Small Changes and More Awkward Bagels

The strange thing about a new year is that even, as I said, it's just a date, it's a time when, for me, at least, there's a little expectation that things are going to change immediately. In a way, I can't complain- today at work, two things changed. One, I got my chair back. If you remember the Saga of Captain Monkeypant's Chair, you'll remember that it got broken in the move from our old building to our new, I got accused of breaking it myself and then our HR manager took it to glue it.

Well, the gluing didn't go so well. Apparently, my HR manager had trouble getting the glue to dry. She discovered that the chair was under warranty and so requested a replacement back to repair it. In the meantime, I was relegated to the Most Uncomfortable Office Chairs in the World. At one point I did inquire as to my old chair and our HR manager offered it back to me with the warning that 'it's still broken and it's worse than ever." Well, given that it was pretty bad before, I politely told our HR manager that I'd hate to have to file a worker's comp suit if my chair did cause me to take a nasty spill. Yes, there is irony in the fact that I had to remind our HR manager of things like that. Today, when I got my chair back, I was happy. My coworkers mocked my enthusiasm but, let me tell you, until you lose a really good chair with back support to a crappy one with no wheels and no give, you don't know how much you're going to miss.

The second thing that happened was that my boss finally wanted to talk to me about the issues I brought up over a month ago. These were issues where I told him that I wasn't feeling like I was being utilized in the best way and that I needed to do other work as well as my regular duties because I was bored. Well, one meeting later and....well, the nice thing about having no expectations is that you're not disappointed. Essentially, I was told to continue just as I was doing. So...yeah...that happened. There's nothing like a meeting where you walk out wondering what the point was.

However, as I said, I no longer have any expectations. My current mission is to do my job well, let the irritating stuff roll of my back and enjoy the fact that I can escape from my office at the end of my day.

It was, however, a promising start to the year. At least my boss remembered I wanted to talk to him. Ok, so he did, as usual, invite my coworker to join us in the meeting which took away from the fact that I'd talked to him personally about my responsibilities but, well, he tried, right? It was progress, at least.

It is a decent start to the year. The bad part is that one of my coworkers, someone I actually like a lot, lost her sister on Christmas Eve. It was a similar situation for her family as one I went through with some good friends almost two years ago. It's hard to know what to say to a person who is grieving as hurting as much as my coworker. There's a desire in me to be that person who knows the right thing to say or not say, to give a perfect combination of words that shows wisdom, friendship and caring. Unfortunately, there are no perfect words, no perfect gesture. It's just a matter of letting her know that we're there for her, that there's nothing to fix the badness of the situation except time and even then, it doesn't get fixed, just merely distanced just a little. It made the air feel a little more somber than usual, no one knows what to say because it's impossible to know. She's someone who is usually the life of the party, the person who can always come up with a joke. Seeing her try but not have her heart in it was a slightly heartbreaking thing to witness.

It was even more awkward because the day started with an Awkward Bagel Situation. We have another new employee. This one is a receptionist. She seems nice. Her boss is our HR manager. I already feel sorry for the receptionist. Our HR manager did bring in bagels to our Awkward Bagel Meeting. Unfortunately, we weren't actually allowed to eat them during the meet and greet because we might have got crumbs on the table so we had to meet, greet and then go grab bagels before we went to our desks. I find this ironic and slightly amusing. At least when we have bagels, we can make conversation about the bagels. Today everyone shuffled into the conference room, half the staff had to stand up because there weren't enough chairs. Then our HR manager barked out the order for our new receptionist to tell us about her. Then we had to go around the room and say our name, just like any awful first-day-of-class. The thing with situations like that are that, well, they're awkward. The poor newbie knows he or she will NEVER remember anyone's name until they interact with them and even then, she'll still get confused about which one is Bob or Chris or Alan or whoever for at least a couple of months. There was the mandatory joke about whether she'd have to take a pop quiz later or not. She laughed. We laughed. That's what we do, you see.

Then we were immediately dismissed to get bagels. Personally, I think it might have been a wee bit smarter to take her around and introduce her to us at our desks. That way she can at least have some idea of where we might belong at least by where we sit.

Still, there were Awkward Bagels and that made it worthwhile which is probably the point.

