Yes, man.
Posted by Richard Mankhey
I’ve come to the realization that my nature is to be a people pleasing kind of person who can get easily sucked into drama at work and manipulated by evil bosses to feel guilty about the work I’m not doing fast enough or the work I shoudn’t be doing but have been tasked with anyway…and you know how it is…
I suppose the same thing goes for interpersonal relationships. A people pleaser will not want to be up-front with someone when he or she isn’t into them, or they have a criticism they want to make or there is something about someone else that rubs them the wrong way (you can also call this sort of behavior “wussy” and I’m guilty as charged)…
It’s been in the works for a while now but I’ve suddenly had an epiphany that I’m not going to live like that anymore and this is particularly relevant to work so I say SCREW IT when your boss wants you to come in over the weekend because of a CLIENT’S inability to deliver their part of the project on time and then I say “Hello” to my new (and improved) balanced lifestyle.
In summary: Screw you guys; I’m going home.
Trite sentiments and fixing people
Posted by Richard Mankhey
A recent conversation with my friend Aimee, in which she was unloading emotional
turmoil about her situation with her fiance, made me realize I either need to read
"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" again or figure out the fine art of
"what to say to people who've recently experience a highly emotional situation"
such as a break-up or death in the family.
I mean I can do small talk but I also try to be sensitive to the other person's
situation, whatever it might be. For instance, I'm talking to Person A who
just broke up with their boyfriend. I think to myself "Person A has already
heard all the banal and overused(and frankly annoying) phrases from everyone
around him (though they mean well, they should think before speaking). So I'll
just give Person A my best wishes and think happy thoughts for them."
I still think I'll go back to "Men are from Mars..." because as empathic as I try
to be, I found myself trying to solve Aimee's situation (as many men do, we "fixers"
,we) until she said "I don't want to be fixed, I just want to bitch".
Okay then. That I can handle. 
Breaking up really IS hard to do.
Posted by Richard Mankhey
Though this is a little backwards chronologically-speaking, I needed to lance and drain myself of the psychic congestion I’ve been afflicted with lately that apparently comes from trying to find a replacement for a housemate who has decided to abandon you with only two weeks notice. You might think I’m being dramatic, but it happened in FEBRUARY which is the SHORTEST MONTH of the year! So now you understand, yes?
Any who, because I have no life it was necessary that I bear the burden of:
1. Deciding how the hell to get a new housemate.
2. Making the decision to post an ad on www.craigslist.org AND www.roommates.com
3. Writing the damn thing…it’s harder than you’d think. Try it some time. It’s even WORSE than a typical dating profile overview or Manhunt.net profile.
4. Fielding the INSANE influx of email responses and interested parties and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff to see who was really interested and NOT a cannibal, and who was merely nothing more than a Russian (or French) bride trying to score some East Coast digs on the cheap.
5. Arranging a time and date to meet those who made it through the first screening process, which, unfortunately is NOT in public, but in my house…ALONE…because my other two housemates whom I’m saving from footing the rent on the 4th guy by replacing him when he moves out are being absolutely and completely ANTI-helpful with this process.
6. Meeting my potential suitors (I WILL be sharing a bathroom with him/her, after all), showing them the place, grilling them, testing their nerve, intelligence, reaction time, tolerance for pain, etc.
7. Sitting down at the end of the day and trying to decide just which one I want to be sharing the toilet seat with for the next year.
8. Calling those who “didn’t make the cut” and telling them that “I’m Just Not Into You” [hence the name of this post...get it? Did you think I was talking about an actual romantic relationship? That's child's play!]
You see some parallels here? This whole experience has been like dating, except WAY, WAY worse! On one hand I’m driven by the fact that we NEED someone to live here to pay the rent, etc. so I’m somewhat desperate at this point. On the other hand, it’s basically a free for all-all crazies who need a home, PLEASE write to Richard Mankhey and tell him anything you want because you’re crazy and it’s okay.
Man, there have been some insane people trying to get their butts up in here at our house.
I won’t go into excruciating detail, because the point I’m trying to make is that for me, the worst part of this whole process is to have to tell people who’ve gone out of their way emailing me and dropping by that they’re just not the one we’re looking for. Basically I’m breaking up with them…and the concentration of separation today has been astronomical and unhealthy. I feel like dirt.
I suppose I should feel horrible for having to reject people like that, and I DO…but I’ve done it already to 4 or 5 people today because there are specific reasons that they just won’t work out to share my toilet with me.
Unfortunately there are still more to come, though I have a feeling our winner visited today; I still want to give the rest a fair shot. So tomorrow (Sunday) comes another day wasted spent figuring out who will share my wall with me for the next year or so.
This whole experience has made me think about dating in a whole new way; seriously. How the hell did dating ever seem so hard when, um, when it comes to dating, you actually have a choice in the matter…and it doesn’t necessarily involve co-habitation!
What will they think of next?
Posted by Richard Mankhey
Thanks to the wonders of science, technology, and other disciplines that spend at least part of the time working to better the human race, it is commonplace to see new and exciting products and services popping up daily.
Less commonly encountered is a new application of an entrenched technology like RAM (random access memory), that essential bit of your computer that makes it “think” faster the more there is.
So recently while searching Amazon.com for some of the stuff for my older laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8600 (born on 12/4/2003) with 256 MB of RAM…yes, I just said 256 MB of RAM. For those less interested than I in such numbers and acronyms, I’ll use an analogy:
256 MB of RAM in my ancient Inspiron IS TO Today’s standard PC memory of 4 GB
just as
|
IS TO
|
|
Make sense? Good. So I decided it’s time for an upgrade and skipped the $86 option from Dell.com because the same 1 GB of memory is available from Amazon.com at $14.88, thank you very much.
But that’s not all! The memory you can purchase from Amazon.com also has orthopedic healing properties! Or so says a customer reviewing the product:
|
I won’t hold my breath for miracles but this may be the next thing you’ll see on late night info-mercials between the “Sham-WOW!” and “Thigh-Master” slots.