Category: Intimacy of Strangers


Tripping out

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September 17, 2011

Somehow traveling with me (whether I am alone or with someone else) always results in unintended and often awkward consequences.  Consider my last two trips.  Or fifteen.  Read the blog, you will get it. 
Labor Day weekend, Christian and I decided to go to Lake Chelan.  We couldn’t find a a camping spot, so found a B&B.  Knowing we couldn’t leave until Saturday morning,  we had to book a place for two nights – Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday morning was gorgeous, our first ever Seattle day of summer.  We drove up to Highway 20, th e most beautiful road in the world.  We were on our way, rocking out to Sufijan Stephens and Mouse on Mars when I decided to take the scenic route. 
Unfortunately, we were taking Chris’s Mini instead of my Jeep.  Which is dumb in the mountains, but he has a better sound system.  20 miles outside of Marblemount, when we hit a series of potholes that destroyed two tires.  A Mini doesn’t have donuts.  We had no cell reception, no one was passing us, there were no alien abductions on the horizon – we were hosed.  We drove back to Marblemount on the busted tires, ruining the wheels.  I had to pay a guy $15 to use his landline to call AAA because we had no service. 
They said they would be there in 1 hour, it took 6.  We hung out in the grass behind a gas station laying on a piece of plastic I found in a trash can and drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  And eating corn nuts.
Finally, the tow guy arrives and the closest place he can take us is Burlington.  He drops the car off at the Les Schwab Tire Center and leaves us.  His job is done. 
It is 7 p.m. on Saturday night in Burlington.  Tire center is closed, we have no car, corn nuts are gone and we are fucked.
Did I mention how fucked?  We have no car, we have no place to stay, everything is closed and we are in Burlington without a car.
We find a Motel 6 with a vibrating bed.  It is up from a quarter the last time I used one.  It is actually a Hampton Inn or something nice, but I don’t care at this point because I am so bitchy.  We find a nice Japanese place to eat and go to bed. 
The next day, Christian uses his amazing powers of being a gazillionairre to get the tires fixed and us the fuck out of there.  But we do get the free complimentary breakfast first.  I ain’t going to pay for no Hampton Inn and not watch porn and eat muffins.
The week goes one, with one minor exception.  The new birth control pills I started have the great side effect of making me throw up every few hours.   My doctor neglected to inform me of this.  They also lower my blood pressure so I occasionally faint when I stand.  Klassy.  I look like a domestic violence victim.
Today Christian and I are headed to Hawaii to deal with some family business and “meet the Fockers”.  I mean, my parents.  I actually really like them but can’t deal with any more right now.   
I lost my mom 6 years ago and the business aspects of death are actually more complicated than the grief.  Although, when my mom died, I forgot to wash my hair for 6 months.  I kind of dreadlocked.  Deadlocked. 
We get to the airport with time to spare and decide to get breakfast because we missed dinner due to late night packing and work schedules and etc. so we sit outside of our fucking gate t o eat and wait for boarding.  The waitress is a dumb ass bitch and as a former waitress, I feel comfortable saying this.  When breakfast costs $45 dollars, do your job. Make sure my food is cooked.  Don’t make me send it back because your put ham in it when we had the ham conversation seven times. 
Yes, I know.  I am swearing a lot.  But I was supposed to fly first class to Honolulu this morning at 9:20 to introduce Christian to the fam and deal with some legal issues. 
We got to the gate at 9 a.m. because of our shitty waitress (again, as a former waitress, I feel comfortable being a judgmental bitch) and they literally close the doors in front of our faces. 
“Oh, I had to just close the doors, we do that 20 minutes prior to take off.  It is our policy.” 
Well, I am sure you are really good at your job and I hope you get a merit based increase, but the FUCKING PLANE IS STANDING THERE FOR ANOTHER 30 minutes while they re-route us through Kahaluhi in another hour. 
We now have to sit in coach despite paying almost $2000 per ticket, no they can’t refund us, we are in the middle row and have to take a puddle jumper to Oahu, they only island in Hawaii worth anything.  FUCK.  FUCK.  FUCK. 
I thought it was out of my system, but not yet!
We have a meeting with an attorney at 4 p.m., the connecting flight for that other island gets in at 3:11 and I will be driving like I usually do – too fast.
So I wish good luck to Christian and family, understand if any of you want out now and I just ask you to pray for me as I run across the parking lot of Ala Moana with seconds to spare. 
Wish me luck.   And I’ll take a prayer or two.  

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Four weddings and a few misdemeanors

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September 1, 2011

So, a Hawaiian HR girl, a British software developer and an Iranian artist-mathemetician walk into a bar. The Rabbi says (oh wait, shit, there is no Rabbi – let’s make him a martini) – the Martini says, “how about we have a little fun?”

After all, I have just become engaged to an old friend’s husband on the floor of the parking lot at Bell Square Mall, which isn’t exactly as awful as it sounds. So I may have some issues.

They are going through a divorce and I love them both. I have known them for at least 16 years – ever since I moved to Seattle. They spent a good deal of time in Europe so our time together has been erratic. Or at least sporadic. 

The first day or two I moved to Seattle, I met Andy and the Daves at a bar and they have been the core of my of my oldest friend group ever. The Bardo, Intertia Labs, Bloop and my Hawaiians have just as much a place in my heart, but for Seattle, these were my first people.  Jess, Jason, Sean, Paigey, Tinaw, Rhy, Andy, Gina, Christian, Sue, Stephanie – all stem from those first few months.

So I had my little mid life crisis, quit my job, think I may have written a book, but was SAVED by my friends and my colleagues from ISB, InDI and Seattle BioMed. Not that I didn’t deserve it – I kick ass at weird employment law stuff, but they saved me. Guided me rather. The only thing I was missing was love.

