At the time my office’s holiday party was supposed to begin tonight, Chris and I departed JFK for the first leg of our flight to Melbourne. We arrived at LAX just after the party ended, and as I turned my Airplane Mode off on my phone, my phone buzzed with text message alerts from multiple colleagues, all telling me that I missed the most ridiculous drama at the sit-down dinner that evening. They both ended up calling me to recount the horrors of the evening while our plane was still on the tarmac, waiting for our gate to open up (which ended up taking nearly two hours).

One colleague became so drunk that she couldn’t even walk properly and had to have the restaurant call her a cab to get back to her hotel. A colleague’s husband, apparently jealous of all the men she works with in our office, punched one of my male colleagues upon meeting him, and then interrupted another colleague’s mini speech to yell out that he wanted another male colleague to stop calling his wife at 7:30am on weekdays. This same husband hit on multiple female colleagues, including one new hire who started just this week, and attempted to kiss one of my female teammates on her lips before she backed away.

I am not sure whether I would have wanted to be there or not. I originally felt a bit sad that I’d be missing our office holiday party since last year’s was pretty enjoyable. I like the fact that our office is relatively small, less than 25 people, which means that when you add the plus ones in, it’s a nice, intimate crowd where you can actually talk to the people you want to talk to over the course of five-plus hours. But after hearing about all this tense and awkward nonsense that compelled colleagues who live in a day and age where texting reins, yet they still felt compelled to call me, I think it was actually better I was on a flight headed west watching Crazy Rich Asians. It was fake drama instead of real-life drama I could watch.

I’m organizing a team volunteer event for January and have been spending time looking into new organizations to lend our time to. One of the most recent ones caught me a bit off guard when they asked that in addition to the time we’d be donating to this organization that they also requested a $75/volunteer fee to cover the meal costs of the food we’d be delivering to senior citizens.

Granted, I am aware that we’re volunteering as a corporate entity, but it just leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth that they believe our time is not valuable enough, and that in addition to our time, they want our money, as well. If we are going to the trouble of spending business hours volunteering to alleviate them of labor responsibilities, can’t they find the funds to actually supply the food we would be delivering? I have been looking for nonprofits for my company to support for the last year and a half, and it is disheartening to me that many of them expect to get free everything instead of just our free time, which really is not free. I understand that they face a shortage of both funds and labor resources. If I weren’t empathetic to this, I would not be leading volunteer and charitable activities for my office. But to require us to provide both seems excessive. So, I told them this over email, and they consented that our hours would be enough.

Yes, because otherwise, I’d keep looking.

Although I had a 5:30 cut and color appointment with my colorful and vibrant hairstylist today, I was delayed by over half an hour because the person she was working on before me was going through a very long and nasty divorce… and we all had to hear about it, everyone within a 15-20 foot radius of my hairstylist’s chair. They were married over 24 years, no children. She said she was in her mid-50s, in a lucrative career where she’d soon have to be paying her husband alimony payments as a result of her higher salary.

“He’s set to inherit over $5 million when his mom dies… granted, it probably won’t be for another 10 or so years, but he will be set!” this soon-to-be-divorced woman exclaimed loudly. “Yet I, because I earn more money than he does, I have to pay him alimony! That women’s lib… it’s a bunch of bullshit! Women thought they were going to be better off, to work and be men’s ‘equals.’ Well, here you go: you want equality? Then you have to pay your ex-husband alimony if you make more money! Is that what you want?” 

She was going off, saying that it would have been better to just be a stay-at-home wife, with basically no job opportunities. Because this way, if she went on this route, she’d be getting payments from her husband today.

I had so many things I could have said to her, but I decided that I wanted her out of there ASAP because she was already delaying me over half an hour, and I did not want her delaying me even further. Did she really think she’d have this lucrative career if the women’s liberation movement never happened?! 

She eventually left. My hairstylist looked at me apologetically. “I’m so sorry,” she said to me as she hugged me. “What can I do? She needs someone to listen to her who is unbiased… I can’t just kick her out.

“You’re basically a therapist and a hairstylist in one,” I said to her, smiling. “Except… maybe you should be charging therapist rates on top of your cut and color rates?”

It had never occurred to me to ever vent or rant about life’s frustrations to my hairstylist, or really anyone who did a service for me, whether it was a haircut, a massage, a mani/pedi, or anything. When I used to see a Japanese stylist for my haircuts in the East Village, they were practically expressionless mutes who never said anything to me other than asking what I wanted, if I would like more green tea, or if I wanted a blowout. With my current hairstylist, we just talk about random things like work, travel, our families, and most recently, our cultures and upbringings. But ranting? It seems too much to ask of a hairstylist. Don’t they have enough of their own problems that they shouldn’t be made to listen to ours?

