Hardly working (@ Skechers Corporate)

Hardly working (@ The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas)

Our advertising department was in Vegas for less than 48 hours, and it took me longer than that to recover.

File under: Questions I ask myself on the regular

There’s this tall drink of water at my work, and every time I run into him, I’m either wearing no makeup or holding a loaf of bread.

I woke up late one Monday, rolled right out of bed and into an elevator with him inside. I’ve never looked uglier than I did that morning, and he’s in there asking me how my weekend was, and all I kept thinking was PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES. Another time, I was changing the iPads at work when I look over and see him looking at me, so I froze and dropped my screwdriver. Today, I was in the elevator with him on my way to get coffee, and I just had to be holding that freaking loaf of bread that I keep in my desk drawer. Ugh!

He doesn’t even know how cool I am.

Happy birthday and an even happier retirement to my pops! (@ Bonita USPS)

Unfortunate circumstances kept me in town this week, but I’m glad I was able to be there on my dad’s last day at work where no fucks were given and retirement cake was served.

I don’t know what’s sadder—is it that part of my job as a web designer at Skechers involves creating e-blasts for the cafe inside our office building (how else would you know that tomorrow’s special is chicken tikka masala?!), or that while googling BBQ photos to use for their 4th of July special, I immediately recognized this spread from Smoke City Market???

If you’re looking for the key to my heart, a platter of smoked BBQ beef ribs will unlock all the mysteries.

…or my least favorite time of year.

Pretty sure there’s a direct correlation between the duration of my cold and the amount of overtime I’ve been working these past few weeks. 14-hour work days is not the cure.

Much needed sick day after working overtime every day this week with a cold! Somebody please bring me more donuts and be the big spoon.

OMG, my mom and her emoticons.

My sister just accepted a job offer back home in SD, and I couldn’t be happier for her (or sadder for me!). The best part about living in LA is that it’s only an hour away from my sister’s condo in the OC and a few hours away from home. With my sister and brother-in-law moving back to SD, I won’t be able to just drop by whenever I’m feeling homesick anymore. I’ll also have to find someone else’s husband to cook me breakfast on Sunday mornings! Ha.

Congrats, Pammie!!! I miss you already ♥

I usually enjoy being on my back, but this is getting ridic.

I’ve been living off muscle relaxers, pain killers and salon pas for the past three weeks. The cause is still unknown, but I’m pretty sure I went too hard at the Paul McCartney show! Ha.

I’ve been stressed out at work lately, and the doctor thinks I might be carrying the stress in my back. If only he could write me a doctor’s note forbidding me to work overtime. It’s the least he can do, since he won’t prescribe me more vicodin!

My 3-day weekend can’t come soon enough.

Bathroom break (@ Skechers)

My work conference started off with an inspirational speech by President Bill Clinton and ended with half naked dancers and one too many tequila shots with the VPs.

So… just another day at the office.

I caught Meb checking me out at work today!

Oh, wait. It’s just some creep.

This week’s edition of Who Wore It Better? (@ Skechers)

BEARD MAGIC HEALS EVERYTHING.
This is only the best e-card anyone has ever made me.
Thanks, Zack (and Levi!) ♥

Accurate.

So the cafe inside my work has an instagram account, and all the employees who follow it have a chance to win a $25 gift card every week. I was pretty excited when I won last month. I was less excited about the photo they chose of me, but my instagram is devoid of selfies, so I forgive them.

Anyway, I was talking to my coworker who runs the instagram account, and he was saying how they make a big deal at the cafe when you get your gift card. And I was like, “Yeah, they even take your picture!” And he was like, “Wait, what… They don’t do that.” And then I realized that the guy who sells me my $9 pressed juice every morning took a picture of me on his cell phone for his own personal collection!

I’m eating my feelings, and they taste delicious.

…or me after my annual review this week!

A generous raise plus a bonus big enough to pay off my credit card debt? YES, PLEASE. Money can’t buy me love, but it can buy that $500 bedding set I’ve been eyeballing at Anthropologie. And sometimes that’s enough to keep me warm at night.

