pieandmurderwednesday - Tumblr blog

[pieandmurderwednesday]

wish i could put another funny work story up here

but I told them my dad had cancer and asked not to go into the office. and three days later they let me go. so.

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me: *reordering the mugs in the kitchen to be in rainbow order*

me: What? I’m here to be polite, not heterosexual.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

why work out when you can just miss a work skype by half an hour and be a mess of dread for the rest of the day

it’s so important to get your heart rate to the threshold and keep it that way for hours

[pieandmurderwednesday]

For Halloween, I put on earrings and eyeliner, drove to work ten minutes early, and cleaned my desk.

I’m dressed up as “a morning person.” 

You never know. There could be one in the room with you right. now.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Loading the dishwasher

Me on a usual afternoon: *listening to Halsey* I'll just put these dishes in the dishwasher so the janitors have a bit less work to do. Not my job, but, whatevs.

Someone: *comes up while I am loading dishwasher*

Someone: *leaves dish in sink I HAVE JUST CLEARED*

Me: ... *brief, intense longing for the sweet catharsis of violence*

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Fuzz brain and Front Desk

I keep talking to my health team about the brain fog that just. Comes over me for weeks at a time and makes me feel inadequate at my job and I think I’ve finally just accepted it. It’s the anemia or the POTS or the (thyroid? Maybe? Never got the results of that test) but whatever it is, it tends to pass MOSTLY after a few truly heinous and exhausting days, so hopefully on Monday I’ll be ready to do more than sit and wait for ppl to remind me of the thing they already reminded me to do two days ago.

Aggggggh

I would feel so much smarter if I were confident my brain would actually work as promised for more than 30% of the day.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Nearly had to do the whole fedex form dance again

But I decided just to send the packages separately so they’d be cheaper and not irritate customs so yay me for avoiding extraneous and irritating paperwork!

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Shitty Canadian Hangman

Also known as: Arguing With Canada, my new job title.

I could put it on my resume. Role: Front Desk/ Office Administrator. Experience: orders shit for kitchen, argues with Canada.

Realistically, we have issues with exporting things with many different countries, especially Vietnam. But those issues are generally handled by our international office, while Canadian issues tend to fall right on my (completely unqualified) shoulders. 

Background: we were trying to send a laptop to our Vancouver office. A thing we have done before. A thing we have had issues doing before, and those issues were long and arduous and should have been solved already. Because I solved them (mostly).

See link for details: https://pieandmurderwednesday.tumblr.com/post/185484398919/the-continuing-struggles-fedex

So there’s this paperwork you fill out, right, for Power of Attorney for FedEx. Supposedly, this means that they will take your account and deal with all customs issues with a certain region and never bother you with it again. Supposedly.

Here’s the thing, though. I filled that paperwork out when I was young and fresh-faced and innocent, a mere babe in the woods (about three months ago), and also it had already been passed around to Canada, Texas, back to me, to the office next to mine, to the Chief Financial officer, back to the neighboring office, back to me, then to Texas and Canada again, and then to FedEx. Twice.

That paperwork got around, is all I’m saying.

And it asked for a “Business Number,” which no one at the time knew, so I left it blank and it got sent to Customs and they accepted it and everything was fine.

For like two months.

Then we try to send another laptop, secure in the knowledge that we have Filled Out All The Things, and it got stuck at the border. Because they wanted a Business Number.

A Business Number, for all you lucky bastards who have never needed to know, is a tax thing in Canada that you apparently apply for when you set up a business there. We didn’t have one (I think?) until March of this year, because back then our Canada office was under a different name and only used by remote contractors, so our shipments were casual instead of commercial and basically no one in Canada gave a single solitary fuck.

Then our parent company acquired us and our Canada branch and set up a business there Officially and didn’t bother to get an import-export account (which does fuck-all except add some extra digits after your Business Number and pacify Customs when you try to send shit to yourself, so I can understand why they never bothered). 

So we had the paperwork but didn’t put the number, FedEx and Canada both thought this was a terrible heinous crime, and they contacted us to get The Number to resolve the issue.

I was on break and totally unaware of the Canadian Shit Storm I was about to walk into when I returned. The laptop had been sent, all bells and whistles attached, I returned to the office to start my day, and then the issue was dumped in my lap.

So I sent our FedEx representative the copies of the paperwork we had already filled out, including the paper that explicitly stated that from this moment forward, they would deal with this shit so we didn’t have to, and they said “this looks fine except you need a Business Number or all of your hard work means nothing.”

