Accountability

I was told today that there are 3 kinds of people in this world:
1. Those that take responsibility for their mistakes
2. Those that make up lame excuses for their mistakes
3. Those who run and hide when they make mistakes.

I would like to add another:
4. Those who scream and yell and blame when they make mistakes.

In the past 2 days, I have encountered an example of each.

1. Those that take responsibility for their mistakes.
I never thought I was one who takes responsibility. I always felt I came up with excuses to cover for my perfectly human faults. This was until I became a manager, and heard every excuse in the book. Excuses are transparent as the Zombie Lady's skin. I really started trying to take accountability once I started my job a year ago. In my experience, those that say "I fucked up" are the ones who get the most respect. So since day one, when I fucked up, I would say "I fucked up". I wasn't sure it was working, until I was told during my review that its one of my most commendable traits. When I tell the client "I fucked up", they laugh it off and say "hey, it happens." I never want people rolling their eyes and fuming, so I try to be the first to raise my hand when someone asks "who pooped in the closet?"

2. Those that make up lame excuses for their mistakes.
Let me give a little background first. I am a Meetings Coordinator for a pharmaceutical company. The sales reps tell me they want to do a meeting, and basically I tell the speaker where to be and when, and book a venue, usually a restaurant. Ok, moving on...
A couple months ago, one of my speaker's (the speakers are always doctors) secretary called me to tell me Dr. MindlessFlake was very upset, because he showed up for his speaking engagement, and there was so meeting going on, so I should have let him know it was cancelled. Dr. MindlessFlake showed up at Union Pacific, a restaurant in Union Square that we never use because it doesn't fit into our budget. Not only is it too expensive, ITS BEEN CLOSED FOR 5 MONTHS. When I explained this to Secretary of Dr. MindlessFlake, she said he claims he had all this paperwork I sent to him about the meeting. I went through all my files, and had nothing. I told her, if he has this paperwork, fax it to me so I can look it over, and we can figure out where the miscommunication was, but I had nothing. Dr. MindlessFlake misplaced this paperwork. How convenient. On Wednesday night, Dr. MindlessFlake had another meeting, and decided not to show up. When contacted, he said "No one told me that the date was confirmed. Well, I guess I'm even. You guys told me before to go to a meeting that wasn't happening." Interesting. Sounds like redemption to me. Anyway, I sent him 2 e-mail confirmations, and he had e-mailed me twice in between about something else. Strange how he gets selective e-mails, isn't it? Should I have called him the day before to confirm? Absolutely. But he likes e-mail.

3. Those who run and hide when they make a mistake.
Thursday night, Dr. Missing had a meeting. Dr. Missing did not show up. Dr. Missing was called and paged, but she did not return her calls and pages. She wrote me an e-mail on Sunday asking for more details about the meeting, she absolutely knew it was happening. When I find out that Dr. Missing is not dead in a ditch, I'm gonna be really pissed.

4. Those who scream and yell and bitch when they make a mistake.
This example could be the most entertaining of all, but with my limited vocabulary and understanding of any type of language, putting it into words will not do it justice. Long story short, one of the venues charged me $100 per person, after I had asked Miss FrenchBitch if we could do the $75 menu. When I asked to do this, she said "sure, I'll take care of it." I think Miss FrenchBitch was first an example #3. She didn't fax the receipt for a month, and I believe its because she knew she fucked up. Then once she did, I would call her every day, and she would either have to call me back, or was "busy." When I decided to ask for another manager, I was quickly transferred to Miss FrenchBitch, who would call me back. I gave her 2 weeks, and no phone call. So since I was already in an unpleasant mood because Dr. MindlessFlake didn't show up for his meeting, I decided to call her and not let her call me back, and she's busy? Oh, that's fine, I'll hold. Miss FrenchBitch gets on the phone, and within 3.2 seconds, starts raising her voice. Oh, no you didn't. You fucked up, I'm paying you, you kiss my ass. I start raising my voice, then she starts cutting me off. The voices escalate until a shouting match ensues, and I have an audience. Basically what it came down to is, her fancy-pants hip New York City Restaurant has procedures and everything is done through e-mail. In the words of Sherry, "oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to read your mind." I didn't know "I'll take care of it" is French for "please do all correspondence through e-mail".


More news on the zombie-front coming soon. The plot takes a twist!!!

Night of the Living Dead..... Or a crack whore you decide.

The following events are factual, although somewhat.....Embellished.

The humid air and light mist fog up the lenses of my binoculars. My legs are cramping from the crouched position I took on the roof across the parking lot from the apartment in question. Something strange was going on there, and if I have to spend all night doing surveillance to figure it out, so be it. The curtains are completely drawn, and thick. No light is coming through, and there is no sliver in between the fabric panels through which I can see. "What are you hiding in there?" The rain starts falling heavier. Clouds are completely concealing the moon, creating no light to give away my position.