Happy hour followed by open bar at my company holiday party last night! Someone please bring me a breakfast burrito and gatorade. I’ll be in bed under the covers.

28 pounds lighter and $175 richer!

This was me winning second place at my work’s weight-loss challenge last Friday. It’s a good thing I didn’t win first, because you wouldn’t be able to handle those dance moves!

I lost to some corporate lawyer who donated his winnings to a children’s hospital. Way to make me feel like an asshole! Ha. I already spent my share on Young the Giant tickets!

Not gonna lie, I peed a little when I saw Lorenzo at work today.

Partly to fund my Amazon addiction, but mostly because I hate myself, I picked up some freelance work designing eblasts for a cooking website during the holidays. I can feel my stomach eating itself looking at all this food porn right now…

Unusually heavy traffic made my commute home from work today a whopping 7 minutes. Life’s rough sometimes.

Just came back from my low fat, low carb, gluten-free lunch to this email from the cafe at work. HOW DARE YOU, SKECHERS.

Sometimes I think about how much I love cronuts, and I cry a little.

My work is hosting its third weight loss challenge this year, and I’m joining for the third time! It ends the week before Thanksgiving… just in time to gain some holiday weight go shopping with my winnings 😉 I’ve also decided to go gluten-free during the contest! Yikes. Thank yeezus for gluten-free vodka! I’m gonna need it…

On gorgeous days like today, my coworker and I like to eat our lunch outside on a bench like homeless people.

Either they haven’t cleaned my desk out since I left my last job (almost a year ago!), or some squatter has taken up residence underneath my old desk…

The highlight of my work conference was the free food trucks at lunch, obvi.

I start making bad choices around hour 13.

Finally starting my weekend after working 17 hours of overtime! Super bummed I missed cicLAvia and Anthony being in town. If there’s a silver lining in this, it’s that I can drown my sorrows in the beer he left at my apartment…

…or how I wake up my coworker when we have to work on a Saturday.

They recently let go of all three of our web freelancers at work (a.k.a. my lunch buddies!).

One of them said that she misses hearing my laugh from across the office. She is the second person who has told me that. Today.

Sound must really travel in the advertising department! Yeah, that must be it…

Damn, it feels good to a) be a gangsta and b) have your boss give you an iPad mini!

I only had to work on a Saturday. And sell my soul. No bigs!

Trying to stay awake while looking through hot model pics on my new iMac for this microsite I’m designing at work.

My life is so hard sometimes.

9:30 in the morning might seem a bit early to chalk this day up as a loss, but I’m going to do it anyway. This does not bode well for my weekly weigh-in tomorrow.

After putting in 20 hours of overtime this weekend, I don’t know what’s sadder—is it that I had vending machine pop tarts for dinner, or that I know from experience that the lights automatically shut off at my work at midnight?

…and maybe have some coffee, too 😉

My art director asked if I needed any supplies like pens, post-its, a bladeless Dyson fan… no bigs!

After waking up every day at an unholy hour, driving upwards of 2 hours each way, putting 550 miles on my car, and paying $46 in toll fees to commute back and forth between my sister’s place in the OC and my job in Manhattan Beach, I’ve finally moved into my new place in Redondo Beach! I couldn’t be happier that I’m only 2 streets away from my work now.

When I found this steal on Craigslist and submitted my rental application, the landlord who lives upstairs mentioned that he loves Filipino food and has never met a Filipino he didn’t like. I mean… if he only leased the bottom floor of his townhouse to me because he thinks I know how to cook Filipino food, then he’s in for 3 months of disappointment!

Everything happened so fast with the move that I didn’t have time to think about it. I’m so much happier at my new job, but I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss my dog. Le’sigh.

If heaven is a 6×8 glass-enclosed cubicle, then this is it.

This post has been sitting in my drafts for the past year or two (or five), and today I finally get to publish this shiznittle bam snip snap sack!

Chatting with you is the only thing I’m going to miss about work! It puts a smile on my face when you send me nick@nite texts and pictures of your 22″ hot dog, so try not to forget about me after I blow this popsicle stand!

