Man. It feels like forever since the last time that I blogged. Actually, it has been a long time since I've blogged. I had told myself that I wasn't going to use my blog as a place to only vent, that I'd write good things, happy things, and all kinds of things on my blog but it really seems to be my venting place.

As some of you recall from my last blog post I had written about how my co-worker, DQ, had told my boss that she was pregnant. But she only told him in order to defend herself and her actions to him. We had a huge scrap at work about her being a dumb scraggly cunt and her defense was that she too was pregnant and dealing with sick parents and blah blah blah. The minute I heard that news I knew it was bullshit. In fact, I posted on my blog that DQ would have a miscarriage. In fact here is a quote from my last blog:

My guess is that DQ is lying about being pregnant and is going to use the excuse of traveling for work, dealing with sick parents, and of course stress at work as why she had a miscarriage. If she does that it is extremely low and disgusting. What kind of a human being lies about stuff like that?

Well guess what? In an e-mail on Tuesday from her boyfriend my boss was informed that DQ suffered a miscarriage and had surgery (surgery for a miscarriage? Um no its called a D&C and its not a surgery, its a freaking suction). She still had no idea what had happened to her and wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. A few hours later DQ emailed our boss something work related and he asked her if it was okay to call her because someone had a complaint, she wrote back saying that she wasn't in the mood to talk and that she was with a client.

Wait wait what?! She had a miscarriage, she had surgery, and two freaking hours later she is at work dealing with clients? Now, I've never had a miscarriage but people around me have and they were DEVASTATED when they miscarried. They took a week off work and stayed home and cried and tried to get over the fact that they lost the little person that was growing inside of them. No, not DQ. She's such a freaking trooper that she got up and went to work and was returning emails within 3 minutes of getting them.

Oh but that isn't all. I do the expense reports for work. I get to see what everyone spends money on. It's usually boring but when you hate someone you really want to catch every single one of their errors. Ohhh you wrote 59.65 when it was really 56.95.... Anyway, so I'm going through her expense reports and this is what I came across. Daily she would stop at Starbucks and have herself a Skinny Vanilla Latte. Was it decaf? Nope! She also had sushi a few times, and I read the bill. It wasn't a California roll or something veggie. It was straight up raw fish, yellow fin tail tuna etc. And everyday she had herself a 20oz soft drink. Hmmm that just doesn't seem like something that a pregnant woman would do. Especially a pregnant woman who already had health issues to begin with.

My co-worker NSF who took my spot at the tradeshow in Vegas informed me that while they were at the show she had sushi, coffee, soft drinks, and of course wine. All of this in front of my boss too. At one point he said, "I'm going to Starbucks for a coffee does anyone want anything?" and she piped up with, "Yes a vanilla latte" and he did the hand gesture for "c'mon tell me the rest of it.." he was waiting for her to say decaf and she said that her doctor said that one coffee a day wasn't bad for her or her developing baby. Boss said that her doctor was obviously a crack addict and brought her back a decaf. She was pissed.

So now I have all this "proof" or speculations that DQ was just lying about her pregnancy in order to excuse her actions. I called it that she would "have a miscarriage" because obviously after a while you have to have a baby bump or show an ultra sound right? I mean, this is my first pregnancy and the minute I did my ultrasound I MMS my friends and family a picture of the ultra sound and posted them on facebook and brought the pictures to work the next day. That's what normal excited people do right?

Do I tell my boss what I think or is it completely out of line? I don't like it when people take advantage of other people or their emotions. My boss is very understanding and he feels for his employees. He was 100% understanding of my morning sickness and gave me reduced hours until I felt better. He constantly asks me if I'm okay and if I need anything. He's asked if his and NSF cologne bothered me at all and he tries not to microwave foods that smell too strong. So it bothers me to the point of no return that this person would lie and take advantage of his feelings like that.

Do I bring it up? How do I bring it up? Do I just sit there and shut up when I know shes full of shit?

Some of you may be completely new readers, others may have some over from my old blog. I had to move. Why did I move? I have a co-worker (Drama Queen (DQ))who when she doesn't get her way will go out of her way in order to try to make everyone's life hell. She has a personal issue with me and in explaining her issues she decides to inform my boss of things I've written on my Facebook, on my Twitter, and of course on my blog...although none of my blog posts have ever been about her.

