Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.
I’m traveling this week. The last time I left my surroundings was 3 years ago in 2021. I gifted myself a trip to the East Coast to celebrate the fact that I made it through a 24 week program through UT Austin on machine learning, which as discussed a few weeks ago, required me to learn Python.
I started out my week in NYC. Was my first time there. I will share more of my experience there in a future post but I moved on to Philadelphia. So far this trip has allowed me to spend time with a few different friends that I had not seen in awhile which in itself is exciting and amazing.
The last thing I got excited about among a week of excitement was experiencing downtown Philadelphia. I took a train from NYC to Philly, which gave me the opportunity to take in the sights between the cities. I snapped some photos from my seat, including this one of the Delaware River.
Crossing the Delaware
Once in Philadelphia, after a nice leisurely lunch at Reading Terminal Market with my friend who lives in the area, we spent some time in a park. Coming from the Southwest, the foliage here was different and amazing.
Just another municipal park in Philly.
The park had squirrels everywhere. Yes there are squirrels where I live as well, just not in my current neighborhood. I have to visit a local preserve to see them back home.
Squirrel enjoying a peanut.
While in downtown, we walked over to Independence Hall.
Independence Hall
Then viewed the Liberty Bell. We went at the right time- there were no lines to view the bell.
Liberty Bell – no lines to get here!
This is just a smattering of things I saw yesterday. This whole week has been an exciting experience in many ways. Even sitting in the park just people watching on a summer afternoon without melting away from heat exhaustion was exciting!
That’s all for now. I hope you all are enjoying your latest slice of life the excitement that accompanies it.
I’m recovering from the events of the weekend. I finished my final project on Sunday but I’m having nightmares about bad Python code scrolling down my screen at will and wreaking havoc -but life goes on.
Given that my brain is mush and I have to focus on my actual job which has me knee deep on projects that run on not Python I am drawing a blank on current day overused words. Hell I’m drawing a blank on words in general.
However I recently dug up came across this gem of an email I sent myself in 2010. Context: I was frustrated at work, and had just walked out of a meeting with my boss at the time – let’s call him Jim. Jim used no less than 6 of the 10 words/ phrases I outlined below.
Tired of attempts to get actual clarification on my next assignment because answers were given using some combination of the words outlined below, I took a break and typed this up. Enjoy!
Top Ten Most Overused Words/Phrases at …The Company I Worked for in 2010
10. Multi-media – seriously, the word doesn’t the word media by itself imply a wide range of communications?
9. You’re a rockstar! – Really! Hot dog! Someone call my promoter and book me another gig ASAP!
8. That’s awesome! – Is the typical, and only, response from managers when pointing out yet another organizational defect.
7. We’re gonna quick look and send off – And if my quick look doesn’t catch an error then it’s still your fault you didn’t catch an error that I couldn’t possibly have caught either.
6. Round and Round, where it goes… Where its bucketed …no one knows!
5. I’m gonna get my arms around…uh oh, that sounds like a sexual harassment complaint just waiting to happen.
4. In the driver’s seat/ you wanna drive? – No real comment here, just way overused.
3. Organizational restructure – Because we seem to have one of these somewhere in the organization about every 2 months.
2. I envision…a world where I don’t have to hear the word envision.
1. World Class Sales Organization – I don’t really need to comment on this one, do I?
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
I don’t expect my blog will bring big changes to the world but I do hope my blog resonates with at least a few people. By no means would I say I’ve had a “hard” life but at the same time I had to endure experiences early on that others in my peer group have yet to navigate.
As such, I’ve always found humor or made my own humor in everyday life. I also like to stop and observe. I look for the details in the outdoors, at the grocery store, in my neighborhood – basically I’m always on the lookout for the interesting among the mundane.
This blog allows me to:
1) Share my experiences through the lens of humor to add levity to everyone’s day.
2) Disseminate the interesting among the mundane.
One of my goals for this blog is to create a safe space for discussion. In time I hope more of you chime in and comment on your experiences or at least share slices of your life that come to mind after reading something here. Let’s laugh at the absurd together!
I imagine my life in an alternate universe would be similar to the Futurama Episode “The Farnsworth Parabox” wherein the Planet Delivery crew encounters their counterparts in an alternate universe. The lives of their counterparts are similar, differentiated only by decisions made through a coin toss.