I’m officially the new Web Designer for Skechers! LA, here I come… Yikes!

I guess it’s time for my annual car wash.

I was roped into participating in an office juice cleanse. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it kind of feels like the first day of school. Minus the fact that you get to eat solid foods that day. I’m pretty sure we’re all going to hate each other by EOD.

I went outside to grab something from my car when some creeper who works a few warehouses down tried to hit on me. He said that he has seen me around and has been meaning to introduce himself, all while staring at my chest! I hadn’t had any coffee yet, and I was not in the mood to be ogled. I told him I needed to get back to work, and he told my chest to come visit him anytime. Ugh. I truly wonder if he felt that went well.

I’m going to file this encounter under ‘reasons I need a new job,’ along with having to buy dental groupons because my work doesn’t provide basic dental insurance.

I baked these cookie dough brownies for my boss’ baby shower at work today. I don’t plan on eating any of them, but I’m sure I gained 3 pounds just thinking about it.

Also, I’m skipping the gym tonight. This has nothing and everything to do with brownies, but I mostly just wanted to get that off my chest.

…although it’s questionable how publicly acceptable I look when I’m not at home!

Apparently, while I’m at work gchatting with my friends (which is frequently—unless my boss is reading this, in which case it’s occasionally and only on nights and weekends), they’re at home wearing mascara while I’m out in public without a stitch of makeup on.

God forbid I run into the love of my life at Starbucks while wearing my yoga pants that, if we’re being honest, have never been worn to yoga.

I instantly regret wearing jeans instead of leggings to work today. How can I stuff my face with Phil’s BBQ when my clothes are so binding?

Is it 5 o’clock yet?

Oh, sweet jesus… there’s a video.

Sometimes I feel bad for Jesse because he’s one of the only dudes in the office… but then I remember that he gets to work with me, and I don’t feel bad for him anymore! Ha 😉

Or… Belle, Jesse and me at happy hour last night.

Another Saturday night in working on my design portfolio and eating enough takeout from Domo Sushi to feed a small village.

My Saturday nights have been pretty wild lately.

I picked the luckiest red envelope at work today! In other news, I’ve forgiven the white elephant gods for my booby prize.

Not only did I receive a reminder from Anthropologie that I’m turning thirty next month, but I also got stuck with a “family” frame (for the husband and kids I don’t have) at the white elephant gift exchange at my office today.

If only I had picked the booze that Jesse brought so I could drown my sorrows.

I’m pretty sure this is Jesse’s way of saying that he no longer appreciates hearing me blast Young the Giant in my shitty earbuds all the livelong day.

Merry Christmas to us both!

My co-worker Jesse just sent me this right now. Apparently, he couldn’t help but notice that my soul died a little more than usual at work today.

I think it’s safe to assume that no one watered my plant while I was out of the office.

(It probably didn’t help that I never watered it while I was here, either.)

Not only do I teach my interns how to polish a turd in photoshop, but I also encourage them to forego their grad school scholarships and follow their dreams.

Somewhere, right now, Angela’s grandma is giving me the stink eye.

I find that my feelings toward work this week are best expressed through animated gifs. In addition, I really picked the most inopportune time to lay off the booze.

No lunch break at work, an hour of unpaid overtime, and a Chargers loss. Is my pet’s head gonna fall off next???

You said it, Rivers…

Happy birthday to my BFF at work! I didn’t come in an hour early to post-it bomb just anyone’s desk 😉 My appreciation for you runs deeper than your secret love for Hootie and the Blowfish. And I think we both know just how deep that is. Ha!

There’s an indirect correlation between the amount of work I get done and the number of gchats I have going at any given time. Today is Friday so… you do the math.

This was me after the recent layoffs at work these past few weeks.

Jesse said it was so quiet in the office yesterday that you could hear a mouse fart. My boss let go of half of our marketing team (including the two interns I wasted six months of my life training), and I’ve been given all of their marketing responsibilities. If I have to google how to do one more fucking Excel formula, I might have to cut a bitch. And since no one else is left, it might have to be Jesse. Or that farting mouse.

