Hello My Name is K-Y-L-E-Y and I Might Be Passive Aggressive

There is little that makes me more angry / frustrated / annoyed than when people misspell my name.  From my one aunt who has only recently mastered it (seriously, 23 years later she seems to have it down) to random coworkers sending me emails.  Today I’d like to focus on the coworker side of it.

Here’s the thing.  My work email has my name spelled out in it.  Additionally, I have an email signature at the bottom of every email that contains my name.  That means that anyone sending or receiving an email from me has at least two chances to see / places to check the spelling.  I don’t understand why this is hard. 

And maybe I’m being overly dramatic but the fact that people just seem to refuse to look and see if they have spelled it correctly strikes me as incredibly rude.  Especially since the most common offenders are people I have told before that they are misspelling it.  Like really?  Do you not even have enough respect for me to check that you’re spelling my name right?  Better yet, that you even have the correct name?  Because I've become “Kyle” on many an occasion.  You’re not only altering my name there, but my gender!  It just really frosts my cookies.

All this said, I've realized lately that I have some pretty strong passive aggressive tendencies that come to light when this happens.  My first instinct, for example, was to email people back and blatantly misspell their name so they could see what it’s like.  And I could just keep it up.  Keep spelling their name totally wrong.  That seemed a bit too intense though so I didn't do it.

Most recently I've just started taking it into account when prioritizing my miscellaneous projects.  Like, “oh, this person needs this done but spelled my name wrong and this other person needs this done and they managed to spell it correctly.  Looks like other person’s project is going to be the one I do first.”

When none of these tactics seem to affect the people in question though I’m forced to resort to aggressive aggression by emailing back and saying something like “Yeah I can do that and also you keep spelling my name wrong.”  I guess I’ll just be that girl at the office.  The one that gets crappy about my name.  I do the same thing when I introduce myself to people though.  Usually the conversations go like this:

Me: Hi, my name is Kyley, it’s nice to meet you.
Person X:  Hi Kayley it’s nice to meet you too.
Me: It’s Kyley.
Person X: Keeley?
Me: No, Kyley.
Person X: Kelly?
Me: NO! Kyley, like rhymes with smiley.
Person X: Ohhh, Kyley, nice to meet you Kayley.
Me: *Internally* Nice to meet you too, jackass.

Seriously these problems could all be eliminated if people would just pay attention to what is going on around them.  Check spelling.  Actually listen to people, don’t just think you’re hearing what they are saying and that that’s good enough.  Listen and make sure you are really hearing.  I can’t be the only person this happens to so chances are that if you’re not making a conscious effort to listen you’re probably offending more than one person.  And if you miss something don’t just go with what you think you heard, ask for clarification.  I would much rather repeat my name to someone who says they missed what I said than to someone who has just decided on a new name for me.

Anyway, rant over I suppose.  Sorry about that.

The Effects of Late Work Arrival

You know what’s the worst?  Oversleeping and getting to work late.

Okay, maybe it’s not the worst.  I suppose famine, war, malaria, etc. are probably worse but I’m using hyperbole for the sake of this blog post.  Anyway comma…

Oversleeping and getting to work late.  I hate when I do this.  It makes everything about the day pretty awful.  Allow me to break it down for you.  To preface, I will say that I usually like to get to work by 8 o’clock or before.  Okay, here we go.  On days when I oversleep (today for instance) time goes like this:

8:30am – Wake up. Be startled by how light it is outside. Grab phone to check time. See time. Lament failure in proper awakening skills. Sigh. Stretch. Get out of bed. 

8:37am – Let out Bo. Go into bathroom. Wash face. Apply makeup. Throw hair back in ponytail. 

8:44am – Let Bo inside. Go to bedroom. Grab outfit. Get dressed. 

8:50am – Go to kitchen. Grab things for lunch. Pack lunch. 

8:55am – Leave for work. 

9:27am – Arrive at office and clock in. 

9:38am – Realize am ravenous due to being past normal breakfast time. 

9:40am – Eat oatmeal. 

