hi, i'm abby, and i'm addicted to caffeine.
because really, i am. how did i learn about this addiction? it's all simple observation.
about four sunday nights ago, i was minding my own business, doing what i do on pretty much every sunday night: i was playing a board game with my neighbors. we've kind of taken sunday evenings for our neighbor-nights. we play games, watch movies, and generally de-stress before a week of work or school. it's a really good system.
anyway, i was minding my own business, and suddenly, around 4 p.m., i had a MASSIVE headache! it just came out of nowhere, and it invaded my brain, and it hurt real bad. i tried taking ibuprofen, i tried massaging my temples. nothing. then, i realized that i hadn't had coffee all weekend! because coffee is free at work and it's comforting to use as a wake-up in the morning. i sleep in on the weekends, and i am usually too lazy to make myself coffee (my husband doesn't drink it).
to remedy the headache, i had one small cup of coffee. about half a mug. and then the headache melted away.
this headache came at around the same time every sunday for a month.
then, i had the brilliant idea of preventing the headache by drinking a cup of coffee this past sunday morning. voila! no headache. :)
except now, i know that i am addicted to caffeine in the form of coffee. i think i'm switching to decaf. i'll let you know how that goes.
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
2 Office-like stories
oh man, tonight is The Delivery episode of The Office. only two hours. my sister is bring over her knitting club, and my neighbors are coming over, too. it'll be a full house, but i like it that way. i know they're a fictitious couple, but congrats to Jim and Pam on the scheduled birth of their baby! (hey, that's pretty realistic to me. i mean, preggo #2 in our office had her appointment at 7am and she's still on maternity leave - shout out!)
ok, our Office-like story today is about a call taken by a Customer Service Rep that will not be named (but we'll say it's a girl, since the probability of this rep being a female is just that high. if you work in an office, you know i'm right).
this poor girl took the call at 10 minutes till 5pm. anybody in customer service dreads taking calls right before the end of the day, hoping that the odds fall in their favor and the caller has all their information ready and only has one question. well, this was the other kind of call. it was about 10 after 5pm when she asked me to take over the call, since she really needed to go. i understand wanting to leave at the end of your shift (last night, my phone rang with one minute to go. nice woman, tons of questions. 10 minutes.)
i took the call. i was a little scared already, since this girl was either laughing or crying, which was causing the other of the two. i wasn't sure of the cause, and that makes a difference in how you want to answer. and then i answered. and i couldn't help myself. i had to hit the mute button just in case my laugh actually vocalized. although, i was warned. when transferring the call, the rep said, "country." i should have listened better. but i couldn't understand more than 2 words at a time. have you ever talked to someone who slurs together their words so badly that "a" and "i" sound the same? i have.
bonus Office-y story!
i just remembered this, which happened yesterday. i went to make a new pot of coffee in the kitchen. i was talking to a couple people in there, so i was distracted (not an excuse, just a description of facts).
anyway, i went to make half a pot of coffee because it was 4pm, most of the office was leaving but since i work a later shift, i wanted some coffee with the half-cookie i had vultured from the kitchen when the visiting company was done with their Panera-catered lunch. yum. so, in the process of making coffee and talking at the same time, i half-filled up our little pitcher with water from the sink. and then i went over and poured it into the coffeemaker.
yeah, i forgot to empty the old coffee out of the pot.
yeah, i forgot to replace the filter and put new coffee grounds in.
but wait - there's more!
so the person i was talking with comes to help. together, we manage to take the old coffeepot from its place in the coffeemaker, allowing the water -- which is running through the old coffee grounds -- to spill onto the table on which the coffeemaker is sitting, and throw the old coffee grounds into a bowl that had just been washed. utter chaos for about 3 minutes, while we run out of paper towels and get more, and clean up the re-dirtied bowl.
in the end, i did do it the right way and got my well-deserved cup of coffee. so, happy ending. :)
word of yesterday: fictitious
word of today: "atchit" - pronounced like "hatchet" without the "h" and tacked on to the end of a verb. as in, "Google-atchit."
ok, our Office-like story today is about a call taken by a Customer Service Rep that will not be named (but we'll say it's a girl, since the probability of this rep being a female is just that high. if you work in an office, you know i'm right).
this poor girl took the call at 10 minutes till 5pm. anybody in customer service dreads taking calls right before the end of the day, hoping that the odds fall in their favor and the caller has all their information ready and only has one question. well, this was the other kind of call. it was about 10 after 5pm when she asked me to take over the call, since she really needed to go. i understand wanting to leave at the end of your shift (last night, my phone rang with one minute to go. nice woman, tons of questions. 10 minutes.)