All in all, it was a rather strange yet interesting start to 2010 in the office. There were some changes but I know the big ones are going to be down to me. I'll keep looking forward. Maybe there will be more bagels in the future. At least next week, there will be cookies or cake. It's my birthday, you see, and I'm encouraged to bring treats to share. I plan on baking. I say plan because sometimes plans because waylaid by lack of time, lack of ingredients and, most commonly, lack of desire. Still, right now, my intentions are good.

I think I might just leave the cake in the kitchen and tell people to help themselves. I think an Awkward Cookie/Cake Day would be rather worse than bagels because what if they don't like the baked goods? I always have this fear that when I bake, I'll be pelted with the leftover cookies that people don't eat because they take one bite and decide it's the worst thing ever.

On second thoughts, maybe buying cookies might be a better idea.

Happy Tuesday!

Un-Awkward Bagel Days...

It's a gloomy day out there again today. I think our Indian summer is coming to an end and Autumn is, again, attempting to take control. It's not cold yet but the temperatures are supposed to slowly decrease as the week goes on.

Some days feel more like Autumn than others, despite the air temperature outside. Today, for example. The leaves seem to keep coming down regardless of the obsessive attempts of my neighbours to stop them from collecting in the yard, diligently raking on a daily basis, trying to keep their lawn leaf-free. To them, I say...Give it up! I know that it looks messy with the leaves on the grass but the trees aren't bare yet. Until the leaves have finished falling, it's a fruitless job. At the end of the day, their lawns are covered again. They're fighting a losing battle.

My neighbours, who I am officially naming "The Griswolds," are still putting up Christmas decorations. I suspected they might. They started the day after Halloween and, no joking, every day since then, something new has been added. Since they haven't started to turn them on at night, I'm thinking they're pacing themselves so that they can do one, giant, grand unveiling. In addition to the giant plastic Christmas lights, they have candy canes, a pile of soggy-looking presents, a plastic, several lighted plastic Christmas trees, a caroler, a snowman, a row of snowflake lights and a row of just normal lights. This is all just in the yard. I can't wait to see if they start putting lights up on their house. While I mock them, I still await to see how much they will add, how far they will go.

And, as I suspected, their Christmas fever is catching. When I drove down the street on Saturday, several other families looked to be preparing their own festive displays. To me, an Indian summer meant sitting outside in the sunshine or finishing up my backyard to prepare it for winter. For others...it clearly means it's time to deck the halls. To each his own, I suppose.
I'm starting to see more decorations creep up in gardens, in stores, all over the place. I admit, I'm avoiding the Christmas sections of stores mostly because I am easily swayed by cute snowmen, glitter and holiday candles. It all starts somewhere and the minute I replace my pumpkin pie candle for a candy-cane one, I know I'm doomed. I'll have caught Christmas.

In the meantime, our office is still devouring the leftover Halloween sweets that everyone bought in. Whereas I ran out of trick or treat candy about one hour and fifteen minutes into it, everyone else, apparently, had a shortage of trick or treaters. I think they all came to my neighbourhood instead. This means we have chocolate eyeballs, zombie fingers made out of chocolate, Charleston chews and Butterfingers galore in the office. This morning, we also have bagels. Fortunately, this will not mean an Awkward Bagel Day because the bagels are in our break area and it's pretty much a 'grab one and take it back to your desk' type of situation. Someone brought them in for his birthday. Around here, you bring in your own treats for your birthday.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure I really understand that logic. To me, that's sort of like saying, "Office, in honour of the fact that I was born and you are graced with my presence, I give you......

BAGELS!"

Granted, people like bagels and never turn down a free one. Generally, people don't bring in bagels though, usually it's one of those packages of cookies that you get from a store bakery. Last year, I baked cookies because I was too cheap to buy a package and I already had the ingredients. The problem with that is that cookies for others are supposed to be baked with love. I admit, my cookies were baked with something like resentment because I didn't think it was quite right to have to buy or bake my own cookies on my birthday.

I know, I know...I sound a little bitter but, keep in mind, I come with a vast background of past jobs since I was trying to find my purpose in life and all. Even at the jobs I disliked most, the office would band together and get a cake or treat of some sort. I never minded contributing a few dollars to a birthday fund. The larger of the companies I worked for would do a 'group cake' once a month, celebrating all the birthdays in a department/company that fell in that month, the smaller would collect a few dollars from everyone and they'd pitch in and get something for someone's birthday.

