Actually with all the work our department has, it would be best for IC to return infatuated with Candy Girl, so he can help us out. She can become a housewife and start in a reality show called Houswives Crazy for Candy.

This is what I will imagine all week, until next Monday when my fantasy comes crashing down and they both return to pester me and entertain you.

I discovered some interesting things. The first is that she rarely graces the office with her presences by 10am, if I had to guess and average arrival time it would be 10:22 am. Second, I must not be the only persons she gabs with at work. Multiple times throughout the day communicator would alert me that Candy Girl was now available. You have to be gone from your computer for 20 minutes for this alert to be activated—which is longer than most people spend in the bathroom; however with Candy Girls stomach problems I guess it’s possible she’s using the facilities. Lastly, she tends to leave work a little after 4pm. So that leaves about 3 hours or so when she’s not at my desk, someone else’s desk, or in the bathroom for her to get any work done. I guess I am not too surprised at the quality of work now that I have discovered her work ethic.

However, I am really excited about the York Peppermint Patty Pieces. Really excited. I love junior mints, especially in the summer because I keep them in the freezer and enjoy the cool candy melting in my mouth. I googled them because I wanted to find out how they were different from junior mints and found this great blog: http://www.candyblog.net/blog/item/hersheys_york_pieces. This describes them as more chocolately and less sticky sweet than the mint M&M’s. There is indeed chocolate its inside the candy shell and its peppermint flavored. Wow!!! (This was written in 2009, so apparently I am not hip to my candy news.)

I have a rule of trying not to have candies I like in my candy dish. I also have a rule about loose candy. I think I might have to break both and stock the candy dish with York Pieces.

Old Yeller is a late-middle aged man. He’s not very fashionable, often wearing black acid washed jeans, Reebok high tops and plaid flannel shirts—and I don’t think that he’s able to find these items now, I think they are from when they were in fashion. My favorite outfits consists of his faded jean cutoffs (black or blue), hiking boots with black socks pulled up to his knees, and a tight flannel shirt over a mangy t-shirt – he sure knows how to convey professionalism.

How he really inserts himself in to my workday is through his voice. Remember when you were a child and your dad was really mad at you and gave you a talking to that you’ll still now never forget? That is the tone that Old Yeller speaks in with dealing with co-workers. Most every day, while I am my desk I hear the following at top volume:

Old Yeller: “What are you doing? What did you think would happen?”
Coworker: “ummm well..”
Old Yeller: “Just shut your mouth and listen to me. Use your head, why are you doing this? I just want you to think!”
Coworker: “Im trying to but…”
Old Yeller: “Stop it! Just stop it and listen! I don’t have time to answer your questions. Just do it the way that I showed you. DO IT RIGHT!”

This continues until I’ve had enough and put my headphones on to drown out the squabble, or until the berated coworker walks away after having enough.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!!

And

I have often though about having taffy in the candy dish because I think that it would possible slow down Candy Girl’s candy consumption and also make her talk less if it’s very sticky taffy. I have yet to do this.

My favorite kind of taffy is salt water taffy. The bright and pastel colored candy wrapped in wax paper just look so cute and inviting to me. It turns out that it started out being called salt water taffy as a joke—A vendor’s shop had flooded and the candy had been soaked with sea water—and so he told someone he had salt water taffy. The name stuck and I think definitely makes it sound more appealing than plain old taffy.

We also cannot forget Laffy Taffy, which I think is ok, except for the banana, I still have nightmares about that though the last time I tasted on must have been 15 years ago. I enjoyed the silly jokes on the wrapper more than the actual candy. They made a terrible song that I will share with you in honor of National Taffy Day. I suggest that you should enjoy your taffy, but not so much that it causes you to have more to shake around.

Livelycandy, this is all fine and dandy, but what does this have to do with anything?