Coin Toss Outcomes
In the alternate universe, the coin toss had the opposite outcome, thereby all decisions made by the alternate universe Planet Delivery crew were the exact opposite of the “regular universe” Planet Delivery Crew.
A blue Zoidberg and a gold Bender? Not a universe I want to be in.
I don’t live in NYC in the year 3000, so I’m not by any means saying my life would be anything like life depicted in Futurama. Rather my assumption is that an alternate universe is a slight aberration from the universe we know. That things would be similar enough to recognize just off center. It’s really hard to speculate what this version of me would look like (since I already seem to walk the line between personality types as it is).
Following the Futurama model, the difference would be something like:
-When the electric company offered to give me a free tree for my yard I’d have chosen a Willow Acacia instead of a Desert Willow.
-I would have graduated college in 4 years instead of 5 and probably be one year closer to the grave because I would have had one more year in the workforce than I do now instead of spending that extra year ditching my classes and leaving my campus job early to go wander around the mall (we still have a few that are alive and kicking), take 2 hour lunch breaks then go watch reruns of Most Extreme Challenge with my bestie at the time before doing some actual homework.
-Or maybe I would have been a slightly less curious 4 year old and decide not to dismantle my family’s new CD player which lead to me getting my hand stuck in said CD player which permanently disfigured my right middle finger. Which sounds boring- I think I’d miss the slight scar that faintly lines the area under the nail bed.
From this perspective, discussing the alternate universe isn’t that interesting at all!
This is what a CD player would look like in an alternate universe. Forget Sony or Panasonic- the Dot brand ruled the compact disc player market in my alternate existence.
The IRL Alternate Universe Experience
I’ve been crafting this post off and on all afternoon and evening. In between piecing this disaster of a post together, I also had some brief discussions about high school reunions. I’d rather not discuss why that topic popped, other than to say it’s a constant topic in my household right now. And in thinking back to my one high school reunion, it was my taste of life in an alternate universe.
Before I crap on this experience, let me say I didn’t hate high school, but I didn’t love it either. It was very “meh”. To me it just felt like a holding pattern I had to endure before I could enter the sunny skies and grassy lawns of university life. I floated between social groups on campus as my actual friends went to different high schools all over the eastern part of the county.
I debated whether I should go. My mom somehow convinced me to attend. She had a completely different high school experience so to her, why wouldn’t I go? Against my better judgment I bought a ticket. Since I sunk $40 into this, now I had to go.
First, out of a graduating class of approximately 1250 students, I’d say maybe 300 showed up. There were 3 feeder junior high schools that comprised my high school. Of the people I associated with, they all went to 2 of the 3 junior high schools. So guess which junior high most of the attendees were from… just take a big guess.
Throughout the 2 arduous hours I could stomach evening, I recognized 6 people. SIX. At one point, I wondered if I had attended some other high school’s reunion. Or maybe it was my high school but the wrong year. But no, the signage everywhere listed the correct high school and graduation year.
To add insult to injury, this one overly enthusiatic women who I’ll call Lindsey because I do not remember her name walked up to me had the audacity to ask me”are you sure you were part of our class? Why don’t I know you?”
To be fair I had no effing clue who she was either but I still – I found her remark to be rude but I decided to have some fun with this. I told her I ran into some trouble with during my junior year and had to finish out my high school career via correspondence courses as I was in the witness protection program until my first year in college. The look on her face was priceless.
During the dinner, which thankfully the food make up for the $40 I sunk into this evening, a video presentation ran in the background. I recognized the backdrop of my school but I didn’t recognize ANYONE in any of the photos shown in the presentation.
I stayed maybe 20 minutes after eating dinner and called it a night. I stayed long enough to say I’d attended but I couldn’t wait to leave. I managed to make small talk witht the handful of people I did recognize but I had zero things in common with any of these people that even the small talk was pure torture.
I felt so uncomforable the whole time I was there, that it definitely felt like an alternate universe! Kinda like- what would this school had been like had I not gone there. The memories I had of high school were nonexistent at that reunion. It was definitely a bizarre experience. I like to say I’ll never say never, but I can confidently say I’ll never go to another high school reunion!
