Postal. (aka "The softer side of Poppy.")

Hi. Allow me to preface: I predominantly work with men or really dedicated-to-their-careers women. I want to make it clear that I do like women just fine. I promise I do. A lot of my favoritest bloggers are women, I even have real life friends who are women, and a lot of the people who influence my every day life personally and professionally are women. So, I'm not talking about you or them.

Who I am talking about are those women who I am not friends with* who show up in my doorway or in the general hallway, blocking the exit, then proceed to: complain REALLY LOUDLY about work; talk about their kids, their pets, their husbands, their gardens, their frilly-girly-shit; ask "does my hair look okay?", "oh, that's a cute outfit, where'd you get it?!", "did you hear what happened to Susie today??"; and all that other freakin' bullshit the busy bee ladies like to talk about.

We're at work. Could we perhaps FOCUS for two secs and discuss... oh, I dunno... work? At least could you get the fuck out of my doorway so that I don't have to use my "DEFENSIVE" stance on you? Because that's going to scare the crap out of you and then I'll become the gossip fodder. And I don't much care for being gossiped about. I know I'm all business, I know you're the problem, and I know that I'm choosing business over you. Smarts a bit to hear that, doesn't it?

And when I'm about to go get my burrito because I'm so fucking starving I'm about to gnaw my hand off is not the time to stop me to talk for half an hour about any of the above verboten topics.

Don't include me in your fun time and I won't include you in mine. (Trust me, you don't want in on my fun time, busy bees. My fun time will melt your little brains.)



*If you're my friend then you already know I'm multi-tasking on about 10 things at once and you won't mind that I'm listening but emailing, IMing, writing various documents, testing out technology, scheduling myself or a group for the millionth meeting (I'm really good at it, so I choose to do it), reading some technical something-or-other, or telling you to hold on a sec so I can make a business phone call unless you say, "[Poppy], I need to talk to you about something and I need your undivided attention." Because you deserve my undivided attention. The busy bees? They do not.