Thursday 16 June 2011

THE PITBULL

My brother in law has a new film opening in the beginning of July called “Horrible Bosses” – yes, SHAMEFUL plug, but it looks pretty funny and I have to support the home team so to speak. Of course this got me thinking back to all the bosses I’ve had in my time, and certainly a few of them epitomized horrible. I’ve had the screamers, the narcissists, the ripe candidates for sexual harassment, even one who asked if I could bump off his competition by putting rat poison in their coffee. Kidding. Just wanted to see if you’ve had your morning coffee.

One pair of individuals do stick out however for being a surreal pain in the behind. I shall not use real names in order to protect…well, myself, as I’m sure they have much bigger lawyers than I have access to. When I was first out of college I went to work for a start up TV shopping network. Well, start up in the sense that this company was trying to do something different under the umbrella of a juggernaut already in place. Confusing, but not an important detail, so ignore that bit.

The man overseeing the ship was a veteran and well known for his less than savory behavior. Oh forget sugarcoating things, his moniker was 'the Pitbull' (at least around our office) and he was mean and scary as hell. Luckily he was just overseeing things and not in the office all the time as he had his empire ‘of scary’ to run. Of course when he was there, you were ordered not to look at him, let alone speak to him directly, which of course made me want to make eye contact all the more. Seriously, it’s impossible not to look at someone when you’re told not to.

My direct boss at this company was a woman – a long legged, highly hormonal (she was pregnant at the time), medicated nightmare (I think it was Prozac). I am a feminist at heart, and all for women solidarity, but facts are facts. [Although saying this, having been pregnant, I now have a much better understanding of her behavior]. She had this very high-pitched voice and everything came out in a saccharine dripping whine. To make matters worse, she was the type that would call you at all hours of the night (no shame at waking you up at 2am) to tell you to pick up her dry-cleaning, or that she needed to find a new place to get waxed, or something altogether earth shattering like she decided she no longer liked the color green, and wanted to ‘de-green’ her entire apartment immediately.

As her pregnancy advanced, so did her mood swings and erratic behavior. I’d often find her rifling through my purse for coins for the vending machines - candy craving apparently. Then there were the more obscure and severe food cravings…one night as I was about to leave for home (the commute back from Queens to Manhattan was no picnic I assure you), she decided she needed BBQ-ed ribs and sent me out to scour the streets of Queens to find her some at 9 o’clock at night. And of course, once her child was born it did not get any better. She got in it in mind that eating buckets of carrot salad post pregnancy was the only way to shed the baby weight and get back into her micro mini skirts (the woman graduated from Harvard and had incredible legs, why the heck not show them off), and I would have to procure this salad in bulk from a deli across town. I would also have to hire her nannies whom she would of course fire as soon as they would try to inflict some sort of order or scheduling that didn’t jibe with her. And who would get to do the firing? Ah yes, a twenty two year old fresh out of college.

The really fun part was when the Pitbull would show up at the office and send the entire place into an emotional tailspin. There was a long list of things one would need to get in place for the meetings; he had a thing about sharp number two pencils, legal pads, and bagels. Little did I know the bagels were his weapon of choice, and when he was made really angry by any form of incompetence, he would wad up the inside of one of these bagels and hurl it at people. There were a few other objects that were not food related, if my memory serves. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t see someone crying and trembling in the stairwell. I’m talking about grown men shedding tears of fear like little children.

I didn’t last at this job very long - I think six months was all I could take. When I went looking for work, I do remember telling my next potential employer that I would not work for anyone who threw food or heavy objects. You have no idea how many jobs this canceled out.

:-)

Tuesday 14 June 2011

HOME SWEET HOME

Petra Ecclestone just bought Aaron Spelling’s former mansion for somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million dollars. Sorry, let me be more specific for those of you non Formula One followers. Petra’s father, Bernie Ecclestone, who is the head of Formula One Racing just bought his 22-year-old daughter her very own crash pad the size of Texas. Because apparently someone of her age needs a mansion with a bowling alley, ballroom, wrapping room, beauty salon and room for parking 100 cars. Hey, who am I to judge, maybe they want to have the next Grand Prix in the driveway.