During a recent walk through my local convention center I looked upward and noticed faux bird and clouds/sky hanging throughout the expanse of the food court.
I *think* I get what the vision was here, but the size of each piece seems rather small; the sky/cloud pieces especially should be larger in my opinion.
I’m curious if whomever came up with the idea- if the execution was as intended.
I’m curious if it’s weird to eat your meals under a fake sky with fake birds.
Lastly, I’m curious if when this food court is open and hopping, if convention attendees even notice the fake birds and sky adorning the ceiling?!
Sidenote: The “featured image” you may have saw in the WP Reader was WP’s AI generated image.
While the “sky” and “clouds” are more noticeable, this looks like bird wings hanging from the ceiling, instead of the representation of a full bird. Verdict, this is even creepier than the actual installation.
Do you have any public spaces in your area with *curious* adornments? Drop a note in the comments below.
HOUSEKEEPING
Unfrazzled Analyst is now on Instagram. Feel free to follow and check out bite sized versions of the posts you see here.
What is a typical day? Is up down? Why ask why? All kidding aside, this is an interesting question for me because something I’ve come to realize is that each week reveals itself to have its own personality, and within each week, the seven days in between feel typical compared within that week, but can very easily feel atypical when compared to another week.
Even the magic 8 ball is against me. “Is today a typical day?” “My sources say no.”
If this all sounds convoluted- it is! One of the reasons I blog is to document my “mundane” experiences – because apparently my “mundane” experiences sound made up. If only! The expression truth is stranger than fiction definitely applies to my everyday living.
Rather than describe my current day, I’ve opted to talk about one of my commuter experiences from 2021 that was typically atypical for me. It was August, and was reporting for duty into the office a few days a week after being comfortably productive nearly 18 months in a magical palace I call “home”.
At this point, it was week 3 of going into the office. As I stood at the side of the busy road, waiting in the hot (90 degrees at 7am) and relatively humid rays of the early morning August sun, I thought “what better time of year to start commuting again.”
Nothing wakes me up faster than gasoline fumes from passing cars amidst the beaming sunlight of a typical August morning.
While standing at the bus stop, I noticed an ant hill near me. Great. I paced around to avoid the ants. Last thing I needed was to have ants crawl up me. As I paced, one of my neighbors who works for the county walked up- let’s call him Gene. Gene walked up and expressed joy that he had not missed the bus.
“I ran like hell yesterday because the bus driver showed up 5 minutes early”. Luckily for Gene, I recently discovered that the local bus company now had an app that could track where the bus was in real time. I demonstrated the app to Gene and forgot about pacing around to avoid the ants. Before I knew it, the bus was here.
During the “before” time, I would have been lucky to board at this point as the bus was usually packed by the time we reached the park and ride- the last stop before heading into the freeway. During the “return to office that only my company and a handful of county offices seemed to enforce in 2021” time, it was pretty much myself, Gene and maybe 3-4 other people on the bus ride into work. Which meant I could sit anywhere and be far away from anyone.
I plopped down in a seat towards the back of the bus. As the bus pulled away from the stop, I glanced down at my sneakers and noticed a handful of ants crawling around on my shoelaces. I quickly brushed them off with my hand. At that point I figured I must have stood too close to the ant hill when I wasn’t pacing around. No big deal – just a few ants.
I then turned my head towards my left leg and froze in absolute terror- my pant leg was engulfed with hundreds of tiny black ants. I closed my eyes for a second then opened them thinking maybe, just maybe I had fallen asleep for a minute and this was all in my head (hey falling asleep while commuting to work is a perk of public transportation). I opened my eyes and my leg was still covered by hundreds of moving creatures.
The stuff nightmares are made of- oh wait I’m actually awake.
I took a deep breath to assess the situation. In my head I kept telling myself “don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t react don’t move don’t do anything”. I didn’t dare draw attention to myself.
Thankfully, no one was sitting in the aisle next to me or behind me or in front of me. Confident that none of the other passengers had a view of me, I quickly rifled through my backpack (which was sitting on the otherside of me on the non ant infested side) and pulled the cardboard backing from a spiral notebook I had tucked away and starting scraping the ants off my leg and onto the ground.
