The topic of good “work culture” often comes up at offices. Prospective employees interview and ask the question of what the office culture is like – is it positive, is it negative? What are the signs? How would you describe the office’s culture? But in an Instagram post that a colleague showed me, it could just be as simple as this:

“Office culture is someone bringing in donuts and everyone for some reason refusing to take a whole one and cutting off 3/8 of the donut. Then at the end of the day, there’s like 17/25ths of 9 different donuts left.”

It’s relevant today because a customer who’s been refusing to respond to any of my emails has been on my mind; I was determined to get them to accept a meeting with me before the end of this month. Since they are right in the financial district, I decided… what the hell. I’m going to show up at their office with a bag full of bagels and cream cheese. Everyone enjoys food, especially if it’s free. And then, they will feel guilt-ridden and feel like they have to finally accept a meeting with me. And while I’m at it, I”ll grab a dozen for the office, as well, because why not?

So I dropped off the bagels at the customer’s office downtown, then went back up to Flatiron to my office and put the bag of bagels, still warm, on the kitchen counter. And the swarms began immediately. While it was quiet when I came in, once the bagels appeared, the office became boisterous, endless chatter and laughter ensued, and a lot of carbs were consumed. Plus, I got endless “I love yous” and heartfelt thanks… all for a bunch of boiled bread.

That’s “good office culture” right there.

I’ve really neglected my scrapbooking project for over a year now. My scrapbooking is meant to document our life, and well, mostly our travels, and as of now, I’d completed pages through September 2017, when we went to Hamilton Island for Chris’s cousin’s wedding, and the north island of New Zealand. That means that I’m nearly a year and a half overdue for updating. So the cheapest print option for about 230 4×6 photos ended up being at Duane Read, which I uploaded and ordered yesterday. I went to pick up the photos yesterday and was extremely irritated to find out that a lot of the pictures were poorly printed: faces and main parts of the photos were completely cut off, which made no sense because these were standard images. I ended up having to go to the pharmacy today to manually select every picture that was wrong, crop it exactly as I wanted it, and then had to wait until the end of the day to pick up the revised prints.

It always shocks me that in today’s day and age, when technology has advanced to the point where face recognition and AI are the thing now, that places like Duane Reade or CVS would have such archaic photo printing capabilities. The touch screens are too basic and are not as sensitive to touch as they should be (this results in semi-violent tapping on the bulky monitors), they regularly crash when a USB drive is inserted to read data, and why would there be a cropping option on a photo that was already a 4×6?! 

Today by far was our coldest day since we’ve come back from our trip, the very first single-digit day in temperature (when measured in Fahrenheit) — my weather app said it was about 8 degrees F, but about -10 degrees F when you included the wind chill factor. But I refused to let the cold get in the way of my day off in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, so I went about doing everything I planned to do, including my morning workout, running some errands in Herald Square, shopping at my favorite Indian grocery store in Jackson Heights, Queens, picking up photos for my scrapbooking project to recommence, and having lunch in Queens with a friend. What I was not planning on, however, was the fact that the random hole-in-the-wall spot I chose ended up truly being a hole-in-the-wall: I had to walk through a nondescript shop, then a mobile phone store to get to this tiny restaurant with only six tables. And when I walked in, I was a bit confused why all the other diners were still wearing their jackets, scarves, and hats… until it hit me: Oh, crap. This place doesn’t have heat! The only heat that could be felt in the place was from its semi-open kitchen, which of course was disseminating cooking heat into the air.

My friend also lives in Manhattan, and he agreed to join me in Queens for lunch. I could already see the look on his face when he walked in, but he said out loud what I was thinking he was thinking, anyway: “First, you dragged me out to Queens on a single-digit day, and now, the place you chose to eat at is this hole-in-the-wall that I almost missed because it’s so hidden, AND it has no heat? Really?”

Well, the food was delicious, and it was accompanied by two cups of piping hot and much needed milk tea. And it was all super cheap: nothing on the menu was over $6.

