Easter Baked Treats

For Easter I decided to try two new recipes.

The first was Yellow Cake with Salted Chocolate Ganache. Yellow cake with chocolate icing is my favorite, and as soon as I saw the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, I was in. The result?

It was delicious! I made only 1 change to the recipe. Based on advice from my baking consultant (aka my mom), I used 2/3 semisweet and 1/3 milk chocolate instead of the dark. As usual, Mom was right.

Speaking of Mom, I was at her house last weekend when I came across a recipe for cranberry biscuits in Joanne Fluke's latest Hannah Swenson novel. I asked Mom if she thought they'd be good for Easter, and she thought they would.

The family consensus was this recipe is definitely a keeper!

I'd like to mention a special thanks to my former coworker's chickens. They provided the farm fresh eggs that helped my treats be so delicious.Keep up the good work ladies!

15 True Tales of Job Interview Embarrassment

I had to share this post from the Evil HR is Lady. There is some true entertainment value contained therein.

What I've learned at work so far this week

Work can teach you many things, and often the most interesting ones are those that have nothing to do with your job. Here is mine for this week- Did you know the IRS can put a hold on professional licenses? We had a customer tell us yesterday that she was trying to get a pharmacy tech license. It was taking forever, so she called to find out why. She owes back taxes for 2002, and she is no longer in compliance with her payment plan. So, the IRS has put a block on her application.

Life lesson: Don't mess with the IRS. Why did Al Capone go to jail? Tax evasion. The IRS is in it to win it.

Someone who's been where you are

Sometimes you speak with people, and you can tell they are familiar with the situation you are describing. Recently I was answering a caller's general questions about filing for unemployment. I stressed with him, as I do with many customers, that it is a long process between filing and payment, usually 3-6 weeks. What he told me next showed he understood exactly what I was saying.

"I worked for government. There was 1 speed- super slow. Things got done when they got done."

Yes, he's definitely been where I am.

Go big if they want you to leave home- Update

The customer whose ex-boyfriend offered her $2k to move out of his house should have taken him up on that offer. She came by the office last week upset because he's moved in his daughter, the daughter's boyfriend, and their huge dog. The huge dog kept her up all night with his barking. I wanted to tell her- he wants you out, and this is the next step in his plan. The customer has been working full time for 2 months and has no expenses other than food, car insurance, and gas. How much money has she saved? $0. I don't see this situation ending well for her, and she has no one to blame but herself. Reality can be a tough kick in the tush sometimes.

Garfield is not a special character in this sense

Today a customer was having trouble creating a password for the state unemployment website that met the system requirements. I reviewed them with her.

Passwords must contain:
- At least 8 characters
- A minimum of one of each of the following

• Upper case letter
• Lower case letter
• Number
• Special character 

She then wrote out what she wanted to use "Garfield1963". I told her that wouldn't work since it lacked a special character. She looked at me in complete seriousness and said "Garfield is a special character".

My next job is so not going to feature working with the public.

Another great day at work

Last week our area got our 2nd major snow storm in two weeks. It started falling late Wednesday and lasted until the next morning.  Our office was of course open. The building in which we are housed was closed, also no surprise. My coworker and I both made it in. We had several calls throughout the day asking if we were open. How many customers actually came? 1.

It was simply a glorious day. I had packed an activity bag the night before in anticipation of such an event. It contained a DVD, my e-reader, a real book, a coloring book, colored pencils, and a word search book. I didn't even get to all of these, but I like to be prepared. Best day at this job ever.