The Week in Review

I have a hilarious friend that writes these weekly diatribes criticizing, well, life. I thought it would be fitting for a Fab3 post. Email me if you would like to be added to her weekly email list to hear more:

In lieu of the usual lifestyle story, I have for you my thoughts on being honest, as it related to employment, relationships and friendships.

First, we have employment. I’ve been interviewing like a madwoman. At some point along the way, my bullsh*tting skills peaked, and I was able to fool another company into thinking I would be an outstanding addition to their team. Suckers. Anyhow, after many, many rounds of standard BS interview-speak, I got to thinking what if we could be totally honest with the people questioning us. Per usual work-day activity, Meg and I were chatting online with hot babes: each other. We explored this topic and collectively came up with the best possible and most blindingly honest thing we could tell a potential employer about ourselves to answer the ever-popular questions, “What are you looking to get out of this job?” and “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”

What I’m really looking for is a work environment where the ratio isn’t 25 girls to one toolbag dude who is way too into his job. My strengths you say? Well, I can shotgun a beer faster and put down more bourbon, on any given Saturday, than most guys I’ve ever met, and certainly any other female. Clearly this is strength of superhuman proportions. Sometimes this happens on weeknights, though. After such occurrences, I will come in the office late, hung-over, looking like a bag of ass, and be completely unproductive all day long. You might call this a weakness, but trust me, if you knew how hard I was clinging to life, you’d be proud of me for getting out of bed and making it in here at all. On these days, please do not attempt to assign me any work. I’ll be taking a personal, in-cube holiday. To be honest, these will happen often and with no warning. I will get inappropriately drunk at office happy hours, possibly resulting in a late night scandal with a co-worker. After one such happy hour, the aforementioned in-cube holiday and rules apply. No matter how cool you turn out to be, I will hate you. This is because you will assign me work, work that requires effort above the natural pulse of life through my veins, and will undoubtedly be nowhere near as amusing as my friends in Atlanta. On other days, I will send approximately 394,859,287,529,057 personal emails each day, or 500 per every ONE work email. I really only see this as a strength. All this writing has advanced my tone, vocabulary and style to a level I’m nothing short of thrilled with. While I truly have it in me to be an asset to your team, I’m not all that motivated. To be honest, because that is the theme here, I have no real desire to advance my career in this field. This job is just acting as a holding cell till I marry someone rich enough to cover my expenses too. Speaking of expenses, I will spend 90% of my paycheck on frivolous things the weekend directly following the direct-deposit. I will then subsist solely on Mac n’ cheese and Ramen, spending nothing until the next paycheck. Please note: I will always be impeccably dressed at work, an obvious strength. My real concerns here are vacation days, how long of lunches I can get away with, and how early you can get me out of here every night. Remember, I probably have a happy hour to attend. Oh, and if ever I should call in sick, SERIOUSLY question my honesty.

That is what I really ought to tell people in order to give them fair warning of what they’ve got coming. Frankly, I’m surprised that people don’t look at me, and hear that very speech wile I’m rambling on about how I really just don’t like to disappoint people, so I end up taking on too many projects and when that happens, you run the risk of losing focus on attention to detail bla, bla, bla, ad nauseam… I then get scared when they actually make an offer, and for the exact salary increase I requested of them. Are they that desperate for another person on the team, and how does that translate into average hours spent at work each day? What am I getting myself into this time?

Let’s switch gears for a minute to relationships. Honesty can be a fine line to walk there. In a relationship, how do you find a balance between saying the right thing and being entirely too honest? For example, when you’re stuck in the middle of an eight month lapse in judgment, and he says, “I love you.” I was thinking, “Aww thanks, babe. (Vince Vaughn brush on side of face) you know what I love? I love not paying for movies or wondering about the next time I’m getting laid… no, let’s pick a more obscure restaurant where we won’t run into anyone.” Sometimes I think I actually could have gotten away with that too. Sick. I sure know how to pick ‘em. Take for instance my current case, which is a nauseating combination of over-affection and being way too honest - on his end. Overbearing buddy I met some intoxicated weekend here in the city, called Friday night, when he wasn’t supposed to call until Sunday (foul ball, strike 1). He shows up in a mullet wig from a party he went to (strike two – only people like Dane Cook, Andy Sandberg or my newest obsession/destined life partner Aaron Karo, are hot/funny enough to show up in a mullet wig). OK, back in my room, he tells me twice that I’m beautiful (foul ball – while very nice – (I guess?) - you made me throw up a little in my mouth). He texts me on Sunday, and asks “How was your gameday?” STRIKE 3, YOU’RE OUT on account of 1, Being a complete ass clown moron – DO YOU WATCH SPORTSCENTER, COLLEGE GAME DAY WRAP-UP, OR CHECK OUT ESPN.COM? I live for one thing in the fall: college football. That text of yours was insulting to my very existence. I hate you now. 2, Too much contact for the leprechaun of an Irish Catholic boy who works in Jersey. This Whiskepalian likes sarcastic, asshole, Jewish banker types who work on Wall Street. You don’t have to cross a bridge or tunnel to get down there. 3, Not nearly edgy enough, so do yourself a favor and read a few snippets from Tuckermax.com, or something of the like. Congrats, my friend. You earned yourself a spot on the “don’t answer” list in my phone. And honestly, it wasn’t all that fun while it lasted.

My third and final installation of the honesty predicament involves dealing with friends. For example, an email pops up in your inbox with a link to some article of clothing they’ve purchased. The note reads something like, “OMG – just got the BEST deal on this. How CUTE is it?! I’m DEF wearing it to _______ event! Yay, flowers and sunshine!” You open the link and all you can think is, “Oh sweet Jesus, did you temporarily go blind while you were shopping? I hope the store paid you to take that hideous thing off their hands. Maybe you were hung-over when you bought that? It’s the only acceptable excuse I can think of. Do you have any idea what your ass will look like in that? What? What was that? Oh, that was you falling with an earth-shattering thud into the pits of sartorial HELL.” But instead, you lie to their face (via the internet) and say, “OMG, sooooooooooooo cute! Def love it!”

Now that I’ve successfully pinned myself as the world’s biggest slacker/pirate hooker/judgmental bitch, I look back, frightened, and think maybe it’s better that we walk around in a perpetual haze of false pretenses. Perhaps brutal honesty isn’t all its cracked up to be. Toning it down surely makes for easier maintenance of employment, relationships and friendships. Who knows, though. If I didn’t lie on the phone 5 minutes ago to a recruiter, telling him that I hadn’t already accepted another job offer, then I wouldn’t be going on another interview tomorrow for something that could turn out to be better than what’s on the table right now. Conversely, if a new acquaintance of a certain friend of mine was more honest with her when they met, she’d know that he was, in fact, born in 1985 and not 1982 before things got a little heated… On that note, I’m out.

VENN
jennifer.mickler@gmail.com