dianaschnuth

Random thoughts from the workplace:

There’s a woman at work whose name is Mari. It’s a Spanish name (actually short for Xiomara), so the R is pronounced with a bit of a flip. Some of us can get it, some can almost get it (saying Mah-dee), and some really don’t get it at all and chew it up so bad it sounds like Maudie. One person joked around and told her we were going to start calling her Molly. Very few people chew the R and call her Mah-ree, though, which must be a relief to Mari. I don’t know, though… morphing Mari into Maudie is almost as bad.

I got a “Gotcha Card” the other day for helping to solve an issue with a client’s autopayment. I felt really guilty about getting the kudos, though, since I’d actually caused the problem myself a few weeks ago. Some stroke of luck or fate or karma had me dealing with the perplexed banker who had to deal with the irate customer who had an automatic payment taken out of his account after he’d cancelled autopayment. As a result of this unexpected debit, the man managed to bounce several checks and rack up some massive NSF (non-sufficient funds) fees at his other bank. And why did the autopay pull after it had been cancelled? Because yours truly left out a step when she fulfilled the request to cancel autopay. I didn’t let on to the banker, though—I just let her know that it was our error in Loan Corrections. To make things even better, I had to ask my supervisor from which general fund the banker should refund the client’s NSF fees, and had to admit my own personal guilt in the process. But I got a Gotcha Card for defusing the situation, and I almost don’t want it.

As a final note: As I was wasting away the last 15 minutes of the day by running to the kitchen to freeze my water bottle, and to the recycle bin to dump my basket of shreddables, and to the mailroom to drop off some outgoing mail, I saw one woman trying equally hard to while away some time. She wasn’t doing nearly as good a job of looking busy as I was, though: she had her trash can full of shreddables sitting on its side atop the recycle bin, and was peering at the papers inside. Not taking them out of the one and feeding them into the other, mind you—just looking at them. Watching them. As if she expected them to start making the journey on their own. Good Christ, how obvious can you make it that you’re just trying to waste the last ten minutes of your workday?!

Ahem. I’m better now.

…of Diana’s cooking.

Tomorrow is the First Annual Building-Wide Potluck at the Sky Service Center in BG. It’s a fundraiser for the Relay For Life team—they’re participating in the upcoming relay at BG City Park to fight cancer. The organizers had wanted everybody to sign up for the potluck last week, so they’d know how many participants there would be, but only four people signed up by the deadline. So, to keep the thing alive (hey, I like food, even if I can’t eat half of it), I asked Aaron what I could make, and he came up with crock-pot chicken wings with low-carb BBQ sauce. Good idea! So, I signed up.

Of course, as soon as I signed up, the event organizers took the list around to all the departments and specifically asked if anyone was planning to bring food to the potluck. Turns out that half the building actually was planning to bring something, but didn’t want to commit to a specific dish a week in advance. Now there’s something like thirty different dishes in the potluck. Hey, that’s cool.

So, I just got done browning the wings, and they’re now sitting in my spiffy crock-pot with the removable crock, waiting to be smothered in Carb Well BBQ and put on to cook overnight. I really hope they turn out OK.

I always have a “thing” about my cooking not being very good, even though most of the time whatever I make turns out just fine. I had a couple mishaps in high school (how was I to know the pasta pizza would keep cooking if I turned off the heat and left it in the oven to keep warm?) and during the beginnings of my relationship with Aaron (mental note: corn starch only thickens if the heat is turned on; and upon turning the heat on, all the extra corn starch you put into the sauce in your confusion will create a fascinating tumor in your chicken paprikash). But, for the most part, I do OK when I cook. I leave most of the cooking to Aaron, though, and he seems to be fine with that. For now, anyway. 🙂

I will return tomorrow with a report on the success of my crock-pot chicken wings.