I have lots of love in my life, which is great because I am an only child. I have an incredible (but very weird family – half from Brooklyn and half from Austin – what are you going to do?), friends I would literally die for, and colleagues and people in my social network I am honored will even speak to me.   Because I can count CEOs and “professionals” as my friends and I know felons and governors.  I am very fortunate in the people I have in my life.

So I am not going to lie – since Nic and I broke up (you are in my soul and will remain so for the rest of my life and Donna is a goddess, but yall baby that dog a little too much), I have been looking for someone very specific. Must be a software guy (I don’t know why, I just get them – if I could do math, I would be one), close to my age, with some world experience, smart as hell and a complete smart ass.

So when the gods want to punish you, they give you what you want most.

I have known Christian for 15/16 years depending on how you count it (and you all know I always round up)

We started dating a few months ago and have fallen fast. His wife, whom I knew and know, is a beautiful woman. She lives in Europe and it is pretty clear from our conversations over the last few days, she wants to continue her life as it is – without her husband. And yes, it is going to be official, I am not going all LDS on everyone (although for the record, it really doesn’t bother me at all – adults can do what they want).

In order to make sure everything was cool, we went out for drinks Friday night and got on famously. We decided to play a joke on Christian so when he arrived for his birthday dinner, we would be out in the parking lot of the Westin fake fighting and paid the staff to pretend to keep us apart.  “Ladies!  Please!  This is Bellevue!”. It was fucking funny but he was so oblivious that we had to stage the fake fight like 6 times and he was still like “la, la, la, grooving out in his car”. Dude.

So we just started cracking up and going to get dinner. It was so realistic, the Westin staff almost called the police.  I still can’t tell you how cool it is to see your fiance’s wife be wiling to stage a fake fight with you. In Bellevue.

But she is smart, beautiful, honest, literate, artistic and can order in binary. I tried to emulate her which means I had an onion ring or something.

So before I bore you with more details, we decided last week to become engaged. And, no, he doesn’t need a Green Card (although that is partially what I do for a living).

He put on my grandmother’s ring Thursday (on me, not on him), we bought his ring Saturday, and committed to each other in the parking lot of BellSquare. Is there anything other to say than “fuck”?  
I am 40 – I can’t do this.  I have been too scared to commit to anyone for so long.  I am too scared to lose my independence, I am too scared to change my life.  But I finally met a person I would be honored to marry. And he said I would never have to live in Bellevue. Which is commitment material.

Linda, wedding is at your house or Dave’s, you are catering and NO Two Buck Chuck. I am a klassy lush.

Happy birthday, Christian. 

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Humiliation, part one of several

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September 1, 2011
I was talking to my former recruiter yesterday at his baby shower today (Stephen is going to be the best dad ever unless he takes his kid to a Hootie and the Blowfish concert which he would NEVER do, right, Stephen?)  Stephen is more likely to take Declan to an obscure jazz band from Patagonia anyway, so it isn’t like I have to say anything.  Some people think the only good bands for children are like Hannah Indiana or something (who will likely be the ambassador to Panama by the time we can take Stephen and Ang’s kid to a show).

On our old HR team, we would pass around really silly videos all day.  We worked hard too, but got a giant kick out of dumb animal videos.  He told me about this new video they had been schlepping about a woman on a dating site who was really into cats.  REALLY INTO CATS.  People also think I am REALLY INTO CATS because I have some of them and a tattoo and find them funny, but I don’t cry about them or get cat-themed dinner wear or earrings.  I might have an amusing t-shirt, but it was a gift.  The woman in the video started crying about how she wanted all the cats in the world in a giant basket on a rainbow. I am terrible at dating, I scare them all away in the first 5 minutes, but I know enough about it to know this – lady, do not bring up cats.  Ever. 

I like cats too, but that whole giant basket on a rainbow thing is messed up.  First of all, a lot of them would be crushed to death by the weight of the other cats in the little “basket”.  Second, who in the hell is going to scoop that litter?   Third, cats fall off rainbows because their claws can’t hold on to hope and love, so there is going to be mass carnage at the end of the rainbow instead of a pot of gold and I don’t think anyone wants to see that. 
So in addition to that image, this week was spent in total humiliation.  I couldn’t stand to eat anything other than Triscuits and sugar snap peas, my job prospects are not getting back to me with the speed I would like, I can’t manage to mow the lawn because it seems too hard, boys think I am creepy and one my friends tried to run me over with his Prius.  Although that was a staged shot and incredibly funny – except to the neighbor’s 3 year old. 
I actually think someone needed to film that – it was really funny – especially with me hamming it up on the sidewalk.  But I have weird stuff in my hair now like rocks, cigarette butts, PBR cans, some 13 year old from LA, post it notes and Ave Rats because I live in the U District.  I may have my first dreadlock though.  I know!

If I die by Prius, I want to make sure I have at least one dreadlock and am wearing Chuck Taylors just to stick it to the man.  And my Sid and Nancy shirt.  Feel that knife spin in your trust fund, man?!  Yeah, we punks on 8th in our Craftsman houses are really telling you off now.  MOSH PIT! (with Nerf guns and protective footwear because we have to go to work on Monday.  Explaining the black eye thing every week is getting old and they are starting to not believe us).

So I digressed.  But this whole thing is about digressing, so don’t feel bad, I don’t even remember…….so this one time, at Jen camp…….
So back to the video – apparently it was supposed to be for a dating site.  It was weird because I actually worked in the dating industry.For two days. 

