Pronoun Trouble

Coworker M got some logistics wrong today over cookies we need tomorrow, and neglected to tell Lead Cook J before leaving.

Lead Cook J proceeded to heap praise on me when I reacted by saying, "Welp, I guess I'll be spending the remaining hours I'm scheduled today making cookies," instead of complaining about it, and then looking for solutions when the numbers turned out to be even further off than we'd initially thought.

And like. I do feel a little bit responsible, because I can vaguely remember Coworker M mentioning to me that not everything was upstairs after all, but I was distracted with another project. And Coworker M was definitely irresponsible in not telling Lead Cook J what she told me, and leaving him to assume that she had, in fact, gotten everything we need for tomorrow from downstairs, the way she said she would. And damned if I'm not tickled that my efforts are being noticed and celebrated.

I guess it just feels a little surreal? Some of this is kinda just. Leftover survival stuff from the previous pastry chef, who wouldn't let us leave if there was still work to do. (Within certain parameters, but still.) Complaining about it would get me exactly jack shit, while doing the work would get the work done. Part of it is also one of my personal workarounds for my executive dysfunction; I've learned that, if I acknowledge my "I don't want to do the thing," and accept that, and that doing the thing sucks, then I can set it aside and skip over it to "I am going to do the thing", and that makes doing the thing easier.

So it feels kinda weird to be praised for this now? Good weird, not MAGA weird. But yeah. Still weird.

I think I'll take it, though.

On the to-do list at work on Sunday: A double batch of cornbread

What I made: Two full-sized (18"x24") sheets of cornbread

What I was apparently supposed to make: A double batch of cornbread muffins

In my defense, I've made cornbread sheets to turn into cornbread croutons more recently than I've made cornbread muffins. Luckily, my most immediate supervisor and other coworkers were understanding of the mixup, and we managed to get the cornbread muffins made today. Interestingly, the number of muffins the recipe yielded was exactly thirteen dozen—or, as I called it, a baker's* gross 😉

(* Please note that the 's' there is possessive, rather than a contraction.)

- Get woken up an hour before the alarm by the Saddest, Loneliest Dog in the Entire World (who had been abandoned by her Favorite Person, who had in reality only left the house for about twenty minutes to go to the polls)
- Vote!
- Go in to work on what would have been a day off to make... basically flattened sesame balls but with pumpkin mixed in the outer shell? For Passport this month
- Pick up some stir-fry ingredients at Aldi
- Buy two "ugly" sweaters at Goodwill, one of which is at least tasteful and artistic even if it's not something I'd particularly like to wear most of the time, and the other of which features Santa riding on a unicorn made of iridescent sequins
- Refill the gas tank
- Make and eat the aforementioned stir-fry
- Play a video game


The flattened sesame balls are delicious. It's basically equal parts pumpkin puree and rice flour mixed together with a dash of salt, measure out into balls, flatten them out, put a disc of about 1/2* the amount of red bean paste between two of them (with a pumpkin/rice flour "outline") and seal the shell around it, dip in or sprinkle with sesame seeds, fry briefly. I left work really wanting mochi and/or sushi, but went with stir-fry instead. Satisfied my sesame craving!


* Okay, this is hard to describe. The total shell-to-filling ratio was 4 shell to 1 filling, so the filling disc was about half the size of one shell disc. I hope that makes sense! Anyway, delicious, do want to make at home. Or at least just track down some red bean paste and make something with it. Nom!

Extra long day at work today. Mostly compared to "how long my days have been lately" than "average day length overall", but that doesn't mean it felt any shorter!

Today was a Solo Sunday, which I usually like pretty well; I can listen to pretty much whatever I want for most of the day when I'm on my own, so I usually get a lot of listening done. Which, granted, I did do today! In fact, I got through more of my podcast playlist than I was expecting. Mostly because of unexpected complications.

( More details )

I treated myself to some takeout Chinese food on my way home, because I didn't feel like cooking or like eating a sandwich. It probably cost almost exactly the amount of money I made by staying late at work. I think it worked out okay.

Work today was a series of little annoyances exacerbated by heavy indoor humidity. Like, overall my day wasn't technically terrible, but so many tiny things added up to just make me kinda miserable. Probably the worst is that they didn't end at work; I just now discovered one of the many minor discomforts of my day was actually underboob chafing from what had, prior to today, been my favorite bra.

I want to give myself permission to have just... had a bad day, but I also know that I tend to hold onto moods a long time. I also still have work tomorrow and need to get a handle on myself before then, because that's not the kind of energy I want to bring with me and probably affect not just my own day, but everyone's.

Tuesday I've got a doctor's appointment in the morning, but after that I'm off work at least until Friday, so hopefully the extra rest will help.

So in 2021, the hotel I work for was highlighted on a travel blog or something as being extremely queer friendly, in an extremely queer friendly city. Last year, we got a big queer event in June, and it looks like we're getting another one this year.

Last year I also got bitten by the inspiration bug, and mashed up the hotel's logo with the More Color, More Pride flag on my own time, but didn't really do anything with it. This year, when the word went out that we're getting another big queer event, I figured: What the hell, it's just sitting on my computer otherwise, and mailed it to the person who sent the email announcement.

Yesterday at work, the head of my department came by and asked my permission specifically to use the design in official hotel documents. I told her that I'd sent it in precisely because I thought the hotel might have a use for it (so, yes).

