Big News

I got a new job. Please, please—hold your applause until the end.

It all happened so fast. One minute I’m sitting alone in a tiny office, writing fart jokes for greeting cards and—BOOM!—the next thing I know I’m in a fancy downtown agency that has a ping pong table, beer on tap and awards lining the walls, trying to write copy for a major fast-food joint. I wasn’t looking for a new job but this just kind of fell into my lap—I know, I hate people who have that kind of luck too. But remember, it was only a mere 18 months ago when I was drowning in the despair of unemployment, thinking I would never find a writing job and then, just when I was about to give up and start cleaning rich people’s toilets, I found a great job which has since led me to another great job. I’m not going to say anything about the power of a positive attitude or about how the economy is getting better because optimism makes me feel dirty, but I will say that perseverance in the face of total shit does pay off. If it weren’t for this blog and my Twitter addiction, I wouldn’t have gotten this new job. That being said, I still can’t believe there are people out there who are willing to pay me to put words on paper.

I started my new job about six weeks ago and so far I love it. Although I wouldn’t have admitted this a few months ago, I missed the hustle and bustle of the ad world. I missed stressing out about other people’s problems. I missed having to work late because I was needed. I missed powering through a ten-hour workday on three hours of sleep. I missed being challenged and pushed to my limit. I know, I’m a total masochist.

Although I worked in advertising before my stint as a greeting card writer, I never worked in the creative department. Creative departments at advertising agencies are like beehives, we’re all responsible for our own pollinating; yet we’re all dependent on a queen. The queen bee is mostly the client, but can also be a creative director, an account manager, the economy, anything—the point is, even though we have the freedom to fly wherever we want, buzzing and stinging shit, our survival is contingent on a much larger entity, which provides us with the work to do. And if the queen bee dies, the beehive has only a short window of time to replace her before the entire hive is compromised and all of the worker bees die. So, uh...long live the queen! I guess?

Despite my uncanny ability to put people off by acting like a total ass, everyone I’ve met has been extremely nice and welcoming. I get the feeling that my coworkers are trying really hard to not seem too stressed out or pissed off around me, which is adorable and flattering. Apparently I started at a really busy time because at least once a day someone tells me, “I promise, it’s not usually like this.” I haven’t told anyone how much I enjoy being a busy bee. I just smile and nod a lot because 90 percent of the time I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, which makes everyday an exercise in not looking like a total idiot. For instance, it was my second or third day when an email came through regarding a project for a client.

“Can you do a download at 10:30 this morning?” it said.

I sat at my desk, reading and rereading the email. What download? Am I supposed to download something? Am I supposed to download myself? Can you do that now? There was no attachment to the email, no instructions, so I just replied, “Sure,” hoping more information would come to me as a result. I waited 30 minutes and there was no response. It was 10:15. I was running out of time to figure out this whole download thing, so I decided to consult a nearby coworker.

“Hey, uh, Sarah? Can you tell me what this means?” I gestured towards my computer screen as if it was full of hieroglyphics I needed to interpret.

“Sure. What’s up?” she said, rolling her chair over to my desk.

“So, I got this email and it says I need to do a download but it doesn’t say anything about what the download is, where I get it, how I get it, and I’m apparently supposed to do this by 10:30,” I said, trying to disguise the panic in my voice.

“What?” Sarah leaned in to read the email. “Oh! No, no, not like a computer download. It means they’re going to download you on a project, like, they’re going to tell you about it. It’s like a verbal creative brief." My insides turned to stone and I cringed.

“Oh, I see. Well, I feel stupid now.”

“Don’t. It’s industry lingo. You’ll get a hang of it,” she said and rolled back to her desk like it was no big deal I had just spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out how download some mysterious file for a meeting.

“Cool. I get it, yeah…well, I’m going to go get downloaded now…I’m going to get the down-low, the DL, the—”

“It’s just download, nothing else,” she said.

“Right, I was just—yeah, cool, never mind…okay, I’m going to do that.”

Since then I’ve said and done countless other dumb things. I don’t know enough yet to know how dumb I seem, but that’s what learning is, right? You throw yourself into the unknown, try to fake your way through it until you get a hang of things and then you look back and squirm with embarrassment every time you think of what you were before you became what you are now. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s stressful. It’s everything I ever wanted, for now.

Without Resolution

New Year’s resolutions remind me of tired Clinton/Lewinsky jokes that aren’t good enough to leave a stain (see what I did there?).

I used to make resolutions every year until I realized it’s all a part of society’s maniacal plan to turn us into productive, focused and disciplined individuals. By maintaining a steady routine, I’m able to break and reinstate every New Year’s resolution multiple times throughout the year, which means my resolutions are green because I recycle them year after year (Al Gore says it’s good for the environment). These recycled resolutions are:

1. Quit smoking (Or only smoke when I drink. Cocktail anyone?)
2. Lose ____ pounds (This year we are in the double double digits.)
3. Stop complaining so much (But it’s so hard!)
4. Eat healthier (These cookies are organic.)
5. Write more (Why not? No one reads this crap anyway.)