(Why is it that you need a Canadian Business number for a Non-Resident power of attorney form anyway??? Doesn’t the very fact that you are Not A Resident of Canada imply that you don’t have a Canadian Business Number??????)

Anyway, I emailed the Canadian IT guy back asking for the Number, he sent me a number that identified their business but had the wrong suffix-- intended only for tax purposes, and not import-export. He suggested I ask payroll about it because accounting people apparently know these things.

I sent the number to FedEx, saying “This is what we have, the suffix is different apparently but can we at least use this for now?” And what I got back was, “We’ll check with Canada if this is correct but without the all-important suffix, this number is just farts in the wind.”

So they called Canada, and then they emailed me in a tither because “OH HEAVENS, CANADA SAYS THIS NUMBER IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR COMPANY.”

To which my response was “Shit.” And a moment later, “What the fuck? That can’t be right, this is the number we use to pay our people, OBVIOUSLY IT IS OURS.”

But then I remembered my company exists under an umbrella company (parent company? I forget the term. Our tiny IT ex-startup has a helicopter parent, is what I’m saying) and it might be under that name instead.

Told FedEx, they said, “If it is under that other company, you need to fill out these three forms and then check if the number is correct and then click your heels together three times and pray the Wicked Bitch of the North will accept your humble offering.”

To which I saw turn red, wrote and deleted several very strongly worded emails, finally whittled it down to a polite-sounding “That seems excessive, can we at least check that the number is under our name and see if we have an account without sending the paperwork to get lost in our other office for a week, please oh please? And also, we pay for all this shit and not our parent company, so isn’t it technically ours to deal with anyway?”

Cue Shitty Canadian Hangman, where I hope at least the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) was having fun, because FedEx Poor Bastard (herefore dubbed FPB) and I sure weren’t. Vaguely, it went like this.

Me: *calls FPB* Okay, so this is our company’s name, is it under that name?

FPB : *calls CRA* “Is this the name?”

CRA: “No, you have three more guesses and then I take your first-born child.”

FPB: *calls me* “No.”

Me: “Okay, is it ~slightly more official name of our company~?”

FPB: ...huh.

FPB: *calls CRA* “How about this?”

CRA: “The first word is correct, I cannot tell you more. You have two more guesses, then I take your first-born child.”

FPB: *calls me* “One word was correct, but is there an official suffix or anything?”

Me: “.... Hang on.” *stands up too fast, bruises knee badly against corner of desk, limps to supervisor* “What’s our company’s official name?”

Supervisor: “~Name Canada has already rejected once~”

Me: “...oh.” *limps back to desk* “This is it, bub.”

FPB: “Can you please call Canada this time, they scare me.”

Me: “Fine.”

Me: *calls CRA*

Me: *on hold*

Me: *on hold some more*

Me: *on hold for an hour*

Me: *opens email, sees Accounting has sent Official Canada Name of Business, which is... just great.*

CRA: “Hi, how can I help you?”

Me: “Can you tell me if this number is associated with ~Actual Official Business Name, for real this time~?”

CRA: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, phew! So, do we have an import-export account?”

CRA: “I cannot release that information without authorization.”

Me: “... But I work here. Well, not in Canada, but this is our company. That we want to send a thing to. I just want to send a thing and I need to know if you will let me do that.”

CRA: “You need to fill out form IDK and IDC, and also form GO FUCK YOURSELF before I release that information.”

Me: *dying inside* “Okay fine, you’ve been very helpful. Have a... nice day.”

CRA: “Va te faire foutre.”

Me: “To you as well.”

Back to FedEx, they said they couldn’t do shit either, dumped the whole mess into Accounting’s hands, because they originally didn’t set up whatever account it was and I, a lowly front desk worker, don’t have the authorization.

Shirley Bassey: “I love her to bits, but she doesn’t have the authorization.”

This is the culmination of four days of work.

I have talked with FedEx, with Canada Revenue Agency, with our Vancouver office IT person and hiring manager, with Accounting and with my supervisor, and the result of this effort and time is: I confirmed that the number that we use is, in fact ours. And that I cannot use it until Accounting consults with Legal and sets up the fucking account we seem to have been using already (because how else did we manage to send anything before????). And I googled how to curse people in French while I was on hold.

So all in all I was very polite on the phone, while my subtitles were more like, 

*raises middle finger* 

“Thank you for your help” 

*raises other middle finger* 

“throughout this process” 

*raises third middle finger* 

“and I hope you have a great day.” 

