The Diaries of a Fat Chick

Once again our lives have been marked by change.  After two years at my current job I accepted a position as an accounting technician for a local public accounting firm.  Apparently you can take the girl out of accounting but you can’t take the accounting out of the girl.

In all seriousness, one of the people I used to work with at my previous accounting firm took me out for coffee and offered me a job at the new smaller accounting firm she worked for.  After a few minutes of thought I accepted.  It had many benefits - working with three people who I had worked with before, more money, less hours and a much shorter drive (7 minutes to work as compared to the 3o to 40 minutes at my previous job).  The shorter drive and the working less hours ties in nicely with our Simple Living lifestyle and as an added bonus, while I’m learning some new stuff, I’ll also be doing the same work I did at the other accounting job.

The downside?  I left a job where, for the most part, I liked everyone I worked with and LOVED my job.  Doing payroll was an amazing job and I achieved a great deal of satisfaction from it.  And, here’s the truth - even with all of the above benefits to working at this new job, I would not have left my payroll job if it hadn’t been for one single person at the company.  I’ve spoken about her before and how much misery she was causing me and it only got worse.  At one point she walked off the job, insisting that she would only come back if her demands were met and she never had to work with me again.  She informed my supervisors and the president of the company that she was “done with me” and that she refused to work with me.  When, after a couple of days the higher ups refused to give in to her demands she came back to the office, apologized for her behaviour and requested her job back.  And they gave it to her.

She went back to being her usual sweet to my face/stab me in the back self however there was one small difference.  I said to my supervisor when I discovered she was coming back to work ”She says she’s done with me?  I’m done with her.” and unlike her I know how to stick to my guns.  That was over 4 months ago and from the day she came back I didn’t say a single word to her that wasn’t work related.  My supervisor watched with a combination of barely disguised horror and humour as I would walk by her in the hallway completely ignoring her numerous “Hello, how are you?” comments.  It took nearly a month of me completely refusing to acknowledge her existence outside of anything work related before she took the hint and stopped attempting to communicate socially with me.  Obviously I’m kind of a bitch but we all knew that right?

Eventually she moved to a different department but like a dog with a bone she couldn’t stop with her attempts to destroy me.  And when this new opportunity came up, the chance to finally be free of her was too strong to resist.  So I took it and last Friday was my last day.  I’ve never been so sad to leave a job before but as I said earlier the new job has enough benefits (did I mention the paid Friday afternoon’s off in the summer?) that I have no regrets.  The funnest part?  Was being bluntly honest when shocked co-workers asked me why I was leaving.   “Because of so and so,” I said, “I wouldn’t be leaving if it wasn’t for her.”  I’m kind of a bitch that way.

So, here’s to new jobs, more money and another step towards Simple Living.

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Over at Pajiba, the lovely Sarah put up an interesting comment diversion.  She wants to know the dumbest outfit you were ever forced to wear at work.  I shared this:

My first job out of college was working for a public speaking company as the receptionist.  They were big into team building activities etc. and about six months into my job they did a team building weekend retreat thing.  The entire office (which consisted of about 7 people) spent the night at this lodge in the middle of nowhere and then we all went white water rafting the next morning.

What does this have to do with horrible outfit at work?  I’m getting to it; hold your water.

So, we pull up to the white water rafting company and these two young, hard-bodied gorgeous men come bounding out of the office and greet us heartily.  First thing we need to do, they say, is get you suited up.  I freeze midstep at the words “suited up” and look at the other admin person like a deer in the headlights. 

With fear and trepidation I trail after the rest of the group into the far building.  Hanging on the wall are various wet suits, the two young, gorgeous, hot bodied men eye us all up and down and start picking out wet suits suitable for our various body sizes.

The problem, of course, is that I’m fat.  I’m sweating bullets while they’re grabbing the suits; imagining them turning towards me and saying “I’m sorry ma’am, there ain’t a wet suit in the world that will stretch to fit that ass”.  In retrospect, that would have been less humiliating then the actual turn of events.