On this lovely Monday morning, after a long week, and a short not very relaxing weekend, I am actually somewhat motivated to do work, and get through the day. Candy Girl scurries to my desk around 10am—I am feeling optimistic, so I am hopefully she’s excitedly buzzing around my cube to tell me that we can finally start testing the last piece of Project C. She’s got a huge smile on her face, which is rare, and she’s as jumpy as a rabbit perching on my desk, stool, other desk, standing up. She starts talking in a very girly voice all whispery and giggly as she proceeds to tell me about her weekend. What has made her flit about and so girly is that she spend the whole weekend with a guy she had just met. Yes, that is very exciting a reason for anyone to get all giddy! The clincher is that Candy Girl is 35 or 36, and the guy, well he’s 23. I am not sure if she’s a puma or a cougar, but she’s definitely well on her way

So my poor phone colleague told me yesterday that he was chastised for not communicating enough on Project C. I felt bad for him because from my perspective there is nothing wrong his communication, Candy Girl and her boss are the ones at fault. Candy girl never updates anyone, and often when she re-works the files, she just emails me. Her boss seems lackadaisical about the missed deadlines and ensuring we stick to the schedule.

Yesterday I had to stay a bit late talking with my phone colleague about Project C. As I was on my way out, I ran into IC and he started asking why I stayed late, etc. I told him a little bit about what was going on with Project C, and he started inching closer and closer to me. I started leaning against the wall to get away from him, but soon I felt like I was smushing my whole body into the wall so I could have at least a foot of space between us!

TGIF indeed. ** Not sure why this didn’t show up until today, maybe Tales from the Candy Dish needed a weekend too…

During my observations about the watchers lack of sharing, Just My Imagination is still blaring. Pretentious Snot stands up and when he realizes it is the communications women, he jokes and laughs about her music being loud and happily sits down. Really? I can’t talk on the phone or at my desk about work without being chastised for my volume, but she can blast music at work? I am hoping that I am actually day dreaming and all of this is in fact just my imagination.

So it’s always a bit awkward to be the new person, and here at SER new people tend to be contractors not full-time employees, so it’s probably even more awkward. The new guy is sitting in a small conference room on the other side of the floor so he’s already separated from the group. Not that is matters that much because the group doesn’t do any talking amongst each other unless it’s about work (unless of course I am involved).

I have been nominated as the new face of the department, since I am smiley and friendly. That means I have to help the new hires adjust, deal with office supplies, make sure the correct software is installed, show how to check voicemail, etc. It’s rather fun, and gives me a way to break up my day. However this new guy is very strange. The first day he arrived at 10am his designated start time for the 1st day. The second day he came in at 9:30, said he had some trouble with traffic, that is understandable when you commute to a new job, but if it were me, I’d have left way early just in case. Yesterday he didn’t show up until 11:30am!! Whoa, welcome to work buddy… Clearly he thought that was too late, so this morning he came in a little before ten. Now I don’t actually really care when you come to work, I am not the boss, and he’s not working on my projects. However I am noticing it for two reasons, the first is that I am here to help him get adjusted and it’s hard when he’s blowing the early meetings we’ve set up to get him trained. The second is every day when he comes in he walks to my cubicle before going to his desk and says hello. It is sort of nice, but it’s also sort of weird. It surprises me so much that I am not even noticing if he’s reaching out for some candy, which would be a logical explanation for stopping by each morning, a little sugar rush to get the day started right.

The first one is so cute, I am tempted to decorate my desk with these. However, I don’t a have a child, and making crafts that look like a child made them is probably not the best way to gain respect among co-workers. So if I do make these, I will probably just keep them at home, but look below, perhaps if your conned into babysitting for a friends’ child, or are in need of some brightness you can try to make these. I bet they look just as cute even if the jellybean pollen is eaten and I bet they’d make great place cards. However, I opted for something easier and just bought myself potted Daffodil, not edible, but at least if there are imperfections they are caused my nature and not by me.

The second is similar to the Birdnest cookies. The nests that Martha suggests we make are make with Phyllo dough, you know the flaky dough that makes Baklava. It’s a very light tasting dough so I doubt there are people who have strong opinions about the taste. The Phyllo dough also comes in string form and can create the illusion of the bird’s nest without having any coconut. Since I adore coconut, I am not too excited about taste of these treats. However, they are so precious that I think any normal person would squeal with delight at finding these on a plate next to the candy dish. I did not make these either , that would have entailed going outside and figuring out where one buys stringed Phyllo dough—way too much work for a sleepy Sunday.

