Hello, my name is ALSO.....

And finally I bring you another installment of: Latest Insanity From My Work Place.

Today without notification, the company began changing the display names on our emails to reflect the name on our Social Security cards. I, like many of my coworkers, have never been called by the name appearing on said card. Instead, my parents chose to call me by my middle name and the one which everyone has called me by my entire life. I don't even respond to my first name because I don't recognize it as a part of me. The name I use is my legal name, it just does not include that all important FIRST part of it. So my display name changed. Others here go by initials or nicknames and their names also changed. This has created mass havoc, you see, because we all use our "chosen" names as our professional names.

So randomly today people started getting emails from people they've never heard of. My coworkers couldn't find my email address in the global address book. I couldn't find MY coworkers in the global address book. Many of us have very ordinary last names, like Anderson, Smith, Wolf. There are multiple entries under these last names and good luck trying to determine who's who. This led to much humor making (because what else can you do) with many people signing off as "David, I mean George." Or saying things like, "To make things simpler please start calling me Robert or you can use my employee number, 6824." This became even funnier when it was discovered that we will soon start using our employee ID number to log into our Email server instead of our Email ID.

As a sidebar: The email people here told me the only way to change our display name is to change our name in HR, which is based on the afore mentioned Social Security name. Thus, the only way to change our display names is to LEGALLY change our names with the United States government.

All of this insanity is being lain at the feet of Sarbanes-Oxley, that glorious financial and accounting disclosure law, which apparently includes a clause about our emails reflecting the name on our Social Security card. [It actually falls under a provision mandating that CEOs and CFOs attest to their companies' having proper "internal controls."]

In a postscript to today's email drama, our division executives had no idea all of this was going on till we started complaining about it. It prompted this short email:

Yes, I became aware of the issue this morning. I have asked Denis to roll back the changes ASAP. We will still be interested in proceeding with changes but in a more orderly and coordinated manner.

The beauty of all of this is that we are in the communications business and yet there wasn't the least bit of communicating going on.

Pet Peeve #33

Fantasy baseball draft.

The boys that I work with (including my boss) have gotten absolutely no work done today and have greatly annoyed me with their draft drama. Why is this a past time that I seem incapable of understanding?

Insomniac Easter Bunnies

Did all you Western Christians survive the weekend with your families? I still have a nice month-long wait till I participate in the ritual eating of lamb and chocolate bunnies, but I did spend a strange weekend with my boyfriend's family, an ex-nun and Marcia Gay Hardin's mother. Sounds like a joke, but sadly, this is my life.

Also, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy National Sleep Awareness Week and in particular a Happy National Insomnia Awareness Day. During this time I'd like to encourage you to embrace sleeping and begin a dialogue on what sleeping means to you? To me it means not being at work...something that always makes me a happier person.

Below is an amusing Email I received at work today regarding this topic:

As you may know, it's National Sleep Awareness Week and today is the first-ever National Insomnia Awareness Day.
Timely, as the National Sleep Foundation released its annual sleep poll results yesterday finding that 127 million, or more than half of all Americans experience insomnia a few times a week. Because of this alarming number, the National Sleep Foundation assembled the Save Our Sleep (S.O.S.) Forum -- a panel of experts charged with discussing these shocking poll results and issuing a call to action to raise awareness among Americans about the serious health consequences associated with insomnia.

Below is information about the Forum, whose members are available along with other leading national and local sleep doctors and experts to discuss how important it is to talk to your doctor if you think you may be suffering from insomnia.

I will give you a call later this week to chat and gauge your interest in setting up an interview. Should you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact me at the information below!

Best,
Lauren

Lauren Magnetti
Senior Account Executive
Zeno Group (formerly PR21)

Update to Pet Peeve #206, also known as Pet Peeve #207

The coffee shop in the afore posted peeve, this morning mysterious began offering ONLY one size. I asked for "regular" this time, only to be told: "We only have one size now." I am trapped in a really bad sitcom, aren't I? I should change the name of this blog to, "Why I hate my local coffee shop" and update it with daily reports on the new and novel ways they've managed to piss me off.