Apparently she really wanted an estate down the road that came in at a cool 125 million dollars (someone please smack some reality into this girl quickly). If all this isn’t enough, back home in London, Petra has a 55 million pound pad that Daddy bought her as well. Okay, fine the man is worth 4 billion dollars, and it’s incredibly sweet that he’s buying his children property so that they have somewhere to lay their heads at night, but um, I’m thinking buying your children properties that could fund a small country is a tad excessive. Or is that just me? [And yes, I'm judging now].

From the looks of things, Petra did not just get on the property ladder, she said to hell with the ladder altogether and took a high-speed elevator to the penthouse floor. I mean, once you lay down over 150 million on property for one of your kids, you’ve set one heck of a bar as to what you’re willing to spend. After that gesture, Mr. Ecclestone is certainly not going to be able to get away with buying his daughter a paltry Volkswagen; in fact, she’ll probably demand the entire factory. "Damn it Daddy, I want one in every color to match my handbag collection!"Of course, all this begs the question, when is showering your kids with the spoils of your hard work too much? I’m thinking Bernie’s latest purchase is a pretty good example of an egregious overspend.

I always liked the way Bill Gates approached the situation; he knows he’s filthy rich and always will be, but he plans to give the bulk of his wealth to charity and give a small sum to his children. Okay fine, a small sum will probably work out to be around 5 or 10 million, and that is more than most people will see in a lifetime; but his children will grow up knowing that their father had billions and he instead wanted them to have to work for their supper as opposed to be handed it on a three foot deep gold platter.

I get it; as a parent, I already want to give the King everything (and let's be honest, I certainly grew up blessed beyond words and had my fair share of being spoilt); but I also know that if I do give him everything and make him work for nothing, he’ll probably be living on my doorstep until he’s 75 years old with no work ethic in sight and a sense of entitlement as tall as the Sears Tower. Okay fine, when he’s 75 I’ll be a petrified mummy - no scratch that, I'll be an urn of ashes (much more civilized), but you get the idea.

So King, after you get a job, do the laundry, paint the house, and make your father and I dinner for the next fifteen years, we can discuss the possibility of getting you a Volkswagen.

Happy driving peanut!

Sunday 12 June 2011

DIVORCE PARTY

Recently a rock star and his model wife (ah, yes, that old tried and tested union never grows tired) have recently announced their divorce after six years of marriage. But, unlike most couples that are putting on the boxing gloves and beefing up their arsenal for a knock down drag out battle, this couple is throwing themselves a divorce party on their sixth wedding anniversary. As they see it, they’re celebrating and honoring the time they had together, the things they did well, and are launching into the future as friends and good parents to their two children. That’s what the press release said anyway; they could just be so excited to be rid of one another they want to let their hair down and break out the Jack Daniels.

Pushing my jaded tinted glasses aside, I must admit that I do love their celebratory sentiment in light of a situation that often can be traumatic, sticky, and altogether unpleasant. I’m talking about divorce, not marriage. (I suppose I still can’t shake the thought however that if they’re so darn amicable, why couldn’t they make the marriage work??) No one wants to get divorced, but most people do it today far too easily, I mean after one fight easily. But if one finds themselves at the point of separation after exhausting all other options, I think a party could just be what the divorce lawyers ordered. Why the hell not celebrate making it as far as you have – probably further than the rest of the neighborhood. And one might as well break out the bubbly and CD collection and get some use out of it before you have to start dividing it up.

Unfortunately taking the amicable route these days, although highly commendable and mature, is incredibly rare. [It’s amazing how divorce brings out the utter immature MORON in people]. Most couples careen into that swamp of bitterness and revenge so quickly that you find yourself wondering what held these two together in the first place.

My parents divorced after 39 years of marriage. Okay, my sisters and I didn’t throw them a party or anything, but we all were proud of how long they lasted and of course more proud of how well they handled the divorce. In fact, to this day, they’re still friends and even vacation together – I know, it’s odd, but can be fairly amusing. Don’t get me wrong, the transition had its bumps, but compared to most, they did pretty darn well. I figure, if one has made the leap into forever more, and took a vow promising for better or worse, the least you can do is figure out how to be friends once the ‘worst’ rears its ugly head.

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