My vigilante spidey-senses started tingling 6 weeks ago when I noticed the 90s model blood-red Pontiac grand prix parked in the lot. The driver of this car had no parking sense at all. The car was constantly parked at an angle, left front tire in one spot, car in the middle, and right back tire in a completely different spot. Three spaces!! Who did this person think they were?? They were obviously a detriment to society. Now 2 people would have to park farther than usual, and if you're lazy, that is a SEVERE hindrance. I must find out more.

4 weeks ago, crouched in position, I hear a car. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something moving, coming my way. A blood-red car!! I quickly turn to see it, and its the Grand Prix in question!! All the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and I am poised, ready for action. The driver whips into 3 spots, as usual. After a brief pause, the driver quickly opens the door, steps out, and....

I'm not kidding. This is what got out of the car. Ok, maybe she had eyes. OK back to the story...

My entire body froze in terror. The words were stuck in my throat, "Excuse me ma'am. I was wondering if it wouldn't be to much trouble for you to take up only one spot? Sometimes I come home late, and the only spots open are on the other side of the lot. Since you always park in front right here, maybe if you took only one spot, I could get a spot closer. Thanks so much for your time, I hope I wasn't too much trouble."

The only part of my body that moved were my eyes as they followed her inside. I wanted to reach out, tap her shoulder and speak, but the fear of her head spinning around a la Exorcist and hissing and splitting blood at me was too overwhelming. She was quite tall, and very thin. I couldn't tell if she was old or young. Her skin looked like that of an 80 year old woman hanging on the body of a 25 year old. Her hair was long, but looked like it may have been falling out, in very large chunks. It was brown, but her roots were about 3 inches, and were white. She was extremely pale, almost transparent. She wore a tight purple tank top, with purple shorts. Albino? Witch? Leper? Zombie? Crack whore? My heart sank as I watched her walk inside, I knew I had lost my chance.

This is when I knew I must find out more. I started my stakeout. Dressed all in black, with cape draped around me to help me blend into the dark night background. Superheroes must do a lot of reconnaissance, even if it takes hours away from their vigilante ways. 2 weeks went by until I saw here leave from her apartment again. She walked quickly outside, glanced at her car, and rushed back inside. WTF??

Her car doesn't move for days. Does she work? Or is casting evil spells in her dark curtained living room her only means of sustenance? Curtains are always drawn, lights rarely on, it is truly a mystery.

The rain still falling, I decide to come back another night. I will foil her evil plan.

I am a 12 year old boy...

stuck in the body of a 25 year old girl. I like comic books. I like video games. I like potty jokes. Nothing makes me laugh harder than someone falling down.

I don't know what started the obsession with superheros. I could come up with some psycho-babble explanation, like "their perfection and courage is something that I admire and qualities I wish I had in myself." Yeah, that's not it. I don't want to be a superhero, never did. I always wanted to date a superhero. At 16, my big celebrity crush was Nightwing.

When I was little, Wonder Woman was my idol. Once again, I didn't want to be her. I had an imaginary friend, like the rest of you hobos. She didn't have a name, and no matter what age I was, she was the same age as me. I wouldn't talk to her out loud or anything like that, like those creepy kids who's imaginary friend is an 80 year old man in a suit that lives in the closet, and his name is Mortimer. No, it wasn't a creepy relationship. She looked exactly like Wonder Woman. Black hair, red boots, costume, whole sha-bang. Thinking back, she did look kinda silly dressed in a Wonder Woman costume when she was 5. Somewhat of a........ midget Wonder Woman.

Sometimes I'd get tired of her pretending to Wonder Woman, maybe not so much tired, but jealous. So then I'd dress up like Wonder Woman. Remember those underoos when you were a kid? Not the ones with little logos or pictures. I'm talking the underoos that were full fledged costumes. Shut up, it was a costume to me. And yes, what I'm trying to get at is that I would run around in my underwear.

I went through those things so fast, my mom was buying me a new set every week. My grandmother would come to the house, and yell at my mother for letting me run around in my underwear. I'll catch my death.

My dad bought me a yellow rope. my costume was almost complete. I'd take red construction paper and staple it around my calves. Insta-boots!! I'd also make a tiara out of construction paper. That would last 2.2 seconds before it was ripped into 5 pieces. My hair wasn't black. That sucked.

Pretty soon they didn't make underoos big enough for me. Stop laughing, I wasn't 13 at the time.

After a couple years, I realized Wonder Woman was actually pretty lame in comparison to the greatest, superest, most wonderfullest superhero OF ALL TIME.....

Yes, I was ill-informed, ignorant even. But I saw the light. That light is still with me now, and nothing brings me more light than this light. This light brings me out of the lowest of places.

I'm not making sense. Let me rephrase. I live for Batman.

The End