DQ and I got into a disagreement last week regarding the wording of an email. Yes, she thought that my email was too harshly toned and that it upset a customer of ours. I forwarded the email to my boss so that he could see that and he agreed with me that my tone was not harsh at all. She got offended that my boss sided with me and she made it very clear in an email that she sent him that I was NOT supposed to see but did see.

DQ also claims that I am using my pregnancy and my emotions as an excuse to be bitchy, childish, immature ETC. That is complete bull shit. I have NEVER been less than professional when working with anyone. Hey, if I can work with NSF and SUB and remain professional then I should honestly be considered for sainthood...but I've done it. I've never not been professional.

So in her latest email DQ claims that she understands EXACTLY how I feel as she is also 2.5 months pregnant. So can you please explain this to me? She's 2.5 months pregnant but shes advertising on Facebook how she got completely shit faced over the weekend and how she wants a pre birthday party (drinking drinking drinking). I would understand all of this if she didn't KNOW she was pregnant but according to this email she knows shes pregnant. My guess is that DQ is lying about being pregnant and is going to use the excuse of traveling for work, dealing with sick parents, and of course stress at work as why she had a miscarriage. If she does that it is extremely low and disgusting. What kind of a human being lies about stuff like that?

Some people wait a really long time to get pregnant, others can't get pregnant and go through tons of treatments to get pregnant and then you have people who LIE about it. Maybe she isn't lying about it. Maybe DQ is pregnant but to be pregnant and know about it and to post about how drunk you always are and how you plan on getting drunk...we'll thats just shady and in that case you don't deserve children.

So for those of you who are old followers, this is my new blog and I would really prefer if you didn't address me by my name on here. I want this to remain as anoymous as possible because I don't want people from work to be able to point to something I've written on my blog and try to use it against me in my work enviorment.

Thanks for your understanding and please be sure to follow this blog. I promise it will be just as fabulous as my old blog :)

Lots of Love!
Fabu

Wow. I just realized that its been a very long time since I've updated this blog. I guess there isn't to much I like to keep private, or maybe its just that I've lost my inspiration to write lately. I find that lately I'm in a sour mood all of the time. Everything is bothering me, but mainly work situations.



Let me give you a run down on my wonderful job. I love my job for the most part. I get a lot of days off (never been told no when requesting a day off), I work pretty great hours and get paid very well. So what is my problem with my job?



My co-workers. Some of them I can't stand, others I tolerate, and one I loathe. They get under my skin with their inability to be able to accomplish anything without me holding their hands through everything. At this rate I should be paid for doing my job and their job. Why pay them to do something if they can't finish a task without my help?



My boss. Although he is an excellent boss (see never telling me no) he has yet to learn what office hours are. He will call me on my cell phone at 10pm at night to have a conference call with one of our factories in another country. He calls me on the weekends to ask me if I did something, if I can help him with something, if I can check my email for something. Now, I normally don't mind because like I said, I get away with a lot at the company but recently things have changed.



At the end of last year we decided to discuss raises with our CEO who was visiting from out of town. We sat down and discussed my current pay and we said that a raise would be given by the end of the first quarter of the new year. I said fine and shut my mouth about it. They took the decision to even bring up the subject I'd let them decide when it was time to give a raise (btw: I haven't been with the company very long, it'll be two years in a few months).



Well my co-worker, Not So Fabulous (NSF)had a talk with the boss about his pay. He got very upset when he found out that he was the least paid employee at the company yet has been there the longest. (How he found this out is completely beyond me!) So, NSF had a talk with the boss where he basically demanded equal or more pay then the newest employee (me). He said it was unfair that he'd been at a job for 7 years and didn't get the recognition monetarily as other people within the company.



Well here is a question for you: What if someone works in the mail room of a company for 4 years and a brand new CEO is brought to the company. Should the mail room guy get more then the CEO because of how long he has been in a company? The obvious answer is NO!



Different jobs get different pay. Someone in marketing doesn't get paid the same as someone in shipping. Someone in a manager position doesn't get paid the same as someone who is an assistant. You may be at a company longer but if you aren't moving up on the ladder why should your pay?

So after NSF and boss talks he (NSF) talks to me about it and I told him that given that he has been there for so long I do hope that he gets his raise (also expecting my raise to be equal to the work that I have done for the company). One day after the talk NSF takes a day off and my boss goes to me, "Fabulous, don't think I've forgotten you regarding the raise. I'm working on it with our head office." I said nothing other than, "Okay thanks!"

So I go on vacation and when I come back I notice that my paycheck was for slightly more money. I thought that maybe my boss finally decided to reimburse me for my cell phone expense that I had incurred when travelling for the company. Nope, NSF informed me that it was my raise. Excuse me? Seriously? You are kidding me right?