This leads me to Pet Peeve #207: One size fits all.

Pet Peeve #206

People who refuse to acknowledge that medium and regular are really the same thing.

Yesterday I went to a local (meaning non-Starbucks) coffee shop and ordered a medium coffee. The guy behind the county, with no irony, says, "The only sizes we have are small, regular and large." That pisses me off worse than the tall, grande, venti sizes at Starbucks - where, by the way, they apparently have a higher intellect because they can always deduce that by medium, I mean the size in the middle.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, I

This weekend I spent about two and half hours driving to Jackson, Mississippi, and about two and half hours sitting right outside of Jackson in an endless sea of parked cars. I was one of the lucky I-55 travelers who experienced Mississippi emergency personnel at their finest when a tractor trailer rig bound for Baton Rouge caught on fire in one lane of interstate traffic, thereby causing the afore mentioned personnel to block off the navigable lane and shoulders for the next five hours.

I managed to finally inch up to where people were cutting across the median, head back north and work my way over the U.S. 51, which winds its way into Jackson. I understand by that evening they finally got a lane of traffic open.

This experience did give me some nice bonding time with the guy behind me who had binoculars and with my dogs, who experienced the joy of peeing on the Interstate for the first time. Also I learned a good deal of Spanish (¿Tienes dollares? No, tengo un peso.) with my Pimsleurs tapes, borrowed from the company human resources department last month. (I have yet to figure out WHY human resources has these tapes when they have no other such learning aids, but they do. You might think that the company's library would be a more appropriate place for such items, but then you'd be as wrong as I was.)

It was a glorious weekend otherwise, filled with mucho café and beautiful weather. I even washed my truck at long last, which ensured that it would then rain Sunday evening. And it did...although rain would be too kind a term for the weather I encountered on my trip back north. Perhaps monsoon with a side of hail would be the most accurate description. Nonetheless, despite I-55's attempt to kill me, first with boredom and then with weather, I survived to type another story. (For those keeping up at home the restaurant story count is: no closings this week, one 35th anniversary, and one 30th anniversary. But it's only Tuesday. Give it time.)

My War and Mr. Bush

I don't know why the President hates me so much. I have a sneaking suspicion that it goes back to the time when I embarrassed him on the all powerful Jackson local news back in '99. But if that's the case then he must hate a lot of people because he's looked the fool on TV a lot.

The last time he got a crazy hair and wanted to prove how much he hated me, he decided, "Oh. I'm very interested in the Mississippi governor's race, so I'll go to the town where Bucky works and give a stump speech on the days she has off, ruining about two weeks of her life and the mini-holiday her friend was in town on. Yes, then I'll let a crazy woman almost kill me with her car."

I had only just recovered from that 2003 visit when he decided last week to come to the Bluff city. He just left an hour ago. I know this, not because I had to write endless news stories...that thankfully fell to someone else this visit...I know because for the last two days his motorcade had been mocking me by driving back and forth in front of my office and making my trips from work to home, which "coincidently" coincides with the motorcade route, a living hell.

Last night, for example, I got stuck at Walgreen's for two hours so he could make it from the airport to the Peabody where he shacked up with the ducks. I think they should have taken him up Airport Road to Lamar, let him see all the people who could care less about Social Security because they're more concerned about little things like food. But then again I was also the one subjected to two hours of the 80s greatest soul hits in Muzak format while memorizing the many flavors of toothpaste last night. So I may be a little bias on that front.

Anyway, he's gone now and I hope to have a long nap when I get home but I suspect there will be some President-created drama for me to deal with when I attempt to get there. I doubt he's done fucking with me just yet.

You'd think as Leader of The Once Free World he'd have better things to do with his time.

But you'd be wrong.

