Love, Erika

Cocktail Weenies warning

So for Christmas I wanted to make those wonderful weenies in the crockpot and I used a simple recipe of chili sauce and grape jelly. However I am a moron and did not know (and still do not know) what the hell CHILI SAUCE is. As if I don't already have a hard enough time finding anything "unusual" in our grocery stores around here, they sure as hell do not have anything like "chili sauce."  I went all up and down the barbecue sauce aisles, looking at every kind of freaking bbq sauce and marinade in the world and nothing even remotely similar showed up. I then went to the international foods aisle and finally found in the Thai section a bottle of "Thai Chili Sauce." So I thought that must be it, although I had a sense of dread about it. I was right, it was the wrong thing.  They were not good.

Apparently more Google searching with regards to WHAT exactly "chili sauce" is supposed to be, has revealed that it's from the Mexican section, in a can...... more tomato based. I seem to remember looking in that aisle and not seeing anything like that. I don't know really how to find it. And none of the recipes will give ANY specific info about what it IS, i.e. brand, size, what it's made of, where to get it.....

My brother has given me a better recipe that I intend to use next time. Nothing weird about it, just plain good!!  Also I keep stalking Facebook to see when Kathy Arsenault is going to join so I can accost her and find her weenies recipe. :) Does anybody have it? Back when Con-Glom-O allowed us to have pot luck parties, and allowed us the use of an electrical socket (which they later forbade)  she would cook up those weenies until the whole place smelled like you wanted to slap your grannie. 

Oh, that reminds me...... (here I go on a Con-Glom-O tangent)......  back when I was pregnant with Drew I got a new TL who I never knew very much because she was new, but I remember for her "meet and greet" she took everybody outside individually and walked around the building in June in 90 degree weather and I was like 9 months pregnant and reeeeaaaaallllllly not wanting to do that.  I remember she was from the Midwest somewhere and a few times when we had team lunches where everybody would bring something, her "thing" was deviled eggs. She brought them every single time and was so excited to do so, it was like her big specialty.  And I love me some deviled eggs. So I would get one, and thought they looked pretty plain and all.... and took a bite and immediately knew I would have trouble finishing that dang egg. It was horrid. I can tell you right now what was in her recipe: the egg yolk, mayo, and SALT. And that was ALL. It was nasty. I felt so bad because she was awfully proud of those things but they were just gross.  And now I feel even worse because I can't even think of her name, but I sure do remember her as the deviled egg girl.

Need to know if it's a good price on TP?

One thing I HATED about working at Con-Glom-O was the incessant need to keep a tracker for every little microscopic thing. I spent practically my entire shift filling out various nit-picky minutiae into all these trackers and spreadsheets (it was mostly ways for management to analyze how unproductive we were.... gee, wonder why?????).

So now, I unveil to you..... a tracker that actually has a justifiable need in my life.

I am doing pretty good with knowing off the top of my head what good prices are for various products, but one thing that is confusing the heck out of me is paper goods like toilet paper and paper towels. So I've started keeping a spreadsheet on advertised prices so I can actually look it up if I need to know what a decent price is.

And I will share it with you!  Here it is, I will be updating it weekly as the ads come out and you can see for yourself what the recent price comparisons were (there are 2 sheets, tabs are at the bottom).

Erika's Paper Products Price Tracker

don't forget to use coupons to get the price even lower!!!

My sick sense of humor

This makes me laugh SO HARD and I swear all I can think of is how this is exactly how I felt at my old job at Con-Glom-O every single day. Except at the end the monitor should fall on him.

Last Phase of the "Master Plan" has been implemented.

Employee # 000-XXX-401 has left Con-Glom-O.  That would be me!!  Finally I have quit my job and am officially a stay at home mom (SAHM).  My time is much better spent here with my son anyway. This of course was all part of the master plan as we arranged it before I got pregnant, that I would stay home rather than do daycare. It was just a matter of biding my time and waiting it out to make it happen.  I feel relieved and happy to be done with that place. I will of course miss my friends but we stay in touch anyway, and there's always our monthly crops! :)  I've met a lot of nice people there over the years, and met a fair share of mean people too.

This has come as no big shock to any of you, I am sure.

And finally...... drumroll please!  I unveil the true identity of Con-Glom-O (pulling back the curtain):

UnitedHealthcare. 

As Forrest Gump said, "That's all I have to say about that."

Workplace hazard

Conglom-0 tried to kill me today. There has been a known issue at work with our particular kind of flat-panel monitors that everybody got about a year and a half ago..... basically the monitor, which is a 19" NEC flat panel, sometimes breaks off its mount and goes crashing down onto the employee's desk. Apparently the plastic pieces holding it on just gives out and SNAP there it goes.  Until now this always happens in the overnight hours, and a few people have come in to find their monitors crashed on their desks.