So I come into the office and the boss is here and he pulls me into the office to discuss the raise. He tells me, "Fabulous, I know that you aren't going to be very happy but with NSF demanding equal pay and blah blah blah" (Yes blah blah blah because by this point I'm blocking out what he said). What it basically came down to was that head office was not willing to give me a large increase because they had just increased NSF by 10% to bring him up to equal pay as me. Not a penny more, not a penny less. At this point I just said nothing because to be honest with you, discussing money makes me uncomfortable.

I went home and I discussed this with my husband and he was also not pleased. It wasn't the type of raise that we were expecting. He asked me why I was so upset and I told him:

1. NSF has gotten reprimanded by our boss numerous times this year to the point that one day NSF asked our boss, "Do you think that I am incompetent at my job?" (My answer is YES!!!)

2. I have managed to incorporate new systems at work which have resulted in THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars in savings for our company. These savings come from printing material, graphics work, shipping, and just a better system to do things. IN DEPARTMENTS THAT AREN'T EVEN MINE! In fact, boss was so impressed that one day he pulled me into his office to say, "Fabulous, I love how you take initiative and see something wrong and come up with solutions. It shows you care about the company."

3. I work harder than NSF. I'm sorry but NSF doesn't get phone calls on the weekend or at 10pm on a work night to have conference calls. NSF doesn't get his emails to his telephone, NSF doesn't have his cell number written on his business cards because quite frankly, he isn't THAT important to clients in that aspect. NSF works with customers ordering things online, I work directly with the distributors and retail stores.

I had decided to send an email to my boss informing him of how unhappy I am about this situation because I'm uncomfortable speaking about it face to face because I get emotional and I don't want my emotions to show but I ran into a problem. How exactly could I word my email to where I'm not comparing my work to NSF. I would understand not getting a raise if I was performing under par but I'm not. I'm above par, I'm exceptional. Head office has noticed, Distributors have noticed, other companies employees have noticed. What basically happened is that I got jipped and only increased pay by 5% because NSF got 10% to get paid EXACTLY WHAT I GET PAID.

So I ended up not sending that email because I noticed that I got other perks (no I didn't forget about the situation because when boss told me we'd work on a bigger raise at end of year I thought I'd bring this all up to him then). The perks I get is that I've been at the job for less than 2 years and I'm averaging about 3 weeks off (vacations) and a lot of random days off here and there for being sick, going to see a hockey game, or just because I need a spa day. My boss has never told me NO to a day off whereas NSF hears it often. He's told that he can't leave on certain days because of so and so reason and all that other good stuff.

Well, the other day we were planning some shows for our industry and once again I will be required to travel. My boss asked me to put an international calling plan on my phone and have it billed to the company as an expense (I'll need to access emails and make business calls while gone). After we established who would be travelling where and when I noticed that I wasn't travelling heavily in October (ie, not at all). I checked the agenda for other shows and saw that October is a complete dead month with the exception of one show towards the end of the month. I asked boss to speak and he said sure come in.

I informed him that I would like to take 10 consecutive days off in October to go somewhere. It is somewhere I haven't been in a long time for long periods of time (I've visited but so briefly it wasn't worth the cross country flight fare). He looked iffy because when you see the dates on the calendar blacked out it looks like I'll be gone for 3 weeks instead of 17 days. He told me, "You know I never tell you no but its very hard because of it being almost the last month for our end of year (November is big promotion month and December is send gifts to our customers and some last minute paper work). October is our last working month." I offered to take my laptop and do work occassionally in the mornings or evenings so that I don't get too far behind and I would be willing to find a replacement for 2 weeks while I am gone. He tells me that I am irreplaceable (I know this already). We came on agreement for a few days less. I'll be taking a vacation for 11 days instead of 17. Oh did I mention this would be PAID, as in my pay doesn't get docked for me not being in the office (thats how our company works, no 4% vacation pay, you still get paid the same if you are here or not).

After boss left for the day NSF goes to me, "I over heard your conversation with Boss. Thats not fair. I had to work here for 5 years before I got 3 weeks vacation and you basically get it the minute you walk in the door. If he gives you the days off then I'm going to demand that he give me an extra week pay." I responded with, "NSF, sometimes things aren't always fair. Do you think its fair that my raise depended on what your raise was?" (This was the first time I mentioned this to him).