i took the call. i was a little scared already, since this girl was either laughing or crying, which was causing the other of the two. i wasn't sure of the cause, and that makes a difference in how you want to answer. and then i answered. and i couldn't help myself. i had to hit the mute button just in case my laugh actually vocalized. although, i was warned. when transferring the call, the rep said, "country." i should have listened better. but i couldn't understand more than 2 words at a time. have you ever talked to someone who slurs together their words so badly that "a" and "i" sound the same? i have.
bonus Office-y story!
i just remembered this, which happened yesterday. i went to make a new pot of coffee in the kitchen. i was talking to a couple people in there, so i was distracted (not an excuse, just a description of facts).
anyway, i went to make half a pot of coffee because it was 4pm, most of the office was leaving but since i work a later shift, i wanted some coffee with the half-cookie i had vultured from the kitchen when the visiting company was done with their Panera-catered lunch. yum. so, in the process of making coffee and talking at the same time, i half-filled up our little pitcher with water from the sink. and then i went over and poured it into the coffeemaker.
yeah, i forgot to empty the old coffee out of the pot.
yeah, i forgot to replace the filter and put new coffee grounds in.
but wait - there's more!
so the person i was talking with comes to help. together, we manage to take the old coffeepot from its place in the coffeemaker, allowing the water -- which is running through the old coffee grounds -- to spill onto the table on which the coffeemaker is sitting, and throw the old coffee grounds into a bowl that had just been washed. utter chaos for about 3 minutes, while we run out of paper towels and get more, and clean up the re-dirtied bowl.
in the end, i did do it the right way and got my well-deserved cup of coffee. so, happy ending. :)
word of yesterday: fictitious
word of today: "atchit" - pronounced like "hatchet" without the "h" and tacked on to the end of a verb. as in, "Google-atchit."
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
the case of the missing mug
so, for the past week (about 4 business days), my blue mug that i got from wal-mart has been randomly MIA off and on. i stop by the kitchen pretty regularly around 10:30 each morning, and sometimes it would be there, and sometimes it would be not there.
there's another person in the company who has the exact same model of mug. i figured she was probably taking it hostage, completely oblivious to the switcheroo.
but then i couldn't find my mug for a whole day! i had to feed my coffee addiction, so i killed Mother Earth a little bit by using poisonous styrofoam cups from the kitchen.
then, yesterday, i found my mug on the kitchen counter -- with ice water in it. i walked up to it in a daze (probably from the lack of caffeine/sugar: i mean, my mug is a beast and those little styrofoam cups only just meet my addiction quota), and i said, "is that my mug?" sure enough, the three tiny identifiable scratches rested on the bottom. i said, "that's my mug!" while pointing at it. meanwhile, the kitchen was half-full of people, and one of them took ownership: "i'm sorry! it was in the cupboard, so i thought it was free game. i'll wash it and put it back!" to which i replied, "no, it's ok. i was wanting to get a new one anyway." which is not a lie.
so, last night at wal-mart, i bought a pretty green mug that is non-translucent, so you can't tell how much coffee is in there from any angle; you actually have to look inside the mug. and it's a square on the bottom but a circle on top, and i think that is pretty nifty.
anyway, the mystery is solved and i now have two mugs at my disposal in the office. this has been a pretty productive two days.
song of the day: "horchata" by vampire weekend
Spanish word of the day: ajena/ajeno
there's another person in the company who has the exact same model of mug. i figured she was probably taking it hostage, completely oblivious to the switcheroo.
but then i couldn't find my mug for a whole day! i had to feed my coffee addiction, so i killed Mother Earth a little bit by using poisonous styrofoam cups from the kitchen.
then, yesterday, i found my mug on the kitchen counter -- with ice water in it. i walked up to it in a daze (probably from the lack of caffeine/sugar: i mean, my mug is a beast and those little styrofoam cups only just meet my addiction quota), and i said, "is that my mug?" sure enough, the three tiny identifiable scratches rested on the bottom. i said, "that's my mug!" while pointing at it. meanwhile, the kitchen was half-full of people, and one of them took ownership: "i'm sorry! it was in the cupboard, so i thought it was free game. i'll wash it and put it back!" to which i replied, "no, it's ok. i was wanting to get a new one anyway." which is not a lie.
so, last night at wal-mart, i bought a pretty green mug that is non-translucent, so you can't tell how much coffee is in there from any angle; you actually have to look inside the mug. and it's a square on the bottom but a circle on top, and i think that is pretty nifty.
