Reminder

I. feel. amazing! after working out.  I need to make sure I do this every day, so I wanted to remind myself somewhere.

EVERY DAY.

Luckily today it was sunny and a decent temperature to work out after work today, so I could go on my run.  I forget how much I love it until I'm actually about 10 minutes into it.  After that point, something in my brain clicks off and I zone out.  I go into a mechanical auto-pilot.  I don't think up amazing ideas during my runs like some people do--my brain completely shuts down, in a very good way.  Kind of like taking a nap?

Today was also Day 1 of the four day interview of this girl who applied for my officemate's position (officemate is getting her PhD).  I'm on the interview panel, and it is totally great that I get to weigh in on who I am going to work closely with, but four days...what are they thinking?!  It went well, but I could tell that she is bewildered about the length of the interview.  She left her city at midnight last night, arrived in Auckland at 6 am, and went straight from the airport to our office building to start her interview.  I can't imagine...a full day interview on no sleep?!  Poor thing...

My portion of the day was just getting to know her and seeing if we could get along well enough to do the job together if my bosses decide that she fits the position.  I also was in charge of telling her about the job and the specific details of the projects that I do, and getting a feel for whether she could handle the duties of the position & had the necessary background.  She seems fantastic, and I'd think she'd fit in just fine.

But still, this other freelancer girl is vying for the position.  She already fits in well and is doing the work required of the position.  She basically has it locked.  I don't know what is going to happen now.  I feel so bad for this interview girl, that she is spending so much time and energy on this!

To add insult to injury, our in-house asst. director, who is for some reason in charge of her schedule, surprised the interview girl today and told her she had to give a presentation on Wednesday.  A day and a half away.  Whhaaaaa??  That should definitely be something that is communicated to the interviewee before traveling 6 hours by plane.  This isn't a test of her flexibility, either--it is just that our guy is SO BAD at his job that he failed to tell her until today.  I think I would have started crying if someone told me that during a four day interview.

He also decided, on a whim, that my officemate and I were going to dinner with her tonight.  Unfortunately, we both have plans this evening, so we can't make it.  That just makes us look really bad as a company!  How about checking with me before you schedule my off-time, buddy?! Also, he scheduled me to give her a tour of our labs tomorrow at 2 pm, but I already have another meeting at that time that I can't get out of!  AND the lab managers need at least three days' notice if they are needed after 1 pm, because of their semi-retirement schedule.  He also thinks that we can walk from campus to a restaurant that is 15 minutes away, order, eat, and walk back in an hour.  Hahahaha.  I told him my suggestions for his schedule last week (not knowing that *I* was the one doing the lab tour), but he didn't change one thing on it.  I've already complained to my bosses that this was unacceptable and completely unprofessional.

Also weird?  I don't think they are advertising this position.  I can't find any evidence of it online and the interview girl told me that she heard about it through one of my bosses.  Maybe my boss is trying to keep my old co-worker from finding out about it because she told my old coworker that there was no money for her position anymore when she didn't renew her contract?  (In reality, my boss didn't like working with this particular employee, nor did anyone else.) Odd...

Time To Live Alone?

I don't know what is going on with me lately, but for the past few months, I've been really annoyed at my roommate.  Even before the garage debacle, things were building up.  Now?  I just find myself avoiding her and going into my room straight after getting home.  I work out, make dinner, eat it at my desk in my room while working or watching TV online, shower, and then retreat back to my room.  Over and over.  I just can't handle socialization sometimes...a lot of times, lately.

Things just build up, and like a bad marriage, I just get so angry at the tiniest little things.  I have certain 'rules' about the way that I live and maintain my household, and while I don't expect everyone to adhere to them 24-7, 100% of the time, I do expect a base level of decency.

I feel like I told her my trigger issues when she moved in, but she still does them!  Even with reminders!  Can I just vent and list the things here and you can tell me if I'm being crazy?