He replies, "Well do you think I was happy with it? I am making the same thing that someone who has been here less than 2 years makes!" and I shouted, "We don't do the same fucking job! You should get a raise depending on how you perform at work not based on what someone else's pay is. Also it is up to Boss to decide on if he will pay you an extra week or not but I will NOT give up my vacation because you do not feel that its fair."

He responds, "It's not fair. I've been here longer."

I respond, "Well if you feel so fucking inferior when it comes to pays and vacation why do you continue to work here? "

He said nothing.

Well, now I'm at a point that I don't know what to do. Do I send my boss that email that I've been meaning to send him, do I talk to him in person regarding it? (The reason for email also is because its very easy for him to click FORWARD and send to our CEO to see how worth it I am to the company). What it comes down to is that at the end of this year, if I do not get a raise that I deserve based on work that I've done, on what an asset I am to the company I will give in my two weeks notice. Or is that just being childish?

Hello again blogosphere.



I've taken the past couple of days trying to reflect on my life, where its going, where its been, and most importantly where I would like for it to go. So while pondering all of this one thing kept on popping up in my mind: Friends.



Isn't it funny how friends just come and go? Don't girls have that expression like ho's before bros? And every time a friend of ours breaks up with a boyfriend we always tell her something cheesy like "Boyfriends come and go but friends are forever". Sorry but thats total bullshit.



Oh wait, don't get me wrong. I'm not the type of girl who forgets who her friends when she gets a boyfriend. I try to balance friends, boyfriends, work, and alone time. I don't change who I am because I am dating a guy (rather, before when I was dating guys, not I'm married and dating would be very very wrong).



I hate when people find a new boyfriend or girlfriend and it consumes every single aspect of their lives. Their new boyfriend is all they can think of, all they can talk about, you get the picture right? When I think of this one friend comes to mind. Let's call her Sarah.



For as long as I can remember being friends with Sarah which is about 8 years the minute Sarah would start dating someone her friends became second and even third fiddle. It's all fine and dandy the first couple of months but then it just gets to a point where its not to be tolerated.



A few years ago Sarah started to date a guy named Nick. Well, if we are being honest, she wasn't dating him. She was crushing on him hardcore and they would hang out after practice (he was the coach) and they'd make out in random places. Never dated. She thought it would lead to dating but thats a different story. When Nick wasn't using her as a booty call (well maybe a facecall since no sex was involved?) she would call up her friends and want to hang out. Since at the time most of us were in school or not employed we had no problem and would meet up with her. Well all Sarah would do is talk about Nick and where they went and in what odd place they made out the night before. The first few times we would sit there and smile and be like "Oh thats great, so do you think you guys will start dating" and things of that sort.



After a few weeks it was like, "Oh so you guys went to La Cafe near my house and you didn't call? When will we meet this mystery man?" It started to get annoying. She would go out with him and his friends and never call hers. If Facebook was around back then there would have been millions of pictures of her and him and his friends up. So we started to distance ourselves from her because, well to put it simply, we are no ones chop suey. I'm second to none and I don't want to feel like that.



Well lo and behold a few months later it turned out that Nick was also randomly making out with other girls from the team (to put this into perspective the girls were around 18-20 and the coach was 22 nothing like a huge perverted age gap). She calls us all crushed and wanting to go out to La Cafe in order to talk about it. We all go there and we talk. We console her and tell her that we are sure that he was just a dick anyway (not like we ever met him to actually know!) And then the conversation came up.



"Sarah why didn't you ever invite us out with you and Nick, especially since you were only a couple of blocks from my house". Sarah gave us (us being two sisters) this look like she was embarassed. She went on to tell us how she wanted to get to know him alone and that is all fair. But then we asked, "Well why would you go out with his friends but never your friends, especially if you wanted to get to know him alone." This time we got a sheepish look and she finally blurted out. "Because you guys are prettier than I am". We were floored.



We always thought Sarah was a good looking girl. She had gorgeous green eyes, fair skin that taned well, and nice curly hair. She was average height, had an average build, and always smiled. She was a looker in my eyes. I on the other hand was always under weight, tall, had brown hair that I would change colors almost monthly therefore had dry hair, and plain brown eyes. (Don't take it the wrong way, I am far from plain or ugly. I'd gotten my fair share of compliments from people and I know how to turn heads). My sister was always in a class of her own. She was born being drop dead beautiful. Long curly hair, hazel eyes, and a bubbly personality that could drive even cheerleaders insane!



