Ewwwwwww!

Much of the time, in the world of management (I'm learning), there are way too many things to do.

But on rare occasions (such as tonight) you find things to do.

Or somebody else finds them for you.

Tonight, my boss decided that the gum needed to be scraped off the hardwood and tile floors around our store. My first response when I heard this, was, "There's gum on the hardwood and tile floors?" She looked at me like I was a leprechaun.

“Yeah,” she said.

This is how good managers are: they notice the little things.

So I grabbed a blade and set to scraping. Scraping gum off any kind of flooring turns out to be—not surprisingly—quite a humbling experience. But there are a few things that can take the humbling exercise up a couple of notches. Like when a little girl (7 years-old or so) standing nearby a particularly gummy spot I was working on asked me what I was doing; said, “ewwww,” when I told her; then scratched her head and said, “it looks like you’re ruining the floor with that blade.”

Thank you.

“Yeah,” I said, “but we don’t have anything else to get it off with.”

Then her friend piped in and, pointing to a big glob of gum a few feet away, said, “There’s some more over there. Are you gonna get that?”

Thanks. Thanks again.

There’s something very intimate about digging into a months-old glob of gum with a box cutter blade and revisiting the smell of spearmint that had been locked in below the surface and trampled upon by a million anonymous feet. “Wow,” I thought when the aroma hit me, “this was in some stranger’s mouth. And now I get to scrape it up.” It’s a kind of intimate you could very well live a lifetime without experiencing and be, methinks, just fine.

There are some tasks that I never give a second thought...things that are taken care of invisibly, things that just get done somehow.

I was thinking about this when we did inventory the other night. The freaky people from RGIS were there (and I only say “freaky" because it always creeps me out how there are like 1,500 of them who come swarming into wherever they’re working that night and just type numbers into little computers all night like Night of the Living Dead: The Accountants Return. And they hardly say a word. If you’ve ever worked in retail during inventory, you probably know what I’m talking about. Really, it’s a little scary).

Well, I realized that people don’t EVER give a thought to those people unless they’re working somewhere and it happens to be inventory night. And then the RGIS people are seen as the enemy because they’ve invaded the store and who the hell wants to be there for inventory anyway? The RGIS people are always being yelled at to rescan a section or to stop making a mess or to just be faster (if that were humanly possible). Plus, they always work overnight and have to go on break at the same time like some kind of zombie herd.

Now THAT is a thankless job.

And then there's the work that janitors do every single day. And I do mean every single day; the janitors at my store work 7 days/week. They clean the store in the morning and then have to return in the afternoon to restock the bathroom supplies. Sometimes they’ll be all dressed up because they had to leave a party or some other event just to come make sure the customers at Barnes & Noble would be able to comfortably wipe their asses.

These are customers, by the way, who can’t even manage to keep gum in their mouths.

I walked into the restroom the other day and a co-worker who was on her way out warned me not to go into the first stall. ‘What’s in the 1st stall?” I thought. But I knew I didn’t want to know what was in the 1st stall because whatever it was, it promised to be gross. I wondered how many other people had walked in and walked right out of that same stall because they didn’t want to deal with whatever was waiting in there.

Then I wondered absently when it would be taken care of. And I remembered: the janitor women would be in at 7:00 the next morning. They would take care of it. They would unclog the toilet or wipe the crap off the seat or pick the bloody tampon off the floor. They would do it.

That thought—thinking of it in those terms—makes me want to cry.

How could this be okay?

How could we have agreed to this setup, collectively?




And I think it’s kind of disturbing that scraping gum off a floor is an “experience” for me—something I can examine from afar like a detached anthropologist and have the leisure to write a blog about. 'Hmmm…how did that make me feel?'

And for others, it’s a living. It’s what you do to make ends meet.

I wish I could give a big hug of gratitude to the people who work tirelessly in thankless jobs that are truly service oriented…like, the Ultimate kind of service.

I want them to know that there are people who see them, who appreciate them, who know they are so many heros working so many miracles, day after day.

Pomp & Circumstance: The Eric Gagnes of the World

Recently, I’ve come to believe that few things are better than being witness to the realization of a dream.

I don’t mean learning that your best friend’s best sex dream just became a reality, although I suppose that would be cool too.

A couple of days ago I received a graduation announcement and attached letter (on Yale letterhead) from my friend Tamika (one of the true, brilliant goddesses I’ve had the fortune to know), who’s graduating tomorrow with her degree in Classics.

In the letter, she reminded me of a day a couple of years ago when we were at work and a cheesy classical music favorites CD was playing; “Pomp & Circumstance” came on, and she told me then that she was considering returning to Yale (where she’d been going before a short hiatus) to complete her degree. And now here she is, cap and gown, “Pomp & Circumstance” and all.

