From:
Katy Anders [mailto:KatyDidKnot@gmail.com]
Sent:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:19 AM
To:
Adri Anna Oopsy
Subject:
RE: Quarterly Reports
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good
morning, Ms. Adri! I am writing to tell you that I am not coming in today.
So:
I am not coming in today.
It’s not as though I don’t have lots to do
there. Tons. I have emails marked “URGENT!”
Clients screaming. Deadlines looming. Client X is mad at ex-wife Y and Client Z
is frantic over his cable bill and then there’s Corporation A who wants Corporation
B shut down and they all say it’s the principle of the thing.
You always tell us we’re not in the revenge
business, but we’re kind of in the revenge business, you know. This is why our
clients say, “I pay you people good money
to teach these bastards a lesson!” Or they say, “I want this bitch swingin’ by her toenails yesterday!”
They do!
But they didn’t get their revenge yesterday
and they probably won’t get it today, either, because I am not coming in.
And I’m not coming in because, well, music.
You can tell ‘em that, if you like.
You see, the music is inside my head again
like it hasn’t been in years. I thought it was gone. I thought it left because
I got old.
It left because I got sober.
But Ms. Adri, I’m not sober anymore. My windows are open. The rain is pouring
down. I’ve got a bottle of pills in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
And I’ve got a bath bomb and I’ve got Patrick
Watson’s Love Songs for Robots downloaded,
and the Getz/Gilberto album, and Donato Dozzy’s Plays Bee Mask, and Juan Wauters’ new one, and I will not be
leaving the tub again today.
You see, I’ve finally got my priorities straight
and as it turns out, my priority is to transcend all space and all time. I am
pretty sure I can. I am pretty sure I will.
Today, I mean. While I am not at work.
Because I am not coming in today.
Love,
Katy
From:
Adri Anna Oopsy
Sent:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:22 AM
To:
Katy Anders
Subject:
RE: Quarterly Reports
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sincerely,
Adri
The last time, which happened to be the first time too, I brought my four-year-old iPhone4 to one of my jetted tubs with me, which was about two months ago, so that I could listen to my favorite podcast Car Talk, I fell asleep for just a few minutes.
ReplyDeleteApparently submerging an iPhone by half an inch is no big deal, just as long as you pull it out right away.
What lessons of life have you learned? With pills, wines, and your iPod in the immediate vicinity of your unheated fiberglass bath tub filled with green water.
You're crazy. That water is obviously purple.
DeleteI would have thought a guy with such a good phone and jetted tub would have a computer monitor clear enough to tell!
Little Bother is listening...
ReplyDeleteOn the 12 May 2015, I almost transcend all space and all time... Better now
Yes, I always keep it on my "To Do" list, right under "Buy cleaning supplies," just in case.
DeleteY'know, you don't have to be honest with your work. You could just say you're sick. Or, if you want to be a fully, painfully honest person (despite your work most assuredly not being honest with you), you could just say, "I'm not going to be able to make it in today," and they'll fill in the blanks, assuming you're afflicted by the runny poops.
ReplyDeleteAlso, judging by the spam above, spam has gotten vague and crappy.
You probably have a point. There's no way I'm going to hold down a job working for lawyers if I don't learn to lie.
Deletemany years ago... I got drunk and horny on a week night. A friend and I then went to Mexico. Next day he called in sick, I told the truth. He was able to keep his job, I lost a real groovy job.
DeleteLesson learned, the truth and honor are over rated
After reading all these comments, I'm amazed that any work ever gets done anywhere...
DeleteHonesty is the best policy...I did lose a job once for asking off to go to an interview with another company...I didn't get the job, but I was happy all the same.I don't tend to listen to the music in my head, it can distract me from the voices...
ReplyDeleteI tend to have an album playing in my head all the time. It's sort of creepy, actually - I can tell when my brain is starting to store an album in long-term memory.
DeleteI used to believe that might be a better use I could put all that brain storage space to, but there's not.
Enjoy your day off, slacker!
ReplyDeleteGracias.
DeleteI suppose I could have just sent that picture of me in and made a reasonable argument I was sick.
Good God. I look like Gollum on acid.
Gotta love those musical epiphanies. One of my (many) musical epiphanies occurred in 1970, when I was still in high school. I thought I hated music. I didn't like any of the Three Dog Night, Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Jackson 5, etc., that dominated radio. I didn't have any friends who listened to music. I must have missed all the good stuff when it was on TV. So, I thought I just didn't like music. THEN! Then, a guy who was recently transplanted from California to our small Arkansas town made my acquaintance. And he loaned me Frank Zappa's "Hot Rats" and Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica." I took 'em home. I listened to 'em. I listened to 'em again. And again. After the fifth or sixth time (and my Mom still tells this story) I ran out of the house, breaking the window in the storm door in the process, emerged in the front yard, threw my fists into the air, and screamed, "I KNEW IT! I knew there had to be SOME music SOMEWHERE that I liked!" Anyway, that was my first big music epiphany. In all fairness, I must say I love the Carpenters nowadays.
