Nothing's Ever Easy

This is going to be a relatively short post as I'm pretty swamped with work today - but being swamped is really what led me to writing this piece.

We often hear that people are overworked and underpaid. The two seem to go hand in hand. I would place myself in this group. I am in IT in the telecom industry. My whole family has been in IT for as long as I can remember. Back in the day, before my parents retired, they enjoyed flexible hours, enjoyable co-workers and rarely ever had to work on the weekends or overtime. Fast forward to 2007 and I'm seeing a lot of six-day, 40+ hour work weeks with NO compensation days to speak of. It's almost as if it's expected. Of course the law says that employers can't come out and say, 'I expect you to be working more than 40 hours a week...' yet it is commonly insinuated and understood that we should be working over 40 hours and weekend coverage, if needed...and to just shut up about it.

For my particular position, I don't have it nearly as bad as the developers on my team. I'm just a Project Manager and a Business Analyst - I get my work done quickly and efficiently, but we're currently nearing an end of a project where there is User Testing involved and those guys are testing 9 hours/day, Mon-Fri, and then 8 hours on Saturday for three weeks. I am the primary point of contact for my system during this period of insane work hours and I'm wondering - is anyone going to talk to me about working over 50 hours/week? When I submit my time sheet, it's always over 40 hours yet I don't get paid by the hour. As Michael Scott says, 'I get paid by the year.' But my coworkers have definitely been working over 50 hours for probably the last few months and I don't see them getting any relief.

I think it's the fault of management for overextending themselves yet not securing the resources necessary to cover the workload. I have an 'Easy' button, from Staples, on my desk, but aside from playing with it when I first got it, I haven't had the opportunity to press that darn thing - cause nothing's ever easy.

So I'm wondering...is there an occupation out there that is under-worked and overpaid? I know there are a lot of factors that go into that possibility - quality of life, geographic location, etc. My initial thoughts are that celebrities are probably in that category - but in real-people terms, is there such an occupation? And could I be happy there?

The Handyman

I love my husband Shawn for many reasons. He's smart, he's kind, he's attractive. But I'm not going to lie - I was immediately drawn to his handiness.

A few months after I met Shawn, I decided to redo my kitchen. I had been thinking about this for well over a year before then, but I was too lazy to get it started. And I wasn't quite ready to fork over the money. But Shawn was a man with ideas. He could do the demolition himself - saving me half the cost.

So he sat down with me with the kitchen designer at Home Depot – Wynn, who was pretty flakey, if you want the truth. Wynn did her drawings, placed the cabinet order. And then later, when Shawn was surveying the kitchen, he discovered a major error in measurement caused by Wynn’s attempt to draw my box window on her computer. As a result, we had to remove a couple of cabinets from the drawing and cancel those cabinets from the order. Wynn wasn’t even very apologetic about the whole ordeal. She pretty much shrugged it off. I felt like an idiot, but see – this is what Shawn is good at. He sees these things. He knew something was off. I would have had no clue.

Shawn and his friend Nick did the demolition when my cousin Cory and her kids were in town visiting. I felt a little bad that the place would be torn up, but Cory of all people would understand. Her husband is a contractor, and their house is a Civil War era fixer upper in Maine. Cory and her girls and I went out traipsing around D.C. all day, and when we came home for dinner, it was like magic. The kitchen was completely bare. The floor people came in a few weeks later, and things went relatively smoothly from there. And if it weren’t for Shawn, I would probably still be stirring up cupcake batter on my faux butcher block laminate – in the corner of the kitchen (instead of at my convenient new island).

For months now, Shawn and I have been trying to decide what to do with the master bathroom. It is an odd shape. It is small. Someone remodeled it before I moved in and did a pretty shoddy job. But again, I just couldn’t get the motivation or the cash to start over with it. Shawn fixed that. Yesterday, he spent his day off tearing out the shower, the toilet, the vanity, the tile. When I came home from work, everything was gone.

I’m telling you, having a husband like Shawn is like magic. I knew there must have been a reason why I was always partial to Handy Smurf . . .

Eyeshadow: My Frienemy!

Every couple of years, or so, I will go through a phase in which I think eye shadow might be a good idea. I have pretty sensitive skin around my eyes so a wrong move with makeup and they'll be puffing out like a puffer-fish.

Considering I had a bad day at work yesterday and I needed to replace my press powder, since I dropped it on the bathroom floor and it totally shattered, I decided that I needed some retail therapy and headed off to the nearest MAC counter to replenish some of my makeup.

MAC has this cool deal where you can bring any six containers of MAC makeup (used or empty) back to their counters and you get a free lipstick (freebie does not include Viva Glam colors). I have been hoarding my empty containers for about two years because I go through makeup slowly and so from move to move to move, I have been hauling these containers around with me just so I can take advantage of that free lipstick. Well, yesterday was the day. When my press powder broke, I was annoyed, but at the same time, I just packed it up in a bag, went to the linen closet to grab the other empties and headed to MAC.

