January 3rd, 2013Top StoryTackling a Guest Who Bleeds Everywhere; How to Eat Lunch at Work and Other Questionable AdviceBy Caity Weaver
Last Friday I woke up to find a large amount of blood smeared on the door of the bathroom. I was in a hurry so I didn't clean it, or say anything about it to my roommate. When I came home it was gone, so I figured my roommate had a bloody nose in the middle of the night and didn't realize. It wasn't until the next day I found blood in the living room; this grossed me out/intrigued me so I kept looking. This was some straight up CSI: Miami realness! Seven rooms had blood in them: the living room, dining room, kitchen, my roommate's bedroom, the bathroom, the laundry room, and our basement living room all had blood splatter. The laundry room and basement living rooms were the worst. There was blood everywhere, I mean everywhere, and a lot of it too. On stairs, on walls, in beer pong cups, on and in the washing machine, on the dryer, in and around a shower, on a toilet, on a couch, there was even the name of the girl my roommate has been doing painted on a wall in blood. I ended up cleaning this all up. When my roommate came home, I asked him what the fuck this was all about, and he said that the girl he's seeing had cut her hand on some glass she broke when they were drunk. He seemed sorry, but there was never an explanation as to why she wrote her name on the wall in blood, why or how she got blood in seven rooms, or why in the three fucking days the house had been a literal bloody mess he hadn't cleaned more than the blood on the bathroom door. I was under the impression that he wasn't going to have this girl over anymore because she's seriously crazy, and probably dead, but she's over tonight, and seemingly alive. Though I am curious as to why she left a blood trail through my house, I mostly think this girl is fucking bat shit scary. I want to tell my roommate that I don't want her visiting anymore. Is that okay? Thatz not okay. None of this is okay? Are you real? Are you okay? Right off the bat I'll note that, if the details you present here are true, you are very calm and collected around what are apparently vast quantities of blood. Consider opening a Manson-themed Bed & Breakfast in your giant-sounding house to capitalize on your unflappability. Now, let's say first that you are a real person who experienced this and second, that someone's daughter/sister/best friend—I mean the chick that your friend is "doing"— did get blind drunk off appletinis and smash a crystal ball at your apartment. Her night of boozing could explain many of the most disturbing details of this story:
So the mystery here is not how the blood got to be from inside this little lady's skin-suit to all over your home, but why your roommate did not clean it up. He is both inconsiderate and possibly a murderer. When a guest oozes bodily fluids in the home of another, the onus falls first to that guest and second (if the guest is incapacitated) to their host to clean up the mess. There is no reason why the blood should have been left to dry and crumble for three days, attracting all manner of shark and vampire to your property. And, why did your roommate clean the blood only off the bathroom door? That's the one place I would have left it, to ensure that the Angel of Death passed over your bathroom. Confront him about all of this. (Note: It's possible that he didn't notice the excess blood; you said yourself that you didn't realize it was all over until Day 2. In that case, you should have brought the trail of horrors to his attention and asked that it be cleaned. He should have apologized profusely and cleaned it.) It seems a little harsh to ban someone from your home because she was injured there. Apart from the writing her name on the wall in blood thing (which is bonkers and no way to get your security deposit back), it doesn't necessarily sound like the girl involved is too crazy. However, if she and your roommate keep reenacting that scene from The Shining on a weekly basis, ring the alarm and revise your guest policy. Eating at work can be tough for some people. For me, I just want to be able to enjoy my lunch or snack without feeling like someone is analyzing my dietary choices. I currently work in a very nice office where we are provided breakfast each morning, and if someone's in the kitchen when I'm in there, I'm 400 times less likely to go for the bagel tray. Motivation!! Anyways—the girl who sits across from me at work (in great shape, but clearly with food issues of her own) will ask me what I'm eating almost every day because she can hear me crunching my salad or unwrapping my tuna wrap. I know she's only asking because then when I say "What about you?" she'll get to say something dickish like, "Oh, I'm skipping lunch today. I have a big fat weekend coming up." I HATE IT. Not only that, but every now and then if she can smell my lunch, she will say "Mmmmm what did you GET??" while WALKING OVER TO MY DESK TO PEER OVER MY CUBICLE INTO MY LUNCH AND WATCH ME EAT. Get out of my face and get out of my food!! I want to find a way to ask my coworker to keep her nose out of my lunch and keep it in her damn protein shakes-am I insane or is that okay? Thatz not okay. Ho-lee hell do you guys have food issues. Are you sure your workplace provides breakfast each morning as a treat? Because it sounds like they only do it to foster cunning and animosity among the employees. Give my love to everyone at Vogue. Having said that, I empathize with your point about how eating food at work can be stressful. My spot at Gawker HQ places me at a long table, squarely between Max Read and Adrian Chen. Look down at your right elbow. Now move your gaze two inches to the left. That is pretty much where Max Read sits in relation to my computer. Shortly after I began working at Gawker, I decided it drove him CRAZY when I would eat. I felt like every lunch I had was composed of the loudest, messiest, most fragrant foods in the land; that my eating a sandwich was several orders of magnitude more distracting than him eating his bowl of oatmeal mush (or whatever he eats, I don't know, he eats dumb stuff). Max is having a room temperature glass of water and I'm slicing into a pie stuffed with four and twenty live blackbirds. Max is wiping his mouth with a napkin and I'm using a chainsaw to eat soup. I would push my plate waaaay to the other side of my computer monitor, as far away from Max's line of vision as possible any time I had food. I would wolf down meals like Kobayashi so he wouldn't get annoyed that I was eating lunch(?). "I'm eating right now and it is driving Max Read CRAZY," I would gchat to friends, every single day. Then, one morning: a miracle. Max Read IM'd to apologize to ME for always eating loudly. He said he "barely" noticed my eating. And that's when I realized: I have to get on Max Read's radar. He is not paying nearly enough attention to me and ALSO everyone is a total weirdo who thinks the world is obsessing about how and what they eat. NOT TRUE. From where I'm sitting (across from your cubicle, watching you eat), your coworker is just making polite conversation. If she hears you unwrapping food, or twitches her nose as the air grows thick with the odor of tuna salad, that's not on her – that's on you. You are the one who is eating at work. She is the one who is working at work. Here is a list of things it is rude to say to someone eating lunch:
Here is a list of things it is not rude to say:
It's not "dickish" of your coworker to say she's skipping lunch because she's got a big fat Greek weekend coming up. It is, perhaps, an ill-advised dietary habit. At the same time, it is weird if she's peering over your cubicle for an extended period of time to watch you eat, like a Dickensian orphan smudging her nose on bakery window glass. If she's doing that, will yourself to make unbroken eye contact with her while you chew, silently. This is a great way to get anyone to stop looking at you. If that doesn't work, the next time she asks what you're having for lunch, tell her it's just a little leftover nunya. Nunya-BIDNESS. Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions here. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment