The Tale of the Corduroy Children

In an attempt to save money, we've had to reduce our budget for dog treats. Emma and Sparki have been going through Greenie withdrawl, and as a result have been rather cranky. At least, however, they haven't tried to run away and join the circus. I felt bad for them, and so tried to fill the Greenie void recently with butt-busted pants. It's a heart-warming story, and I will now share it with you.

So my fiancee, Jess, had some pants that were well-loved. One day, the whole butt ripped. It just ripped right off. She wasn't even doing anything (i.e. trying to sit, do the chicken dance, get a leg up- nothing)! She was standing still and *poof* there went the butt!

Knowing that I have scads of free time on my hands and that I like to flex my creative muscle from time to time, she gave me the pants. "Here, do something creative with these. When I come back this afternoon, I expect big things to have happened with these pants," she said to me.

I accepted my mission and took the pants. I turned them over in my hands and studied them. They had a worn, corduroy texture. Hmmm. No butt, so I couldn't use the pockets for anything. Huh. What to do, what to DO!

I looked over at Emma and Sparki. They were sleeping. Their blankets had been kicked off, but they looked chilly. It was probably because they were losing their Greenie love handles, but I still felt bad. Maybe I should buy them some of those dog sweater things? I looked some up online and found that not only are they ridiculously expensive, many are just plain ridiculous.

And then it hit me: I could make corduroy outfits for the little idiots! I dug out my sewing kit from middle school and got started. I worked in a frenzy until, at last, I stood back and admired my work:






Contrary to what you might think, and contrary, certainly, to what it looks like, these are not little orphan children. They are not saying "Please sir, may we have some more?"

What are they then? What were their reactions to my creative attempts at recycling pants into warmth? Though Emma was impressed with my expert craftsmanship (especially with the shoulder strips on her outfit), Sparki was not at all appreciative of my efforts to warm his tiny old man legs. He took off my creation immediately following this picture and stormed off. We didn't speak for hours.

Jess came home and I showed her the outfits. She was speechless, and in her silence, it was clear that we would have to find another way to save money and keep the little fools warm. The lesson? Unemployment often leaves you cold, but it will keep you laughing.

Between Jobs: The Blog -- THE STORE!

I am excited to announce the opening of my CafePress online store: Between Jobs: The Blog -- THE STORE!

So far, you will find a handsome mug (clear winner for the title of "flagship product") as well as a dandy mouse pad. More items coming soon -- suggestions welcome!

Memory Monday: Lost in Translation

Ah, Memory Monday: The day of the week when I reminisce about an old job.

For me, one of the finer points of being in marketing research was analyzing the international open-ended answers from surveys. For example, one common survey question asks respondents to state the one thing that XYZ company could do to improve their service. Many surveys with these sorts of open-ended questions that let respondents type in their answers freely were administered not only here in the US, but abroad as well in countries ranging from India to Russia to France.

There are 2 memories we need to discuss.

Number one: My latest employer sometimes didn't have time to get these international responses translated. Really, they were just incredibly cheap. Luckily, though, the questions required short answers. As a result, my former employer decided that free online translation services, such as Babel Fish, would suffice.

For the first 4 days of my work there, I translated Russian, German, and Japanese responses into English using this amazingly inaccurate service. ALL of the translations were terrible and didn't really make any sense. I remember one example was something like, "With the net it needs [PRODUCT] just, the home delivery it does to the home." I'm sorry, what? I'm sure you didn't mean that, Hiromi from Toyko. What it is you did mean, well, we will probably never know.

Number two: My favorite encounter, however, with international translations was at my first job. They were a larger company, and spent the big bucks to have responses in other languages translated back into English by a professional translation company.

There was one project where the open-ended question required a long response, and it was my responsibility to go through about 100 of these and record some trends. Around translation 79, I was starting to get loopy, and so I thought I imagined reading "I knew in my technical heart" on the transcript. What? You knew in your technical heart? I was confused. Maybe this gentleman just meant he knew something in his heart? I read on, but that didn't seem to make much sense either. Something was literally lost in translation.

To this day I still say "I knew in my technical heart" as a saying...
...no one understands why or what it means, but for some reason, it warms me.

Over the years, there have been plenty of translation mishaps. It was a plus of working in the industry; a little something to look forward to amidst the cornucopia of crap. And now, if you ask me, "Do you miss it, Pam?" I would smile, almost wistfully, and say, "It's taken some time, but I've learned to live without the translations. No, it's the money I miss..." And so, the lesson here is "miss the money, never for the working," or at least that was what it said when I translated it in Babel Fish.

Today must be "Philosophical Phriday"

You know how when you're a kid, the world kind of sparkles? Your eyes kind of get that saucer-y quality as you stare at something you've never seen before (ex. Let me get this right - you put a bunch of disgusting goop from the refridgerator into a pan, put it in the oven, and this yummy cake thing comes out 25 minutes later? What do you call it? Cheesecake, eh? More please!) or as you ponder a new concept (ex. What do you mean, the sun is a big ball of gas?! No way, Mr. Saska!). I guess you want to know everything about everything because it all seems so shiny and interesting.

Then as you grow up, you get a little jaded and more than a little side-tracked with all the stuff you're supposed to be learning and doing. You don't have time to ask "why?" anymore. You have social studies homework, band practice, track tryouts...you have to pull an all-nighter because right after you saved your project the floppy disk (that's right floppy disk) broke (true story), sleep in, do a keg stand...you have to camp out in line for the post office to get some forever stamps, stay late at work, schedule time to do nothing...you have a life to lead.