ReplyDeleteEarly Genesis was where I went down the rabbit hole.
DeleteMy dad listened to Beefheart, though. At a very young age, I learned how it amused Dad when I yelled, "A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?"
Ha! Had I heard you yell that I'd have adopted you in, like, ten seconds!
DeleteI was an orphan on the street at 12, so I could have maybe used you.
DeleteGood for you. I hope.
ReplyDeleteIt does occur to me I have just described how they found Jim Morrison.
DeleteWell, I mean, he probably had heroin instead of a bath bomb.
Hopefully that will make all the difference!
DeleteYeah, I think the story ends a little differently if Morrison is into bath bombs. Not necessarily a better ending for his myth, but a better ending for him. Probably.
DeleteI left work early one morning when it occurred to me that I was only seconds away from pitching a potentially job ending shit fit. Told my stupidviser that I had personal bidness to attend to, and apparently the look in my eye (one eye, the other one kept twitching shut...) was enough for him to step aside. On the way out of the plant property we were required to sign out at the guard shack for some asshole flunky in a rent-a-cop uniform. He handed me a clipboard, I signed my name, and where the line asked "reason for leaving" I wrote "MENTAL ILLNESS" in large, bold letters. His eyes widened a bit as I did my best crazy Jack Nicholson smile.
ReplyDeleteWise people know when it's time to take a day. The really wise ones never get in the car in the first fucking place.
Hope it was all you were hoping for.
And the water is turquoise.
You people are crazy.
DeleteI was there! I was IN THE WATER! FOR HOURS! It was purple!
Admittedly, I was really, really inebriated at the time, so I'm not sure how good of a witness I make on this point...
I never lied. I asked off for the reason I wanted off. Sometimes they would say yes and sometimes they would say no but when I called in sick, I was really sick.
ReplyDeleteI guess I have been fortunate in that, at most of the places where I've worked, they EXPECTED you to take days off. If you have the days, you might as well take them, right?
DeleteI never called off work for me. It was always as a favor to my fellow workers. Everybody got a break when I was at home. Things always ran more smoothly and people at work smiled at each other as they passed when I was absent. Shoot, my Boss used to thank me for calling in sick.
ReplyDeleteand this Ms. Oopsy, exactly how old IS she? and how did you become the direct report of a five year old?
I have to step in right here... BJ was my supervisor for several years (and before that he was one of us, one of the factory drone bees making sure supervisors were not eaten alive by their bosses at the end of shifts), and I can tell you without reservation he was one of the good ones. If BJ didn't come to work, we'd have some asshole substitute supervisor who not only didn't want to be there, but resented the fact that everyone missed the REAL supervisor and had no time for his bullshit authority.
DeleteHaving a stoner buddy for a direct superior at work has its advantages.
and the bath - it's clean, clear and perfectly transparent, in my reveries at least.
DeleteWow, I had no idea bj and squatlo used to work together! I am learning a great deal about the people who stop by here this week...
DeleteAnd Adri's the boss because she's the one with the law license and the money. They won't give me either one because I'm a criminal. Or because I'm insane. Or because I'm criminally insane. I'm a little unclear on that point...
Katy. Mauve water. Just saying. Having been my own boss most of the time, I often resembled Dom Deloise when asking myself for time off and then denying myself same. I found it to be good practice for the debates I find myself having with others. Helps me anticipate what the other guy is thinking.
ReplyDeleteAs for the hand in water pic, are you hatching something sinister? Water spiders that enter through the urethra, perhaps? If so, we need to collaborate. Having had radiological treatments for my prostate, I'm working on an intre-urethral cancer-killing program using microbots. The missing link is a carrier.
Fuck Walmart while enjoying off days!
I am lucky I'm not my own boss, because Boss Me would definitely not put up with some of the crap that Employee Me does.
DeleteIt's like that woman who owns that school in georgia and is also the principal - she flipped out at a graduation and started screaming at the students, including some inflammatory racial remarks. So she got fired as the principal... but she is still the owner and founder.
Firing yourself has to be tough. Especially when the other you gets to keep your job.
WHAT! No rubber duck?
ReplyDeleteI can't bring anything that distracting into the tub with me because of the cats. The cats get excited, jump in, and then immediately - desperately - want back out. It's not pretty.
DeleteThis is what you missed:
ReplyDelete"Nonetheless, I once again should and want to apologize to you for the hurtful things I had said to you, no matter justified or not. You know that I have never threatened you with harm, and I never will. I will maintain my promise of not finding out who you are, which would in fact allow me to publish the book as fiction. This is in fact how I live my life, where I choose to keep some things sacred, mystery, and unknown. That is all the flavors I need and care for in my life, unlike all the drugs you have been taking in your life in order to escape from life, these flavors are real, are mine, and are a part of this life I treasure, among all the splendid parts, that I gladly keep no matter how sad, lacking, or imperfect they may be. "
K...