Shit is about to get real up in here. I’m either going to cut a bitch or take my pants off.

Yesterday, I brought my lunch and gym clothes to work.

My untouched ground turkey is still sitting in the fridge because Mary and I had 25¢ wings at JT’s instead, and my unused gym clothes are still neatly folded in the trunk of my car because Christian wanted to go to happy hour.

My work’s proximity to the bar is clearly foiling my plans to eat better and work out.

Should I consider it a warning sign that my manager sent me this coupon? I still haven’t decided whether I’m offended or secretly grateful! Ha. In her defense, she met her boyfriend on Match.com.

As much as I hate having to charm my way into free drinks at bars, I just can’t bring myself to meet a guy in a place where 15% off coupons are accepted.

I went to work yesterday morning, had happy hour (and a $200 tab according to my bank account!) at JT’s with my coworkers afterward, never made it home or to The Casbah as planned with Jessie last night, and woke up this morning in my coworker’s apartment.

Contrary to the last time I went out with all my work friends (AKA my manager’s drunken birthday disaster of 2008), I’m pretty sure we’ll all still be speaking to each other on Monday! Ha.

Yes, I got Jason Statham confused with Chandler Bing. And yes, this pretty much sums up what the rest of my day at work looked like.

This is me every day at work around 4pm.

Meet KG, a marketing intern at work and my new desktop background (courtesy of my intern, Angela).

I told him that my shitty office chair made my back hurt, and he said, “Sit up straight. Like my mom used to tell me, ‘Tits to the wind!'”

He’s quickly replacing Christian as my favorite intern (sorry, Ang! Ha!).

In related news, Jesse is officially forgiven for writing this love note on my car:

I haven’t had a vacation in… what year is it now?

My Hawaii trip with the girls was before Chel got married, before Pammie bought a condo in the OC, before Shi was the maid of honor in three different weddings, and before I sold my soul to the company I work for. I only have ten months left till my dirty thirty, and I’d like to live a little before I start extreme couponing for Olay Regenerist. Just kidding. I’m Asian—I fully intend to look like I’m twenty-something well into my forties.

With two new graphic design interns starting this month, I think I might be able to take an actual vacation this summer. And maybe I’ll even be bikini-ready by then! Okay, maybe just tankini-ready… let’s not write checks my body can’t cash.

Jesse: hipster alert
Me: what’s she wearing?
Jesse: all black. rivers cuomo glasses.
Me: wait, are you talking about me or the girl who’s here for the interview???

I love when my preggo co-worker’s husband brings her Chez Nous, because that means I get Chez Nous, too! Their spicy chicken melt fixes things in the universe. Throw in some garlic parm fries, and we have a meal I’d ask to marry me.

This was me realizing that my blouse was unbuttoned and my boobs were exposed after I interviewed this tall drink of water who applied for our graphic design internship today.

I’m looking for a graphic design intern to assist me with overflow work. If you’re well-versed in Photoshop/HTML, don’t mind working with a bunch of female twenty-somethings, and kick ass in Taboo, please respond to our Craigslist ad here.

Needless to say, the guy who sent me his cover letter in Comic Sans will not be getting a call back from me.

Arlene’s 7-year-old daughter, Gisella, made me a Valentine’s Day card at school because she knew I didn’t have a Valentine this year. Thanks for the reminder, kid! Haha. I love that little munchkin. I would pin her card up in my cube at work, but it’d be overshadowed by Belle’s gaggle of heart-shaped balloons!

I got my sexy new monitor at work today:

Jesse: all the girls were gushing when belle & jen got their flowers & balloons & shit
Me: oh for fuck’s sake… good thing i was off on monday
Jesse: it was pretty barftastic… not that we’re bitter or anything
Me: pfffft. who needs a man when i have 27″ right here in my face?

When I came into work on Friday, they told all the employees we were going to have a mandatory meeting at noon. Jesse and I went crazy trying to figure out what sparked this unexpected meeting—Were they laying people off? Did they find out that Jesse drank that unclaimed Red Bull in the fridge? Are my yoga pants too casual for Casual Friday???