*finger-spelling F-U-C-K- O-F-F* 

“I appreciate your time” 

*scribbling on paper “You Useless Bastards”* 

“and I hope you have a great weekend” 

*continues writing “along with the last of my fucks, which has died of fuck deprivation”* 

“Goodbye!” 

*finishes writing “I hope you step on a Lego every night before bed and that the toilet paper always runs out when you go to a public bathroom”*

[pieandmurderwednesday]

It has happened

I apparently radiate so much Dumb Kid Energy that my coworker asked if I had just graduated. First time I’ve been mistaken as younger than my age in a while, although to be fair, it could be the very short and unruly hair.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Pie

Don’t have the pictures but my partner in crime and I actually baked a pie AND banana bread this weekend, which was awesome! We plan to try out pluot pie next. We’re on season 5 of GoT but kind of tired of all the violence and gore and sexual violence and shit so, uh, Haikyuu is where it’s at now.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

Continuing Struggles of Struggles-to-Adult-McGee

Most recent entry into the struggles chronicle: DRIVING

I’m not a bad driver. Just, really really cowardly, like, hate to change lanes if I can see anyone over my shoulder, hate to drive highways, hate driving at speeds over like 60.

Unfortunately, I do occasionally have to drive to places that are not work and the local library.

Occasionally, FOR work.

Mostly because I am still Very New To All This Executive Assistant Stuff, so occasionally I do dumb shit like, stick a bit of paperwork on my boss’s desk before going home without marking the specific places he needs to sign.

So that he only signs one of the copies and the other copy has to be sent to the other office (a city away) for him to sign during his lunch break, and then I have to drive over to that office (where I’ve never been before) to pick it up and mail it internationally.

Yeah.

So.

Managed to get someone who was in our office to deliver it there, so at least I didn’t have to use same-day FedEx or whatever, but, yeesh. The drive.

 Maps app said it would take 15 minutes. And it would. If you catch the first turn to go onto the other highway, instead of staying in the right lane like an idiot and being forced to exit onto a different highway, screeching in dismay as your Map instructs you to Turn Left. Turn Left. Turn Left. 

Got on a side road after like ten minutes, then I was supposed to get onto a freeway? I think? But I was in the wrong lane and, as previously mentioned, a coward, so I missed the turn and then missed the U-Turn, and then got onto a different side street, continued on for a few miles, overshot my exit, turned onto a different side-street, wound through suburbia for half a mile and finally (Finally!) hit the correct parking lot.

Had to hurriedly put back on my work shirt (I stripped down to a cami cuz it was hot, so sue me) and pat my hair down (a fruitless endeavor) before I trotted into the workplace, announced myself, grabbed the file and got back into the car.

And that’s how a 15 minute drive turned into a 45 minute horrorshow.

At one point I think I was just muttering “FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckShiTFUCK” as I tried to change lanes.

Got home, changed into pajamas, flopped on the couch and informed my sister, very seriously, that in the event of a meteor knocking out all of earth’s satellites or a zombie apocalypse, I better not be designated driver OR navigator because both would lead to our inevitable death.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

This is not actually a struggle

But it was goddamn hot today and a chunk of the city including our office lost power.

You’d think we had a snow day.

People milled around for about half an hour to see if the WiFi would turn back on, then started to feel the heat, took what they wanted from the fridges and left.

I stayed to let ppl back in when they inevitably forgot their keys and or computers because no power means no door unlocky.

All in all, not a terrible day.

Just a very, very, very hot one.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

The Continuing Struggles: FedEx

So

Occasionally, in my new job, I have to mail laptops to places. Like international places. And FedEx will tell you all you need to send things is the label and three copies of the commercial invoice. And this is a lie.

Specifically, if you send a computer from the U.S. to a private address in Canada, you need a Power of Attorney form filled out giving someone the Authority to Import the Thing You Just Goddamn Sent.

Seriously.

So I emailed the dude I was sending the laptop to, confirmed his address, arranged a pick-up, told everyone that the laptop was supposed to arrive on Monday.

And it (very nearly) did.

Then I get a confused email from him saying he got a message saying he needed to fill out? A form? With a tax code? Can he have his laptop please?

I called FedEx, they said they’d sent him the form.

(spoiler: they hadn’t)

I contacted him, he said he’d called again and then they sent him the form but he didn’t know the Canada business number and wasn’t sure he had the Authority to sign it.

