elevator etiquette: shhhh
December 31, 2007
elevators are hilarious. it’s too bad that people are scared of them. i think it’s impossible to get on an elevator and not have in the back of your mind a slight fear of “this could not work, and then i’ll be stuck for a while, and if i have to poop or something, that will suck. i hope i don’t run out of air. or be trapped with someone who is lame.”
but most of the time everything goes smoothly. i love elevators because it’s fascinating to see how people act in them. or around them. once i push that button and i’m waiting alongside someone else, i’m in a prime conversation location. BUT, i hardly ever actually talk. instead, i stare aimlessly at the wall, or i fumble in my purse like i’m looking for something (my keys, perhaps?), or i watch the ceiling.
i think elevators should have lots of advertisements in and around them. hotels with tvs in their elevators are brilliant. people are trying to avoid eye contact with others, so why not capitalize?
ok so i realized this a while ago, when i first started working in our new building and began taking the elevator. i showed up on a holiday to help unpack boxes and put together ikea furniture. we ordered pizza. i went out front to pick it up. when i came back into the lobby, my ceo was waiting for the elevator. he was uncomfortable. maybe he doesn’t like pizza. maybe he doesn’t like me. but maybe he, like most people, is more comfortable riding the elevator by himself. i stood in the back with my pizza as he hovered around the button panel, only half turning to chat about the new building. it was, again, fascinating and awesome. i’m still laughing about it.
this morning i noticed a fella coming out of some unknown room in the building. i asked him what it was before we got on the elevator. it was the mail room. that exchange was all it took to start a dialogue with this total stranger. we talked about new year’s, of course, and strategized that we should both be allowed by our respective employers to leave early and “get this party started.” so i learned two things: one, our building has a mail room. two: this dude likes to party.
two non-essential bits of information i would not otherwise have known had i not broken the silence rule of elevator etiquette. i plan to break it more often in 2008.
UPDATE: i just received an email telling me that one of the elevators got stuck and the other isn’t working. so, here’s to stairwell conversations in the new year, instead.
dressing for the job i want
December 30, 2007
i hate pants. a world without them would be one in which i’d like to live. dresses are great, but finding classy shirt dresses that aren’t too short is hard. i’d like to find a sweater dress that isn’t itchy, or a structured dress that moves. but dresses are even tough because my legs get cold. and i hate pantyhose much worse than i hate pants. tights are ok, i guess. heels are pretty much awful, unless they’re short enough to not hurt me. clothes lined with satin feel nice, but the swishy swishy sound they make drives me absolutely bonkers.
so, in order to dress for the job i want — as the saying goes — i essentially hear: “wear uncomfortable clothing.” mostly. right? i mean, i have to overdress for my job in the web industry in order to move up in the web industry? what about if my ceo (hb) wears jeans and collared shirts mostly — and jeans that are ripped around the bottoms, no less? where is the line?
maybe there isn’t one here; maybe i just need to dress like the ceo i want to be. but that’s not a ceo who has to wear those pants that come up to her bellybutton.
when i meet with clients, i wear everything from heels to pant suits to pencil skirts. i feel good. i think the client is ok with it. but other than that, i’d basically be dressing to impress colleagues in jeans. in fact, when meeting with clients, most days co-workers will ask, “client meeting today?” a couple times i didn’t have one; i had just dressed nicely.
i want to give off a classy, professional image. i want to be a classy woman. i am, mostly. but i don’t want to feel like a fake yuppie to accomplish such a goal. i struggle to strike a balance between the driven though somewhat uninhibited person i am and the growing professional who requires different elements of her personality dominate. it’s crazy to think my clothing plays any role whatsoever; assuming i’m not showing what i shouldn’t, who cares if i’m wearing jeans or eggplant-colored swishy pants or my favorite brown cords?
apparently, society.
