The Spreadsheet
I just started a new job a few
weeks ago. Higher education turned out to not be my thing, so I returned to
corporate America, where I can type emails to business owners and get unlimited
snacks. I’ll work super hard for them as long as they keep replacing the
chocolate-covered almonds and La Croux in the fridge.
Since I’m
new, I’m trying to really impress people. I’ve been working hard, taking notes,
staying late. My team is an exceptional group of peeps, so this is kind of the
norm, but I’ve been keeping up with them and trying to contribute as much as
possible in as quick amount of time as possible.
Well, about
a week ago I get an email about our team lunch. My coworker, Cindy, came over
to me and says, “Tedd, we do a lunch every month, and everyone decided that you
should pick our restaurant this month! This means you get to take everyone’s
order, too!”
In my mind
this was, “Tedd, you’re new, so hopefully you’ll pick something different
because we’re sick of everything around us. Oh, and taking orders is kind of
annoying, so you’re in charge of coordinating that, too. Kthanksloveyou!bye!”
I was kind
of bored last week right after lunch, so I picked a restaurant and then sent an
email to everyone. In my last job, whenever we had a department-wide lunch, we
always used Google to create a joint spreadsheet. Everyone put what they wanted
on it so everything was in one central place. You can update your orders
anytime you want, and no one has to figure out all 15 email chains for what is
wanted.
We didn’t
have anything like this in the shared drive, so I created the spreadsheet and
sent it out to everyone with the menu.
5 minutes
later I have three emails.
“Wow, Tedd.
You’re really on top of this.”
On my way
to the bathroom one of the guys on my team was like, “Man, a spreadsheet , you
take this seriously, dude.”
I chatted
my good friend and said, “Everyone’s really impressed with the spreadsheet…”
She responded, “Taking orders was a nightmare. I don’t think you realized how
much easier you made lunches.”
My neighbor
exclaimed, “Tedd just completely changed the game!”
Wait, what?
Of course
it would be lunch that gets me attention, not my actual work. It’s like being a
banker and then getting employee of the month for cubical cleanliness.
I’m still
in the stage of work where I’m sure I’m screwing everything completely up.
Today, during week 3, I had that moment where 5 things went wrong and I’m like,
“Oops… Yeah, that was my fault.”
But at
least I have the lunch spreadsheet. Should I get canned tomorrow, I’ll leave
that legacy behind. And probably take about 15 La Croux on my way out.
The Wedding Planner (and some tangents…)
One of my best friends on the planet, Courtney, got married
this past weekend. We have been friends since high school and even when I was
in Korea we’d talk at least every week or two through Facebook or phone.
Because I’m cheap, I got tickets on the Megabus to go down to STL for the
nuptials.
Tangent #1
While taking seats on the Megabus this middle-aged woman
clambored on the bus. Where she spawned from is beyond me, because she
evidently had never ridden in a motor vehicle before.
“Oh my god!” she wailed. “Oh my god! I’m just – I’m sorry! I
don’t know--- I don’t know where to sit!”
Megabus is open seating. You can sit ANYWHERE. At the time
of her entry, literally every other seat was open. The attendant, bless his heart, took the time
to take her by the hand and lead her down the aisle.
“You want to sit here, ma’am?”
“God… I’m sorry! I don’t know!”
You would have thought he was leading her around and asking
her which of her children she wanted to murder. It was that painful for her.
After 3 seats of “Ma’am would you like to sit here?” she
finally settled on a seat that she wanted… Of course, it was occupied by
another passenger.
“Can I sit here? Can I sit here?”
The guy in the seat was a well-dressed, middle-aged man,
probably on the bus for business or something.
(^I just typed the above sentence and laughed upon re-reading
it… What business would put someone on Megabus? Gurl needs to find a place that
at least uses Amtrak.)
“You can sit on the inside,” he said.
This did not satisfy the woman. “Oh… I want to sit on the
outside. Here.” She pointed to the seat.
The man said, “I’m sitting here and I want to sit here. You
can sit on the inside.”
“Oh… oh, okay. Well, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
I don’ t even know… The Megabus probably won’t be happening
in my life ever again.
#backontrack
Because I took the Megabus I was picked up by my friend Lana
and taken to her place for the night. She is actually in the wedding, so I knew
that I would have to get to the vineyard for the ceremony really early. I had
no problem with this and assumed I could help set up or something,
Upon getting to the vineyard, I said hi to Courtney and then
was sent to look for Donna, the manager of the winery, to help with the set up.
The main office is in the building with the bar and the
kitchen, so I had to ask the bartender where Donna was. She led me to an oddly
pretentious office covered in wood paneling, where Donna was seated going over
a pile of papers.
“Donna? I’m Tedd, I’m here with Courtney. She needed to get
more chairs for the bride’s side.”
“Well, hello, Tedd! You like wine?!”
Before I knew it, Donna had given me a class of wine, popped
open a bottle, and had me carrying a bunch of glasses.
“Share it with your friends!”
I don’t think Donna realized that I was alone and probably
shouldn’t be trusted with a giant bottle of wine.
Well, we got to the back shed and get more chairs and take
them and put them in Courtney’s dressing room. Upon setting down the chairs,
Donna looks at Courtney and says, “We like Tedd! He’s a charmer!”
It took me a bit to realize that “Charmer” in Northern
Missouri is pretty much synonymous with homosexual.
Once the chairs are down, I go and sit outside in the party
tent, thinking my time on the clock is done. Pretty soon, however, Courtney, Lana
and the rest of the bridal party are carrying all the chairs from the dressing
room down to the main ceremony area.