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DeleteCertain folks leaving comments on your posts seem to have vaguely ominous agendas. For the life of me I can't understand them, or their motivations.
DeleteOthers are uber-cool people I'd love to get to know. Apparently you attract an audience that includes incredibly creative, sensitive people AND borderline psychotics, sort of an equal opportunity clinic for the mildly unstable.
But then, it's not my circus and these certainly aren't my clowns.
As master of ceremonies in the center ring, you do a great job keeping it on schedule.
There's one guy who posts crazy stuff on a semi-regular basis, apparently with the expectation that I won't publish the comment (he deletes the comment if I approve it).
DeleteHe's been doing it for years now, so he must be getting something out of it. Everybody needs a hobby.
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DeleteYou make a convincing argument. Any suspicion I ever had that you might be a bit crazy have been erased by this very rational message to Jessica. Not so much the first time you posted, but by the 5th time, man, I was feeling it.
Delete"Adri, I'm sacking you. - Katy."
ReplyDelete"Katy, you can't sack me because you're fired. - Adri."
"Adri, can we talk about this? - Katy."
"Katy, I'm too drunk and stoned to understand what you're saying. - Adri."
"That was my line. - Katy."
"Plagiarist! - Adri."
My head sounds like that.
DeleteIt almost seems like some sort of multiple personality disorder thing, doesn't it, Bill? Maybe that's why I have to play music all of the time...
Why don't you have some shame and a backbone, and publish everything I have posted here?! Such as: "You do know that the only reason I post here is to go along with your pretense that you don't read my email, which I only sent you once a blue moon. And when I deleted my post after you made them public, I was clearly telling you that this was our private words that the public don't need to know, especially on this made-up blog page. Then when you don't make public all the other arguably much more telling and juicy posts in the same thread of conversations, it is just not fair and not fun, you know.
ReplyDeleteTranscending space and time. I haven't done that in a while and it sure sounds tempting. I need at least a few days to do it properly, though. Captain Beefheart helps. "That's right, the mascara snake." Now you've got me thinking "summer vacation" and there is usually music going in my head. Some days more than others. Are you my "surprise!" daughter?
ReplyDeleteHi, Jono!
DeleteBack in Leary's time, they used to talk about "set and setting," which had something to do wuith context and preparing yourself for the whole ordeal. Supposed to keep away the bad trips and base addiction.
I usually do okay in that regard, despite one of the accusations levelled at me in these comments today.
Back in my day (WARNING: OLD GUY STORY), we didn't have this fancy e-mail system to ask for a sick day. That would have been great. It's easier to lie via text. I used to work for this big heartless corporation that rhymes with YBM, and they had a 1-800 number you'd dial that would take you to a robot that would rattle off a list of choices, where you'd then have to punch in your corresponding reason. Kind of like you're calling your cable provider to tell them your TV isn't working.
ReplyDelete"Press 1 if you're sick. Press 2 if you cannot obtain a ride. Press 3 if you are attending a funeral." And so on. And no matter what you chose, you had to leave a voicemail for your manager. Which kind of negated the entire need for that whole automated choice thing, especially if your reason didn't fall under one of their pre-selected categories.
"Uh, hi. I can't come in today because I'm attending a concert. So if you're wondering why I selected 'attending a funeral', it's because last time I went to see this band they KILLED IT. Alright, well, see you Monday."
Wow, that is impersonal.
DeleteI've never worked for a place that big. It would make it fun to call in for other people with fake excuses, though...
I tend to work for small places. I worked for years for a snack shop that was literally underground, serving the employees of a few oil companies. If I couldn't make it in, the shop did not open. I'd have to explain to 1,000 people the next day why they couldn't get their caffeine and lottery tickets.
Regardless, missing work is sacred. You'll remember the concert. You probably won't remember much about the job.
No one on their death bed utters the words, "Wish I'd spent more time at work."
ReplyDeleteIf I can keep myself amused and my kids alive, I'll consider my life as having been a resounding success.
DeleteWhat a great email to write.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great response to receive.
!
Hi tnkerr!
DeleteYes, my understanding is that there are employers out there to whom such an email would not be recommended...
At an old job I called in and asked for a "personal day." They told me they didn't do personal days there. So I hung up, waited 10 minutes and called back telling them I was sick and they said "okay, hope you get to feeling better."
ReplyDeleteJay
Hahaha... That's great. In any bureaucracy, there are a lot of people sitting around just wanting to check off a box. If "Sick Day" is a box, then "Sick Day" it is.
DeleteThat's a perfect solution. The only thing that could make the scenario a little more enticing is a four pack of Snickers. Seems like we are currently traveling the same path. Very artistic image! You nailed it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sandra.
DeleteI have comfort foods, but I've managed to leave chocolate behind as one of them. Fish - including sushi of questionable quality - I still haven't been able to axe.