Cue the Hot Potato Paperwork dance.

He sent it to me, I sent it to his supervisor (who I thought was also in Canada and would Know The Things). Turns out, dude’s in Texas. So he sent it to our account person. In my office. And promised to send it to me once she signed it.

At one point one of our techs came up to inquire because somehow it had been cc’ed to HIM, and I had to go, “Well, it started out in Canada, then it got sent to me, then to Texas, then to that office around the corner, and now we’re apparently waiting for it to go back to Texas and then to me so I can send it BACK TO CANADA.”

Once I had the full paperwork, I called FedEx to ask where to send it. Sent it. Got back an error message. Had to call again so they could “activate the tracking number.” Sent again. Got my number added to the Tracking Service so they could tell me when the package FINALLY MADE IT THROUGH.

A week later, I flew to England for a conference (way above my paygrade, I have been here SIX WEEKS and they fly me somewhere else and pay me to go!!! I am SO BAD at travel, time zones and jet lag both mess up my joints and pain levels but also ENGLAND wow).

1 am in the morning, I get an international call. Guess who?

FedEx said they tried to deliver the laptop, but there was no response, so they gave me an address where dude could pick it up. I emailed the address to the Canada Dude, told my superior and also tried to politely say “please don’t depend on me to do work things, I am in a different plane of existence and have already slept through dinner.”

2 am in the cold english morning, I get another call. From FedEx. The laptop has finally been delivered. I rasp out a “thank you” and go back the fuck to bed. (And eat some of my plane snacks).

The kicker?

An envelope of something we sent with the laptop turned out to be empty, so either we somehow lost the contents in our office, or it’s floating around somewhere in Canadian customs along with the last fuck I give.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

The Dishwasher

Okay so

hoo boy

This is my first week at work, alright? I come in, first day, they tell me the dishwasher is broken (one of two). Being me, I go, “Okay.”

Then as we’re about to call the repair people, my supervisor goes to check it and turns on the power button and is like, “Okay, it’s probably fixed now.”

So I go, “Okay.”

Then later I get an email from the janitor team, who say that the dishwasher turns on but does not dispense soap. Still broken.

“Okay.”

Then my supervisor takes off early, leaving me by my lonesome, and messages me to call the repair company they used last time. By myself.

“.....Okay.”

I get the number from the old invoice and call in. Hey my name is.... from ..... and our dishwasher is broken, can you come fix it.

“What’s the make of the dishwasher?”

“Um.... I can go check? The serial number is on this old invoice, is that what you mean?”

“You don’t know the make?”

“No, but I do know that you came and fixed it last time.”

“...Okay. Which dishwasher is it?”

“Probably the one you fixed last time.”

(No I didn’t say that, I think I just like blanked mentally and went, “The one on the left?”)

Then we got through the whole ‘what’s wrong with it’ part and they’re coming by Friday but goddamn that was painful. I could hear her scathing contempt through the phone, like, who is this idiot who can’t even write down the make and model of a dishwasher before making a repair request. To which I respond: Two thumbs point to this idiot right here! Where the hell is a make/model identifier and do I really need to tell you if you came and fixed it already last year????

probably I should have googled more before the call but I also offered to go to the dishwasher and check for the numbers and it was late on a Friday so sue me.

I will try to do better next time but tbh I have always been awkward as hell over the phone and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

(Not connected at all but with the weather my hair has decided to become a frizzy bush and there is no taming it. Not exactly the impression I wanted to leave in my first week but hey, at least my clothes were pretty nice.)

[pieandmurderwednesday]

I should rename this blog “The Chronicle of My Struggles”

Anyway, so I just started a new job this week and like, whoa.

A) They are giving me so much more money than I expected plus nice health benefits.

B) They assume I’m really smart and capable so I have to like, pretend I can do things but actually I just ask my supervisor tons of questions all the time and nearly have a heart attack at all the phone things I may have to do. Calling repair people? Terrifying.

C) Everyone is super friendly but also I am the receptionist so I have to be the Friendliest Goddamn Person all the time.

D) Fuck my office is cold so like, I wear tons of long sleeved shirts but also do manual labor? It’s hard to dress casual-formal-can-lift-heavy-things.

E) Goddamn do they trust me with their money. I am in charge of The Snacks and The Lunches. SO many goddamn bananas. And I can just buy the things I like? I buy people’s favorites. I alone hold the power to grant or deny Powerade Grape Flavor that one engineer likes. Plus I got all the vanilla chai I will ever need, fucking score!