The letter made me all kinds of teary, the good kind. To know that a person I care about has worked so diligently toward accomplishing a goal, has been recognized for that hard work, and is now about to feast on the fruits—well I’ll say honestly that I can think of few better things in this life.

And there’s this, too: I can’t wait to see what she does next.

I feel that way about all the people I know, and things are very good in the lives of the people around me.

My Ma is set to become a certified Feng Shui practitioner in a couple of months and loves what she does. Her and my Pa (who is now fully recovered from a hip-replacement surgery (!) he underwent a few months ago and is working and playing as hard as ever) just completed the landscaping—done entirely by the sweat of their own brows—of their gorgeous new home in Colorado. They are both very involved in their community and I’ve never seen them happier.

My brother is now working on a television show down in SoCal, just moved into a nice apartment, and his co-ed softball team (the Isotopes, ‘Topes for short) is in first place ;)

Kelsi is chugging right along with her Master’s degree in Psychology, she’s written some great new songs recently, is going to Mexico for a month this summer and get her Spanish on, and is fixin’ to start her field placement position in the fall. I am awash in admiration.

Nicole returned to school this semester and is writing again, which is a great thing for the world at large, by the way. My gal's got stories that need to be told, and told well. Her perfectly chosen metaphors and incredible knack for creating mood are enough to penetrate the heart and psyche of any reader. Also, she just learned she'll be able to graduate as early as next Spring with a degree that I swear was designed just for her: it's called Creative Arts. Awesome!

JD will walk this week (he graduated last winter) and just told me he’s going to Europe for the summer—Greece and Germany and wherever else the wind may carry him…weeeeeeeeee.

My friend Rocky is graduating with his Master’s in Philosophy and is moving back to Boulder, CO next month, a long-time dream of his.

My friends Dave (the one I accidentally knifed at work [who’s healed very nicely, by the way—good job Dave]) and Ramon are both graduating from SJSU this week.

I just learned my friend Brent is starting school this fall (art school in San Francisco, which he’s been talking about for years and at which he will absolutely flourish—he’s remarkably talented).

My sweet and lovely friend Sharon is now halfway done with her Master’s in Library Science, AND she recently chose a wedding dress (which is a wondrous feat in the world of wedding planning, I’m told). Her roommate and our mutual friend Maribel is graduating this week with her Master’s in Education and will begin shopping for a Ph.D program soon.

The future Dr. Rotsko (my friend Nick) just had his 2nd paper published in an academic journal of philosophy and also completed his 5th straight semester as a President’s Scholar (4.0).

My friend Don from high school just finished his first year in the MBA program at the University of Michigan and accepted an internship on Wall Street (!) for this summer.

And I don’t know if this is a bigger accomplishment for me or for my beautiful honorary niece, Maya (about to turn 2), but she just learned to say (with some, ahem, assistance), and I quote: “Dodgers…awesome!” It’s the cutest and truest thing ever to cross the lips of a toddler. She’s a genius!

There’s a lot to celebrate these days.

I know, I know. One should not live one’s life through the accomplishments of others. And it’s not that. What I mean by listing all this is to say that my being able to share in this good new is, I consider, a true gift in my life. These are the kinds of things (and forgive me, my sappy language) that warm my heart.

I think it’s a somewhat commonly held belief that only relatively few people really change the world for the better—the Martin Luther Kings, the Mother Teresas, the Eric Gagnes :). But I would disagree with that. I believe each person—setting out to do what it burns within her or him to do—in so doing makes the world a beautiful place. Imagine all those around you, whose lives touch yours—well, imagine them all truly fulfilled, truly happy. That, in my mind, is a better world.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate all these people and anyone else who’s got great things going on that I haven’t been nosey enough to learn about yet. I consider myself grateful to know you and admire you, and I wish you—always—only the very best.

P.S. If you've never heard of Eric Gagne, I suggest a Google search :)

P.P.S. If you've got some good news to share, please write and tell me about it (you can access my e-mail by clicking on "view my complete profile"). I'd love to hear all about it. If it asks you to register, just make up a name or e-mail...I don't think it's too painful, but I haven't tried it so I wouldn't take my word for it.

Boobies All Around

It had to happen sooner or later.

There comes a day in every woman's life when she realizes she needs a new bra. And that, my friends, is a sad, sad day.

It's not about the *idea* of a new bra. Of course, new things are nice. But the buying of the bra...now that's definitely less fun than a barrel of monkeys. Trying on bras is second only to trying on bathing suits in the world of torturous activities in which women willfully engage.

I guess I was feeling masochistic yesterday.

So I battled the Valley Fair parking lot at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon (and won! I found a spot right near the entrance. Sure, it was the entrance on the complete opposite end of the mall from where I wanted to be, but it was a spot near the entrance nonetheless).