You see, Sarah wasn't the token fat girl or the token ugly girl. We were all equals. Going out any given night we all had equal opportunity for getting hit on. (The same goes for other friends who I will eventually blog about). You can understand why this came as such a huge shock to me. Not only do the three of us have completely different taste in men but she was insecure. She thought that either one of us would try to steal her man or that her man would want one of us. It's unheard of. We'd never break that code!

Eventually this whole thing passed. We obviously had to tell Sarah that we'd never go after one of her love interests and that if she did introduce us to him but he tried to get with us we'd put totally put the brakes on that one AND let her know that her guy was a dickface.

Now fastforward a few years later. Sarah is once again a normal part of the group. Our very close circle of friends has expanded from just the three of us to now 5 or 6 of us. (Yes, we are very selective as to who we invite into our lives). Sarah meets a guy at school and starts dating him. (Even though he already had a girlfriend which is a huge no - no in my book). We always hear about him but we never see him.

Eventually she brings him over to one of our homes and we meet him. We all instantly don't like him. He's rude, condescending, and just has this arrogant aura around him. When my sister in law, who would take in a leper, doesn't like him thats saying something. That is saying A LOT! Well Sarah starts distancing herself from us all over again (how she came over during the holidays is beyond me). She is never around, never calls, never wants to hang out.

Then it hits her like a ton of bricks. She never sees her friends at all. We then start to get text messages like So I've cleared my schedule for the next 5 hours, lets meet at La Cafe. And she'd get responses like Sorry I already have dinner plans with the in laws. Sorry I'm working late tonight. Oh sorry, its grocery night. Hubs and I are running errands.

At this point Sarah is upset because she is already on her way to La Cafe and she expected us all to drop what we were doing because she finally decided to make herself available to everyone else. I'm sorry WHAT?! YOU have free time so you think that we will all rearrange our lives to fit YOUR schedule? It's just not happening in THIS lifetime.

As I've said before, I don't come second to people. I don't expect to always be number one in everyone's lives but don't make me feel like I'm less important to you. Everytime a relationship fails Sarah will come back to us crying and we can't even give her advice or try to help her figure out what went wrong. We were shut out of her life for so long.

Sarah called me this morning to try to catch up. DO NOT CALL ME AT 7:56AM. I'm awake but barely functional. I am chronically late to everything dear readers, even my wedding. I didn't answer. I then get a text message about how she'd like to talk, how she feels as if she's been cut out of the group of friends. I reply from the comfort of my desk a few hours later, "You haven't been cut out of the friends, you removed yourself."

A while after I settled myself in to work I called her and explained the situation to her. She felt bad. I pointed out that this is a cycle with her. She asked why she is never invited to my house for random parties or get togethers. I explain that I don't invite anyone, they invite themselves and before marriage and after marriage, you don't need an invite into my home. My home is a place where everyone can feel comfortable and are more than welcome at anytime.

The air has been cleared but I don't think the friendship can be saved. Funny how people you think are life long friends turn into just a friend to a fleeting memory of someone who was once a great friend.

Well dear readers let me start off by introducing myself. My name is Fabulous. Okay, you got me. That really isn't my name but I figure its better than going by Anonymous; which is what I really want to be.

I've been an active blogger for about a year and a half and then something horrible happened. I decided I wanted more readers and in order to do so I linked my blog on my Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. What a horrible mistake. Do you know what happens when you let people know who you are? It becomes impossible to actually speak openly and honestly. You find yourself censoring yourself more and more to be sure that you don't hurt anyones feelings and then in turn you can't blog the way you wanted to blog.

You find youself saying, 'Hmmmm, if I write that will so and so see it and get offended? Will they think that this is about them? How will they feel if I write a blog that is dealing with something they are going through?'

I hate being censored. I hate having to watch my tongue. I understand that there are certain situations when you should just not say anything but that filter was never really installed at me in birth. I don't know how to filter something through my brain before it comes tumbling out of my mouth. I often find myself saying something like, 'Shit, I didn't mean to say that' and put a weird look on my face that apparently doesn't excuse my actions. Everyone eventually gets over my slip up but when blogging I just feel a bit dishonest not being able to express myself as much as I want to.

So I hope you enjoy my new blog. My honest blog. And hopefully the blog that no one can link me to. If this blog is discovered by haters I guess I will just have to give up blogging and revert back to doing it the old fashioned way and writing in a journal. The only problem is that journals aren't meant to be read by the world and commented on? Dilemmas Dilemmas.