Me vs The Office Cleric

I normally don’t write about work, particularly when I still work at any given location. Exceptions can - and have - been made, but for them most part I’ve decided not to bite the hand that feeds. This is just sound logic for a number of reasons, not the least of which are that I live in a small town, someone might actually read this, and I can’t afford to get fired.

That said, this isn’t about work per se, but more of a dive into the lengths that I will go to in order to entertain myself in the office, where life can rapidly oscillate between chugging along like my own office-bound version of Thomas the Tank Engine, and “the world is basically on fire now” levels of chaos. So, in order to keep myself from succumbing to the pandemonium, I’ve been trying to find creative ways to lighten the mood and find fun.

And so I bring you today’s offering: The Office Cleric.

Patent pending, or maybe a trademark….is that a thing I can do?

For those of you not familiar with the Office Cleric™ (which I have to assume is everyone since I just made it up. Also, google didn’t immediately tell me this wasn’t an original concept: Office Clerk - yes, Office Cleric™ - no) then let me explain.

It’s time for a lesson in etymology, which is different from entomology. We’re not here to talk about bugs.

Back in the before times, and more specifically ancient Greece, the Greeks borrowed parts of words from late Latin; basically, very little, if anything is actually new. Except Office Cleric™. That is (maybe) new.

The Greeks took the Latin word clēricus, put it through an antiquated google translate system, and came out with κληρικός; and for those of you in the back who have let your ancient Greek lapse, this more or less says klērikós (or at least it does according to Wikipedia….where all the best low level research is done)

To make a historically (and probably inaccurate) long story short, all these words basically mean the idea of casting lots or drawing names for public servant positions. Many of the public offices in Athens were staffed this way.

In summary, while the term cleric used to refer to public servants doing clerical work, the more modern understanding of cleric is primarily associated to clergy members, or more commonly, to a debatably mediocre character class in games like Dungeons and Dragons. Those of us working in offices are now more commonly referred to as clerical staff (same historical base word....see, we all learned something together!), which is a term I hate with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. 

But I intend to bring cleric back to its original etymological roots. While I realize my obscure humour is lost on some, I would like to propose that all of us public servants out there be referred to as Office Clerics™ moving forward, because it’s just so much more epic then admin, steno, clerk, assistant or any number of other diminishing terms for who we are and how much we do. Cleric implies that I know things. I see things. I can make or break your day. Much more fun. 

The concept of the Office Cleric™ feels more fitting, because much like the D&D clerics who hold parties together with their versatile fighting and healing skills, we make offices run, which frequently feels very much like doing battle and salving metaphorical wounds. Furthermore, Clerics can repel or control undead creatures, and I would argue that depending on the mood that day, and the amount of coffee people have had, I basically shepherd the undead as well, making sure things still get done despite the zombies.

In closing, I’d just like to say that I’ve probably put waaaay too much thought into this in the interest of a good story. I’d also like to say that I have no regrets, because I now have my very own Office Cleric™ sign at my desk for all to see and squint at questioningly because they have absolutely no idea what I’m on about.

“I am a conduit of the gods themselves. The armies of the dead fear my presence.” – D&D, probably

….but also good for an Office Cleric.

Me vs Writer's Block

It's been an abhorrent amount of time since I sat down to actually write, and while you can't see it due to careful editing, this sentence alone has had so many typos and missed keystrokes that it's embarrassing. I could blame covid for my writing gap, and in part I probably should as it really made so many things worse, but also I just seem to have lost my writing voice for a time. 

Where ideas and words used to flow freely, the last few years have felt more like a grinding march forward than an inspiring time to share my thoughts. There's so many bleak current events (I've stopped watching the news), house disasters (we'll get there eventually), and a never ending pile of laundry to get through to allow myself time to create a good atmosphere for my brain to agree to my demands for good content. 

Which isn't to say that nothing has been good. Despite the current state of the world, and my own anxiety-ridden corner of it, I can say with absolute certainty that it could very definitely be worse. While we've had our fair share of disasters, I'm going to try to turn them in to adventures, and the crises into funny stories, because let's be honest, humor is my trauma-crutch. 

