No-knead foccacia tiles

During one of my recent spates of cleaning and organizing, I came across this recipe that I'd copied from an issue of Better Homes and Gardens over 2 years ago. I decided to make it last week. It was SO easy. Almost no effort at all really. Behold the finished product:

Toppings are (clockwise from upper right): blue cheese, parmesan cheese, pepperoni, roasted red peppers, green olives, and limes. Yum yum. I'd recommend pizza or spaghetti sauce for dipping. I think the tiles would also be great cut into smaller strips as an accompaniment for soup.

You can't make this stuff up

Recently my friend's coworker, Y.U., sent me two posts from this blog via my friend. Y.U. thought I'd like them. She was right. I now share them with you, along with my thoughts.

Story #1
1. LOVE the peep picture that accompanies the story. How awesome is that?
2. I have a purple glitter pen. It's great. I wouldn't use it on a job application personally, but I wouldn't get too bent out of shape if someone else did.
3. How on earth do you spell your own name wrong, TWICE?
4. My teammate's favorite part was the person can't work weekends "cuz" she's hung over. Nice command of the English language. (also note the person referred to Friday and Saturday as weekends. Last time I checked weekends were Saturday and Sunday.)
4. Can you imagine watching the fake nail fly off and hit the person in the eye? It would be hilarious as long as you weren't the recipient.
5. My  teammate asked what job this person would be qualified for. "I'm serious" she said. I think probably one similar to that illustrated in the peep photo.

Story #2
1. Completely agree with the concluding sentence. I'd also add "your spouse, significant other, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc.". Unless you are so sick you can't make the call yourself, no one but you needs to be having work related conversations with your boss. Period.
2. Does this lady not get that part of the reason he's the way he is could stare her in the mirror every day? Hello.
3. If he'd driving you crazy, kick him out. It's your house. He's an adult. Tell him it's time to figure it out.
4. A point about discrimination: people oftentimes fail to understand this term. Discriminate means to differentiate. If you don't believe me, google it. We all discriminate every day.  I discriminate when I stop at the red light and go when it turns green. You can do the same with people. For example, you can say "I'm not hiring anyone under 30". That is not illegal. However, you can't say "I'm not hiring anyone over 30." That is an illegal form of discrimination- age. Note that it only applies to people 40 and over. Crazy, yes, but true.

I hope you enjoyed these stories as much as I did. Thanks to Y.U. for sending them to me. As I told my mom and one of the commenters noted, you can't make this stuff up. Before I would worked in HR, I would never have believed these stories were true. I do now.

A bonus story from today: A person being interviewed spent most of the time tell his prospective boss the things she should be doing. This made one of other attendees so nervous she later said she felt like she was having a panic attack. Finally the manager got so mad she said "I'm the X Manager. You don't need to tell me how to do my job". With that, she got up and walked out of the room.

Elves and Pixies

Today I overhead our IT manager (we'll call him I) tell our electrical contractor "if you have to use elves and pixies to get it done". This company is installing the data cables for our office, which is being entirely relocated on Friday. I is not known for his planning and organization skills, and I've pegged him as the most likely one to have a nervous breakdown during the move.  He didn't look happy today, and I told someone I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown just then. The contractor didn't look happy either based on the body language I saw. I also heard them say "We are just building to scope" meaning what our design is.

If I had to guess where the fault lies here, I'll go with I. Three days before the move is probably not the time to be addressing whatever this issue is. This all should have been confirmed quite some time ago. Someone asked a member of the move team if they had tested the phone lines, etc. in our new office space (which is still not done yet by the way). The answer was "No, we are just going to hope everything works". NICE. Let's just say that Tuesday morning could prove very interesting.

Oh no he didn't

Today a woman came to the front window and said "Is there a restroom I can use? I'm waiting for someone". I told her yes and how to find it. I then looked at my teammate, and we both started laughing. We had both figured out that she was waiting in the car for someone who was interviewing. Now, I shouldn't have to tell you NOT to bring people to your job interview with you, whether you leave them in the car or not. I later saw her sitting in our cafeteria. Did she ask anyone if she could hang out? Not that I know of. Not a good impression at all.

