Letters to the Editor
mattielisbon
Published Letters: 86 Editor's Choice: 17
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Well I'm still waiting for Al Gore but
[Read the article: What, was "Mandy" already taken?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it's a campaign song, and for a campaign song, it works. I hear you, you and I were meant to fly blah blah soaring music - that's what you look for in a campaign song.
I prefer pop punk, new wavey stuff and bands like Muse, but a good cheesy insufferable Celine song can still get me pumped up emotionally.
Who's gonna choose "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" as their campaign song? They've got my vote.
Al, maybe?
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Wierd at work
[Read the article: My new assistant laughs at everything I say]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After many years slogging through cubicle hell every day wondering why I was considered "wierd", I figured it out. I AM wierd, for corporate culture. I could care less for ladder climbing or manipulating the politics. I sometimes talk too loud, or am so lost in my own thoughts I don't smile appropriately to the people I'm supposed to smile at. I'm not afraid to talk to the boss as if he's a regular human being like I am - or I just pretend he's not there because I'm not feeling bold that day. Or lost in thoughts again.
Turns out, like many people, I really don't belong there. I'm not cut out for corporate culture. I mean, I go there every day, do the work, wonder how other people cope with caring about the cog-in-wheel thing, marvel at the endless vehement conversations about the the exactitude of form filling or distribution protocols.
But my heart's not in it. I'd rather be lost in my thoughts, pondering something I'm writing or discussing it out loud with myself while pacing around the living room.
Could be this assistant hasn't got her cubie hell "legs" yet. She may not be cut out for it. Or she may need to grow into it, as most of us eventually figure out how to do, but she may always seem a bit off. She may not really understand your terminology or acronyms or what you're plainly saying, so she figures a laugh is as good a response as anything else she can come up with. She may actually find you intimidating, and doesn't want to disappoint you.
(I suppose it could be ass-kissing in preparation for taking your job - I've seen incompetent idiots get away with stomping over others simply by plying the boss with pastry - but if it is, she's probably an amateur 'climber'. If YOUR boss finds her delightful, I'd watch out.)
If she's too annoying to you to be your assistant, perhaps see if that's the experience of others also. If not, why not give her a chance to prove herself with someone else in your office who doesn't find her annoying?
After taking the advice of others here, though, talking to her, mentoring her, if she's still just too wierd for everyone you might actually be doing her a favor by cutting her loose and having her find her way outside of an office culture which requires her to be something other than herself, or office culture in general.
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Heather, Heather, Heather
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe if you watched a couple of episodes of The Riches you'd have a freaking clue that there is so much more to the Riches beside "How long can we fool them". In fact, they aren't doing such a hot job of fooling anyone and in the midst of all the scrambling have been forced to take a look at themselves. There's been a lot of character evolution during the first season.
Admit it. You watched the pilot and didn't like it, so you just wrote it off as what you assumed it would be about, instead of learning, and writing about, what it really IS about.
Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver are both the opposite of annoying, and in fact endearing and engaging. Don't be surprised if your "annoying" is a lot of other people's "emmy deserving" or even "winning".
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Oh, no!
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nothing more disheartening than reading Tomreed's agreement with my post - because he generally comes here to bash Heather. I think Heather is a brilliantly snarky writer, and even when I disagree with her I enjoy her turn of phrase and clever similes and references.
So while I may have seemed "bashy" I won't go as far as TRT normally does.
I generally haven't seen a lot of what Heather reviews (Pirates? Not on your life. I don't even watch Survivor, why would I watch a scurvy spinoff?), but after her review of The Riches (focusing on accents - which I didn't notice - and misreading the concept) I began to wonder whether Heather's excellent writing compelled me to accept her conclusions when I should be more skeptical. Or maybe she and I just disagreed on this one.
But after the debacle that was Heather's review of the season end of House - and absent any sort of self-aware apology for getting not only the nuance wrong, but demonstrating a lack of knowledge (i.e., lack of watching the show?) in misstating the locale and claiming an episode from last year was from this season - I find myself concluding that Heather's writing is good, and always worth the read, but I will always have to get a second opinion - my own.