maybe i’ll add that to my political party (the radparty) — no more consumerism! no more spending money on clothes the media expects me to wear! yes! it’s brilliant! it’s also impossible to enforce! so with people like my mom, who thinks women who don’t wear pantyhose with skirts aren’t professional (this includes me, of course) populating the upper echelons of companies, i guess i’ll have to find a way to conform without losing my individuality along the way.
why 30 rock and the office are amazing
December 29, 2007
i was pleased to see entertainment weekly rate 30 rock among the best shows of 2007. i’ve been a fan since episode 1, even though i never really got into tina fey when she wrote for snl. mean girls was pretty hilarious though. uncomfortably accurate in some sequences. but she really shines in multiple ways now thanks to a fully fictional environment and brilliant characters like kenneth, jack donaughey and tracey morgan. i’m so jealous. i want to be her.
so this whole writer’s strike. i mean, it’s benefited me in that i no longer feel compelled to run to the tv on thursday nights to see the entire lineup sans my name is earl, which baffles me even though i admit that jason lee is hilarious. but i don’t get why talks broke down again a couple weeks ago. i mean, writing is like any other art form in that it’s often overlooked for its true potential aside from just being a core competancy; everyone demands it, but when you make serious cash off of it, it most visibly demonstrates how the brains of the message is hugely hidden from the delivery of that message — it’s a job without glory in that sense. except for the few breakouts like jerry seinfeld or larry david, tina fey and conan o’brien or sarah silverman. So many other writers demonstrate their skills through others, so why not try to find MORE ways to keep them from living the high life? why not pay the actors MORE than the writers, even though the actors wouldn’t even HAVE JOBS without those writers. after all, they’re only the reason why the shows are popular in the first place.
i mean, i was watching the thanksgiving day parades, and it was utterly painful. matt lauer and al roker, i mean c’mon these people can ad-lib; why not just apply it to the entire show? well, they tried, and i wanted to stab my ears out. but i changed the channel instead. why can’t fat cat execs throw some lovin their way? the awkward silences, the mis-pronunciations. lordy.
granted, i don’t know all the details of the strike. i know there are sites out there but i haven’t looked. maybe i will, but ultimately when a revolution occurs, it’s generally not over things that don’t exist.
but all i’m saying is that i could all use a little more 30 rock, or the office, or how i met your mother. without even new it’s always sunny in philadelphia episodes, i only have project runway to watch.
if they don’t hurry, those tv execs will lose me to books. and then everyone loses.
finding old pictures never gets old
December 28, 2007
as i continue into 2008 staying committed to my 2007 resolution — to scan in all my print photos to keep them digitally online — i find old pictures, and i find them incredibly moving. i instantly pee my pants laughing, or i remember an event i’d otherwise forgotten, or i start bawling because of some emotional response to seeing it. in any case, it’s fantastic.
this is a daunting task, transferring everything. i was the photographer for our high-school newspaper, and i covered super benign events for our city’s paper, too — stuff like parades and barn fires. (apparently barn fires are unimportant. i didn’t think so until my editor sent me to one. luckily, no one was hurt. just 40 bales of hay. and a barn.) i liked cameras from a very young age, so naturally i have old photos that i took; ones from gymnastic camps and swimming meets, for example. when i had braces. then, high school rolls around, and the photo quality improves, and suddenly i’m clearly seeing how hot i looked going to my junior prom with my blonde streaked non-lame up-do and flirty black dress (that i still dress up in every now and again, though without such significant impact) when i saved the last dance for my crush, which threw my date into a fury in which an attempted fight ensued. then flash forward to when i as a freshmen beat my whorebitch senior teammate jenny at mac championships in 1999 on both one- and three- meter springboards…the event sweet since she hadn’t talked to me all year long because it turned out i was dating her ex-boyfriend, who may or may not have allowed me for a sociology experiment to take a photo of his naked ass.
anyway, what started out as a practical approach to my picture storage needs has become a memorable exercise: one that’s proved refreshing, overall. everyone should try it.