We are Friggin' Idiots

U.S. Forces Kill Italian Agent After Reporter Freed

ROME (Reuters) - U.S. forces fired at a car carrying Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena shortly after her liberation, killing an Italian secret service agent and lightly wounding the journalist, her newspaper said on Friday.

Gabriele Polo, the editor of Il Manifesto newspaper, said Sgrena's car was fired on as it made its way to Baghdad airport.

"This news which should have be a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this fire fight," Polo told Sky Italia television.

"An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet. A tragic demonstration which we never wanted that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad," he added, struggling to fight back his tears.

The Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi sent his condolences to the family of the dead agent, who was named by Il Manifesto's Polo as Nicola Calipari.

Sgrena was seized in the Iraqi capital on Feb. 4 as she conducted interviews on the street near Baghdad University.

Restaurant City

If another restaurant in this damned city closes I'm going to lose it. I'm averaging about one restaurant closing a week and maybe one restaurant opening a month, even though I'd say the number of openings and closings are about the same. When people say we focus on the negative, they're right. Because of overstretched resources (thank you penny pinchers downstairs), the quality of daily news I write blows.

Meanwhile over on Metro they have a wealth of people with nothing better to do than spend three weeks writing one story about bad drivers. And they are given all the time and resources they need to do stories on what I'm supposed to be covering if only they'd stop making me write about restaurant closings.

A friend of mine at work has been collecting bits of Emails I've sent him over the three+ years I've worked here and sent them to me today. I'm not sure how funny they are if you don't know these people or the crazy stuff people come in expecting us to write about it, but I've listed them below so you can get an idea of the Dilbert-like existence here. Before you begin, keep in mind that Elway is a dog. His name is real, everyone else's is made up.



This is the moment you've been waiting for...


1.
*Do you think Elway would be interested in switching jobs with me? It wouldn't be so bad to hang out in the kitchen all day with yummy treats and nothing to do but chew on my paw.


2.
*Hello, Mr. Lantile,

I am the coach for a girl's 10 years and under competitive lawn bowling team and I've noticed the lack of coverage that your paper gives such an exciting and well-attended sport! I would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience about the sport and invite you to attend one of our matches. The DeSoto Ballbusters will be facing the Pike County Pinpushes this weekend. We'd be glad to have you there!

Sincerely;

Margo H. Sunshine

3.
*You're awfully quiet today. Did Elway beat you at poker last night and take all your bling-bling?


4.
(tie) *Listen, I hope you weren't expecting a window seat at the new office because due to his meritorious service and selfless dedication to the paper, bart will be receiving all FOUR desks along that wall and you and I will have to actually work from one desk with two chairs and one computer in the distribution warehouse potion of the new building. There is no heat in there but the company has been gracious enough to install an electrical plug near our desk that we can use to plug in our computer AND a little electric space heater should we choose to provide ourselves with that.


5.
*Look. I see from our budget that we have nothing for tomorrow. Since kc is busy writing her opus on the magnolia school and bart is busy with dominos and jenny is busy doing...something...i'm going to need you to write a 30-inch story on the new donut shop opening in lakeville for the cover. thanks.


6.
*I have no copy for tomorrow's paper and am thinking about drawing a huge ass and scanning it in and running that on the front page of tomorrow's paper. Whadda think?


7.
*I think your problem is that you are not a team player. I mean look at Bart. He is always working himself to death. You could learn a few tips from him. And think the best way for you to do that is to start working with him on the city beat, in addition to the sports and hotel beats.

8.
*Oh right. I forgot I had reassigned you to hotels. Well perhaps you could go ahead and have some nice columns on hotels ready for the world series in case Madison's run begins before the games end. I'd especially like one on what the hotels are doing to appeal to clients who might want to watch the games during their stay. Thanks in advance for your hard work on this one, Tiger.


9.
*She'll (his girlfriend) probably just get you some crisco and a bag of dough and tell you to go to town. I think that's what relationships become after you've been dating for a while.