Sometimes, a series of events happen throughout the week that cause you to give people the side eye while you make a mental note that they just made it into your column without them even realizing it. So this week, as I juggled work and life events that kept me busy, annoyed and on my toes, I decided to devote this week’s column to the random acts of crazy that made me stop a minute and say WTF?
Go F**k Yourself to Politically Correct College Tour Guides – I’d like to start this missive by first saying, I am totally on board the politically correct bandwagon, but sometimes, I think my progressive friends have seriously gone off the deep end and this week was no exception. While at a college tour with my son, four of the tour guides introduced themselves by stating their names and they added that they go by the pronouns “He, him, his” or “Her or she.” I looked at my son and asked him, is this a thing now? Because, honestly if it is, I’d like to be addressed as “Miss,” “Hey lady,” “Bitch” but whatever you do, don’t ever think of calling me ma’am.
Go F**k Yourself to the Second Guesser – You haven’t worked in my industry for at least half a dozen years and yet, you decide to start questioning my work and then insult me in an email and cc my client. You know what? What if I take a little break and you take over from here? Just use your rotary phone to call your contacts who no longer have landlines, don’t respond to emails or are out of work looking for jobs too. Don’t ever claim you know how to do my job unless you’re in the trenches right along side me. Otherwise, STFU and get out of my way.
Go F**k Yourself to the Steamroller – I used to work with someone who would literally push you out of the way if it meant she would get ahead faster than you. While the people around her were minding their business and doing their jobs, she used her connections and pushy attitude to get whatever she wanted and didn’t care if she stepped on her co-workers along the way. This week, I met someone who totally reminded me of the steamroller and as I watched her in action, it took me back to those awful days when I always found myself watching my back. The good news is, I’m my own boss now and she’s someone else’s nightmare, not mine.
Go F**k Yourself to People with Hidden Agendas – This past week, I invited a few media contacts and bloggers to a really fun event and for the most part, everyone was really nice, had a great time and wrote positively about their experience. But there always has to be a few bad apples in the bunch and this was no exception. First, there was the pushy paparazzi photographer whose unflattering video promoting the event literally made me cringe. When I told him to take it down, he then got mad at me because he said it took him an hour to create it. Well, take 5 seconds to delete it and you’ll make my day. Then, a reporter who works for a major gossip magazine interviewed my client and proceeded to write something that had absolutely nothing to do with the event I had invited her to see. Lesson learned – even though it’s great when people say they’d love to attend an event, sometimes you’re just better off telling them to stay home or attend another event where they can totally annoy someone else.
Go F**k Yourself to Supermarkets with Super Small Kosher for Passover Selections – For my fellow tribe members who host seders this time of year, is it just me or have supermarkets really started carrying less and less Passover fare? I mean, I shouldn’t have to travel to three supermarkets to find a jar of red horseradish and would it kill you to carry something other than coconut macaroons? This week, after striking out three times on the horseradish, I finally broke down and went to the uber expensive kosher supermarket that just opened in my neighborhood. Not only did I find the horseradish, but I even tracked down two packages of pupiks for my grandmother’s classic fricassee recipe. Granted, when I asked one of the workers if they carried pupiks, he looked at me like I was nuts but I was determined. Plus, I knew there was no way my neighborhood supermarket carried pupiks since I’m lucky if they carried gefilte fish. Thankfully, after searching through one of their freezers, I struck pay dirt and found the pupiks myself. Here’s the deal with Passover – if you work in a kosher supermarket, when Passover is around the corner, you need to brush up on some Yiddish food lingo stat. And if you’re the store manager for Stop & Shop or ACME, it’s time to give Passover an entire aisle and not just three shelves filled with gluten free matzoh, white horseradish and borscht. For the record, while the Catskills might have been known as the “Borscht Belt” during the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel era, no one I know eats borscht at their seder. Now pupiks on the other hand…that’s a whole different story.
And on that note, I have to go make some matzoh ball soup. Happy Holidays!!!