And as promised, here is the link the Martha Steward article (link). For those of you who are inspired by the jellybeans in a vase, just imagine the possibilities of all the other candy you can stick in a vase to brighten up and cute-tefy your flower arrangements.

Of course not, because I work with Candy Girl and I work on Project C. Remember, part 3 of Project C was due on May 4th and it wasn’t ready because Candy Girl lost a week of time. However here it is a week later, and I still can’t complete my piece because I still don’t have what I need from Candy Girl. She’s continually stopping by, emailing, and messaging me questions throughout the day every day. This might sound good, however she’s asking me for files I have already sent her, she’s asked me to explain the files several times, I feel like a skipping CD just repeating the same information over and over.

Today she stops by tells me to close my eyes because she is cheating and she grabs some candy. She’s on some diet where she isn’t supposed to consume any sugar, so of course, all week she’s been eating my candy. Then she sits down on the floor and starts talking about the system and what we need to do to get it ready (the same conversation that we’ve been having all week). It is weird to be talking to someone who is sitting cross-legged on the floor. I feel like a school teacher, or something, especially because we have built-in stools for anyone who stops by our desks to sit on. I can’t even describe the looks of my coworkers who passed by and saw her sitting on the floor—I am working on getting a hidden camera at my desk—but they were priceless.

The end result is, because she is feeling lazy, her words not mine, she’s not going to have the files ready for me today. But luckily she did get off the floor eventually and return to her desk. Phew!

When I was a child, Easter was one of my most favorite holidays. We didn’t celebrate it with church or ham, but I did have a very detailed and long egg hunt that took up most of my morning so my parents could sleep in. Also, we always had several jelly bean center pieces – it was my job to fill up the designated vases with jelly beans. I could only fill up the vases with the colors my mom preselected, everything must be color coordinated or the world might end, but that mean the rejected colors could be eaten by me! My mother is about the same age as Martha Stewart, but she’s been doing these jelly bean arrangements before Martha even moved to Connecticut, so I am pretty sure that she “borrowed” this clever idea.

PS. Stayed tuned for another post about regarding this article on Candy… its adorable and worth it—I promise. I also will add the link to the above article after I have posted the next two topics. No spoilers from Livelycandy.

Sugarfoot isn’t a dinosaur nor is she traveling to the ends of the earth—at least that I know of—but her name reminded me of the movie, and I have fondness for both her and the movie. Sugarfoot is one of the few females in my department so we already have a bond. I often have seen her at the vending machine, or see large packages of candy at her desk, so I have invited her many times to stop on my the candy dish. Yet, Sugarfoot is very shy and very quiet, so she rarely talks, and even less rarely stops by.

However, we are doing some cross training so Sugarfoot has been forced to stop by my desk to see how the process works. She often sneaks up on me, but does a little knock on the top of my cube wall to alert me of her presence. She always asks if she can have a candy, and then she sweetly sits down and we review the process together. I hope that this means that she will become a frequent visitor to the Candy Dish—I need more visitors that I truly enjoy.

The third and possibly final aspect of Project C was due on International Star Wars Day, or May 4th – which was yesterday. On Monday I asked Candy Girl about this aspect, and her first response was, “Oh don’t worry, I’ll be managing that piece so it should be easier.” Then when I told her it was due on the 4th, she looked as though the wind had just been knocked out of her, and the words, “Its May already…. gee I seem to have lost a week again,” tumble out of her mouth. She explains to me that this isn’t the first time she has lost a week, and that maybe the issues with her stomach are causing her brain not to work. Now I am the one trying not to look like I got punched in the stomach.

According to the crime and drama television shows, and we all know the telly does not lie, you only lose time if you’re a schizophrenic or a drug addict. And I have watched a lot of shows and I can’t recall a single one where anyone lost a whole week. I am not sure what is going on with Candy Girl, but it looks like part three of Project C will be a wild ride!