F) I made my mom cry describing my failure to communicate with the dishwasher repair group so that epic story of failure is coming up next.

TL;DR I now have a very awesome fulltime gig but also I know nothing and need experience pls help.

(Also I surprise our visitors from Tokyo by speaking Japanese with them, it’s a gift that keeps on giving)

[pieandmurderwednesday]

This rather wimpy looking rice with salmon is the first meal I have officially cooked for myself here, using all the spices I have, which were basil, ginger, turmeric and paprika. Next time imma use an actual recipe cuz this turned out a little odd. Theme of meal was white and orange, because bananas are for breakfast and I still haven't found a place that sells decent lettuce.

[pieandmurderwednesday]

8/25-8/30

Hi all! Naomi speaking ^_^

As y'all may or may not know, I recently came to Japan in order to study in the Inter-University Center’s 10-month program with the ultimate goal of becoming a Japanese<–>English<–>Spanish translator/interpreter. In the next three years or so. We’ll see.

But fun stuff first! Mom and I flew into Narita Airport on 8/25, then dragged our tired and jetlagged ass…ortment of luggage to the nearby Hotel Nikki Narita. Weather as we landed: grey and cloudy, humid in the way that sticks hair and clothes to skin. Food on the plane: delicious even though I got the Bland Meal packet (yes that exists) to try and avoid aggravating any of my new and fun food allergies (high-fructose corn syrup, garlic and onion, apples). We both watched Going in Style on the plane, which I highly recommend, as a cute and fun anticapitalist comedy. You really can’t go WRONG with “three grandpas who lost their pensions rob a bank.” It’s. Hella. Cute. Y'all.

I watched the first 30 minutes of about four other movies, practiced kanji and slept for a bit, but the rest of the time I spent reading Lilith StClair’s Danny Valentine series and leaving snarky comments on a shared kindle account.

Mom and I grabbed dinner from a nearby convenience store ( conbini), lay down on the beds and died for a few hours.

The next morning, we headed back to the airport and took the limousine bus from Narita to Yokohama City Air Terminal, where my landlord (ish) met us with a car and brought us to my new place. Pictures to be included later. It’s a one-room with a stovetop and a bathroom and it’s all mine! It’s also pretty white and I’m not allowed to hang things on the walls so… I need to find a way to add some color to this place. Non-damaging easily removable color. If possible.

There’s no balcony, but I have a large tree outside the window and a sixth-floor to hang laundry on in hot weather (and to sing and pretend to be Sister Maria What’s-her-face from Sound of Music on). The walls seem to be pretty thick, by which I mean, I’ve been singing and no one has banged on the door for me to stop. Yet.

Downsides to the apartment: weird smell that is probably the new floor off-gassing, weird smell in the bathroom that may or may not be mildew, WI-FI.

Landlord mentioned that they have had problems in the past with people using torrent, so the wifi is configured to make that impossible. Dear readers, as you know, I do not use torrent. However. VPN is no longer possible on this bandwidth. Goodbye daily show, supernatural, American Netflix and HBO go. Hello…. whatever else is left.

YouTube still works, tho, so there’s that.

Spent 8/26-29th moving in and getting my ducks in a row (no, not the collection of rubber ducklings usually in a row on my windowsill at home. Figurative ducks, metaphorical row). Headed to Yokohama station on Sunday to buy a new SIM card for my phone, but they couldn’t finish until my resident card was fully authorized by the city ward office. City ward office didn’t open ‘till Monday. Headed to a nearby DVD rental place on the way back but… guess what also needed an authorized residents card.

So mom and I headed back to my place, tried and failed to catch an episode of teen wolf, I cursed at the skies for a couple minutes, and then we watched The Hitman’s Bodyguard instead. Thank you Japanese Netflix. It was v funny and cute, with a satisfying amount of people kicking the crap out of other people and an awesome amount of Salma Hayek being badass and swearing in Spanish. 10/10 would recommend.

The next few days I got my residents card, bought a sim card, got some dvds out from the rental place, and visited the local supermarkets for nonperishables. Mom and I went to eat in Saizeriya (meh, non-garlic options not the best, wine apparently quite bad), an okonomiyaki place a few doors down (quite good, beer apparently acceptable), and packed up to go to Kyoto on the 30th. Also visited a department store and drug store for various necessities, then had to figure out where to stow them in my apartment. All in all, a very successful first few days in Japan