For two days, I was the salesperson for a video dating service because I was 21 and had big hair.  Aqua Net big.

I had just graduated from undergrad and was starting grad school and needed money.  I was waiting tables at night, working at the University of Maryland during the day, interning in DC every Tuesday and Thursday and working at Macy’s on the weekends.  I could piece this together to pay my rent because I got free coleslaw and biscuits from the restaurant, those little free shoe footies from Macy’s shoe department and an occasional congressman from DC. (KIDDING!  Although it was the Lewinsky era, nothing even remotely weird happened to me except when I would take calls from irate voters over “don’t ask, don’t tell”).
I was offered a job in “sales” and I jumped at it!  I was told I could make as much as $35,000 per year! (which is more than I currently make despite having lovely credentials – this is the humiliation part.  I am about 15 minutes from calling my dad and asking if he needs the lawn mowed for $10 bucks an hour.  In Hawaii.  We don’t have grass.) 
My first two days were spent in uncompensated “training”.  Totally illegal under the FLSA, but the statue of limitations expired in 1995.
I was told to pretend I was a client.  That meant wearing something inappropriate and pretending to be a candidate.  Like when the EEOC investigates you and sends over someone awful as a test case.  Bleh.  So here is what I recall of my video.
 
“Hi!  I am Jen!  I moved to the East Coast from Hawaii so I could meet new people! Who are not in the service industry!  If you like pina coladas and long walks on the beach and are really into security briefs from the TCA and Bureau of Veteran’s Affairs, call me!  867-5309.”
I lasted two days.

Then I became a receptionist for 3 hours.

Things are not looking up. 

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The Incredible Astoundingness of Being

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September 1, 2011
The last three days have been some of the most joyful and humbling of my life.  I had hit a little rough patch in my life, and was having my old, “screw it – I’m moving back to Hawaii to live in my dad’s basement with the roaches” fantasy that I have sometimes. 
My job search was uninspiring – both in some of the opportunities provided and on my interview evaluation forms.  My relationship fizzled and I was having a little pity party.
Then I got an amazing piece of news – my old organization’s spin off company, which I had the honor to assist in the set up of their HR practices, wanted to talk to me about coming on as a consultant because they were growing and needed some additional help.  I was completely overjoyed.  I love these people – they are smart and funny and professional and interesting as hell.  Not quite Burning Man interesting, but I could talk to them for hours, learn, laugh and even want to stay up past my bedtime (which is an incredible 10 p.m. in the summer!) 
I accepted with an agreement to start on Wednesday. 
On Tuesday, I had a bad case of the blues and a friend of mine offered to come pick me up and feed and entertain me for the afternoon.  I am not a lot of fun to be around when I am sick or gloomy, so this was a very generous offer.  Very.  I slipped out $200 and shoved it under the sofa like a little cash Easter Egg.  (Last pillow on the left – kidding!)  Probably should have waited until later in the post to say I was kidding, just to see if he would look.    I was so humbled and grateful for this act by someone who has very quickly become a real friend and not just a party friend.  Plus, he made me eat chicken and crackers and makes me laugh my ass off. 
Wednesday I went in for my first day of work.  I know these folks, but I was still nervous as hell.  I asked one of my colleagues how I looked and he said, “like it is your first day of work”.  Great.  That will inspire great confidence in my abilities as an HR Director.  Hands shaking, sweating profusely, outfit all wrong, talking too fast (oh wait, that is how I talk).  Oh well.  It was going down.
They are housed with my old organization currently and former employees (many of them now friends although I know in HR Land you aren’t supposed to do that, but I don’t care – you don’t go into this business if don’t care about people).  But it is a business so sometimes you have to do things like fire your friends.  Which either makes me a good compartmentalizer or a sociopath.  Maybe there is no difference. 
All day, people kept coming up and hugging me, saying hello, sending others over – it felt like I was coming home from war.  Mostly it just felt like I was coming home.  But they don’t pay me to socialize, so I kicked off a very ambitious project and finished it that day.  I worked my ass off and my back is killing me, but I wanted them to know that they had hired someone who could kick ass, take names and do it in 3 inch heels.  They had a welcome party after work for some of the new employees and I got to meet the families of my colleagues and dearest friends. 
I went home feeling absolutely giddy, so I tortured my garden until I finally got tired enough to watch Jon Stewart.  This was not, however, before I showed up a week early and or late to plan a party.  I had gotten my dates all wrong when J answered the door, he looked absolutely bewildered.  He was as gracious as always – shoved a calendar in my hands, slapped me in the face and threw me out of the door. 
I was so excited about going to work the next day, I couldn’t sleep.  I kept jumping up in the middle of the night writing myself emails and developing tools I thought we could use to enhance the developing culture. 
I woke up at 4 a.m. and saw the sun start to rise.  I mean the light-ish thing that comes up behind the clouds.  I couldn’t wait to get to work! 
Thursday was even better than Wednesday because I now had a phone AND a garbage can!  I don’t know where to find a stapler, but I did locate the bathroom – just in time.
I embarked on another project that was also pretty ambitious, but it is a tool that will help me develop reporting and analysis.  HR people – I made an HRIS on Excel. You all do it, you know you do.  It is our dirty little secret.  You can buy an enterprise server HRIS thingey for $100k a year, but you know you are just going to download a report into a csv file and convert it into Excel.  You are. 
I kept running into old friends and colleagues from ISB, Amazon, SeattleBiomed – because I don’t have a private office and need to make sensitive calls on my cell which gets no reception, so my office is on a bench on the Amazon campus.  Hope they don’t charge me.  In the summer, I also prefer to conduct employee meetings, especially difficult ones, outside.  If the sun is out, you are just two people having a conversation about how to improve things instead of some terrified employee sitting across the desk from a scary HR person.  Then I buy them a gelato or a coffee and make jokes.  I think this is why there has never been an employment related attempt on my life.  Employment related only. 
After work, my trusty sidekick Max and I went out to dinner, (after I got a call from one of my bosses who asked me how things were going which was so freaking cool, I don’t even know what to do!) where he proceeded to tell such raunchy stories that I put my napkin over my head to cover my face so no one would know I was with him.  Because if you can’t see them, they can’t see you.  Unfortunately, I had dropped a giant chunk of palak paneer onto the napkin and it was dripping down my face onto my shirt.  Which now smells like Indian food.  So I am not going to wash it.  My shirt.  I will totally wash my face.  Then we walked around Greenlake and he did the same thing, but this time I participated because if you are moving fast enough, they can’t see you.  We were like insult ninjas.  Yaar!  I know that is a pirate sound, but I don’t know what Ninjas say.  (Then Jess called with a funny HR story from Boston and I loooooovvvee those.) 
Tomorrow is another project that will make them amazed (except they all hate this HR stuff which is why they hired me).  It would probably be more interesting if I just brought donuts. 
Three awesome days.  The only thing that can make a week like this (meaningful work, outstanding colleagues, real friends – friends closer than family, laughter – oh! And I went for a run!) would be a smart nerdy boyfriend, the ability to fit into size 8 pants and winning the shoe lottery.   I am a grateful girl. 
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Epic Fail