You also need to do a lot of sorting for laundry, darks, lights, hot, cold, or you’ll end up with your white button down turned into a pink mid-drift you can’t button — which I believe when out of style with 1990′s. Then once you’re done with the actual washing and drying part, you have to fold and put them away, the socks in the sock drawer, the pants hung, the t-shirts folded and put in the dresser. You could just close your eyes, cross you fingers, throw your clothes in the washer and hope for the best. You also could take your finished laundry and throw it towards your closet and dresser, willing the clothes into the proper places. However, we know how that ends up, a big giant mess, and clothes that might be ruined.

Similar techniques apply when combining data together. If you want to know the best bang for you buck on a candy bar, you need to know the cost of each candy bar and you need to know the weight. Say the cost is one dataset, and the weight is in another dataset, each listed by candy – you’d have to combine these two in order to calculate the cost per unit (If a Hershey bar is a dollar and the weight is two ounces, then the cost per unit would be fifty cents an ounce. $1/2oz=0.50). You’d have make sure to combine the data together by candy bar, because if you just threw the data at each other blindly you could end up with the cost of a Hershey bar being matched with the weight of a Reese’s cup – as logical as not sorting your laundry or throwing it towards your closet.

The above might explain some of Candy girl’s odd outfit choices — she apparently lacks the ability to sort and match things together. It was discovered the data files she prepared for my application were done by randomly tossing the different data elements at each other resulting in a meaningless mismatched file — that deceptively appeared correct. So once again others are going to have to redo work because it was based on faulty data — hopefully they’ll have less trouble with their laundry!

Candy tastes good anytime and I don’t think it really goes bad, at least not for a couple of years. So I put the Christmas bells out for consumption. I am rather disappointed that no one has mentioned the fact that there is now Christmas candy in the dish. I suppose they are all too excited that there is an alternate chocolate option to the possibly gross snickers with almonds.

The project was time sensitive (aren’t they all) so it was critical we reviewed the data together split the work appropriately–which oddly enough requires talking to each other. So we’re talking and looking at things, and all of a sudden Pretentious Snot’s face appears on the other side of my cube wall. He glares at us, and says “Could you keep it down?!,” takes a minute to stare at us and sits down. IC snidely replies, “We are talking about work so….” To which I hear a groan as a response. IC and I pause for a minute, give each other a “did that really just happen” look and continue on with the meeting in whispers.

IC was really mad at Pretentious Snot–rightly so, we weren’t talking loud, we were talking about work, and the request was delivered rudely. Also, Pretentious Snot has never once asked anyone else to be quiet, just me and now IC, and we are not the loudest by far. At first IC wanted to confront Pretentious Snot in the hallway and ask him what his deal was, instead, he’s decided to talk to me at my desk even more, really loudly. Part of me like this, I want Pretentious Snot to be squirming in his chair, the rest of me hates it because it means IC is talking to me even more.

Yesterday morning IC and I had to review the for the final delivery of the time sensitive project. He shows up reeking like breath mints with a bag of candy, smiles and says “I brought a present!” I thank him of course, but internally am dismayed at the sight of the snickers almond candy bars. Then he sits down and we review the data, we have to sit close together and he keeps trying to pat me on the shoulder and back, not very comfortable for me. I am not sure if its unfortunate or not, but Pretentious Snot was not there to be bothered by our chatter, because all this happened before 10 in the morning (when he usually arrives).

So here I am, stuck with both IC and pretentious snot and probably gross almond snickers. I have yet to try one, but I can’t image they’d be good. I’ll have to feed one to Candy girl and see if she lives.

Later that same afternoon, she comes by again, under the guise of re-capping the meeting—though there is no need, I typed notes as we met and sent them out afterwards. What she actually wants to talk about is “too much information” for most friends. She launches into this whole thing about her digestive problems and that’s why she wasn’t at work Tuesday—I had no idea she hadn’t come—and how she’s so upset that her stomach won’t allow her to eat 3 Italian beef sandwiches or tons of candy without feeling sick. First, I am not sure many people could eat 3 Italian beefs and feel totally fine after it, second of all her detail of how she gets sick, is about to make me puke on her shoes. Anyway, her point is that she’s no longer going to eat sugar because she can’t handle it. I think to myself, ok, see you at the candy dish on Monday.

