I will be sad to say good-bye to what I think of as my "cossack coat" since it always made me think of a Russian princess, complete with Russian fur hat and fur muff. I bought one summer, many years ago, while visiting my friend Jane while she was a veterinary resident up at Cornell (before she became a vet-I-Dr. and was merely a fabulous but not fabulously wealthy "GP" vet).
It was stiflingly hot, and so we escaped to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse for some free air-conditioning. As it was JULY, this coat was 70% off (don't remember the price, just the discount -- living up to my gender stereotype, I suppose) and I fell in love with it.
It is now way, WAY too big for me, despite being taken in along the back seams by a seamstress (no, not my mom -- I actually paid the lady at the dry cleaners downstairs). And since our company is partnering with the annual NY Cares Coat Drive, (yes, we donated big wads of [probably taxpayer] money -- blow me), I am bringing it in tomorrow to drop off in the donation box in our lobby.
And while I am sad to see it go, I am not regretful, if you see what I mean, since I am determined to maintain my lifetime member standing @ WW.
And thankfully, WW has also channelled my stress into baking (low-fat/whole grain treats, like the oatmeal cherry, cranberry cookies this weekend), and not eating, say, [a] all of the cookies, or [b] KFC (mmmm...wings ...oh! *ahem* sorry about that).
It has also encouraged me to find other, non-caloric ways of venting. Like tonight, I was finally able to indulge in some nice, enthusiastic, throwing of plates against the wall. A helpfully solid BRICK wall.
Why would I want to do this, you may ask? Well, my company finally made the first round of layoffs in my department yesterday (Monday) and handled it in a spectacularly POOR, SUCKY, AND CLASSLESS fashion. I mean, they KNEW they'd have to do this for MONTHS, and the best they could come up with was to call in the 42% (yes, FORTY-TWO PERCENT) of the people to be cut, and tell them en masse in a conference room? And THEN not prepare themselves for the inevitable questions such as "when does my healthcare coverage run out?" Frakkin' gutless idiots.
If they pay you the big bucks, part of that involves sucking it up and doing the hard stuff, like telling people they've lost their jobs privately, or -- at a minimum -- doing it in a respectful group setting and sparing THEM (yes, the newly "right-sized" former employees) the task of telling their now-former coworkers that they were just laid off. Classy, eh?
Having unfortunately been through this mass-layoff process before, I can say that there are much, MUCH better ways of doing this. Jerks. Just thinking about it for any length of time still makes me furious. (Actually, maybe I will e-mail my former Managing Director and thank him for the considerate manner in which he handled it 4 years ago. He's a nice guy and I still keep in sporadic touch with him.)
Oh, and no, this does not mean I am safe: there are further rounds to go... with of course, no actual timeframe of any sort.
So tonight, when I discovered the discard pile at the ceramics studio -- bisqueware (pottery which has been fired once but not yet glazed) destined for the dumpster -- well...! The Studio Manager encouraged me to go outside and do my best Zorba the Greek imitation, using the brick facade of the building. Opa!
Since there was someone waiting in a car in front of the building while this was happening, they must have thought it odd when I went out, flung a dish against the wall, smiled and rubbed my hands with glee, went back inside and then returned with a broom and dustpan. (My engineer says that they'll just think I'm angry but tidy.)
One way or another, I will be revisiting the discard box, oh yes.
It was stiflingly hot, and so we escaped to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse for some free air-conditioning. As it was JULY, this coat was 70% off (don't remember the price, just the discount -- living up to my gender stereotype, I suppose) and I fell in love with it.
It is now way, WAY too big for me, despite being taken in along the back seams by a seamstress (no, not my mom -- I actually paid the lady at the dry cleaners downstairs). And since our company is partnering with the annual NY Cares Coat Drive, (yes, we donated big wads of [probably taxpayer] money -- blow me), I am bringing it in tomorrow to drop off in the donation box in our lobby.
And while I am sad to see it go, I am not regretful, if you see what I mean, since I am determined to maintain my lifetime member standing @ WW.
And thankfully, WW has also channelled my stress into baking (low-fat/whole grain treats, like the oatmeal cherry, cranberry cookies this weekend), and not eating, say, [a] all of the cookies, or [b] KFC (mmmm...wings ...oh! *ahem* sorry about that).
It has also encouraged me to find other, non-caloric ways of venting. Like tonight, I was finally able to indulge in some nice, enthusiastic, throwing of plates against the wall. A helpfully solid BRICK wall.
Why would I want to do this, you may ask? Well, my company finally made the first round of layoffs in my department yesterday (Monday) and handled it in a spectacularly POOR, SUCKY, AND CLASSLESS fashion. I mean, they KNEW they'd have to do this for MONTHS, and the best they could come up with was to call in the 42% (yes, FORTY-TWO PERCENT) of the people to be cut, and tell them en masse in a conference room? And THEN not prepare themselves for the inevitable questions such as "when does my healthcare coverage run out?" Frakkin' gutless idiots.
If they pay you the big bucks, part of that involves sucking it up and doing the hard stuff, like telling people they've lost their jobs privately, or -- at a minimum -- doing it in a respectful group setting and sparing THEM (yes, the newly "right-sized" former employees) the task of telling their now-former coworkers that they were just laid off. Classy, eh?
Having unfortunately been through this mass-layoff process before, I can say that there are much, MUCH better ways of doing this. Jerks. Just thinking about it for any length of time still makes me furious. (Actually, maybe I will e-mail my former Managing Director and thank him for the considerate manner in which he handled it 4 years ago. He's a nice guy and I still keep in sporadic touch with him.)
Oh, and no, this does not mean I am safe: there are further rounds to go... with of course, no actual timeframe of any sort.
So tonight, when I discovered the discard pile at the ceramics studio -- bisqueware (pottery which has been fired once but not yet glazed) destined for the dumpster -- well...! The Studio Manager encouraged me to go outside and do my best Zorba the Greek imitation, using the brick facade of the building. Opa!
Since there was someone waiting in a car in front of the building while this was happening, they must have thought it odd when I went out, flung a dish against the wall, smiled and rubbed my hands with glee, went back inside and then returned with a broom and dustpan. (My engineer says that they'll just think I'm angry but tidy.)
One way or another, I will be revisiting the discard box, oh yes.
Monday. Thousands of layoffs in WaMu's Seattle headquarters. Head of A's dept. at Chase in NY calls A's boss, asking for some contracts. A's boss says, "OK, but I can't say I'll be able to get it for you right away...you do know I just laid everybody off today, right?" Chase person: "Really?"
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