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September 1, 2011

It was my fourth day of my new job.  My new job is kind of my old job with special sauce instead of Thousand Island Dressing.  By this I mean I am working with a lot of the same people I worked with for the past few years, but it is a spin off company with a for-profit bent.  I haven’t had a dot com behind my name since the very early 2000s, but it was time.  After spending nearly 10 years in non profit, I had learned to run my organizations with duct tape (don’t you want to say duck tape?) and safety pins.  Working for an organization that could actually afford to hire someone to clean the bathrooms (other than me) was a new experience.  I love science and this is a diagnostic company.  I love scientists and there are millions of them here.  I wanted to kick ass, I wanted to impress my new boss.  I didn’t.

Starting every new job in HR, there are two things I always do – look at the files and talk to the people.  My first HR boss Ann told me, “the history of the people and the company are in those files”.  She was right.  And, it is often the first thing an auditor or plaintiff’s attorney will look at during discovery.  I audited the files and guess what?  Humans forget to turn things in.  Oh well, no one is going to die, we will just get everything updated.  I started making appointments to talk to the people.  Things were going well – I had a good rapport with most of the new folks and had been working with the veterans for a few years.  I was just about to meet with one of the team members when…..

I fell.  Flat on my face.  It is every woman’s worst nightmare.  It is up there with the nightmare you have of showing up to school naked on the first day of class.  (That actually happened to me too, but I am not prepared to discuss it yet – I need more therapy).

I developed a taste for shoes early in life – they are one of my three guilty pleasures.  Four.  Five.  Maybe let’s just call it an even 10.  When I turned 38 and my long term relationship unraveled, I learned how to wear heels.  I lost about 80 lbs in 2 years and decided to become a foxy 40 year old for the next phase of my life. 

As I mentioned, it was my fourth day of work and I was dressed to impress – matching funky suit and heels.  My favorite heels – Fleuvog’s with a Mary Jane strap – yum!  I tend to walk fast anyway, but I was really booking to make this meeting.  My rubber soled shoes caught on the concrete floor and I went in to slooooowwww moooootion.  Noooooooo!!!!!  I recall thinking as I swam towards the floor.  Never underestimate gravity.  Or intelligent falling, as I call it. 

I fell.  On my face.  In a skirt.  In front of the Chief Medical Officer, Director of IP and Legal and General Counsel.  And the employee.  And the elevators. While the doors were opening.  I wanted, truly, to die.

As I tell employees, scandals last about a week before people switch gears to find the next big thing.  It has been a week, so my time in purgatory should be complete and I can talk about it now.  The awesome thing is when I told my boss, he high fived me.  My other boss said, “please don’t stop face planting, every organization needs a face planter”.  They were both serious. 

I love these guys which is why I turned down THREE offers for HR Director jobs in the first two days of consulting for them.  They know the employee morale impact of the HRD face planting in front of everyone and jumping up to declare victory.  They understand that part of what makes a team successful is how they treat each other after not just success, but epic, epic, failure.  They get that it takes failure and painful learning to be successful.  I love these guys. 

Working with these people again feels like I have come home.  From war.  The most beautiful thing anyone can experience is acceptance – particularly after an epic fail. 

I wear my humiliation on my shoulder like an indie rock button.  I wear my pride on my face when I tell people what I do for a living.  And I will never wear my Fleuvog’s to work again. 

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Are you Warren Beatty?

