All my life I've wondered what it was like to be Tess McGill. I would just be a brown version of her with a huskier voice. I would be like my mother in a hosiery club for office decency. I expected to be in a corner office and wave to passerbys. Maybe I could be Mary Jane Paul when she's writing. I too could have a desk drawer with a fifth of vodka. There would be some snarling old man of a boss growling about my presence. I'd be so well-dressed and articulate. I'd be chosen for teams and put on big projects. I'd be able to lean in at the boardroom meeting.  

Nope.

I work in an office with three other girls. The only guests we have are people from IT. 
I am the girl caged by a cherry wood desk.
I am that girl.

It doesn't matter where I went to school because we all did. It doesn't matter who is proficient in Office because we all have foggy moments in Excel. It is fucking freezing. The water cooler is always broken. Someone uses the conference room for working out. There is a plethora of mean girls who dress like B movie actresses. I take my work home with me every single day. I dream in spreadsheets. My boss is drop dead gorgeous and is the epitome of pure evil. She doesn't deny it either. The evil that is. 

I applied to make coffee. I now specialize in severed limbs. On a good day I'll do my hair and put on heels. Most days I am rolling out of bed. If I didn't have time to make a salad I'll scavenge the complimentary snack basket or order Chinese with the masses. No one uses Square because cash is more trustworthy. I can listen to Pandora with one ear bud. I get yelled at 2.3 times a week for things completely out of my control. Email is a more public form of accountability. I caught someone looking at porn in a cubicle my first week. Yes, office life is everything I thought it would be.

Pffft.

In The Case of Dating An Alien: A Tale of Caution and Frustration

When I got out of my situation in late 2014 I promised myself to be happy. For me happiness involves being invested in good people, being loved, sharing insights and living life as intended versus whatever everyone else thinks. I put down my laptop for just shy of a month and I insisted upon meeting someone who could reward me for all my sacrifices. I looked for this said individual under every rock. I also told my mother and family friends that when I found him I would dedicate myself to settling down. I even threatened to marry the first man I met and have a child within one year of meeting him. The day I got back I met someone. In fact, the exact moment. While I was vague with him about my life, he was rather forthcoming with me. He explained that he had been on his own since age 14, estranged from his parents, had come to this country chasing a girl and now worked ungodly hours to make up for lost time. I understood everything. Or so I thought. Within weeks we were dating or "fake dating" as I called it. His European senses made everything so damn formal. I just wanted to get to know him and immediately it had to be dinner over a tablecloth. While it was unusual in my dating experience to be wined & dined, I'm not going to say I didn't like it. I loved it. He showered me in affection, we talked on the phone for hours and I felt I had met if not "the one" but a proper candidate as planned. 

And then the lights dimmed out.

Hotel Reviews Part I : Live AND Die By Them

Before my trip abroad I'd never written a hotel review. Lets just say I never had an experience of my own to review. I'd always stayed with a friend, family or briefly visit a hotel meeting space for business. However, I'm not new to the process of reviewing because I personally love customer surveys. Companies and businesses are driven by survey feedback. They provide a service or product and hope that it compels you to at least consider doing a survey about your experience. Sometimes they offer a sweepstakes entry or lure you in for a freebie upon completion. Yet once you're in these surveys the trick is they become wormholes of other questions that sort of make you want to give up midway. Hotel reviews are completely opposite. In a sense the review is more complicated. No one at your hotel is going to ask you or suggest you review your stay. There is also no incentive in even making a review. Hoteliers really don't want to hear much about your experience.They may leave a survey card in your room but it is normally in the most obscure location. Hotels don't make it easy to speak with management - even if you want to give a compliment! Then most major hotels are franchises apart of big hotelier and resort groups - so whatever comments you may have, good or bad, may never make it to someone who cares. In essence, hotels like it like this. A hotel has specific standards and chooses to simply adhere to them. If the standards are met and they are consistent within a brand or throughout different locales they figure that is more than enough. But does the buck really stop there? After all how do we choose a hotel these days - the feedback of others!