Who knew this doubles as a tool to fling ants off oneself?
I quietly stepped on whatever ants were immediately underfoot, but I recognized that I was grossly outnumbered. While I succeeded in scraping the ants off me, they were now pooling around in the seat next to me and milling around on the floor. I had to escape the ants.
I had to time this in a way so that none of the other passengers would notice I changed seats. We were quickly approaching the park and ride- that would be my window to move, but I’d have to do it before any passengers at the park and ride boarded. I quiety slid my backpack on while fanning the ants in the seat next to me to avoid them crawling back on me.
As the bus pulled up to the curb I saw there were only 2 passengers waiting to board. There were 3 passengers sitting towards the front, but only one passenger sitting in a row ahead of me but behind the other passengers. As the bus pulled up, I quietly slid out of the seat, and stealthily moved up 4 rows from where I was. The one passenger I had to pass had their eyes glued to their phone. Success. I made it into the seat undetected before any new passengers boarded. I felt home free.
Settled into my new seat, I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to do. Should I tell the bus driver? If I do, what do I say?
“Hi Mr. Bus Driver, I apparently boarded the bus full of ants which no one seemed to notice and now the back of the bus is infested.”
“There are ants back there- for all I know they were there already there when I sat down.” This actually entered my mind- where the ants already there? Was it a coincidence that I was fixated on ants at my bus stop? Did someone else bring ants on the bus?
“Ein bus ait ‘ants’?” I’m pretty sure the driver didn’t know German but technically I could inform the driver of ants this way.
Then what? Would the driver kick me off the bus? Would I be banned? Would the driver make everyone deboard to wait for another bus? On the outside I sat cool as a cucumber smiling while wearing my sunglasses. On the inside I was panicking. I imagined myself in an interrogation room at the bus company being questioned by a surly bus driver demanding to know how the ants got there. I don’t even know if such a thing exists but my mind created that image at that moment.
The bus pulled away and conitnued to sit there with a stupid grin on my face. After we’d been on the freeway for about five minutes, I looked down and saw… about 5 ants. DAMN!!! The ants were slowly trickling forward. I quietly smushed every ant I saw with my foot. I felt like I was playing a video game in slow motion. About a line of 5-6 six at a time would slowly move forward from under my seat. I’d kill those, only for another round of 5-6 to appear.
It was like playing a slo-mo live action game of Space Invaders.
This was all nerve wracking and went on for 20 minutes. As the bus drove up the exit ramp and waited at the light, one passenger from the park and ride walked up to the driver.
“Hi- there are a TON of ants in the back of the bus”.
Oh crap – I could feel my throat closing up. I was about to be busted. I thought for sure someone would remember where I was when I boarded. I stopped breathing as the bus driver reacted to this news…
By shrugging his shoulders and saying “oh ok”. And then the light went green and the bus driver continued on with the route. The. bus. driver. did. nothing. No reaction. Did not care.
I deboarded at the stop before my typical stop. I just wanted off of that bus. When I stepped off, I waited for the bus to drive away before shaking my backpack and patting down my pant legs, shaking my feet and just making sure none of those little monsters were attached to me. I could not believe I was a hot mess for the past 35 minutes, desperately plotting escape from the ants while also fretting that I’d be banned for life from riding the bus and all the while the authority figure on the bus gave zero cares that the bus was about to be overtaken by ants from outerspace (okay yes I’m exaggerating at this one).
When I got to my office I stared at a blank monitor for five minutes before realizing I had not docked my computer. I was relieved to be at my desk not covered in ant bites but I was still traumatized by the ride into work. Thankfully, the bus ride home was uneventful- the bus I boarded home was not the same bus and it was a different driver. Normally I’d cap this with a lesson learned but – I really don’t know that I learned anything except don’t get covered in ants before boarding public transportation.
Have you ever been covered in ants? Or any other type of bug? Or encountered ants on the bus? Do tell!
Noise is an underrated topic for the working world. Depending on your work environment, the type of noise that permeates through your workspace can vary from the drone of electric tools to the bustling sounds of a cafe.