I didn’t even have to wait until Monday! The very next day, she comes over stressed about something on Project C, and stuffs her hand in the candy dish. She says it’s just stress eating because her job is so hard and she works all the time (I can only imagine what it’s like to come in at 9:30 and leave at 4:30—what a life!). Low and behold on Friday – the day I am supposed to execute the latest aspect of Project C—she’s at home sick, she probably tried to eat 4 Italian Beef!

Last Friday we scheduled a meeting with someone on the floor below. We head over there and wait in their office for about 10 minutes. There is no sign of them, but their coat, and bag are still there, so we know that they are somewhere. We try walking around the floor to find him, but we can’t and it’s a big office. So we call his cell phone, and find out he’s actually on the high floor looking for us. So we leave his office, go back down the elevator, walk over the other banks of elevators, take it back up and finally have out meeting.

Yes, I realize that wasn’t about candy, but on last Friday, I found it pretty hilarious. Perhaps I just needed more sleep

So Project C is not the project that didn’t allow me enough time to post, it’s another project. However, this didn’t stop Candy Girl from popping over under the guise of a work question.

Last week on an especially grueling day, she’s sitting behind me chatting about her project. She’s asking me absurd questions that she should know the answer to—just so she can sit at my desk and not to do her work I suspect. I am typing away, responding to some urgent e-mail and I glance behind me, and I see Candy Girl massaging her foot.

Her shoe is in on the ground in my cube, and her hand is on her foot rubbing in at she’s looking at me for sympathy. Hey, sorry your foot hurts, but I don’t want your foot juiced hands to be touching my desk or anything else in my cubicle!

So you know why computers are cool? They make things faster. Data programs are similar, they make things faster and they are consistent, the tell us how we got the result in the first place. It’s not magic–they aren’t people, they don’t decide to work or not work–unless they are written by Candy Girl. She’s been visiting me 4 times a day all week, yes I know its only Tuesday. She can’t remember how she got me the data in the first place, although she wrote the code, so she keeps asking me for help. The data was due Monday morning, I got it at 5pm today.

She came hopping over today tossing her head around to express her frustration at her data pull for Project C. If I only dared to act out my frustration at her–but I don’t want to go to jail. She’s telling me she had ice cream as she’s popping the mini Reese’s cups. Then she starts chanting “Peanut butter power, puh puh puh peanut butter power.” I don’t think there was any real dancing, I was trying to send out and email updating people on another project that was urgent, but I could see her out of the corner of my eye.

She apologizes and says, “I’m building a sugar army in my stomach.”

I reply,”Oh, well that’s good. I hope it helps you figure out the data issues.”

Candy Girl: “No, it’s not good, it gets me all bloated and . But our chant would definitely be peanut butter power. I can’t seem to focus.”

So world, if we every need a sugar army to defeat an enemy, I have a perfect General in mind.

For some reason this weekend, I remembered something funny from years ago when I was went to sleep away camp. Four girls shared a small cabin — just enough room for four beds — so we got to know each other quite well. One of the girls loved counting her candy. She wouldn’t just count that there were 30 M&M in a package however, she’d count the total number of M&M’s in the package, and the number of blue, red, green, yellow, light brown and dark brown ones. This behavior wasn’t limited to M&M’s. Any kind of candy that came in one package with multiple colors, she sorted and counted. She had a separate tiny notebook for each kinda of candy, and recorded the number each time. We helped her out, we’d let her count our candy before we ate it.

I wonder what she ever did with those notebooks, some research experiment about color distribution? I also wonder where she is now and if she’s still counting candy.

Anyways, during down time I keep thinking about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a claim I made a while ago. I think that the mini Reese’s have a better chocolate to peanut butter ration than the regular sized Reese’s. I also wonder about the Reese’s eggs, are they maybe the best? Or the worst?

I have been wondering how to measure this, how am I going to prove that there different ratios of chocolate and peanut butter across Reese’s. I think I am going to have measure the area of a Reese’s. Then cut it in half and measure the area of the peanut butter filling. I am going to need a tiny and precise ruler. Also, since a Reese’s isn’t exactly a circle I am going to have to guesstimate, because I don’t what shape a Reese’s is–so how would I know the area formula? Plus, I am not sure if I remember how to find the area of an egg, but I am sure I can look that up.

Hmm. I might have just found my weekend activity.