Well today I came in and noticed that my monitor was tipping forward a little too much. Uh-oh. I called IS and warned them, but that was at about 6:30am and the techs don't even come in until 8:00 so I just had to hope for the best. So over the next hour I sat there and watched that thing tipping towards me and just wondering WHEN it was going to happen. Those things are heavy!! 

At about 7:30 it happened, and luckily I was not in the way. I was sitting back just enough that nothing hit me except the shrapnel of my pen which had been on my desk. It was shattered into a hundred pieces when the monitor hit it. Everybody came running over to see if I was okay, and not startled into labor. LOL. Some people joked that maybe it scared the baby enough to make him turn the right way! Oh if only.

My friend Joanna documented the carnage with her camera phone:

cleaning out my desk of motivational tokens

Oh yes! Here's another Conglom-O post.  Today I was cleaning out my desk in preparation for my leave, and I threw out my folder of old certificates. You won't believe the stuff they used to give these dumb little certificates for, and people would actually proudly pin them up in their cubes like it was something to be proud of. Look at all this crap!!!  Notice there is nothing much after about 2003.... that's because they stopped giving certificates for anything, or paltry recognition for anything whatsoever.

Rookie of the Year July 2002

Certificate of Appreciation: 2 years of service-2003

Certificate of Appreciation: 1 year of service-2002

Most Valuable processor- accuracy: October 2002

Good Housekeeping Award: January 2003

Most Valuable processor- accuracy: April 2003

Certificate of Achievement: completing "Managing Your Career"  March 2002

participating in CAG Focus Group April 2002

Certificate of Achievement: completing "Conflict Management"  March 2002

Certificate of Achievement: completing "Time Management"  Dec 2002

Group Enrollment UAT testing--date unknown

Cal Ripken Award (perfect attendance)  3rd quarter 2003

New Hire Curriculum Focus Group Feb 2002

Certificate of Achievement: completing "Myers-Briggs"  Feb 2004

Certificate of Completion: New Business Quoting Site Training May 2003

Certificate of Appreciation: awarded one dress down day  June 2003

Certificate of Achievement: completing "Mastering Change"  Aug 2003

4 Year Anniversary

2005 Winning Team 2005 Raffle Ticket Competition

5 Year Anniversary

Conglom-o's attempt at forced suicide failed again.

Well, there's really not much going on around here but I thought I'd post since I have an hour to kill before Dog Whisperer comes on.  This entire week sucked, all Con-Glom-O's fault, and I am so glad it's over. We had some really tricky weather today and had I known how bad it was I would not have gone out at all. So I was slip-sliding all over the road this morning, and did this lovely 360 spin-out on one of our nice unplowed roads, those are GREAT. The rest of my white-knuckled ride to work was enjoyed with the smell of my burning tires, and being blinded in the side mirrors by a pickup truck who was trying to attach himself to my back bumper (luckily in this case I have no rearview mirror, otherwise I'd still be seeing spots). Finally rolled up to work and carried my pregnant self up the stairs on rubbery legs and weak knees where I spent about 20 minutes just sitting at my desk, stunned, trying to recompose myself. Yeah, that stuff is scary and nauseating.

And the nice folks at Con-Glom-O (those in "leadership" anyway) never once came around to check on the shmucks who drove in this morning to see if we survived or not. At least we know where we stand. We all know they could care less if we live or die.  I think I was dumb.  I noticed none of the other pregnant women were there today, they were smart.

Tomorrow-big day!-we're going out to order our baby furniture and to see about a NEW MATTRESS!!  Yeah!  Our thin mattress is a good 13+ years old and poor Dave has springs sticking into him (through the ghetto egg crate cushion) when he lies down, so it's way past time for a new one. Maybe we'll all sleep a lot better now.  We have been looking forward to this for a long time.

I'm feeling the love.

The word of the day is: weather. The weather is on a lot of people's minds today, what with huge storms in Chicago, D.C., and starting tonight.... New England. Here are a few snippets from the forecast regarding Tuesday night, Wednesday day, and Wednesday night:

• Heavy snow warning remains in effect from midnight tonight to midnight est Wednesday night, This will have a significant impact on the wednesday morning rush hour. In fact, snow may be falling at 1 to 2 inches per hour early Wednesday morning, limiting visibilities to a quarter mile at times. The snow will continue heavy at times on Wednesday.
• Near-blizzard conditions will be possible Wednesday afternoon and evening across northwest Massachusetts and southwest New Hampshire as the winds increase. Both the morning and evening commutes on Wednesday are expected to be treacherous.
• Travel will be slow at best on well treated surfaces, and quite difficult on any unplowed or untreated surfaces.