I’ve always worked in an office environment. I’ve spent many years trapped volutarily located in the confines of floors in buildings of downtown areas. What I’ve learned over the years is it takes immense patience to work around people you’d probably slam the door on if they showed up at your house other people.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I’ve never had an office that looked this modern. My current office is outfitted by office furniture another company in the building was going to throw away.
For my entire career as an office worker, I’ve had some type of hybrid or alternative work schedule. The difference between the past 4 years and the “before” time (we all know what I’m talking about here) is that the days in office vs. remote are flipped. Before- I was in office 4 days a week, and at home 1 day a week on average. After, well you get the gist.
I still commute to an office a couple of days a week to keep up appearances , because the company said so, be a “team player”. even though in my current role I have no real reason to be there. It’s ok because I get to waste more time getting “the scoop” from selected co-workers in the office and go for long walks in the area it gives me a change of scenery each week. Nevertheless, when I’m in the office it still requires patience to focus amidst other people’s noise.
I live in a different city from where I work so I can walk through construction zones for a change from my quiet tree lined neighborhood.
I had different office jobs throughout my college career, but the REAL adjustment came into play in after I completed my master’s degree and stepped into my first analyst job. This was the first job where I had to really concentrate on the work- it was mentally taxing.
The type of troubleshooting I had to do required more thought and diplomacy than I was used to on my other jobs. I was a budget analyst at a large state agency and errors in calculations had consequences.
Now, I don’t know if I took the job too seriously or if the others in my office didn’t care, but I was stuck with 2 co-workers in particular, let’s call them Helene and Kara- that TALKED LOUDLY ALL DAY. EVERYDAY. ABOUT EVERY MINUTE OF THEIR LIFE IN THE OFFICE AND OUTSIDE.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com Do you have this guy as your co-worker? It’s fun isn’t it, trying to get work done with the office bullhorn in your presence.
Oh- and lucky me, because they did a alternate work schedule of working 8- 9 hour days in a row to get every other Monday off, they were usually in the office by 7:30am and already knee deep in conversation by the time I rolled in at 7:45am.
A typical morning was something like this:
“Oh Helene- may I offer you some pop- corny corn?” Cue INSANE LAUGHTER FROM BOTH.
“OMG Kara that is one of the BEST Doug Heffernon lines”. (Note: I had not seen an episode of King of Queens at this time to know WTH they were talking about).
“Ok Helene, this is your week to take care of Seamus! Here you go”. (Seamus was a leprechaun pen they played with in the office. Yes these were grown ass women that cared for a leprechaun pen. Don’t worry there will be a post about this in the future.)
“Kara, when are you going to join my Zumba class?” (Helene taught Zumba classes in addition to this day job).
“Oh, I’ll aim for this Wednesday. I just got a phone # from the new guy on my bus route, and that’s a perfect first date.” (Idk what bus route she took- I never had that kind of experience riding the bus all these years).
“That’s perfect, I have five spots left and I”m trying to fill them up”.
“What time is it?”
“Eight thirty- is it too early for a snack run?”
“Yes, let’s go in an hour.”
“OMG guess who I ran into?”
“Who?”
“That lady with the eyebrows that used to work down the hall?”
“OMG does she still pencil in her eyebrows like its halloween?”
“Girl and then some”.
AND IT WENT ON AND ON LIKE THIS ALL DAY LONG. I didn’t have control over the background noise and it was frustrating as hell. There were no TVs in the office, so I had to rely on music. Thankfully, I had received a free iPod for joining my school’s alumni association. It had still been sitting in the box- my second week on the job I tore open that box and got to work filling it up with music.
Fast forward to today. I have no clue what happened to Kara and Helene, but I continued to have my share of Kara and Helenes in the office over the years. I still don’t understand how I had patience to not snap and strangle them all zone out the din. But somehow I managed. I’m fortunate that now I have a dedicated home office which makes it convenient to control noise. And because I have an office at the office complete with a TV, I can shut the door and just leave the TV on to drown out the Kara and Helenes of today.
Serenity Now!
But for those of you stuck with sitting out in a cubicle or open workspace with such inconsiderate delightful co-workers, get yourself a good pair of headphones and find the background noise you can control. And know that I feel for you!
unfrazzled analyst 