Here's the best part though. Was the person interviewing for an entry level position where one somehow might not know how poor etiquette this is? Nope. He was interviewing to be the Assistant HR director for our $100 million+ company. As my teammate said "Oh no he didn't. Yes he did."

And you have HOW much of my money?

Two weeks ago my coworker, the benefits queen, was on vacation. In her absence, my boss forwarded me a voicemail he'd received from our 401(k) provider. One of our associates was in the process of rolling over her 401(k) from her last job into our plan. All that was needed was my boss's signature as plan administrator. I looked for the form in the two places I could think of, but I was unable to find it. I contacted the provider, and the person said she'd e-mail me the form. She did, but she sent me a BLANK FORM. Not so helpful.

I called back. After briefly searching, this person was able to find the completed form. She e-mailed me the page required, I had my boss sign it, then I sent it back to her. Not long after that, a third person from the company e-mailed and said all they had was page 1 and that we needed to fill out the rest of the form. Um, no. The page my boss signed was page 4, so obviously they had more than page 1. Person #2 had found the entire form and said we only needed page 4 signed. I told person #3 this.

Fast forward a few days. I get a voicemail from person #2 stating she'd never received the form. I e-mailed it to her AGAIN, and I left her a voicemail asking her to call and confirm that everything was fine. It's been over a week, and I've heard nothing.

This process has not left me with a warm fuzzy. This is one of the largest 401(k) plan providers in the country, and they are completely unorganized. They have over a decade's worth of 401(k) contributions I've made. This is no small sum. Whenever I leave this job, I am rolling it over into an IRA for sure.

Jerry Spring LIVE from my front porch

This afternoon I was sitting out on my porch reading.  All of a sudden, I hear some noise and see a young guy carrying a tree limb. Behind him is a young lady, followed by a middle aged guy. And they are running after each other into and down the alley. At first I thought they were joking around, but it soon dawned on me they weren't. I then thought "Do I need to call 9-1-1?". I considered it, but I couldn't hear them after a bit and figured maybe it had calmed down. Guess what I hear about a minute or so later? Yep, the police (I live just a few blocks from the police station). Another neighbor had indeed called.

I got the scoop soon after from some of the neighbors. It seems baby daddy (young guy) and baby momma (young lady) had gotten into it over a cell phone. Yes, a cell phone. She either slipped or was pushed (depending on who was telling the story) in the altercation and ended up with a huge abrasion down her side. Her dad (aka middle aged guy or baby grandpa) was the other person in the pursuit. And of course, it seems the actual baby was there for most or all of this. Nice. Somehow no one went to jail, and when all was said and done I watched baby daddy ride away on his bike. And by bike I mean bicycle.

How great is it that I don't even have to look for things to put on this blog? I can just sit on my very own porch and the stories come to me. As I've been telling people, it was like watching a live episode of Jerry Springer.

Crazy in action

Today my coworker and I were talking to one of the contractors (we'll call him X) who's been working on our facility expansion. He said they're about done with their portion of the work. I asked if he knew where his next job would be. He said he didn't, but that he hoped it was close to home. He lives 1.5 hours from our site, and he and another guy from his company (who happens to be his boss and his dad) are renting an apartment to stay in during the week. I mentioned that his coworker C (for Crazy, you'll understand soon) had an even farther drive, but C had dogs and he had to take care of them. I said I'd find someone to watch those dogs for me. At this point X says that C could have his wife do that. I didn't know that C was married. He's never mentioned it, and I talk to him on a "hi, how are you" basis quite frequently. X said "well, last thing I knew they were still married." He indicated the relationship has been complicated. Then he dropped the bomb "She shot him once". WHAT?!?! He then told us the story.

It seems C was working a job site away from home, and he had a girlfriend at this location. The wife found out about it, drove there, and at the end of lunch break SHOT HIM IN THE STOMACH. Yikes. He, of course, had to go to the hospital. X said he's pretty sure charges were never filed. Then he added "She's a stripper. That's how C met her." He also stated that for several years a picture of her decorated the inside of the crew's job box. That came to an end when employees at a company where they were working complained. I said she must not have had on regular clothes or no one would have complained. X said "She was on the pole". Classy. I gave X a piece of advice "Learn what C's wife looks like, and if you see her on a job site, run away as fast as you can".

Think C for crazy is appropriate?