What has truly surprised me though, is that a number of people have reached out to tell me over the last year they really enjoyed my writing and want to see more. I started this mostly for something to do, and because it was fun to turn my experiences into comedy, but I never really thought anyone but my mom would read it, and that's only because she's contractually obligated to be nice to me and tell me I'm special. 

So to those out there who have said nice things and offered support, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I can sledge hammer my way through this writer's block on the wings of this encouragement. 

I hope to bring you new and wild tales of my house, which is most definitely trying to kill me, updates on gnomes, and insight into why I am...well...like I am. 

And then I'm going to buy a new keyboard because typing on this sticky-keyed nightmare is just a special kind of hell. 

Until next time...

 

Me vs The Cell Phone Company

 I'm going to depart for a minute from the sailing, because I just can't let this particular story go. It's still unfolding, but the summary version is that just when you think it can't get any more stupid, it will. 

So our story begins with a telephone offer to switch phone companies. I'd been with the original company for 20 years (and sweet mother of all that is good, does that ever make me sound ancient). The name of the original company is irrelevant for now...we will see how the transition goes, but so far so good. The new company, however, we will call Toolus. I wouldn't want to accidentally identify anybody, so Toolus. 

The Toolus rep called and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Discounts, waived activation fee (which by the way, is the singly bullshittiest of all fees), and a new phone. Cool. I wanted a day to think about it, so she would call me back the next evening? Call one complete, and it was mostly painless.  I was nervous to switch, but as my husband pointed out, brand loyalty was getting me nowhere, so I took the plunge and agreed to move my services over. 

When she called back the following night, we again went over all the details. Discounts on each monthly bill, waived activation fee, new phone. Cool. Let's do it. And then, at the very end of the call, she quickly reiterated what I would see on the first bill which would begin when I received the phone and ported my number over: discount, new phone cost, and the $40 activation fee. The phone would arrive in 4-5 days.

Wait, what?

I *should* have backed out right there. I didn't. Because I was dumb. Instead what I said was "Activation fee??? I could have sworn this was specifically discussed in both this call and the last one as something that would be waived." She backed right up and stumbled over a few calming phrases, clicked away on her keyboard, and then told me that it was taken care of, no activation fee would be applied. Cool. 

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, on day 9 I got my first bill! I still didn't have a phone, but that hadn't stopped them from charging me on a phone plan that I couldn't use. And once I opened up that bill, I noticed a few key things. One, not only had they charged me the activation fee, but it wasn't $40, it was $45; not objectively a huge difference, but given that it wasn't supposed to be there at all, I was...annoyed. They also hadn't applied the discount I was promised, and maybe more concerning was that I'd been billed since Nov 8, and by the 16th I still didn't have the phone, so I shouldn't have been charged at all according to the agreement that I'd made. To say that I was unhappy, wouldn't quite capture the severity of my feelings that day. 

So I looked up the help desk number, which took some time because the website is like a fucking rabbit hole, and in some cases, actually has pictures of rabbits on it. And if you've ever had the chance to experience the absolute joy of calling a Toolus help desk, you'll understand this next part. If not, may you never have to.  

Once I made it through the flurry of voice activated menus, I was kindly informed that the wait time would be upwards of an hour. Did I want them to hold my place in line and call me back at this number? Yes, yes I did! This has to be one of the best/most actually helpful help desk options, and so far, I didn't feel like gnawing off my leg to get out of an ever tightening trap. I was an idiot. 

Two hours later, still no call back. So I used a different phone to call back and leave a different call back number to increase my chances, because why not? Another hour and a half later I finally got a call back on the second number. (I never did get a call back on my original number). Let the games begin. 

The rep, to his credit, was very good, and got the bill sorted out. My phone was probably just stuck in the mail, and it would arrive soon, and all would be well. He even sent me everything in writing, so next time I wouldn't be relying on my quickly fading hope that someone on the other end of the phone had actually written down call notes that supported what I was saying. I was still not happy with Toolus, and it definitely felt like most of what I'd been originally told was utter shit, and the only reason things were still on track was because I'd spent half my day navigating their punishing phone system, but I was cautiously optimistic that maybe the worst was over.

It was not. Not even close. 

The next day my phone finally arrived. Day 10. But that was ok, the stars were aligned and everything was good. I had taken the plunge and upgraded to a nice, purple, iphone 11, because this year has been stupid, and why not. I put in the sim chip, turned it on, and started the process to set up the phone. 

