The (White) Elephant in the Office

/ Diane Dean-Epps / Leave a comment

Holiday Blog PostTwo Pieces of Advice: The holiday gifts for which you didn’t ask.

I have a holiday combo pack of advice for you that can be sorted into two buckets: Employment Security and Life Lesson.

Intrigued? (I’ll settle for mildly interested.)

Employment Security

The First Bit of Advice for Which You Didn’t Ask:

DON’T perform an online search for “best white elephant gifts” while you’re at work.

It may end up being the last day that you do work. Permit me to elaborate.

Yesterday we received a very perky and festive email from our office manager, saying we would have our annual white elephant “gift grab” that is a yuletide party staple infusing holiday cheer.

I was pretty stoked about this year’s event, given that last year I waited too long to purchase an appropriate gift, precluding me from a) thinking; b) thinking creatively; and c) translating thinking into timely action, e.g., refraining from making a spur-of-the-moment purchase just hours before the party began.

This year I launched the white elephant gift search sequence immediately after receiving the aforementioned perky and festive email.

I sat right down – okay, you got me, I was already sitting – and I asked the entity with all of the answers – besides Siri, Alexa, my mother, and that new bank virtual assistant, Erica – that rhymes with Schmoogle, what the best white elephant gifts are for an office party.

Good grief, the results. As I sit here detailing my experience, I’m still sweating out what kind of online monitoring we have in place at work. The list my favorite search engine spat out is astoundingly inappropriate, even by my standards. (And, mind you, my latest humor book is titled with the phonetically spelled version of a naughty word.)

What popped right up are “funny white elephant gifts under 20.” Seems about right. Okay. Click.

That’s when I saw the list classified as “novelty” gifts. Yeah, right, if novelty means reflective only of humor about bodily parts and functions, acts of debauchery, and epigrams of non-clever profanity, then, yes. Quite novel. The novel-est.

The list was sponsored by some entity known as, “The Witty Yeti.” There was little to no wit, and it’s only by accident that I even know what a Yeti is, mainly because I’m such a dweeb that I looked it up one time when I was considering the purchase of a Yeti cooler. (You can see how heavily research plays into the use of my free time.)

Side bar: Have you seen how much those things are? Yeti coolers, not Yetis. I don’t think you can even buy that particular hominoid on eBay. Maybe Etsy. Those people are crafty.

Try putting that on your Christmas list. Again — the cooler, not the Abominable Snowman — and see how many other brands of coolers your family sees fit to gift you with instead.

Moving on to that second piece of advice. Let’s see if I can integrate another creature or three into the mix. So far, we’ve got an elephant and a Yeti.

Life Lesson

The Second Piece of Advice for Which You Didn’t Ask:

DON’T try to choose the perfect white elephant gift.

That is a string of oxymoronic words right there, “perfect white elephant,” for many reasons. The fact of the matter is when you think you’ve got the perfect item, think again. You absolutely do not. Why? Because “you” are not “them.”

Witness the year I decided to garner the non-existent award for best white elephant gift by jam-packing a large-as-an-elephant box with goodies I thought were stupendous.

And therein lies the problem: It was me who thought the gifts were stupendous. Guess who didn’t agree? Everyone else attending the party.

In point of fact, not only did no one do any stealing of the blasted thing, but the person who ended up with it acted as though it was even less than a consolation prize.

What was in this pop-goes-the-weasel-box? Wine, wineglasses, wine biscuits, a wine-themed tee-shirt, and a wine opener. You know what it got me? Whining. From the person who was stuck with the gift braying, “Well, I guess I’ll have to take this home.”

I was so stunned by my epic fail I felt as though I’d been charged by an elephant.

Because I don’t seem to take my own advice about embracing imperfection, every year I play a lead role in my own version of Groundhog Day. You’d think with a topic like elephant-themed gifts I’d remember.

Hum. Groundhogs, though. They don’t even really look like hogs, now do they? They look more like rodents, or squirrels. I wonder if there’s a relationship? I’m going to need to look it up.