So of course you know where I'm going with this.... Con-Glom-O's winter weather policy!!  Woohoo!   Today we got no less than 2 different emails and 1 talking-to about showing up tomorrow. I decided this would be great blogging material, so I sent some of those home to myself so I could share with you here. ::giggle::

"We are carefully monitoring the inclement weather conditions that are expected to develop at or after midnight tonight. Many schools and day care providers may take precautionary measures to close as a result of this impending storm. You should expect that both of our NH offices will be open for normal business hours tomorrow to ensure we provide acceptable levels of service to our various customers and providers. If you have concerns regarding your personal safety and can not work your regularly scheduled hours, you will need to contact your Team Leader or Manager."

"It is important to note that Con-Glom-O will only close the site for extreme weather conditions. Con-Glom-O does not follow the school closings schedule." (note to parents: we don't care if you have someone to watch your kids or not!) (oh, and troops with machine guns? That's not extreme enough)

"Employees are expected to make every effort to arrive on time for the start of their shift."

"Please remember, even if it snows, the business casual dress code remains in place." (meaning, don't even think about wearing your snowboots in 12 inches of snow, we want you shoveling out your car in heels!)

My boss told us all that we should plan to bring small shovels in our cars because the plows will plow us into the parking spaces during the day tomorrow. (and don't forget to wear your nice dress pants!)

The latest

Here are the latest tidbits of what Con-Glom-O has been up to lately..... it's always something.

Let me describe for your our working environment. Picture this: a huge open floor space completely covered by a sea of gray cubes, gray walls, gray carpet, flourescent overhead lighting... as far as the eye can see, cube farm. So every so often, dotted on top of the cubes are these little planter boxes of nice green plants. A little hint of something green and living is a nice touch, no? They have a plant company come in once a week to water them. Well, a week or two ago, they started removing the plants. They took about half of them away (and there really weren't all that many to start with). When asked why the plants were being removed, the guy said they were reducing costs of maintence, labor, etc. We're not talking orchids here people!! These are just boxes of plain ol' philodendrons which any idiot can grow.  The air quality in that place is really gross, so I'm sorry to see any source of oxygen go away.

• Next topic....  so you know how employee benefits work, right? You choose which health care plan you want and they tell you up front how much is going to be deducted out of your paycheck for it. No surprises. Well, it seems that various employees with specific health conditions and diseases have been getting letters sent to their homes telling them that because they are taking prescription meds that are very expensive, they will be charged more out of pocket for their benefits than everybody else. Hello, discrimination!??  What company does this? I soooo did not think that was even legal.   And I won't even touch on the fact that the health plans are terrible.... the only options are very high deductible HSA plans.

Someday if I ever have the good fortune not to work there any more I will tell you the real name of Con-Glom-O. But for now I will just tell you that they are in 46 states and I guarantee you there is one near you. I'm sure every single one of you out there either has, or knows somebody who has insurance through this company.  Oh, and AARP? They own that too.

This is a scrapbook layout I made about my cube farm a looooong time ago. I think it was so long ago that I actually made it for Paperkutz. I've tried to have it picked up but to no avail. Notice how the text gets bigger and bigger? That's me screaming. :)

OK, just one more

Just one more little nugget about Con-Glom-O and I will drop the subject for a while. :) Bear with me. The Winter Weather Policy does not only apply for wintry weather, but pretty much any Act of God that might befall the roads.

Back in May of this past year, maybe those of you in different parts of the country might not remember this, but up here in New Hampshire we had what they are calling the Hundred Year Flood. Whole towns were under water, including the one where I live and the neighboring one where Con-Glom-O is located. Bridges were washed out, roads were closed and the whole town was Closed for All Traffic. Many many people lost their entire houses. This is easy enough to understand, yes?

And yet come Monday May 15, we eagerly dialed the hotline at work to hear the beautiful recording stating that the office was closed for the day due to flooding. And yet it never happened. The office was OPEN, regular business hours. Meaning you better get your butt over there or you-know-what will happen.

So let's review.

1. The roads were CLOSED. They were underwater and bridges were literally washed out.
2. Actually the entire TOWN was CLOSED to anyone not driving an emergency vehicle.
3. (this is the best one) There were National Guard troops standing in the middle of the roads with machine guns and tanks telling people to go back because it wasn't safe.

And yet Con-Glom-O remained open. Most people, myself included, could not get to work that day (and I actually did try). We all had to take an unplanned day. Later they changed that to "planned" but we still had to take a whole day out of our own vacation time.