• leaves dishes out for DAYS at a time. Days. I will wash a roommate's dishes once in a while to be nice, but not every day.  My rule for myself is I wash them within 24 hours of dirtying, unless I have an extremely busy and/or forgetful day.  Even with that rule, my dishes are usually washed within 2-3 hours of the meal.  Exceptions are when I have a late night snack--I do those dishes the next morning.  When I left my breakfast dishes in the sink the other day because I needed to get to work, I sent her a text to apologize for the mess and said I'd clean them when I got home.  Courtesy.
• Likewise, doesn't wipe the counters after preparing a meal.  No one is that clean.
• does not clear out the dryer lint.  EVER.  OMG, this is my #1 pet peeve!!!  (How weird is that?)  I came home from my 2 month trip, and the lint trap was choking.  She clearly hadn't cleaned it in 2 months!!!  When we got the dryer, I told her how important it was for fire hazard & energy efficiency reasons (and for my sanity) for her to clear it out every time.  A few weeks ago, I showed her AGAIN how to do it and told her that it could catch fire.  Did she start cleaning it? N.O.
• she is scared of the garbage disposal, yet uses it and in fact throws things down it that she knows cannot go down it.  Again, this was made clear when she moved in:  no citrus peels, it'll break it.  Today I found a teaspoon in it.  Now, I am totally frightened of the thing, having seen too many gory scary movies, but I don't let that stop me from fixing it.  She also doesn't turn it on.  EVER.  It just fills up and stinks up the place all day.  Grrr.
• I recently discovered that she turns on the shower and lets it run for 15 minutes before even getting in.  WHY?????  All it does is confuse me, because I think she's in the bathroom and that the bathroom is therefore unavailable, when in fact, it IS available.  Not to mention the wasted hot water/electricity.  The shower curtain gets mildewy because she crumples it up in one corner after showering, and she drops water all over the floor, so I can't wear socks in there.  I get so grossed out by wet socks...(I know the last two sentences are totally nitpicky.)
• Likewise, when I get home, EVERY light in the entire apartment is on, regardless of the room she is sitting in.  Kitchen, bathroom, entry way, balcony, living room, her room, doesn't matter--they are all on, sucking up energy and wasting our electricity.  Particularly disturbing is that the living room lights are on the ceiling, which is 20 feet high and therefore completely inaccessible to either of us shorties.  Once those lights go out, we aren't getting them replaced for months, until my landlord's fixit guy can come over, and one of us is home.
• lack of guest warning etiquette. Particularly when guys are over, I need to get a warning so I can not walk into the kitchen in my white tank and short pajama shorts with no bra on, like I did last week when two of her guy friends came in the apartment at 11:30 pm on a Wednesday.  AWKWARD.  And her boyfriend is always coming over at random times nowadays.  I don't mind him now, but when they first started dating, there was zero warning that there was a guy in the apartment that I didn't know.  ZERO.  My roommate was in the shower one morning (I saw her enter the bathroom while going to the kitchen), and while preparing my breakfast, I hear a noise that is decidedly NOT coming from the bathroom and then a guy walks into my living room.  Had never met him before, ever.  And he's in my house at 6:30 am.  NOT COOL.
• never takes out the garbage bins to the curb.  never ever.  when she does take out the trash, she puts it in other people's bins.  
• I guess I shouldn't complain about this in the face of the other issues, but she has weird cleaning habits.  Like, I have a face towel I use every. single. day.  I get it wet every morning, and hang it on the hook to dry.  Every day, it is back in the cabinet, and I have to take it out.  Every. day.  Why on earth is she wasting time folding it and putting it away when I obviously use it daily?!
• I swear she uses a third of the toilet paper roll every time she uses it.  The roll is changed every other day.  It ain't me using it all up!  I use like two squares to pee!  I don't want to be a total TP Nazi about it, but sheesh, I refuse to buy nice TP if it is wasted like that.
• She wads up TP & overflows the bathroom trash (a ha! the mystery is solved), why not put it in the toilet instead of on the floor?!   And why not put a plastic bag in the bathroom trash to control the germs?

Oh man, there are so many more of these.  I think that, as much as I love my apartment and sharing rent and utilities expenses, I need to seriously consider living on my own when she moves out.  Given the situation with her boyfriend, I think it is only a matter of time before they move in together--I give it 6 months before this happens!  Especially if she has similar complaints about me or my nagging to correct the above.

GREAT Customer Service!

One of the tools of my trade is a waterproof notebook for note taking in the field. In them, I write down pertinent observations and sketches. The data collected in the field goes into databases and reports. If it rains or the notebook falls into a stream, the notebooks HAVE to hold together and my writing still be legible.

Thank God for Rite In The Rain notebooks--they are waterproof and come in all different sizes and adapted for all sorts of professions. If it is important to my profession and can be written down on paper, my notebook has it in the handy reference section in the back.

This company is known as the top of the line of fieldgear for my occupation, and for many other professions in which some work takes place outside. They are...the Prada of fieldwork. In all honesty, I'd rather have REI hiking boots than Prada high heels, anyway.

Recently I went out in the field with my 2 year old field notebook. It rained for three days straight, and I was filthy, muddy, and waterlogged. I dropped my field notebook in the mud, and it held up just fine. After one day, though, water started to seep into the edges of the pages in my Rite in the Rain notebook. I decided to complain about this, since that is NOT supposed to happen. I simply went to their website, clicked on the email link to complain, and sent my letter.

The next day, I got a very courteous reply asking for the batch number. I sent that in, and the same guy that answered my original complaint letter decided to send me a free notebook to replace my half-used, waterlogged one! (Yay!)

Anyway, this all happened in less than a week. Personal, immediate replies and a happy resolution to a complaint. Kudos to Rite in the Rain!

Complaining Pays Off, In More Ways Than One

When I complained about my dental visit a little while ago on this blog, I also put my sentiments into a letter written on the Lumino site feedback form. I very nicely explained my disatisfaction with my visit, and how horribly inept I found the dentist's technique to be.

I hate to get anyone in trouble at their job, especially someone that was nice to me and really tried, and honestly, I wasn't sure that anything would come of my complaint...but I felt that I needed the company to know how I felt, and hopefully the complaints would add up to some change if others felt the same way.

Anyway, I got a phone call today from the head office of Lumino. They read my letter, were trying to figure out what to do, and sincerely apologized for my experience. Not only that, they decided to run it by their head manager, who managed all the offices on the North Island of NZ, and she tentatively approved refunding my cleaning fee of $95. (I didn't ASK for that specifically, btw--I said that I was happy with the other portions of my visit, but not the cleaning, and said that I hoped that they'd take my complaint into consideration, as I was moving on to another dental office for my next visit.)

So, I gave them my bank details over the phone (which isn't taboo here in NZ, btw--EVERYONE that pays you and that you pay have your bank details, but payments have to be initiated by YOU). They are also sending me my X-rays, since I wouldn't be coming back to their office.

Apparently the head manager was going to meet with them and they'd discuss my letter sometime this week to try and improve the situation.

WOW! I may stand corrected on my view of NZ businesses in general and the Lumino company in specific--this is certainly the largest reaction I've gotten from any company that I've complained to. Usually, I get a $25 gift card and a form letter on the rare occasions that I truly feel inspired to complain!