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September 1, 2011
I am on an airplane again.  Do you know how I know?  It isn’t the fluffy white clouds floating by my window.  Although they are beautiful – images of buttes and snow cones and Marge Simpson’s hair and thunderclouds in the Midwest.  No, it is because when I went to the bathroom, I found I had gotten my period early.  Again.  On a plane.  With no sanitary supplies on board and no room for asking my boss and colleagues if we could “maybe just find a drug store real quick”.
We were on a 6 a.m. flight to LA, I had gotten up at 3:30 to prep for the work day because I was staying later than my colleagues to do some due diligence for our stock option plans and bond with the team from LA.  The night before, I had been totally unable to sleep putting my two day total of REM at about 45 minutes.  The last time this happened (my period at an inappropriate time on a plane, I was headed to Indonesia) and was too afraid to just publicly appeal to my sisters for help. 
This time, I went with a total fuck-all after trying both slots of two airport bathrooms at LAX and finally screaming in the last one, “does anyone have a tampon?  I will give you $20”.  Two women responded and both declined my offer of cash.  Sisterhood can be powerful.  We may trash each other at work and hold grudges for years and borrow your favorite dress and “forget” to return it, and try to steal your boyfriend, but when in serious need (emergency child care, death in the family, lack of sanitary supplies, pantyhose-related emergency) we come through for each other.
I was headed to California for my new job.  My old job.  My new old job that used to be my old job but only kind of.  It makes sense if you have been fragmented or suffered intestinal parasites in Indonesia and a broken heart courtesy of the world.  My new job is working for a biotech company that was born out my old academic organization. 
I have been out of the biotech world for about a year.  I followed my heart to a sexy job that involved public policy and international employment law and a cause I believe in strongly.  I learned a very important lesson – the most important thing to me is the people I work with every day, not the sexy trips to Asia (that cease being sexy when you have to wash your shoes in the toilet after a day at the office).  It is the comfort of being able to face plant in front of the CEO and have him give you a high five for your efforts.  It is the very popular mid afternoon “does anyone need popsicles?” run.  It is the comfort of knowing you can make an inappropriate joke at a meeting where two members are Nobel Prize Laureates and they will follow on with an even more inappropriate response.
Still, I had to man up to relearn this ever changing field of biotech.  Biochemistry up rather, because I had forgotten how to explain things like biomarkers and how a mass spec works and microfluidics and what a peptide was. Is.  Peptides are. 
The people I work with everyday are willing to explain to me the meanings of the vocabulary words I wrote down during a scientific progress meeting and not think I am stupid.  Some will even draw a diagram on a whiteboard for me.  Or develop a software tool to analyze why I can’t accurately predict the presence of white bloodcells in a precancerous unicorn tumor.  I was so glad to be home.  With my nerds.  With my peeps.  (And, they don’t understand things like employment law and having really uncomfortable conversations with employees.  I get the HR stuff, they get physics, so everyone is a winner.  I am not judging – except for one employee that played cello as a child in a sailor suit.  Your parents kind of set you up, dude.) 
While we were in LA, I didn’t see any of the things you would expect (sun, small actresses with small dogs in small purses, pedicured nails or the outside of a cab and/or Hilton conference room).  I did see the most beautiful Maldi-Tof mass spec on the planet and a bunch of colleagues I consider among the best on the planet and the kindness of strangers in an airport bathroom. 
Flying home, jet lagged, sweaty in black clothes, faced with an eight a.m. meeting tomorrow about my future employment options, headed to house in need of a few loads of laundry, unread Facebook invites, an unplanned outfit to a costume party on Saturday, and all I can think of is how much I have to do at work.  And I can’t wait to get there tomorrow.  I love my nerds, I love my peeps and I love me some science. 
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Facebook Test Case