“We meant the chairs need to go where the ceremony is going
to be.” Courtney doesn’t get upset easily, so she didn’t care that Donna and I
had our head up our asses and were carrying around chairs to random locations.
It was also at this point that Courtney told me to help with the candy table.
I picked up the boxes of candy and walked into the gazebo
that had the cake table and the empty table for the candy. Donna was running
around and had somehow found another glass of wine to give me.
“We don’t want you without a glass! Not people we like,
anyway!”
At this point another woman carrying a box barged into the
gazebo and said, “Donna! Where these go?”
“Put them over there. Oh, and Christine, this is Tedd.”
Christine and I shook hands. Little did I know it was going
to be the most meaningful relationship I would build that day.
I help Donna finish setting up the candy table, somehow
managing to spill Jolly Ranchers all over and rip open a bag of M&M’s in
the wrong way, so we couldn’t actually access the resealable top. By the end of
this debacle, I was 3 glasses of wine in and had been solidified in Donna’s
mind as the wedding planner.
This was also the point when Donna felt the need to tell me
this anecdote:
“The cake lady, Barbara, called. She said she was going to
bring the cake later. I asked her to bring it at 5, but she said, ‘Gurl! That
cakes gonna be all kinds of a mess!’”
It was at this point that I realized Donna was a Friend of
Dorothy and was thrilled Courtney had a “charmer” friend to help organize the
wedding.
Tangent #2
I’m a really bad homosexual. Like I’m terrible at gay
things.
At my new job, the other gay who works there came over to me
and asked me to go shopping with him. I mean, I would love to, but I think he
is expecting someone with good taste who knows brands and wants to spend 2
hours trying things on.
This isn’t me.
I ran into this same confusion when I was on a trip with my
family. My sisters-in-law went shopping and when they came back were like,
“Tedd! You should have come! We went to *insert name of fancy purse store
here*!” They expected me to give some airsnaps and be like, “Whatchoo get,
girlfriend?!” But I didn’t know if that was a clothing store, a book store, or
a cholatier. So I said, “Ooohhhhh!!”
#backontrack
I came out of the gazebo, my candy table set up and saw that
my friend was starting to take pictures. Courtney grabbed me and said just to
come along with them. The rest of the winery staff had gotten there and were
setting up the tables.
I proceed to carry a bunch of parasols and Lana’s wine glass
(sometimes I am a good homosexual) to a spot in the wine growing area for some
pictures. They are in the middle of snapping photos when we hear:
“TEDD! TEDD! We’ve got some questions!”
Christine is barreling toward us waving.
“We need to know about the table arrangements,” she said.
Courtney, Lana, and the other bridesmaid were giggling like
crazy.
“I really have no idea about the table arrangements,” I
said. “You should ask Courtney.”
Christine looked actually upset that I didn’t know what was
going on, me being homosexual and all, so she asked Courtney who let her know
what the arrangement was.
As Christine sprinted away, Courtney looked at me, laughing,
and said, “I guess you’re my wedding planner now?”
The rest of the afternoon went by without incident. I hung
out with the ladies until people I knew started showing up. By people I knew, I
mean Courtney’s family, who I annoyed the crap out of because I had nowhere
else to go.
The highlight of this experience was seeing Courtney’s
brother, Rob, and his wife, Shelly. Remember,
I am 3 or 4 glasses of wine in and am high on power being the newly proclaimed
wedding planner.
“Everyone keeps asking me questions,” I said. “I have no
idea what’s going on, but everyone thinks I do.”
Shelly says, “Well, they probably think you know since
you’re officiating the ceremony.”
“Wait,” I said, “What?”
I suddenly panicked for a split second before Rob broke in,
laughing. “Yeah, no. Tedd’s not doing that. They hired a pastor.”
Phew.
I ended up sitting with Louise’s parents, and three of my
good friends and one of their moms. The wedding was staged so that the main
ceremony was celebrated a level below the reception tent near this fountain.
The audio was broadcast into the tent to the people not in the immediate family
who didn’t get to sit close. We were listening to what we could of the poor
audio, when this gem happened:
“Courtney and John, as you come together in marriage, let’s
not forget that this isn’t a union of two. This is a union between, you, as a
couple, and Scott.”
I immediately looked around the table. Who was Scott? I knew
Courtney wasn’t religious, but what kind of weird cult did she get the preacher
from? Was he online certified? The 5th United Church of Scott?
It only took about 1 more minute before the pastor started
saying “God” over and over and I realized that the poor audio had just made God
sound like Scott. During dinner I said something and Lana’s dad laughed. “I
thought the same thing! What kind of weird religious stuff are Courtney and
John into?”
“Praise be to Scott!” I said.
The rest of the evening was a lot of fun. We danced and I
had a few more glasses of wine and then called it. I could tell I was having a
lot of fun because Christine saw me dancing and yelled, “Thatta boy, Teddy!”
When we got back to Lana’s house, I passed out cold on the
couch. I didn’t even have enough energy to watch an episode of It’s Always
Sunny. My friends made fun of me, but they don’t even know. It’s tough being in
charge of a wedding.
Tangent #3
I’m finishing up writing this on the Megabus. I’m behind a
5’4” man who has his chair complete shoved backwards so that I literally can’t
fit in my seat. I have to sit sidesaddle to even be able to fit. Somehow, he is
also managing to sit with his elbows back so that he keeps slamming up against
my laptop.
#Megabus #neveragain
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