It is at this point, dear readers, that this story falls of a fucking cliff.  Instead of letting me run through all the set up features, the phone popped up and asked me to put in the password for apple id for not.me@gmail.com (obviously it wasn't actually not.me, but in order to protect the innocent, we will leave it at that).

What kind of breathtaking new stupidity was this?

The brand new phone was inexplicably asking me to put in someone else's apple id? Now, I'm not what I would call technologically inclined, but I'm also not a fucking spoon. This was obviously not a new phone, and I was furious. 

Another hour and a half later (and this time it didn't offer to call me back) I made it through the sadistic telephone tree to a real person. Allow me to paraphrase our convo:

Me: Hi, you took my money and said you would send me a new phone. Turns out your company was full of shit and sent me a refurbished phone. Turns out your company is also unfathomably stupid and sent me a poorly refurbished phone.  

Toolus: Oh. Wow. Yeah, that's not ok. 

Me: Thank you. I also know you personally didn't do this, and I do appreciate your help (all things being fair, this guy was awesome)

Toolus: Do you mind holding a moment? (read: I'm going to put you on hold again for 30 mins)

Me: Sure, why not. 

30 mins later

Toolus: Ok, you can return the phone to the nearest store and they can give you a new one!

Me: I promise I don't live anywhere near a store. You mailed me the phone, I feel like it's fair play to let me mail it back.

Toolus: Yeah, we can't do that. *insert here a bizarre and incoherent explanation as to why, that isn't worth the time it would take to write it down*

Me: *taking a deep, tortured breath*  Ok, so let's just lay this out so we're all on the same page...you sent me a phone, took my money, told me it was brand new, and it was not. Not only was it not new, but it's locked to the point that it is the equivalent of a very expensive paper weight. And now, if I would like this situation remedied, I have to drive 400 kms to the nearest store, over the snowy winter roads, to a city where covid is currently taking over, because your company fucked up? Am I close? 

Toolus: Um, yes?

Me: No. No, just...no.

Then he said he would go find a manager, and could I hold again.  I feel like at this point I'd listened to the entire loop of awful hold music. Twice. 

Anyway, long story short-ish, he worked it out that I could mail it back and they would send me a new one, you know, so I could try all this again. 

There was one more call after this, just so I could, you know, reiterate the entire saga to another manager who as far as I could tell was an absolute trench goblin, with no personality whatsoever. His only moment of bland failure was when he tried to make small talk for a moment and crashed miserably, accidentally implying to me that patience was a virtue, so maybe I just needed to wait the situation out. And please keep in mind that we were well over 5 hours of help desk time over the span of  a few days, so making light of this complete waste of my time was a teensy bit tone deaf. *sigh*

And after all of the back and forth with reps and management, there was one string that still needed to be pulled. One ray of light in this whole debacle. After all, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't also email my mystery gmail/apple id contact and let him or her know what a magical voyage the phone had made. I laid out the story for them, probably sounds like a bit of a lunatic, but so be it. It brought me some joy. I'm still waiting to hear back, but I truly hope I get a new pen pal out of the whole thing. 

And so now I'm back to square one, waiting for a new phone, and hoping that the bill will be fixed as promised, so that this rocky start to a new telecommunications adventure can finally become a little more calm. 

Maybe I just need a little more patience?

 

Me vs The Boat...Part 5 - What sailing *should* look like

Wondering how we got here? (Me too!) 

Check out Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here,  and Part 4 here

So we've made it this far. I feel a bit like I'm drawing out the Twilight series from four shitty books into five atrocious movies.  But that's the world we live in, so off we go. 

Our next sailing adventure came from my husband's uncle, who had recently purchased and was fixing up an 85 foot sailboat. He'd heard about our new acquisition, and probably about our dismal attempts to sail it, and invited us out for a few days of sailing/learning. 

To say this guy was a seasoned sailor is a salty understatement. He's one of those people that look at the water and can tell you how fast the wind is blowing, where it's coming from, and how many seals are currently mating in the general vicinity. He's sailed all over the world, and you can tell he knows his shit. I do not. And this has never been more apparent. 