When I first got to this job, I was a wee bit astounded when I found out the celebratee of the birthday bought their own treats. I asked, timidly..."Why do we do that?" and I was told that it was the way it had been done for a while because it wasn't fair that someone would have to be responsible for it, that the same people always had to pay for it and it got to the point where it was too much. Thus, instead of spending the money on someone else's birthday, we spend it on our own. Now me, being the crazy Monkeypants I am, would, in that case, rather go home and spend the money on a nice bottle of wine or a big Kit-Kat and eat it all by myself. Generally, I think of myself as quite generous but my birthday is the one day of the year when it's all about ME.

Now, to be fair, I think the initial problem was the same people would always have to bring in the treats and pay for them out of pocket without getting reimbursed. Now that isn't right and I understand that. At the few companies where we didn't have a birthday fund, dare I mention that our managers would take care of it? Now, knowing my manager here and knowing that he would NEVER remember, I'd expect him to delegate someone else to remember these things and to set them up to bring in bagels or something. I know, I'm being mean by expecting the managers to pay for a cake/bagels/cookies out of pocket but I also happen to know that my manager earns, literally, almost triple my salary so....yes, call me a selfish little Monkeypants, but if anyone has to treat, maybe it should be the manager.

I've also been told we don't HAVE to bring in treats yet I know this is frowned upon a little. If everyone else brings in treats, I should too. So, I did last year and I probably will again because there are some compromises in life that just aren't worth fighting. Also, since I'm eating a bagel as I write this, it's only fair that, when my birthday comes, I should repay the bagel favour by saying, "it's my birthday. Celebrate me and my fantastic presence on this earth! Have a bagel!"

I should probably make sure I don't sound quite that sarcastic. I have time to work on that, fortunately.

Happy Tuesday!

No Substitute for Bad Food When it Comes to Good Taste

Today is a bagel day in the office. We have those sporadically and they're rather unpredictable. Bagels either just mysteriously appear in the break room or we have these slightly weird gatherings to welcome new employees. The reason the gatherings are slightly weird is because we're summoned to the conference room by our president or vice-president with very little notice. Then we go sit in the conference room and end up chatting amongst ourselves. The new person sits there awkwardly, trying to talk to people around him or her. We all wait for the president to introduce the new person, to welcome them. It never happens. Eventually after we chat and get loud and eat our bagel, we're told to 'get back to work' and we all leave, wondering, exactly, what the point of that was aside from having a bagel.

Either way, we often have bagels. I'm not a huge bagel fan. Most mornings when I'm at home and can eat breakfast, I don't because I don't like to eat as soon as I get up. I have to wait a while. Sometimes I bring fruit so I can eat when I get to work. Yet, on mornings like this where I wasn't hungry when I left home but am ravenous by the time I get to work, they're a good way to stop my tummy from growling.

I suppose I should worry about calories. Bagels aren't exactly good for you especially when you load them with regular cream cheese. Usually, if I have the choice, I will opt for light. Cream cheese is one of those things that I'm not that picky about. It's tasty but unless it has chives in it, isn't something I really seek out other than to just take away the dryness of the bagel away.

There are some tastes that I'm just not fussy enough about to care that it's a 'light' product. Salad dressing is one of them. I tend to like the lower fat dressings.

However, maybe it's my new found love of cooking but I am recently realizing that there are some things that just shouldn't be compromised for 'diet' purposes.

I suppose it's easy for me to say that; I was born with a good metabolism. Until recent years, I could eat almost anything and not gain any weight. As I've got older, my metabolism has slowed and I do have to watch what I eat. I weigh more now than I've ever weighed and while sometimes I wish I was still skinny as a rake, it's really not that bad to have a few more curves. It's taken me a while but I'm beginning to accept it.

Of course, my newfound addiction to the Food Network is probably to blame for some of those curves but, also, for the fact that I am beginning to not mind that I'm not so skinny anymore. The thing that I am learning is that there needs to be a balance between deprivation and over-indulgence. There are just some things that I think life is too short to not eat.

