» Terrible Parenting

Terrible, Horrible Parenting
My Mom is crazy and not with us in this dimension ,

My mother apparently had a hard life as a young girl... my sister and I used to have our story time start as a fairy book reading, but ended with mom weeping on how her brother teased her at 15, and me and my sister cowering in a corner...

Some well loved quotes:
"How do you like them chickens" (when she was winning at chess)
(when my boyfriend broke up with me for a blond) - "Get a blond wig - or dye your hair"
(when my sister had a morning flight after 9/11) - "I'm worried about your sister after all the terrorism, but she does have an early flight" (so terrorists only terrorise in the afternoon...)

A rule on life:
Don't pinch your pimples - it damages your brain.

Lice is a fact when you have kids:
Mom insisted the school nurse check us for lice one day - nothing like having the nurse call you out of class for lice check at 7yrs old. There was no scare for lice in the school, she just read an article and got worried.

The highlight was when I was reprimanded for eating an entire can of tunafish - "That could have made 2 sandwiches! Apologise to your Father!". (we weren't that poor).

God love Mom.
(Thu 16th Aug 2007, 23:08, More)

» The Boss

Horrible Jargon Boss
I had a boss years ago that would never meet your eye.
He'd be looking up at the ceiling, down at your shoes,
over at the desk next to you, but never look at you
directly. You'd get dizzy talking to him.

He loved jargon, and used all sorts of manager speak in
meetings. But he didn't understand it and would misuse the
terms. In one meeting he once said "We need to
come together - we need to combine our synergies".

...Which means we need to combine our combined energies.
I snickered at that.

He also tasked me and another co-worker to do the same task
at the same time, so he could see who would finish quicker.
Obviously we clashed - I overwrote the co-workers code and
we went to the manager when we found we were working on
the same thing. He mumbled something about metrics and
then gave me the task to finish. Sigh.

I had enough and turned in my resignation. The only time
he looked at me directly and told me "You need to give me
a plan on how to accomplish everything we planned for you
to do for the next year".

Funny, I had no plan for my work for the year, and had no
idea what I was to accomplish. So I gave a list of my
skills and work I was doing and planning on finishing before
I left.

Wasn't good enough - the response "I need that plan -
how are we to accomplish all that work for the year when
everyone is busy on other tasks". I wanted to suggest he
get on a computer and code it himself, but didn't.

I left quietly without responding to that without issue.

Whew!
(Wed 24th Jun 2009, 19:31, More)

» Tales of the Unexplained

Ghosts in Dallas
When I lived in Dallas Texas I was in a fabulous old apartment building that was built in the 1920’s. The apartment had lovely high ceilings, great old features, and it was in a really good location for bars and restaurants. I loved it and really enjoyed living there. After 3 years I decided to leave Dallas (for obvious reasons). About 6 months before I moved things started to drop off shelves onto the floor around 2-3am. It would freak me out, making me turn on the lights and look around. This happened so frequently I had to tell friends about it. They thought I was crazy.

The day came to leave. The furniture was removed and ready for shipment to the new address. All that was left were a few boxes stacked up in the middle of the lounge. I had to travel for the new job, so I left a key with a friend and was away for a week. I was to come back to take care of the extra boxes and turn keys over to management.

When I came back my downstairs neighbour (who I didn’t know very well) came knocking on my door asking about what was going on in my apartment. He told me it sounded like furniture moving and people walking around – which he heard about 3am for a few nights I was away. I asked my friend with the key if she was in the apartment at all, and she said no. I had the lock to the door changed a year ago and never gave a key to the apartment manager, so my friend had the only key.

ooooOOOOOooooo. Totally true. I think the previous occupant (deceased) didn’t want me to move.
(Thu 3rd Jul 2008, 20:27, More)