The boat itself was staggering. You could fit 3 of our boats on it, and probably still have room for a dinghy (or a few of those aforementioned seals?). It was massive. 

We went out a couple of times and learned, then promptly forgot, a bunch of really good sailing information. One thing I've discovered about myself is that when I get into a situation where someone is giving me a lot of really great information, but I also don't really understand what's going on, my brain shuts down after picking up 1-3 specific items. Everything else is gone.  

Learning how not to get your
fingers stuck in the winch

With this in mind I can tell you the following: 1) Don't fall off the boat 2) There is basically no end to the number of ways in which you can fall or be thrown off the deck of a boat, and 3) when you fall out of the boat, don't try to climb into the life ring, just flip it over your head and ideally get pulled back onto the boat. Easy.

I actually did pick up a few more things, but it was easily only a tenth of the information given to us.  There were a lot of boat terms thrown around that I'm pretty sure he thought we knew, but I clearly did not, and at one point we took a video of his uncle splicing a rope, because there was a zero chance we would every remember how to do it on our own. 

Overall, it was a spectacular experience on a beautiful boat, and I'm sure we got at least a little smarter. Oh, and I did learn that even on a big boat I can innately tell when we hit 15 degrees heeled over. His uncle didn't believe me and had to check....but I knew...it may be the only thing I've ever really known with any certainty on a boat.

Maybe it was time for us to try again on our own boat, with all of this newfound knowledge. I'd say how bad could it be, but then I've learned that tempting fate on a sailboat is rarely a good idea. 

Join me next time for what I think will probably be the last sailing installment for the season... 

Me vs The Boat...Part 4 - Maybe this time nothing will go wrong?

Need to catch up? Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here

TL;DR - We had a boat. We'd taken a lesson. We still didn't know shit.  

I had hoped that following an actual lesson, the nightmares about crashing into other boats, having the keel fall off, or being capsized because I couldn't throw my weight around properly would end after some training, but if anything I was even more convinced that we'd made a horrible error. It seemed that everyone I talked to felt that we would end up on the bottom of the lake before we made it to the other side. 

I should also say at this point that my husband in no way agreed with me on any of this. His take on the lesson had been all rose-coloured glasses and rainbows. He was still blissfully unaware of the dangers I was 100% sure were waiting for us. But we still hadn't really had our maiden voyage (unless you counted being 10 feet off the dock, which apparently he didn't) so I grudgingly accepted that we needed to try again. 

This time, at least, we appeared to have learned a little from our previous attempt and tried a different launch ramp that wasn't facing directly into the wind. Progress? This ramp had an easier overall approach, and a place to park and set up the boat that was much more accessible than the last place. But while there were fewer spectators, we did have a some people come out to watch us set up (why though?), and at least one woman took pictures of us and said it was nice to see more sailboats on the lake. I don't think she realized what a complete hazard to navigation we actually were. 

Like the time before, we got into the water fairly smoothly, and because no one sat on the fuel line, the motor worked (at least as well as it ever does). The weather behaved itself, and unlike every other sailor out there, I was ecstatic that there was no more than a breath of wind.

With a bit of effort and surprisingly little swearing, we motored out to the middle of the lake and prepared to raise the sails for the first time. We were entering new territory, which historically hadn't gone well for us on the boat thus far, but the sails went up smoothly, we were heading downwind and.... HOLY SHIT WE WERE SAILING!

The kids still complained about how slow we were compared to the grandparent's power boat, but I was floored as we watched the speedometer climb up to 3.5 knots. And if I was (grudgingly) honest, our big boat was much more forgiving than the tiny nightmare that we'd had out lesson on. I was feeling good. I was feeling relaxed. I was feeling bloody hot...it was 38 degrees outside!

To combat the heat we furled the sails and jumped in the lake. This part the kids really liked. We even had the foresight to make sure at least one adult was on board at all times. We may not have been good at the finer points of sailing, but I was not going to let us be those people who's entire group jumped off the boat and then watched the boat sail away without them. Idiots.

Overall, the first half of the day went beautifully. It was calm and relaxed, and basically lulled me into a false sense of security, and the mistaken belief that we were not failing miserably at this endeavor.

<--- see...lulled.