I got this really nice woman to help me - I tend to like minorities or gay men to help with my makeup because they seem to understand my coloring better than Caucasian women. Plus the fact that it's usually the Caucasian women at the makeup counters that have the scary, dark eye shadow that makes me not want to look like them and therefore go to the safe harbor of another minority or gay male. Anyways, Kema (nice, black woman) was so patient. We started off easy - I need to replace my press powder. Check. Next, I need a new lipstick for fall/winter. After smearing seven different shades of berry-browns on the back of my hand, it was time for the lip liner. I picked one and she put it on my lips only to look in the mirror to see that the color looked better on my hand and not on my face - I looked quite vampy. So we wiped my lips clean and went for a more brown tone - which I've never done - but it worked out great. So now I have new lipstick and lip liner...check. Finally - here was the million dollar issue - I would like to try a new eyeshadow.

I've never really understood how to apply eyeshadow. I don't know if it's cause I'm Asian but I don't exactly have typical Asian eyes. So there it is - one of my weaknesses - applying eyeshadow. It looks good when professionals apply it for me - but when left to my own devices, it can go either way - passable or complete disaster.

Kema was so excited (probably because this was going to be a pretty good sale) but I told her that I would like to try what I've been seeing in all the fashion mags - smoky lids but not totally dark - subtle smoke. So we went over to the eye shadows and she tested this med-silver shadow on me and smudged it with black lid liner and when I looked in the mirror to assess, all I could say was,
'I think I look like a corpse.'
Maybe smoky isn't for me. I guess everything always looks better in photos than in real life. So then I said,
'Let's try for something more earthy (since smoke obviously doesn't agree with me) but still with some color.'
She reached over for some copper and proceeded to apply onto my eye along with my black liner - I would not budge on the black liner. I held up the mirror when she was done and took in a quick breath. She asked me what I thought. I didn't want to say. She said,
'We have all the time in the world and lots of colors so just tell me what you think.'
'I look like someone just punched my eye,' came my reply.
And then we wiped the eyelid clean and tried again. Finally I just said,
'Let's go with natural but with slight color so at least I know that something's there.'
We settled for this light moss-brown color and it looked nice. I made sure to pay attention to how she was applying it on my lid - how high, where to blend, what brush she was using, etc. I think I have the hang of it - but I guess I won't know until I put some on this weekend for the wedding I'm attending.

Having finally settled on all the new colors and replenishment of my stock, I went home happy, with one eye in shadow and liner, the other eye just in liner, new lip color on my lips, and smudges of lip color on the sleeve of my snowy white fleece. Good thing it was dark already!

Inanimate Attachment

This weekend, my husband Shawn sold his sailboat. His tenure as a boat owner was brief. He bought the sailboat in December. It was a fixer upper. He worked on it every weekend for several months - in the cold - and set sail every weekend he could during the summer.

He decided that he had to sell the boat when he got a new military assignment, requiring us to relocate in the Spring. He listed it in Craig's List, and a potential buyer came forward the very next day. Shawn showed the boat, and the buyer was no longer potential - he gave Shawn the asking price, and the deal was done. The next day, Shawn took the guy and his wife out for a sail so Shawn could "show them the ropes." I went too, but I mostly served as babysitter for the couple's 20 month old little boy (not an especially fun time for me). In the truck on the way home from the marina, Shawn was really upset. He felt like he had spent all of that time on the beautiful boat and sold it to someone who didn't really know what he was doing and couldn't appreciate it. He was so sad.

And I understood how he felt. Even though my love of sailboats is far far less than his (if there even is a love there), the thought of giving up something that was once ours (and Shawn's pride and joy) was incredibly sad. I had a tough time sleeping too.

It is funny how we can get attached not just to people and places - but to things - to inanimate objects. A week after I got my fancy new car, I was still a little bummed about having to trade in my old one - even though I had made a huge upgrade. Saying goodbye to the first new car I had ever bought was much harder than I'd imagined. I'm over it now, but I still remember that feeling.

Welcome to the Jungle

It's the start of jungle season...as in the hairy jungles that are now on my legs! When the cold weather comes blowing in, that's when I get a little lax with the shaving and let my legs become the wild, uninhabitable, hippie jungles that God intended them to be.

Actually, the weather has been super nice - even for being 3/4 of the way through October. This week is supposed to start out in the 80s but settle into the 70s throughout most of the week. I was thinking I could finally change over from quilt to comforter on the bed, but when I checked the weather outlook, it wasn't time yet. But because we've had cooler days here and there, I think I've mentally started preparing for the cooler weather and have not been shaving as regularly as I would during the warmer months. But I didn't think it was THIS bad.

Today is supposed to be a high of 83 degrees. I'm wearing a thin, long sleeve sweater and my black gauchos. Although I did get a pedicure this past weekend, I decided to go with Fall close-toed shoes. I got into the office and sat down at my desk. I rubbed my legs when I first sat down to get over the briskness of the morning (since they were exposed to the elements) only to feel some stubble....I hoisted each leg onto my desk for a closer inspection only to see that I actually had jungles growing...which forced me to think back when the last time I shaved was....Friday (I think).

How embarrassing! Good thing I'm not wearing a skirt and good thing I'm only wearing capri-pants for dance tonight - so that should save me from having to shave beforehand (Amanda - don't look at my legs tonight). But I, personally, hate hair and now I'm going to go through the remainder of the day, all self-conscious, about the hairy jungles I'm walking around with.