11:30am – Realize am hungry again due to being close to normal lunchtime. Attempt to tell stomach to get its shit together because we just had breakfast. 

11:35am – 12:33pm – Eat all snacks. 

2:00pm – Eat lunch and read book. 

3:00pm – Start wanting to go home. 

4:00pm – Really wanting to go home. If I’d gotten to work early like I should have I could be leaving right now.

5:00pm – I should not be here right now. Even if I’d managed to get in at 8:30 I would be able to leave right now. Why do I suck at life? 

5:10pm – I hate my life. 

5:11pm – Please god, I want out. 

5:10pm – Did the clock seriously just go back a minute?! 

5:30pm – Justification time. I could leave now and just work extra tomorrow. 

5:32pm – No, that would be a bad idea. What if I accidentally get in late tomorrow too? Then I’ll be totally screwed. 

5:45pm – But if I leave now it’s like no time at all tomorrow. 15 minutes is nothing! 

5:50pm – 15 minutes is nothing. I can make it through these 15 minutes now. Keep working on projects. 

5:55pm – Ooo, it will surely take me these last five minutes to gather things and get ready to go, better start doing that. 

5:56:30pm – I might have been wrong. 

6:00pm – Oh sweet salvation! A mere 30 minutes between me and being home! Huzzah!

So yeah, while the huzzah moment is great and all I’d much rather avoid the two hours of mental torture I incur at my own hand… err… mind.  I just can’t let myself oversleep ever again.  Totally achievable goal, right?    

My Brain is Basically WebMD

So if you know me well at all you probably know that at the slightest sign of illness my overly dramatic mind tends to go straight to cancer.  Tooth pain?  Must be tooth cancer.  Pulled a muscle running?  Back cancer for sure.  Stubbed a toe?  Can't rule out the possibility that it might be toe cancer.  Seriously, it's like a character flaw.  Then today I saw this comic and I was like, "Oh my gosh! Screw webMD, this is what my brain does all on its own!"  So clearly, I have the brain of a web based doctor.  You can be jealous.

Things My Dog Doesn’t Understand

But look how cute I am!

Oh Bo, you special little tropical fish, you are so very bizarre. You may remember from my “Meet Bo” post that Bo was at one time an unassuming, quiet, shy, and retiring type of canine. This is no longer the case. He is now utterly crazy and there are certain things which inspire the crazy that just shouldn't. I like to call these things, “that which Bo does not understand.” Let me give you some examples.

1. Bo does not understand the concept of apartment living. He can not grasp the fact that there are other people living in our building and that it is okay for them to come into the entry way and even check their mail should they so choose. He is certain these are dastardly people who will only bring horror upon the casa Bogleson.

2. Bo does not understand how cliché he is. He chases his tail. He pees on fire hydrants. He chases cats. He barks at the mailman. I don’t know how I manged to find such a stereotypical dog.

3. Bo does not understand that neither the mailman nor the UPS man are ax murderers. The way he barks at them / the way he once tried to attack one really leads me to believe he thinks they are. Thus far, however, they have delivered several packages and no attempted homicides so I must conclude that he is mistaken in his assumption.

4. Bo does not understand that my making food has no direct effect on him. He seems to believe that my making food means he gets to eat the food that has been made. Again, such a typical dog.

5. Bo does not understand that I can’t run like the wind. Each and every time I attempt to jog with him he attempts to forcibly pull me into the life of a sprinter.

And lastly… 

6. Bo does not understand that kisses are better in moderation. I sometimes fear he may be tasting me in order to decide if it’s a good time to eat me. He is obsessive with his kisses / licking. It’s borderline OCD.

I maintain hope that someday he will go back to his pre-crazy nice calm self.  Maybe when he turns 40...

I Hate Spiders

This morning I had to kill a GIANT spider. Like seriously, it was so so big. I had to hit it with a shoe three times before it finally succumbed to its death. It had a white part on its back. I've decided it was like a mom spider and I might have wiped out an entire generation. I feel both sad about this potential massacre and super proud of my bravery in the face of epic arachnid danger. Anyway, then I saw this .gif and thought it was pretty accurate / totally reasonable.