At least, I feel like that's what happened to me. Somewhere along the way, Curious George got lost. This is not very surprising because he always seemed a little ADHD to me, but the point is that he used to visit me all the time...wait, that came out wrong. That sounded like George was some sort of euphemism for a menstrual cycle or was, perhaps, an imaginary friend taken to an unhealthy level. What I mean is that I was once so full of wonder, but my wonder was soon replaced by my list of things to do. Now, however, being unemployed, I've found that "George" is back! I've found myself buying books like "Meteorology Demystified" and asking questions like "why do peeps...do what they do in the microwave?"

So maybe the lesson here is that unemployment can be character-building; not only in a brute existent kind of way, but also in a 'the more you know' kind of way.

My first rejection email: A momentous occasion

I just got my first rejection email from a literary agency last night! It's a momentous occasion. I sent my query letter to a few literary agents and hadn't heard back from them, so this is an improvement over silence and/or indifference, I suppose. What I don't understand, however, is what's not to like. It's a funny book about unemployment that zillions of now unemployed people can relate to. How can you go wrong?

You know what, though? Someone will take a chance on me (and my sexy wink). Ba ba bop baaa ba! Ba ba bop baa baaa bop ba!

I GOT A JOB!

Nahhh, I didn't. April fools! Are you laughing? Don't be fooled by the tears-- I am! Maybe on the inside...

If you are going to plan any sort of AF joke, there are four kinds you should know about:

1. Sad
2. Mean
3. Stupid
   
4. Funny & Nearly Harmless

My joke today, for example, was Sad. Just like the joke an ex played on me one year. We were an on-again, off-again kind of couple, and one year on April Fools Day, we were off again. I wanted to be on again, but she didn't want to. No, this time was for real. She called me and said we should get back together, though, on April Fools Day. I asked "really?" and then she said "No, not really," laughed, and hung up.

Actually, the more I think about it, that joke was not only Sad, it was Mean. It was Smean.

An example of a Stupid AF joke would be something like the plastic wrap on the toilet seat. How is it funny to see a coworker skulkily return from the bathroom with pee on their pants and shoes? For me anyway, it's not that funny. Then again, I'm not a pie to the face, banana peel kind of gal.

Finally, a good example of a Funny & Nearly Harmless AF joke is the best AF joke I've ever played on anyone: Theft of the Left.

It was college and I lived in a townhouse with 9 other women. My roommate and I lived in the basement, where we came up with our Theft of the Left master plan. One incredibly gullible housemate of ours lived upstairs. She was our victim. One day, while she was at class, we went into her room and took all of her left shoes. Giddy, we hid them downstairs in our closets and imagined her reaction. We waited. We heard her arrive home and expected some sort of reaction shortly thereafter, but...nothing. Days went by. A week. Finally, 12 days later, she called my roommate and I (she knew we did it). She had worn the same pair of shoes for 12 days, thinking nothing of the fact that when she wanted to wear another pair, she couldn't find the left shoe. But that day she needed her fancy shoes to go to an interview, so the jig was up. But oh my, 12 days! The three of us laughed, and she went to her interview with both fancy shoes on her feet.

What's your best April Fools story? I'll take the first caller on line one.

What the March poll says about you: You're sensible, smart, funny, and technologically savvy!

The results of the March poll question are in!

1. Not shockingly, nobody chose "Strongly Disagree - I don't do it, and no one else should either."

• What this means: You, my readers, are card-carrying members of the 21st century! Good for you! I'm not surprised by this, as you are reading a blog, after all.

2. More than half of you are almost equally split between those who like to keep the menu an in-the-moment type of thing and those who will feel badly about themselves if they are unable to view the menu online before attending a bricks and mortar restaurant.

• To the first group, the "Disagree" group, I must say that I agree with your tendency to disagree. Maybe it's because I'm confident there will be something on the menu that I will like that is also within my price range, so I don't see a need to stress about it hours or days beforehand. Maybe it's that I am slightly lagging in the technology area and, for example, somewhat reluctant to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Maybe you are too. We don't judge here, we learn from each other.
  
• To the latter group, the "Strongly Agree" folks, I have so many questions! Is it because you get nervous when it becomes your turn to order? Is it because there are just so many decisions and you want to be sure you see them all? Similarly, are you the type to ask "what's for dinner" as soon as you're done with breakfast? Or maybe you're an online menu guru because you love social situations and can't spare a moment of face-to-face interaction to decide what you want to eat? Is it because you're unemployed and have a desire to make sure the restaurant is within your financial grasp? Or maybe you also like to read the reviews of the restaurant you are about to attend? Or, for all I know, you could just be lazy or somehow embarrassed to decide anything about a restaurant by reading the posted menu outside of a it. Again, though, no judgments... just learning.
  

3. Almost half of you agree and prefer to look at the menu online before visiting the restaurant, but note that it won't kill you if you aren't able to do so.

• What this means: You, my readers, are sensible, smart, funny, and technologically savvy. Also, since this sounds like some sort of horoscopical reading, I might as well tell you now that you that an old friend will contact you during the next new moon, asking for money.
  
• Since this is the biggest chunk of my readers, I will be catering to folks like you from now on. Why? Because I like you!