Usually I start the New Year off by attacking these resolutions with gusto for at least two days before I get bored and forget about them until March, but something about 2009 left a bad taste in my mouth and I’m not ready to face another year of the same resolutions. When I thought about changing my resolutions I was put off by the thought of anything coming before these five main goals, which I’ve become attached to over the years. Still, it’s like I keep hitting the snooze button on 2010. At this point, February is looking like a much better time to start working towards having Jenny McCarthy’s body by bathing suit season. But then I thought, “I can’t start on my New Year’s resolutions while people still have their Christmas lights up!” and because I live in Kansas City, this means I won’t get started on my resolutions until mid-March, maybe April (people really like their Christmas decorations here). But if I manage to accomplish one of those five goals this year, does it really matter when I start trying? Besides, January is the coldest, most depressing, uneventful month of the year and it’s hilarious to think I’m going to accomplish anything while I wait out this misery from the comfort of my couch.

For me, resolutions are like empty boxes wrapped in beautiful paper artfully adorned with ribbons and bows—meaningless, but nice as decoration. I won't be fooled into self-improvement this year just to set unreasonable expectations for myself and wallow in the disappointment of inevitable failure. So, to media targeting my guilt and feelings of inadequacy at the start of the New Year: Stop bombarding me with your resolution suggestions, top tens, anecdotes, advice and try reporting on something relevant, like how to shovel a driveway with a fork when everyone is sold out of snow shovels.

Maybe I’ll jump on the resolution bandwagon in June when everyone has given up hope and canceled their gym memberships, but for now I plan to focus on not bettering myself until I’m ready. So goodbye to 2009, I’m off like an intern’s blue dress and onto 2010.

This Heat Is Hot

For those of you who don’t live nearby, and don’t watch The Weather Channel 24/7, it’s been impossibly hot in Kansas City. With 47 counties under excessive heat warnings, not even the notoriously hottest places in the world have come close to matching Kansas City’s paralyzing heat index of 110 degrees this week. I love hot weather, but most Kansas Citians do not; in fact, they are big babies about hot weather. I hail from the Southeast, which means I’m used to excessive heat and humidity so thick you feel like mold could grow on your forehead if you’re outside for too long. But people here go indoors and refuse to venture out when the heat gets too hot. I’m not saying it’s not hot, because it is, painfully hot, but it’s not like you’re going to evaporate if you go outside. Of course, I’m a huge baby when it comes to Kansas City winters, and everyone makes fun of me for not being able to handle myself in ice and snow, so it’s only fair for the tables to turn as the seasons change.

I can think of lots of things to do outside when it's hot, even when Gary Lezak and Brian Busby (our proud local weathermen) scare everybody by going into dramatic meteorologist mode with their you-might-die extreme weather reports (it’s tornado season, can you blame them for being a little eager?). To prove my point, I’ve created a list of activities for you and the family to enjoy, which wouldn’t be possible without this heat.

1. Make sweat angels. Lie on a concrete sidewalk or driveway and raise your arms up and down while pushing your feet in and out. Stand up and see whose angel last the longest before drying up.

2. Lemonade stands are so out. Make popsicles out of random stuff and sell them on the street (people will buy anything cold when it’s hot). Some ideas: toothpaste popsicles, ketchup popsicles, toilet water popsicles, and, my personal favorite, spit popsicles.

3. Buy a really crappy above ground pool. My neighbors did this and it has been a pleasure to look at that plastic blue siding all year-round.

4. If the “buying” or “above ground” part of #3 turns you off, grab a shovel and dig a hole in your back yard. It might take awhile for it to fill up with water, but when it does—oh boy, everyone’s going to want to play in your mud pool!

5. Decorate the sidewalk. Who needs chalk when you have sweat and food coloring?

6. Stand on top of an office building in the middle of the day and throw water balloons at people walking by who look really hot. They won’t say ‘thank you,’ but just know that’s what they really mean.

7. Fry an egg on the sidewalk. I don’t know, they do it in the movies and it always looks kind of cool. Once it’s fried, put it in an envelope and send it to KMBC or KSHB—Lezak and Busby will go crazy and it will totally make the evening news.

8. Buy a boat, park it in your driveway and sit in it. The rest is up to your imagination.

9. Go to a local “Cooling Center” and rub elbows with a sweaty homeless man.

10. Kansas City is the self-proclaimed “City of Fountains.” So, go swimming with some stone statues that spit water.

Disclaimer: Quinnterruption is not responsible for any of the repercussions of the activities listed above. No, seriously. Don’t even try to blame me if you get arrested, suffer heat stroke, or severe disappointment. The heat makes people crazy, and I have heat on my side—so, yeah, tell that to your lawyer.