But eventually we had to go back, and going back meant beating into the wind, which had picked up considerably, and brought in some cloud cover, but had not in any way cooled off the day.  

Suddenly the day wasn't quite as relaxing, and every tack heeled us over to at least 15 degrees, and we were flying down the lake at 6.5 knots, which subsequently caused me to panic. Of course I had bury that panic deep down inside to keep as quiet as I could so I didn't scare the kids, which as it turns out, was not enough, because they were below deck and refused to come out. They also didn't like being heeled over.  

Now I know logically that 15 degrees heeled over is perfectly fine in a sail boat. It won't flip the boat. Academically I KNOW this.  But when it's happening it doesn't feel ok. Humans are not supposed to be tilted over by 15 degrees. It turns out I am able to handle 10 degrees, but as soon as we crest over that, I can tell. I don't even need to look. As far as I'm concerned, it absolutely feels like we will capsize and despite all the logic in the world, I panic. It makes sense....I have no real experience sailing, so I worry that I've done something critically wrong and whatever I do next will only make it worse, and I really just need it to stop. Now.  Please.

Let me give you an analogy.  

I don't love flying. Turbulence makes me very uncomfortable but whenever it happens, I watch the flight attendants. They fly all the time, and have probably seen more turbulence in a week than I've experienced in my entire life. So, it's safe to say if they are casually walking the aisles serving drinks, then whatever is happening in the air is fine. Everything is fine. If it gets a little bumpy, and my husband tries to reassure me that we probably won't die, I appreciate it, but let's be honest, he flies about as much as I do. He's not a flight attendant....what does he know? And so I watch the flight attendants. Maybe they put away the drink carts. Ok, that's a bit concerning, but we're probably still fine, they just don't want to accidently cover that passenger with ginger ale. But if they start buckling in and looking worried, you know you're in trouble. Because they know. They've done this a hundred times and can tell you what's normal and what's not.

But my boat doesn't have flight attendants to tell me when things are ok and when shit's about to get real. It has me and my husband, and we're both pretty garbage at the whole thing, so as far as I can tell leaning over at 15 degrees we were pretty definitely going to die.  

So there we were trying to get back up the lake in more wind than I was happy with (although in reality probably a completely reasonable amount). We got pretty good at tacking, heeling over uncomfortably, then letting out the sail enough to pop back up to where we were happy. But this made for incrementally slow progress towards where we wanted to go. By the time we made it to where we could see the dock, we were exhausted. Panic takes a lot out of a person.

 

And then it started to rain. Perfect. I definitely needed the threat of thunder and lighting to add to my calm.

But the dock was close. It was so close. Fuck, it was too close. 

I knew from past experience on power boats, that you needed to approach the dock very slowly. I cannot emphasize this enough: VERY SLOWLY. Going into the docking process, my plan had been to stand at the bow, and when we got close enough, I would leap off and tie up, while my husband was in the back convincing our surly motor to obey him. Easy. 

What actually happened was that I stood on the bow and watched in horror as we flew towards the dock at alarming speed. Our conversation went pretty much like this:

Me: We're coming in too fast. You need to slow down

Him: I can't make it go any slower. It's already as slow as it will go!

Me: GO IN REVERSE! 

Him: But I don't want to go backwards. 

The dock where we launched was very short (slightly shorter than the boat itself), which subsequently gave us very little room for error on the return approach. I was too far away to jump to the dock and had all but given up on the boat slowing down before we hit bottom. In the end we got very lucky that there was someone on the dock who offered to catch our line and slow us down, because otherwise we would have grounded. This whole scenario felt like it took an eternity, but likely lasted only a moment or two. 

Once we were tied up, I turned around to see if anyone had jumped to the dock to tie up the stern line. Turned out that no, there was no stern line, but my husband was hanging off the stern rails, half in the water. 

*sigh*

I learned afterwards, that in a herculean effort to stop the boat from running aground, he had leaped off the stern and onto the dock with a line, only to be pulled back off the dock and into the water by physics. He managed to grab the stern rails on his way down, and just hung there for a minute until he realized he could just stand up. 

Maiden voyage complete. 

Next, join our heroes for part 5, where a benevolent uncle tries to help these idiots learn the importance of never approaching a dock faster than you are willing to hit it....