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September 1, 2011

I have been in Human Resources for about 18 years.  I love my profession.  I love the mix of analysis, policy, communication, marketing and psychic abilities you need to do this job well.  I also love the weird things people do and trying to help them deal with the consequences without losing face.  I have often wanted to write a book called “You Wouldn’t Believe the Shit People Do at Work”, but I can’t bring myself to betray their confidences.
Over the years, people have confessed drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, abusive relationships, extramarital affairs, desires to be another gender, their fears about the death or illness of a friend or family member, medical problems (in great detail) hatred of their job, their boss, their life, their spouse.  I have heard it all and I will take it to my grave because I respect their trust in me (unless I am legally required to disclose or investigate it as a serious violation of law, policy or safety).   That was a joke only HR people will get.
Studs Turkel’s “Working” is one of my favorite books because I am fascinated with how people make their livings.  When you die, there are many people who will come to speak at your funeral.  They will talk about the friend you were, the neighbor you were, the aunt you were, the volunteer you were and they will talk about the employee you were.  And they are all talking about different people.  You put on a different personality for each “person” you are in the world.  Or at least I do.  It is like putting on a uniform to wait tables at TGIF.  Which I did for 4 years and got written up for not having enough “flair”.  Yes, people, that is real. 
I am an employment law junkie – I read every piece of case law I can find and I memorize it so that I can impress people at cocktail parties.  Actually, I use it to train my managers and scare them into making appropriate decisions.  I was one of those people in high school that read the employee handbook I was given at the fast food restaurant and highlighted the rules and tabbed out the parts I objected to and refused to sign until I had clarification on the language.  I often corrected the manuals and sent them back.  Managers love that.  Especially from 16 year olds.  So, I have been drawn to this line of work since my paternal grandmother first asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, “A nurse with a purse or the president of the United States”. 
Ultimately, you spend more time of your life awake at work than you do with your friends or family and I need to make that a good experience.  I need to contribute to the world in that way – by making work matter, by letting people be authentic and have fun and by having people feel respected. 
That is what I remembered today when I read about an NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) decision to sue a company for firing employees about what they posted on their facebook pages.  I joked that I didn’t want to ever become the facebook test case.  This is an HR term that means “let’s not engage in any activity that could make us the Brown vs Board of Education of employment law”.
It brought me back and I remembered when I got fired in 1994.  I was 24 years old and had moved from DC to Seattle because I took a trip here and thought it was beautiful.  The people were cool, the music was amazing and I just felt home.  It was much more chill than on the East Coast.  I had gotten so wound up there I would chase people down in my car, scream at them and threaten a cage fighting match if they cut me off.  I was waiting tables, going to grad school, working retail on the weekends and interning for a congressman – I was nuts.  I mean, I AM nuts, but I was taking the Jen Keys experience to a whole other level. 
I moved to Seattle with no job, a crappy car, my cat Kitty, a few suitcases (I had my books shipped because there are some things one cannot leave behind) and about $3000.  I spent my first few weeks sleeping on the sofa of a friend whose grunge band had a studio in the basement.  One day I came home from job searching to find the lead singer of a now very famous band, clipping his toenails on the sofa and leaving the scraps there.  And the nights sucked except for when we played inline hockey at Cal Anderson Park. 
So I did what any reasonable person would do, I started temping.  My first temp job was for an organization I hope no longer exists.  They don’t know how badly they dodged a bullet because I didn’t want to go on 20/20 and I am not kidding.
I took a temp job doing what was supposed to be educational coordination work.  It was admin stuff, but higher level and similar to what I had been doing at the University of Baltimore and JHU – reviewing applications, working through academic credentials, checking the citations of papers, etc.   I didn’t have a good relationship with the staff which is rare for me.  It was a family run business and it was very insular.  They obviously thought of me as their chai walla (office boy), but I was a bit proud.  They would gossip and stare at me, they would all go to lunch and leave me to answer the phones, they would give me the grunt work.  OK, fair enough – I was the new kid and needed to do what needed to be done.  One day, they had me spend the day wrapping Christmas presents for their clients.  If anyone knows me, they know I favor large bags stuffed with paper because I can’t wrap a box to save my life. 
I finished “wrapping” packages and the manager came in and berated me for doing a crappy job.  Well, yeah, I did a crappy job.  Why did you give this job to the girl that can’t draw a straight line with a ruler and vice grip?  So they made me rewrap the packages. 
I was pissed.  On my break (under which I was not given the appropriate allotment under the FLSA but the statute of limitations has passed, so you are off the hook, suckas), I wrote an email on my personal account to my boyfriend at the time complaining about the working conditions.  I perhaps used the phrase,  “I hate these people”.  The next day, everyone was looking at me strangely.  I was pulled into the manager’s office and told I was being fired for disloyalty.  They had gone into my personal email and read what I had written on my break.  There were no email policies at this time, it was brand new and I had a compuserve email that was like 0111000010000111000 kjdaljfa or some shit like that.  The passwords were just on your computer at that point.  I was on my break, it was my personal account, and they snooped it. 
I left and promptly called the ACLU.  Within days, I was getting calls from 20/20, 60 Minutes and the New York Times because I was one of the first test cases of email privacy and they needed stories and a poster child.  The only thing I want to be a poster child for is fantastic thighs (which will never happen and I realize this).  I was so afraid of being “that girl” that I didn’t stand up for my privacy rights.  I didn’t stand up for anyone else’s rights.  I crawled into a hole and made it all go away.  I declined all interviews because I didn’t want to be a test case.
I could have been the person that made email policies mandatory in the 1990s, but I all hedgehoged up and went on to make myself a strong figure in HR land.    
I have never shared this until now because I was ashamed. I was ashamed of being fired and ashamed of not sharing my story. After all, my career has been in HR and the last thing you want to be remembered for is the girl that was fired for her email featured by Morley Safer!  And, after all, I went into this business to change people’s lives for the better and I should have stood taller.   But I was scared.  I could have been famous.  At least for 15 seconds.
“Hey! I saw you getting fired on 60 minutes!  Want to administer our compensation programs?”
Now, HR people, this was almost a high school graduating class ago, so don’t hold it against me, but when I say I don’t want to be a test case, I mean it.  So facebook, good luck.  I personally hope you win on the case of free speech and employers stop worrying about what people wear while draped over the hood of a cop car (unless it is the cop, then I kind of get it).  Let people be who they are.  Let them be gay, straight, weird, tattooed, arty, nerdy, fat, ugly, and AUTHENTIC. 
But if it happens again (test case), I hope we all fall down on our swords, which ever side the fall on, and have the courage to do what we think is right and noble and could even get us on 60 minutes. 
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Photosynthesis

Filed Under: Intimacy, Intimacy of Strangers, Strangers by stranger — Leave a comment
September 1, 2011