anyway, the mystery is solved and i now have two mugs at my disposal in the office. this has been a pretty productive two days.
song of the day: "horchata" by vampire weekend
Spanish word of the day: ajena/ajeno
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
coffee in the morning
highlight of the day: one of our CSRs gets extremely hyper on caffeine on a regular basis, on top of being a crazy person in general. therefore, a neighbor of hers decided to email said CSR's mother to warn her against the dangers of coffee in the morning and to plead with this mother for the sake of the department.
the mother in question replied and is now known as mama rita in Customer Service.
word of the day: discretion
the mother in question replied and is now known as mama rita in Customer Service.
word of the day: discretion
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
sugar highs and lows
today, customer service had the best spread of autumn-themed desserts i have ever seen, complete with leave decorations and orange paper plates. if i was smart, i would have brought my camera to take a picture and post it here. but i was not thinking about pictures this morning. i'll remember to bring my camera for our next smorgasbord.
this morning, everybody was wired on coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, apple crisp, apple bread, shoo-fly pie, pecan pie, munchkins from dunkin donuts, mini-muffins, chocolate chip cake...
we all got hyped up on sugar... and then sugar crashed around lunch time. i took my lunch at 2:30 and almost fell asleep. even now, i'm very tempted to close the door to my office, turn out the lights, and nap until time to go. too bad i have this thing called a conscience.
MLIA of the day: I left the Philippines on Monday at 10 pm. I arrived in California on Monday at 8 pm. It was an 11 hour flight. I can now cross "time-traveled" off of my list of things to do before I die. MLIA.
because i've totally done this! my mom is from the philippines, and my family visited for a month during christmas/new year's of 2006/2007, right before i got married. it was awesome! and it ties into this entry because i have a filipino cousin named Sugar.
this morning, everybody was wired on coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, apple crisp, apple bread, shoo-fly pie, pecan pie, munchkins from dunkin donuts, mini-muffins, chocolate chip cake...
we all got hyped up on sugar... and then sugar crashed around lunch time. i took my lunch at 2:30 and almost fell asleep. even now, i'm very tempted to close the door to my office, turn out the lights, and nap until time to go. too bad i have this thing called a conscience.
MLIA of the day: I left the Philippines on Monday at 10 pm. I arrived in California on Monday at 8 pm. It was an 11 hour flight. I can now cross "time-traveled" off of my list of things to do before I die. MLIA.
because i've totally done this! my mom is from the philippines, and my family visited for a month during christmas/new year's of 2006/2007, right before i got married. it was awesome! and it ties into this entry because i have a filipino cousin named Sugar.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
labor day
yesterday was labor day. in honor of this holiday, i did not have to work. instead, i went to school! i joined thane in all of his classes which, being a monday, lasted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. i have to admit, it's a really long day. but i learned so much! makes me really excited to take classes again, which i plan to do this Spring.
last night, there was a coffeehouse-type thing in the Eagle's Nest, which is the cafe on campus. i absolutely love the atmosphere of a coffeehouse. i also absolutely love my sister, who came with me. we chatted over coffee about the singer-songwriter on stage and decided that he sings like ben gibbard (from death cab for cutie and the postal service) but plays guitar like john mayer with hints of jack johnson and jason mraz. but, since he plays an ibanez, the sound off his guitar is woodier than the above.
it was a very refreshing day. i almost didn't labor at all! oh, to be back in school again...
in other news, i've recently discovered the site mylifeisaverage.com and i can't get enough of it! hilarious stuff.
also, the climate in customer service changed considerably over the long weekend: it feels like a sauna, as opposed to the average temperature of antarctica. i'm not sure how i feel about this yet.
last night, there was a coffeehouse-type thing in the Eagle's Nest, which is the cafe on campus. i absolutely love the atmosphere of a coffeehouse. i also absolutely love my sister, who came with me. we chatted over coffee about the singer-songwriter on stage and decided that he sings like ben gibbard (from death cab for cutie and the postal service) but plays guitar like john mayer with hints of jack johnson and jason mraz. but, since he plays an ibanez, the sound off his guitar is woodier than the above.
it was a very refreshing day. i almost didn't labor at all! oh, to be back in school again...
in other news, i've recently discovered the site mylifeisaverage.com and i can't get enough of it! hilarious stuff.
also, the climate in customer service changed considerably over the long weekend: it feels like a sauna, as opposed to the average temperature of antarctica. i'm not sure how i feel about this yet.
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