Active for Life!

This week my department started a program called "Active for Life." Designed to get employees off their butts and to encourage us to increase our activity, I was "volunteered" by my boss to participate in planning and coordinating the department's participation (I'm not doing it all by myself; a co-worker is actually doing it with me; we are officially "Co-Directors" of this event).

We went to a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and truth be told, it's a pretty cool program. If I'm a little less than enthusiastic, I guess it's because in the last couple of months, as my assignments get more complicated and require me to work with others in the department, I'm finding that getting what I need, when I need it, is totally an uphill battle. Everyone really delights in throwing up roadblocks or withholding information - delaying completing their assignments is truly an art form that my co-workers have perfected. They're also experts at making excuses, passing the buck, and ignoring repeated requests for status.

To make sure that my department participates as well as the rest of the department at large, I decided that I would be the "team leader." There are about 80 employees in my department, but I figured that participation would be limited to less than 15 - a manageable amount for a team. Yesterday morning I sent out an email invitation, to see who might be interested.

Coincidentally, yesterday I received an email from somoene else in my department inviting me to join a committee called "Women Empowered!" I'm not a big fan of committees; I'm also not a big fan of superfluous punctuation (that exclamation point pissed me off). Along with the email, they sent along a flier that didn't really explain exactly what the point of the committee was; I'm assuming it's an excuse for women to meet and... well, honestly, I don't know. I wondered if it was like the women's group in that book "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" - they learn the art of self-defense and examine their genitals in order to take back their feminine power.

Honestly, I was knocking "Women Empowered!" quite a bit, and joking about it with my co-worker, Andrea. There was a lot of giggling going on there.

She sent me this message in response to my "Active for Life" email:

so you opted for this instead of W.E.? you're like a committee junkie. do you need a brochure? help line?

My response:

I did not "opt" for anything. I am not a joiner, Andrea! Half the people on committees were "volunteered" by their boss, don't you know anything? :-)

I would probably much prefer to burn my bra with a bunch of man-hating, hirsute, whiny broads than monitor the progress of my fellow lazy-ass co-workers.

I'm glad that in spite of having a ton of shit to do, I still have my sense of humor.