I dodged various obstacles including strollers, midgets, and people trying to sell me cell phones and then stopped in awe of the task in store for me when I came upon it--shining like some kind of half-angelic, half-evil beacon on the second floor of the mall--Victoria's Secret, all pink-and-white-and-blacklike.

"You're on a mission," I told myself, and mustered up a facial expression that read 'I know exactly what I'm looking for and where I'm going to find it. You may try to speak with me if you wish, but you'll be wasting your breath. And no, I don't need a Victoria's Secret charge card.'

So, either the sales *associate* was not skilled in face-reading, or my confidence diminished somewhere between the threshold and the first display containing underthings with no easily identifiable purpose or mode of operation.

And I'm leaning toward the latter.

"Hi!" she said. "May I help you find something?!"

I had a few doubts about whether or not she actually could, which surfaced when I noticed her own boobies were only partially contained and in danger of Janet Jackson-ing at any moment. But I reasoned she was probably aiming for that look and acquiesced.

"Yeah. I'm looking for a strapless bra."

"Ok great! We have a number of options for you. Walk with me."

This was already bad news. I didn't really want options. I wanted there to be a standard-issue bra made for my purpose and I wanted it to be perfect. But what could I do? I followed her to a display.

"Now," she said, and looked directly, directly at my breasts. "What size would you be, then?"

"Well it really depends on the bra."

"Shall we measure you?" And with that, she pulled a tape measure from a holster and slung it around my back.

'Whoah there, Little Missy!,' I thought, a favorite line of my friend Wolfgang's echoing in my mind.

My inner puritan had a say as well: shouldn't we be behind closed doors (or at least somewhere other than in front of a huge, windowed store front in a busy mall) for this sort of activity?

"Ok," she said. "We have this bra, which has a nice gel shaper in the cups."

I touched the cup and it moved. It squished! Bras shouldn't squish: boobies squish!

"Uh. No, thank you. Do you have one without padding?"

"Ok. Why don't I just take you to the dressing room? All the bras should be there and then we won't have to walk around and find them all separately."

This seemed like a good idea until I came to realize that "all the bras" included only two other models, and they weren't, in fact, in the dressing room. I stood there and watched while she rifled through a number of little boxes looking for my size in the two remaining strapless models. When she saw they weren't there, she called an invisible fellow sales person using a little hands-free cell phone attachment kind of thing and requested the bras. This would seem like a cool trick, except that she didn't seem to know how to use the thing (there was some button she was forgetting to push) and had to repeat everything. Additionally, she kept dropping the little speaker part down her blouse and had to fish it back out every few seconds.

We waited until the invisible sales person showed herself with only one bra in her hand. I began to think I just might have had an easier time on my own. Did all this hullabaloo really save us the "trouble" of walking around to find TWO bras on our own?

"Here you go," my helper said, "this is the [fill in the blank with something sounding like "Angel Sleak Body" or something like that] bra."

For a second I thought she was going to accompany me into the dressing room and I had to ask myself whether or not I was entirely opposed to the idea. Despite all the superfluous fuss and the gaping holes in what's clearly trying to be excellent customer service, there was something sexy about having another woman take such a keen interest in my breasts. At that point we were allies, united in the goal of getting me the proper support. Maybe she'd want to see the once-impossible dream through to its fruition (?)

But she had other hapless souls to attend to.

I was now all alone in my battle.

And that bra...well, that bra beat me.

Once on, it looked like something from Madonna's "Vogue" video and felt like something you'd force onto violent mental patients to keep them at bay.

I got dressed and emerged from the dressing room, downtrodden.

There was another boobie-bulging associate there, happy to take the reins. "How'd that work out for you?" she asked.

"Um. Do you have a strapless bra that isn't pointy or that doesn't make me feel like my boobs are sitting on a shelf?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, let me bring you the [whatever] bra...it's much better."

And she did. And it was.

She even walked me through the incredibly complicated 5-in-one convertible strap options. She told me I can have straps, one strap (those tacky 80's looking blouse-styles), halter top strap (nice feature, by the way), strapless, or racerback.

I didn't know anything about racerbacks
...didn't think I owned anything with a racerback
...am not given to racing.

But whatever it is--this racerback thing--my new bra can handle it!

So yeah, I bought it.

At the register I encountered a pleasant woman who made friendly conversation and who even winked a sweet wink at me when I passed her later in the mall. If I hadn't heard her call another female employee by the name "Mystique," I might have thought Victoria's Secret was a perfectly normal place, after all.

But it's not. And you shouldn't go there unless you really really need a bra with racerback options.

I have to say, though, walking around the mall afterward with that little pink-and-white handle bag containing my new 5-in-one non-shelf-like, non-pointy bra, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I felt I'd made my breasts proud. And yes, I hope it's a long, long time before I have the need to go there again.