Yep, I’m a cheap date. The trek in this weather was worth it. And the lack of heat really didn’t matter in the end because a few bites in, we were both so warm that we took off our heavy winter coats.

It was a glorious day off. I’m even more happy that not everyone gets MLK day off, so everywhere I went, including this place, was far less crowded than it would normally be. These are the best days in the city.

Januarys in the northern hemisphere are the most miserable. While everyone thinks I must be excited for January because it’s the month of my birthday, since moving to the east coast, to me, there is very little to be stoked about during this cold, dark, and miserable month. Chris goes into hibernation mode and hates leaving the apartment on weekends unless it’s for a quick meal (in Manhattan, preferably close to the apartment) or for a theater show. I dislike the cold, but I refuse to let the cold dictate where I go, hence I usually make friends go to Queens with me for cheap and delicious food this month. But today, it was a day of very annoying and intense organizing for scrapbooking of our travels that I’ve neglected for over a year. I had to sort through photos from November 2017 through January 2019, and I somehow am still not done.

This is what procrastination is like when you have literally hundreds and hundreds of photos staring at you, all asking if you will print them or not. We live in an age of plenty: technology has made it easy for us to not be so selective of the photos we snap. Now, we can take pictures of our gross toenail growth or our tongue that has turned yellow from turmeric, and no one needs to feel guilty about these seemingly silly photos because it’s not like you’re “wasting” expensive film on these, right? Instead, you get faced with thousands of pictures that you then need to comb through to decide which are the most worthy to actually be printed and either put in a photo frame, album, or scrapbook. And that is truly a pain in the neck… in my neck.

Note to self: never wait a year and three months for the next time you decide to print photos.

Five colleagues and I spent the morning delivering meals to in-need senior citizens who live within a ten-block radius of Grand Central Station. “Need” is defined by low-income, or by a lack of mobility according to CityMeals on Wheels, who I coordinated todays volunteer activity with. But what was the most shocking to me was how different each of their apartment buildings and apartments were when we got to their buildings.

Some were narrow walk-ups where the resident receiving the meal lived on the fifth floor. When I first moved to New York and was 22 years old, the idea of a fifth floor walk-up completely disgusted me. So if I were 60 years older than that, I don’t even think I’d be capable of walking up those types of stairs, especially while carrying anything of any weight. When this particular resident opened his door, it was obvious as soon as the door opened that the apartment, not to mention the building, was ill-kept, that the place reeked of uncleanliness and body odor, not to mention just pure filth. I felt pretty terrible for them, but hoped that they were able to use the food we were providing.

Then, there was the opposite extreme — luxury buildings with extremely formally dressed doormen who interrogated us regarding where we were from, what our purpose was, and if we were really only delivering meals, then why did we need three young women to deliver one meal to one resident in this building? When we were admitted into the building, we were shocked to discover a hidden courtyard inside that was massive — you could probably even host a wedding out there. When we got up to this woman’s floor, she opened her door to reveal the most extensive home library behind her that I’d ever seen a real person’s home. The ceiling where at least twelve feet high, and her decorations made her apartment seem like a museum.

These are the disparities of the rich and the poor, all within a short walking distance of each other. In some way, that is how diverse New York City is, and in others, it’s how depressing this place can be.

I always wear slippers and a sweater while in the house. Maybe the sweater thing is a habit from my parents’ house, where I was always wearing a thick layer of a button-up sweater or a robe, but I always feel cozy in it. So when something like the heat suddenly shuts off while we’re on the couch watching TV, I don’t notice it as quick as Chris does, who tends to wear a t-shirt and shorts/his underwear while in the apartment regardless of what time of year it is or what the weather is. Chris picked up on the lack of heat immediately and was in a fit of rage. It was actually kind of cute to watch; he’s so anti-cold.

He noticed in the last day that not only did our bedroom heater stop working, but our living room heating unit would randomly turn off and occasionally come back on. This is not what you want when it’s below freezing outside.