Four hours later, I found out that my stomach fell out of my butt for nothing. They surprised us with a 30-minute break from work to play Taboo: Marketing vs. Customer Service!

Krystal: It’s something you might eat for breakfast
Me: Pancakes. French toast. Eggs. A biscuit!
Krystal: It’s fluffier.
Me: What’s fluffier than a biscuit???

We won (even though I couldn’t think of anything fluffier than a biscuit), so the customer service department has to make us coffee every day next week!

My annual review was amazeballs, my boss ordered me a 27″ cinema display to show her appreciation, and our marketing team smoked customer service in Taboo. Work was def good to me this week.

Our office hours are changing, and I’m expected to be bright eyed and bushy tailed an hour earlier than usual starting Monday. FML.

(photo via *December Sun)

I’m not sure how I got swindled into baking brownie bites with peanut butter frosting for the Cinco de Mayo potluck at my work when a) I don’t even eat anything at the potlucks because I Lean Cuisine it during the week and b) what the hell do brownies with peanut butter frosting have to do with Cinco de Mayo? Someone scribbled “Marion’s brownies” on the sign-up sheet underneath the guacamole and tortilla chips. Freak ass freaks. You bring something good once, and people just won’t let you forget about it.

Working with people who get my pop culture references is the only thing that helps me keep my sanity—especially on days like this when I have to finish four newsletters and three homepage banners in one week because this Monday is a holiday, and deadlines don’t care about your scheduled days off (even if they’re unpaid).

Jesse: You’re such a dork
mayanrocks: says the guy with the cheese wax pyramid on his desk!
Jesse: Hey, that’s artistry you philistine!
Jesse: I need to buy more yellow Babybels to accent the sides
mayanrocks: …
Jesse: God, I’m such a dork

I miss Hawaii. The food. The beaches. The weather. The lomi lomi massages. The BOYS. Sure, I can eat kalua pig and spam musubi at any one of the L&L joints in San Diego. And sure, I can pick up entire loaves of taro bread at any of the Asian supermarkets in San Diego. And sure, I can go to any beach I want in San Diego. And fine, the weather is pretty much the same in San Diego most of the year. But do we have Hawaiian boys over here? Maybe. But it’s not the same. The more I travel out of San Diego, the more I’m convinced I’ve exhausted my stay here. They closed my favorite dive bar earlier this month, and if that’s not a sign that I should get out of here, I don’t know what is. Hawaii is so laid back. I consider San Diego pretty laid back. At least more laid back than LA or NYC. But Hawaii is ridiculously laid back. Like telling us to meet in front of the hotel at nine in the morning to be driven to the moped rental store and us showing up ten minutes early and waiting twenty five minutes for someone to arrive kind of laid back. And I like to consider myself a laid back, no worries kind of girl. Even when we were transferring boats to go from jet skiing to parasailing, we were hurrying to take our life jackets off and cross over and the HOT! parasailing instructor said, “There’s no rush, darlin’… This is Hawaii.” That was probably the exact moment I decided I wanted to marry that man stay there forever. Yet here I am… blogging from the Valley. Hawaii was just so amazing. I plan to revisit again and again in this lifetime. My vacation couldn’t have been any more perfect. I miss the girls already. I miss trying to sleep through their symphony of snoring (okay, maybe they miss trying to sleep through my snoring). I miss waking up to Shi singing “Morning’s here.” I miss Chel sticking her fish eye camera in my face. I can’t wait till our next trip together. Until then, it’s back to the real world! Boo whore.

The real world ain’t so bad, though… Since I’ve been back, I’ve received an unexpected promotion at my second job where I’ve been a graphic design intern for the past couple of months. All of a sudden, I found myself putting my two weeks in at AAA. I’m sad to be leaving, but I just can’t pass this promotion up! Starting next month, I’ll have nights and weekends off. I won’t know what to do with myself. I suppose I could go to the gym and lose all that weight I planned to lose BEFORE going to Hawaii. And all that weight I gained while I was IN Hawaii. Or I could just have more time to blog about how much I want to lose weight while snacking on these chocolate covered macadamia nuts I brought home from Hawaii…