I photosynthesize.  Literally.  Which is why I only have friends from October to March.  In the summer, I am up all day long – like right now!  Jumping on furniture and cats and having monkey climbing contests with Madeline and Emily (they are 9, so it isn’t a like a bunch of 40 year olds are hanging off the monkey bars at Cowen Park)  Just one, but I think the neighbors are used to me by now.  Like they are used to me mowing the lawn at 3 a.m.  Because the grass gets all long and stuff.
In the summer, I turn into a complete spaz.  Which is why if you came into my kitchen right now, you could literally eat off the floor.  What makes it worse is that I have been unemployed or marginally employed, for the past few months.  This was fine when I was in Indonesia and Australia traveling and running from large insects, but now that I am home, I am driving everyone nuts. 
I even stopped drinking caffeine and start every day with a run.  Nothing helps.  I should probably volunteer with a iguana shelter or something, but I hate iguanas and I don’t think those probably exist.  Iguana shelters.  I think Iguanas probably do, although it seems unnecessary.
I do have the best friends on earth.  I got shirts made for them (no one wears them, they just smile awkwardly, say “thank you” and go back to the iguana shelter to help the homeless parrots).  Just because one time I bailed them out of jail in Reno, they are willing to put up with neurotic calls from me like 35 times a day.  Although I probably shouldn’t press my luck.  (Jess, wear the BLACK one, it makes you look sexy!)
My ex boyfriends are also very kind to me.  I am not sure why, but I only have two exes (and let’s not get into the numbers game, I DID date the entire wrestling team).  EWW!  Did not!  Did not! Out of pure fashion snobbery, I did not.  MAYBE soccer, or skate boarding teams – that hate me (boyfriends, not sports teams).  The two that do I think might actually be mentally ill.  I am a pretty good girlfriend and a really good normal friend and I don’t really hold grudges or put people in fucked up situations and frequently buy dinner, which is why I am going to spend the rest of my life convincing these two guys to like me.  Except for the restraining orders.  (All I did was bring you a six pack and a bagel dude, was that really necessary?)  At least he lives in Portland and I can’t drive that far to stalk him regularly because I am too lazy.  He is only the second person to de-friend me on facebook.  The first was a trumpet player from the south that had an adorable accent and lived on a sofa around a bunch of PRB cans in lower Queen Anne.  I met him at a show and he had a great hat.  What is my attraction to alcoholic musicians?  Am I trying to support Sound Garden? 
**Note to the attorneys for Sound Garden, this is satire and, therefore, protected speech, so chill.  And I can’t even list a song your guys sang.  And are any of them single?
Anyway, I think I am going back to my old company’s spin off company next week.  It is going to be weird not being the head of HR for a big organization, but I have to do something here.  The next door neighbor is really sick of me offering to tweak his resume.  Although he did mow the 87 year old guy’s lawn last night at like 9 which was really charming.  Hey neighbor, next time, take *off* your shirt.  Because you are like 21 years old and gorgeous.  This sounds pervy, but I live in the city and you can’t help notice your neighbors when they are like 5 feet from you.      
So Corbin (my writing coach) needs to get back from her iguana saving mission in the rainforest, I need to go to bed and my friends need to throw my phone in the lake so I don’t call them any more.  My ex used to just walk by water (ocean, lake, puddle) and whatever electronic device he had on him would just jump out of his pocket and commit electronic suicide – it was funny until he left me in Lake Washington after a canoe tipping incident in which three Asian guys pulled my big white ass out of the water by my shorts.  And I don’t have a big ass.  My thighs could kill you in a cage fighting match, but my ass couldn’t even scrape Betty Crocker’s arm.  Because I am all Irish and flat assed.
Kymmer’s birthday today – gotta pick up the sake.  Love to Gina and Madeline and Emily and the British Chick and the guy with the red shirt that helped me round up the kids at the park and Jess and Paul and Karen (because when I walk down the street, people know my hairdresser cares about me – and my hair looks good!)   (and I think your ass looks hot in those jeans, Karen, own it!) and Roxaneimal and Eli and Choo and Carol and Fred and Clover. And Paigey.  And, mom, I am sorry for hitting you in the face over my childhood because you are dead and don’t feel it that much so it doesn’t count and I am really sorry I am kind of a bitch about it.  You were a good mom.  That is why I keep you in my house next to my signed copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  And hitting you in the metaphorical face is a sign of respect in our culture.  Yeah.  In Brooklyn.  We are from the old country.
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LOL Katz

Filed Under: Intimacy, Intimacy of Strangers, Strangers by stranger — Leave a comment
September 1, 2011

I am spelling this in this fashion to avoid the legal team at the Chezburger Network.  BTW, I could have been your HR Director.  I would have taken you to new heights in hilarity like playing Double Dutch Bus at the start of every staff meeting (although that gets old after the first 15 times) and ordering donuts from Dunkin instead of Top Pot just to be egalitarian about it.
This morning I woke up with a mouth full of fur.  Or a mouth covered in fur.  I have had lipstick on my mouth consistently for the last 31 years – no kidding.  My friend, Paige, once told me that I looked like Holly Hobby and then she pulled my bangs back and made fun of my unnatrually large eyes and smallish mouth and then barfed on my shirt because she was laughing so hard.  Mostly because we had stolen a bunch of clove cigarettes from this store downtown and smoked them while drinking Robitussin.  
This brings back such fond memories that when I wake up in the morning, I steal a pack of cloves and then peel the cat fur from my lips. I hear it has moisturizing properties.  Which is why I do that.
Actually, it is because my cats need to sleep literally on my head.  There is an entire house here with 3 bedrooms, a living room, reading room and office, but they have to sleep ONLY on my pillow.  This is not only annoying, it is gross. 
I have an uncanny sense of smell.  I can tell who is smoking Virginia Slims in Wallingford or eating Doritos on Capital Hill.  From my house.  Oh, and I can see Russia!  From my house!  Why are you Russians eating Doritos and smoking Virginia Slims?  Just eat caribou jerky and do snuff, it is what you are legally obligated to do.  And don’t try to put the Doritos in a Ziplock and pretend we don’t know.  I do that all the time with my Pringles and pretend it is celery, but no one is buying it.  The people at Costco are so on to me. 
What it means in practical terms is that I can smell cat litter on my pillow at 3 a.m. from the dang furry things that sleep on my head and I DO NOT WANT this.  It also means I have to throw 15 small furry animals off my bed to get a decent sleep.  Or I could try Nyquil, but that seems like I am developing yet another addiction.  Bagels, Benadryl and baked brie are one thing, OTC meds and owl tattoos are quite another.
So nothing has happened in the last week other than the Boi (heart!!!!) has begun calling me back after I annoyed him to death with my constant annoyingness (yeah, that doesn’t really change much – sorry!) because I bribed his mother and said I was a lovely person and sent her a Hallmark store.  And I think I am going to go back to work with my peeps at the academic biomedical research institute spin off that I call home as long as they buy off on my proposal to stare at them strangely and audit files. Which is why this post (unlike all the others – snort! – makes no sense).
Today I read 13 books and ran from Seattle to Portland and back.  On my bike.  While doing laundry,  It is definitely time to get back into the swing of things and do some math for a comp survey or something.  The only math I currently do is just to calculate how I can pay my mortgage and not eat the giant Costco-sized brie that looks like it is encased in Styrofoam and keep buying my industrial sized ziplocks in which to store my Pringles.  
 Eww.  I think I am going to stop eating altogether to save money and not have to eat ishey food.  “Ishey” is a term derived from the Yiddish Language which means “gross” in Hawaiian.  
Kthxbye
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40 is the new 40!

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September 1, 2011

By all rights, I should have cried myself to sleep last night.  After all, technically I am 40, single, unemployed and have two cats and a bit of a muffin top.  Things couldn’t look much worse. 
However, I am a very optimistic person!  By this I mean hyper, so I am not going to let that stand in the way of my special day.  Because I am special.  My mom thinks so.
My friends have joined forces for a two day birthday extravaganza, I had two fantastic phone interviews Friday afternoon, a new guy in my life and the best real and chosen family anyone could ask for.  My core friend group is called the New Bardo Hotel and Conference Center.  It resides at the home of one of my best friends and is named after the Bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  It is a beatnik reference.  Bardo means “transitional state”.  We have been transitional since about 1997. 
When the New Bardo first formed in about 1997, there were three nerds from Microsoft (and I have the pictures to prove it) an arty chick and some bureaucrat that worked for the government (that is me).  We just wanted to embrace the weirdness of the Pacific Northwest and explore different subcultures.  We tried out cultures like the Goth Scene (my Goth Name is Obscuria and my outfits came from Hot Topic and Mercury),  the Rave Scene (yes, it gets capitalization and my Rave Name is Star-Sparkley because stars are shiny and my outfits came from my sewing machine and young children’s cast aways), Burning Man, the Swan Ice Sculpture Community, the We Are Waaaayyy to into Cats Community, and the Smoothie Community.  We laughed our asses off (mostly at Jess) and supported each other through deaths and births and breakups and personal crisis. 
 Because, when you became a card carrying member of the NBH, you joined a family.   
A chosen family.  I mean, we were drunk when we picked each other, but we still picked each other. 
 
In the mid 1990s in Seattle, there were several “tribes” in these subcultures.  The Church of Mez was the most prominent.  I heard it referenced as “an internet sex and drug cult ” by a conservative blogger which is hilarious.  The founder was a pioneer in the tech world, a fantastic human being, and a good friend whose friends decided to give him a church for his birthday one year because he already had everything else.  Our closest allies besides Mez were Spice Alley, Inertia Labs, Fey Abbey, Seventh Maze, etc.   
We had fun.  We were all professionals but in our spare time we would do things like throw epic parties including Phoenix Festival, Poop (don’t ask – it was at an undisclosed location in the forest), Earth Dance,  and even started a non profit called Dance Safe that educated young people about recreational drug use and provided harm reduction services at parties.  If you Google me, you will see references to our work in The Stranger, 20/20, MTV and the Seattle Times.  I am proud of what we accomplished – we worked hand in hand with King County Public Health, the Seattle Police Department and the media.  Special shout out to Chief Kerlikowske who handled the shooting deaths of several of our friends by a lone gunman on Capital Hill with compassion and extraordinary grace.  Although we didn’t always see eye to eye on the need for a safe place to talk about harm reduction, he accepted our work and presence. 
 
The truth is that through that this process of discovery and creativity, my friends scratched off the giant scab that settled on my soul.  I had become closed to possibilities and the universe and of the many things of which I was afraid. 
I believe that everyone has a critical time in their lives when they are able to make a decision to be who they want to become and chose the life they want.  Since the price you pay for being who you are is your life, you should take that seriously.  When the bill comes, I hope you got what you paid for. 
There are some moments that stick out in my mind:
 
J1 getting lost in his sweatshirt for 2 hours at a party in the forest and we had to tether him to the tent so he wouldn’t get lost.
 
J2 and I hugging it out on the floor of 2424 with Goldfish Bunny (umm, there is a back story here) and all the years since attending fund raisers and over bidding on beaver suits (umm, back story part two)
 
The night I met T and we discussed Ethan Allen vs Ikea furniture on the floor of a party at the artificial limb company, and the years we spent supporting each other through everything (Perl vs C ++?)
 
The unsuccessful behavioral based interviewing techniques for potential roommates with N that left us with roommates who, somehow, managed to get beans on the ceiling of the kitchen and all of the bizzaro HR questions we passed back and forth
 
The awesome years I spent laughing my ass off with N’s mossylocks impressions, the time he bent to kiss me and his construction hat fell on my face and broke my nose, the support he gave me through my mom’s death and the friendship he has offered me since we decided to part ways
 
Post date night post-mortem breakfasts with Max and runs to Home Depot (Do you only like me for my car, dude?  J)  And, I am the BEST wing man ever!
E, M and M – you are the best friends ever! You taught me how to chuck rocks and run and swing and have fun
B – my life has incredible possibilities with you.  I am head over heels (and I wear heels mostly to impress you).  I think you are funny and smart and sexy and gorgeous and can’t wait to discover more. 
 
Ice Castles and cats with laser pointer improvs with my colleagues, silly hallway dances and lots and lots of LOL Cats, laughter and hopefully professional tips
 
The people we lost, the cats we lost, the minds we lost…….
 
I have an amazing life.  I am grateful and humbled every day by the people who chose to call me their friend.   And in return, they can consider my love for them unconditional.
So happy 40th birthday to me, I can’t ask for anything richer and I am grateful and humbled. 
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