Biography. After a diverse and rewarding career in television broadcasting, Diane wended her way toward both a teaching credential, and a Master of Arts in English, earning several publishing credits in the process, including her master’s thesis highlighting the work of author, Langston Hughes entitled, Changing the Exchange. Diane lives and works in northern California, where she’s often found performing in both scheduled and unscheduled productions in front of mostly attentive audiences. Her “sit-down standup” style of writing is featured in JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT EFFIN’ FAMOUS, DOESN’T MEAN I’M NOT EFFIN’ FUNNY, which is Diane’s fifth published book. Her other books, in no particular order include: Maternal Meanderings (Humor), Last Call (Humorous Mystery), KILL-TV (Humorous Mystery). Other publishing credits also include numerous essays that have appeared in a variety of periodicals, including MORE magazine, NPR’s This I Believe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento magazine, Bigger Law Firm magazine, and the Sacramento Business Journal.

A Simpler Time for Simple Folk

/ Diane Dean-Epps / Leave a comment

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At the very core of who we are as baby boomers is the fact that we’re incredibly independent people, but simple. Lest you think I’m calling you a simpleton, let me explain.

The reason for this is because when we were growing up we relied upon ourselves, nature, and really bad pre-Shark Tank inventions to entertain ourselves. (Out of season fireworks were a favorite where I grew up, and about as common as boys nicknamed “Four Fingers.”)

Oh, sure, we can offer up the seemingly obvious reason accounting for this fact, which is that we didn’t grow up during the Digital Age.

Heck, truth be told, I barely got of my 20’s even knowing how to use one of those behemoth, DOS-fueled, landfill-bound early prototypes, let alone being entertained by the blasted thing. But it was something more…or less.

Our parents raised us differently. It was a tougher love these Depression-Era parents offered up, giving us our rallying cry that can be completed by anyone near you, anywhere, anytime, if they’re over the age of 45. “Stop crying or I’ll…” The person will chime right on in with, “…give you something to cry about.” And we laugh about it. Not mirthlessly, but heartily. Almost fondly. Because it was a different time that needs to be viewed in context.

Our generation didn’t dare utter the words, “I’m bored” at home. Well, you might say them out loud once. However, you quickly caught on to the fact that your parents had some not-so-nifty ways of keeping you entertained that always possessed a work element and/or deep cleaning with banned toxic chemicals element. Interestingly enough, another option was they sent you out to the elements.

When we were really little, say, age five, we might hear, “How can you be bored? There’s the whole outdoors to explore. Go outside and play!” when we complained. Weekdays meant you ran outside when you got home from school, returning at dusk. In the summer you ran outside the moment you woke up, returning when it was dark.

As we got older, you know, right around age 11, we were likely to receive the advice to, “Get a job.” Nope, our parents didn’t brook any shilly shallying, dilly dallying, or lollygagging.

And yet some of my fondest memories, particularly in the summertime, are of those times when I had to amuse myself and, possibly, my really quirky childhood sidekick.

The funny thing is our entire generation can pretty much relate to these cheap pursuits, no matter where you hail from. Just as long as you’re from a working class family. You may have been doing the same thing when I was …

  1. Lying on my back, looking up at the sky, trying to figure out what shape the clouds were in. (Daytime Version.)
  2. Lying on my back, looking up at the sky, trying to figure out what constellation the stars had aligned into. (Nighttime Version.) P.S. I never got this correct, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do my level best to identify one out of the 15 considered common.
  3. Lying back in my office chair, working my first office gig, looking up at the ceiling, and counting how many holes there were in one acoustic ceiling tile. (Approximately 5,000 for you inquiring minds.)
  4. Making a whistle out of a blade of grass. (Google it, whippersnapper. It’s a thing.)
  5. Braiding grass, twigs, and weeds together into a crown, necklace, or other accessory. (Our generation has always been very environmentally aware and tactile. The latter can get you into trouble when you pair that proclivity with needing to touch cloth. Let your mind embrace the possibilities. Just your mind.)
  6. Slowing my breathing down and making myself real quiet as I lay down on the floor, not to sleep, next to the vent in my room, listening to my parents as they talked about absolutely nothing of interest to me.
  7. Placing a penny on the railroad tracks and squishing it into a piece of found art while I stood on my grandmother’s split rail fence, waving at the Union Pacific train conductor as the train whooshed by in a cloud of non-energy-efficient black smoke.
  8. Combining all of my mom’s lotions, potions, and girl products into one big vat, convincing myself that I was the next Estée Lauder.
  9. Crafting a skateboard out of skates and a board. Then hauling myself up on that thing, in my prized Keds shoes, trying not to break my spirit nor my rear end.
  10. Swimming in irrigation ditches, not even thinking about why the water was decorated by those pretty rainbow swirls on the surface. (This was due to chemicals from the nearby orchards. I’m lucky I didn’t grow a tail.)