I have a coworker who is constantly on a diet. Over the years, it seems, I've always had one coworker like this. It doesn't matter if it's WeightWatchers, Low Carb, Protein Diet, Fat-Free, SlimFast...there's always one of them.

I salute these current and former coworkers. Diets are hard to stick to but these die-hard dieters manage. Unfortunately, it many cases, they're the types who like everyone around them to know they're on a diet and they make remarks to the rest of us about what they're eating so that we're supposed to feel slightly guilty that we too aren't depriving ourselves.

Don't get me wrong, there are times when I get on kicks where I try to be healthy. It's not a diet per se but I watch my calories and I'm careful not to go overboard on anything that's bad for me. However, for the most part, I'm lucky enough to enjoy healthy food. I'm a vegetable lover. Many of my 'creations' in the kitchen are centred around vegetables. I enjoy some meat too so I don't think I could ever go vegetarian. Yet because I like vegetables, it helps me eat healthily.

I think, as my good friend over at RadLinc Crafts said, I've become a Foodie.

Foodies are people who...enjoy food. They love to eat good food, they care about ingredients and I think it's fair to say they don't compromise for taste. If a fat-free product will detract from the flavour and/or preparation of a dish, it won't be used.

I watched an episode of Iron Chef America last night. I noticed that there's never a pause from the chefs to stop and consider calories. They're making dishes based on taste. There is no compromise for taste. This is why they have the finest ingredients with which to cook. The judges are an assortment of Foodies and never once has a single one said, "I can't eat that. It's deep fried!"

And they deep fry a lot on Iron Chef. It's interesting; no matter what they deep fry, it seems gourmet. According to Alton Brown, the host of the show, deep frying is popular on the show because it's the quickest way to bring out flavour in food and given the hour time-frame the chefs have, they need quick methods of making food tasty. No longer does deep-frying seem like a crime because it makes things fat-laden and greasy but, instead, it's a way of cooking a side dish, a way of adding flavour.

What it really comes down to is moderation. There's a big difference between going to a fast food restaurant that deep fries everything to cooking a side of sage-filled potato rounds, ala Mario Batali. It's ironic really; you go to McDonalds and order a side of fries with your hamburger and you know you're committing a diet-crime. Yet, you go to a gourmet restaurant that serves pommes frites with your steak or "shoe string rosemary fried potatoes" and the guilt isn't there even though, technically, they're still cooked in a deep fryer.

That's where the moderation kicks in. If you eat everything deep-fried, yes, you're going to turn into a bad-skinned hippo-like creature. Yet if you're eating a balanced meal where the deep fried portion is only a small part of the meal, it's not so bad. I'm not saying it should be every meal either, just that if you're cooking to enjoy the taste of food, sometimes it seems a little...wrong...to stop and pause and think "I can't cook that because it's bad for me!"

And again, there's a compromise to this too. There's no substitute for butter if you're making sage-butter sauce but there are 'light' butters out there that are still butter but not quite so bad for you. I admit, I use light butter sometimes just for the fact that it still is butter but it's also a nod to the fact that I know it's bad for my cholesterol. However, if I thought it detracted from the dish, I'd use real butter instead...I just wouldn't make the dish too often.

This is all just my personal philosphy; please keep that in mind. I have friends who diet who have lost a ton of weight and changed their lifestyles to be healthier. I definitely salute them while appreciating and admiring them. It takes a lot of discipline. Yet the thing I've noticed about my friends who have had the most success is that they don't completely deprive themselves of the things they love. They treat themselves once in a while; they're not fanatical about everything. They know what they should and shouldn't eat and every once in a while they 'cheat' with a chocolate bar or a small order of french fries.

In contrast, I've noticed that some of the coworkers I've had are fanatical. They won't eat a single thing that's not on their diet but allow themselves a 'cheat' day. This day usually entails eating about 3,500+ calories in one day.

I'm not judging but it seems like it would be better to more frequently give yourself a 'small' reward than binge like that.

Yet, again, it's not me. I'm hoping that my new "foodie" status doesn't mean that I'm going to have to consider going on a real diet in the future. It would be hard. There's just no substitute for Parmigiano Reggiano cheese or fresh baked bread.

Maybe I should watch the bagels though.

Happy Wednesday.