The blonde one handed me a wet suit (size - 4 x) and I began the arduous task of squeezing my, let’s call it, voluptuous body into the damn suit.  I’ll spare you the gory details but let’s just say that the copious amounts of sweating I did earlier actually assisted in the process and there was a lot of grunting and heavy breathing involved.  Once I was crammed into the suit, they zipped me up, buckled me into a too-snug life vest and secured a helmet onto my head. 

You know how sometimes you’ll see a semi-large person riding a bike in those spandex shorts, how they kind of bulge over the sides of the seat and every dimple of cellulite is shared in all it’s cottagey cheese glory?

You want to look away, and you try, you honestly do - but it’s like some kind of terrible car wreck and you watch it with a horrific fascination until it jiggles its way out of your line of vision.  Picture that, only it’s my entire fat body covered in way too snug spandex and I’m jiggling and waddling my way to a large rubber raft where I will be forced to paddle my way through rapids with two impossibly gorgeous men and possibly die with six of my co-workers.

And that, my friends, was the worst outfit I ever had to wear for a job.

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Last week I was sitting innocently in my co-worker Clark’s office when he informed me that he was the new Environmental Champion for our branch and the first Environmental Committee meeting would be next week.  He paused meaningfully but when I only stared at him with a blank look on my face, he soldiered on.

“You’re joining the committee right Kelly?”

“Um…no?”

He gave me his best disappointed look, “Really?  Because I’ve already got you on the list.”

“What the hell?  I didn’t respond to your meeting request with a yes.” I frowned.

‘Yeah but you and I have been sitting here for the last 10 minutes and we’ve already brainstormed like four ideas on how we, as an office, can reduce our environmental impact on the earth.  You’re an integral part to the committee.”

“But I don’t care about the environment.  That makes it difficult to be on the committee.” I said with a slightly guilty grin.

“I really want you to be a part of the team Kelly.” he gave me his best puppy dog eyes.

“Can I be the Environmental Champion?”

“Well, I was assigned this title and I can’t really just give it away.”

“What exactly does the Champion do Clark?”

“Um, it’s pretty important stuff actually,” he hedged nervously, “I’m in charge of um, building team confidence and making sure things go smoothly and overseeing, uh, the bulk of the meeting and um…”

“So you do nothing?  You find four or five people to be on the committee and you supervise while they do all the hard work.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then if you want me on the team, I want to be the Environmental Champion.” I cross my arms firmly and stare pointedly at him.

“I can’t do that.  You’re putting me in an impossible position.” he fidgeted nervously with a mechanical pencil on his desk as I stared impassively at him.

“Hey, how about if I make you the Environmental Vice Champion?” he gave me his best politician smile.

I uncross my arms and lean forward, “What are the perks of this position?  What sort of power will I wield?”

“I’ll tell everyone at the meeting that you’re the Vice Champion.”

“Hmm…tempting.  But seriously Clark, I really don’t think I’d be any use at this meeting.  You know how I sit and just mock people at these things.  Plus, I believe I mentioned I don’t really care about the environment.”

“Well, here’s the thing Kelly.”  he brushed an imaginary piece of lint from the front of his shirt nervously.  “Half the people in this office are afraid of you so if you tell them they have to print double sided or recycle the cardboard boxes from their lunches, they’ll do it.”

“That’s true.  Fine, I’ll go to your stupid environmental committee meeting.  But I must insist that I be referred to as Mr. Vice Champion during the meeting.”

“We can do that Mr. Vice Champion.”

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I just looked out the window of my office and was witness to a man peeing in the parking lot next to ours.  He just walked up beside a mini-van, took a quick look around, unzipped and let it go.  (Either his aim was good or the wind wasn’t blowing as the mini-van remained remarkably urine free.)

The sad part is this isn’t an uncommon occurrence (I work in a less than stellar part of town), nor was I shocked by the display of public urination.  Instead, I sighed wistfully and thought:

“I wish I could pee outside so damn easily.”

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