I also added that if they wanted any other flags, I'd be happy to make them, but I'd prefer to do so on the clock this time around 😉 One that I made on my own with no prompting and as basic "proof of concept" I'm willing to let go (though I probably shouldn't be). Any more than that, though, and I at least want my hourly employment rate!

Anyway, at the moment, I'm not expecting them to want any more flags or other graphic design from me (though I am now chomping at the virtual bit; let me do cool things with our logo!), but I'm still kinda jazzed about this. Department boss has promised to bring by printed examples to show me for what seems like it might be a final look-over before they go out, as well. (If anyone official decides to ask me, though, I'm willing to go on at length about how having a slideshow or stickers of our logo in various flags would be pretty cool and also possibly beneficial to business, especially if they're willing to share that the work was done by a queer employee. So many people get extra excited when they realize their identities are being specifically included when they're usually overlooked. Not that I need to make my sales pitch here, mind 😛)

On Sunday, my coworker A told me that, when someone asks me why I do something, I don't always need a reason; I'm allowed to just say "because".

And damned if that hasn't been sending ripples since she said it to me.

Adults lied to me when I was a kid: Just like "no" can be a complete sentence, "because" can be a complete answer. I just needed the time and space to figure out how and when to apply them as such. And it helps to know that I can.

I was making hamburger buns. I was about three-quarters of the way through the first shaping, when I felt something sharp and relatively long and sturdy in one of the dough balls. Suspecting it was a rosemary needle that had been caught in the mechanical bread cutter from some herb bread or other, I worked it out of the roll.

It was not rosemary. It was a sharp piece of clear plastic.

I managed to track down the source of the plastic to the lid on one of the flour bins (one of the two types I was using for the buns), but could not guarantee that there wasn't more plastic in either the buns or the flour. So I had to throw out all of the buns and hand-sift over sixty pounds of flour.

My arm is very tired from sifting, but at least I can be sure that no one will be eating plastic!

I dedicated myself to posting at least once a week, and by golly, I'm gonna do it! (I like to try and answer comments around the time I update, unless something is particularly attention-grabby for me, or I'm lower on comment-responding spoons than usual; it seems like the latter is in play for now 😅) Lessee, what to talk about...

- You know those removable chair cushions for, like, kitchen chairs and deck chairs and stuff? The kind with the ties at the back? I was getting really tired of dealing with the ones on our kitchen chairs breaking or coming undone, so I replaced them with some canvas belting strips and snaps. Two 3"/7.5cm strips to a side, two snaps to a strip, and voila! Stress is much more widely distributed. I may share a photo eventually, but I also might not.

- Dunno how much I've updated people on actual job related staffing and suchnot, but I'm up three coworkers! One who started right before the previous one up and left, and two who started shortly after. One of my new coworkers is originally from India and has a pretty strong accent; while my audio processing isn't usually too bad with native English speakers or even just accents I'm more used to, since I can frequently guess what words they mean from context/expected sounds, I've been having more trouble with her accent. So, rather than feel like (and possibly be) a jerk, I decided I should learn more about her native language! Turns out she knew three languages from before she learned English; I gotta say, I was already hella impressed that she learned English in the first place, because English is a beast to learn. Knowing four languages total? Mad respect.

Anyway, I'm hoping to at least learn a little bit more about the other languages she told me she speaks, and hopefully shorten the remaining communication gap. She already did the heavy lifting; it's my turn to do some work. I'm planning to look up some basic structure and pronunciation things, some general "what are the differences between English and Hindi/Gujradi/Marathi" stuff, rather than three entire languages, but I also wouldn't be surprised if I happen to pick up a few basic phrases as part of learning the other bits.

- Speaking of my job, I mentioned possibly wanting to pick up another shift or two to my boss. Hours have been a little short recently, and with greed-driven inflation being what it is, I wouldn't mind a little extra money in my pockets. 29 hours a week at this job just about broke me before Covid, but I think I can go up from 20 to 25 and not be in terrible shape. Pretty sure there were other factors in play with that as well.

- I finally started playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus! I'm not very far in just yet; only just faced Kleavor. I will fully admit to being willingly distracted from the main plot by gathering items and sidequests 😛

- Nothing particularly important for this point, I just really want a haircut.

I think that's it for now! Seems like a certain amount of my posting energy is going to Thursday Recs at queerly_beloved; I really do need to get post-by-email set up, so I get get some scheduled posts going, maybe ease up the load on my brain some.

We're getting new employees in the bakery! Which is great, because the most recent new employee has been with us for over a semester and is just... generally not working out. Some of it is her ADHD (which she is only recently able to get medicated), some of it is personality clash with our Pastry Chef, and some of it is probably just her. We haven't had student interns since Covid, and I feel like over the same amount of time as one of the interns, she's definitely not adapted as well as some of them. I'm pretty sure she would have done better if she'd have gone through the actual bakery program in the school, especially with at least a handful of peers she could lean on and learn from, instead of coming into the bakery green as a possible new Lead Cook (second in charge under the Pastry Chef) and surrendering responsibility from there.

I also lost a lot of respect for her about two weeks ago, when I gave her a strong hint about needing to finish up her current task so she could tag in on one I needed her help with, followed by her continuing to take her time and chat amiably with students during her then-current task. She later admitted to catching and ignoring the hint, rather than (as I had initially assumed) missing the hint entirely. So. Definitely still a bit of lingering bad feeling there, not gonna lie.

Anyway, she'll be leaving us, hopefully for greener pastures on her end, in early June, so it's very good that we're getting two other employees. One of whom has already started and seems quite promising! I'm looking forward to meeting the second one soon 😃