These were almost sweet recreational activities because no one got hurt. Well, usually. There were random bugs flying into my eyes, close calls with poorly timed runaways from railroad track penny placement, grass stains, irrigation ditch “finds” that scared the bejesus out of me, and a few other occurrences leading to the many fears I’ve amassed over the years.

Comedian Steven Wright was so right when he said, “Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.” A (non-squished) penny for your thoughts.

 

The Ghost of Blogs Past

/ Diane Dean-Epps / Leave a comment

The Ultimate Coffee Klatchcoffee anyone

As someone who is always looking at the healthful potential of any given product, recently I read an article that really made my tail wag. The headline boldly and pungently announced, “Wake Up and Smell Health Benefits of Fresh Coffee.” May I say, as an avid consumer of strongly brewed, robust coffee products, I was truly excited to learn I’d been contributing positively to my own health.

It seems that this group’s findings confirmed that not only is the aroma of freshly brewed coffee pleasant, but when exuding those “yummy, your fix is on its way” fumes, it’s also exuding those precious antioxidants that we are all running around, attempting to corral for our greater good.  I can finally put together that antioxidant breakfast of champions: blueberries, dark chocolate and coffee.

Apparently you not only need to smell the stuff to get the full benefit, but drink it too. May I tell you the excitement that this caffeine addict feels over this particular finding? As I read on I learned that antioxidants work by helping to block some of the undesirable effects of oxygen on living tissue. Good thing. I’m so out of the loop I was still under the impression that oxygen was always good for living tissue.

Fortunately, I knew intrinsically that I needed to counteract the bad effects of oxygen with the good effects of caffeine ingestion. I’m now thinking that maybe I should spread coffee all over my face because I’ve certainly got some undesirable things going on with that living tissue as it ages.

And while this study certainly garnered a great deal of attention from me, it got me thinking about how these folks get the money to fund these studies. I mean, talk about your dream job. Granted, the gentleman who put together the study and surveyed its participants had some pretty impressive credentials, he being a Professor of Environmental Toxicology at UC Davis. While that title represents a fair amount of schooling, how the heck did it translate into Java Maven? Can you imagine how this pre-research scenario played out?

Picture two science guys, Lab Partner and Professor Guy, sitting around in white lab coats, trying to come up with next year’s research project and the attendant funding.

Professor Guy might say, “No, no. Saving the earth’s resources has been done to death. We need something new, something exciting.” (Slurping sounds heard, as he lifts his University of California Davis monogrammed mug full of steaming coffee to his lips, contemplating a profitable project.)

Lab Partner:   “Well, how about the consequences of the diminishing ozone layer on infants in their open air strollers and the skin’s inability to manufacture ample melatonin to combat the possibility of skin cancer by the time the child reaches adulthood?” (Insert sound of liquid being poured as he completes his walk across the room to pour himself another cup of hot joe after which he begins his long journey back across the room, pot in hand.)

Professor Guy: “Good gawd, man, no! We need something special,” he exclaims, accepting the proffered second cup of French Roast from his research buddy.

“Wait a minute, I’ve got it!” he shouts as he stares at his coffee cup, only just now noticing that it’s not an appendage, but a receptacle that can be successfully balanced on any flat surface.

Lab Partner:  “What did you get? The chipped cup again? Sorry.  I thought I’d thrown that danged thing away.”

Professor Guy: “No, you idiot! We’ll study caffeine as it relates to antioxidants which will combat the negative effects of oxygen on living tissue.”

They both laugh uproariously for a full five minutes at the absurdity of it all and then Professor Guy and the Lab Partner exchange meaningful looks. They simultaneously drain the last few drops of the pungent, slightly sweetened offering from the bottom of their respective cups. The room is still. Professor Guy picks up a pen.

“Dear Starbucks…”