I always think about how complicated things like taxes and healthcare are here, and I wonder.. does it really have to take so long? When I hear of how quickly people do taxes in other western, developed countries, particularly those in Europe, I think about how they probably laugh at us when they hear that so many Americans don’t even do their own taxes, that instead, they hire tax accountants to do this for them. I also think about how other western countries laugh at the state of our healthcare system — how expensive it is and little we actually get out of it.

Let’s think about this: I made a doctor’s appointment for this morning primarily for an annual physical with a primary care physician, but because I told them I had questions about my cold, which has unfortunately included violent coughing fits, they labeled my visit an “office visit” instead of an “annual physical,” which means that I had to pay a $20 copay. All because I had a couple questions, really? Annual physicals have no copay with primary care physicians; illness/office visits do. I made sure with the office receptionist that all my blood work taken should be coded as “annual physical” and NOT as “illness” — yes, because this is something you need to verbatim say, otherwise, your insurance will bill this as reactive/medical treatment, and then I’d have to pay out of pocket expenses. Then, as the lab technician was drawing my blood, I asked her if I could find out my blood type. What was her response? “Well, evaluating your blood for blood type is not considered ‘preventive,’ so we’d need to bill your insurance for that, and then you’d have an out of pocket expense that you could apply to to your deductible.”

I don’t even get to know my own blood type and need them to charge for that, as well? Doesn’t that automatically come up when they draw my blood?!

The lab technician didn’t even give me as much of a smile. She was dead serious.

The doctor I saw today, who was pretty unengaging and didn’t seem to have the greatest bedside manner, was forgettable. She said they’d only use my blood for the bare-bones preventive tests, so this would not include vitamin levels or blood sugar, as those were considered not preventive and would be reactive.

So… if my blood sugar were super high or super low, and we identified that during a test,  that would then have negative ramifications on my health. So then, in what reasonably intelligent mind would you not call that preventive medicine? The doctor shook her head. “It’s just the way the insurance works, and we want to make sure you aren’t getting charged for anything that isn’t fully necessary. So, remember to take a vitamin D supplement.”

It’s just the way the insurance works.

Thanks for the great explanation, doc.

Now, I’m even more crystal clear about the sorry and pathetic state of healthcare in this system. And if I, a privileged white-collar professional working at a tech company, have issues with what is getting billed and not getting billed, how do others far less fortunate than me feel getting nickeled and dimed for every little test or exam? It’s no wonder some people rather just be sick and avoid the doctor at all costs. It’s because of crap like this.

We spent about three hours cleaning the apartment today. When I say we were cleaning,  it means that Chris tidied up all the things we brought back from our trip (mainly his Australian biscuits and our Vietnam magnets), and I deep cleaned and dusted the bedroom, living room, and hallway. We weren’t even here for nearly a month, yet somehow the apartment got so dusty and the floors seem like they have smudges all over them. Or maybe it’s like this because we hadn’t cleaned thoroughly since before Chris’s aunt and uncle’s visit in mid-November.

These are the moments when I think… these are some of the benefits of a small apartment. Having a one-bedroom apartment means that there’s really only three rooms to clean, and that’s pretty manageable for a couple and doesn’t take an entire day to finish scrubbing clean. But once the living space gets bigger, there’s more to clean, and even if you outsource it, that person may not do a thorough enough job for me to be satisfied with.

I came back to the office two days ago to the usual banter, the same annoying people, and the same warm and friendly souls that I actually found myself happy to see and chat with again. Even though I may have had some very mind-boggling, thought-worthy, and even emotional moments during my three weeks away, it was as though none of that really happened once I walked through the doors of my office. I spoke briefly with a few colleagues about my trip, but that was really it. No one really wants to hear that much about anyone else’s trip anyway; it was my moments, my time to enjoy, not theirs. But I did manage to convince one of my colleagues to put Vietnam on his travel list, and not just for a quick trip, but for a planned two-week trip in the next 12-24 months. We’ll see if it really happens.

When you come back from an intense trip, everything else seems like a bit of a bore, like it’s slow and possibly too steady. Oh, reality.