At least I saw this divorcee give my stylist a fat tip. It’s the least she could have done for all her venting and free therapy.

I was sitting at the very first unagi (eel)-based restaurant that has opened in New York City today with Chris and our two friends at lunch today, and we were talking in general about people who are picky eaters and not. Chris was spending time hating on vegans and vegetarians, saying their lives suck because they are consciously making the choice to deprive themselves. Our female friend was critiquing quinoa, saying it’s tasteless and when it does have a taste, it seemed off or stale. Our other friend, who is this woman’s husband, gave me a sly look, saying he knows for a fact that if anything comes out of his mouth that he claims he doesn’t like that my response will be to turn him on it immediately and prove him wrong. He recounted a time not too long ago when he insisted to me that he wasn’t a fan of Indian or North African spices — so he meant spices like cumin, coriander. So I made a North-African spiced red lentil soup and asked him to come over and try it. Not only did he like it, but he actually loved it and was tempted to have a second serving.

It’s not that I cannot handle rejection or the fact that everyone has at least a short list of things they refuse to eat (I have yet to be turned on regular mainstream Heinz ketchup and will very likely spend the rest of my life refusing to touch it). It’s more that I feel that most of the time when people say they do not like something, it’s because they’ve had a bad version of it. That’s how I was, once upon a time, with things like organ meat or congealed blood. So I think it’s more about the tolerance of increasing one’s exposure to foods and trying to approach foods with an open mind, even if you think you do not like it.

What is also amusing is when people hate on picky eaters’ choices of things they do not like, but then do not call out their own. Our friend was appalled that one of my good friends hates shrimp and refuses to eat it (well, when she knows she is eating it), but she was completely fine when I said she used to have an aversion to oysters. We always make exceptions for the things we agree with, don’t we?

Tonight, Chris surprised me with a Christmas concert featuring John Legend. This December, he’s releasing his Christmas album A Legendary Christmas, and this concert featured many of his Christmas songs, as well as a few of his mainstream John Legend classics. John Legend is one of those performers who, no matter what, always sounds so much deeper and more emotional live than on his LP. There are performers who are just fine or comparable to their LP  singing-wise when live, then there are the ones who should just rely on lip-syncing (not that I was ever much of a fan, but Britney Spears live… is not for the singing). In Mariah Carey’s heyday in the early to mid-90s, her emotions were felt far more live than on her LP. Her live version of “Hero” is a million times more moving than her LP version, which to me, sounds lifeless.

Then, there’s John Legend, whose LP always sounds flawless, and then you hear him in person singing the exact same song, and you think, “How could you outdo yourself? How do you do those vocal reverberations?!” I’m mind-boggled by his voice. You just want to tell him, “Sing! Sing! Keep singing! Don’t stop! Never stop!” His voice is a paradise.

Every year at around this time, the air turns from cool and crisp to bitter cold and absolutely frosty, and every year at around this time, I just want to hibernate and stay in bed every morning. There’s the routine and goal-oriented side of me that says, “Hey, you have to haul your butt out of bed and be productive! Be efficient! Exercise! Your metabolism is slowing down, so you need to do more exercise to make up for that!” Then, there’s the other part of me that says… it is so cold. I just don’t want to do anything; screw productivity and getting things done off the checklist.  So, that was me this morning in bed. Chris had to drag me out.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to actually hibernate, to have zero activity for all of winter and basically be a sloth. I have a feeling that my muscles would atrophy, as would my brain. I’d be an antisocial zombie, having forgotten all my basic common sense and social skills needed to survive around other mortals.

But aren’t there already people out there like that, and I just set my standard higher than average and try to get too much done in too short of a period of time? Maybe I would benefit from slowing down and doing less?

We went to see a matinee Broadway show today, and afterwards, we walked up Sixth Avenue to see all the Christmas lights and decoration that gets put up every year. There are the Christmas “tree lights,” the red Christmas ornament balls, the many nutcrackers and trees that line up at the entrance of the corporate buildings along the avenue. Then, there is also the Rockefeller tree that has yet to come out and be lit. It was the first day of December today, and Sixth Avenue was packed with people, some tourists, some semi-locals. It felt so crowded, a bit too much so as we walked through the endless hoards of people trying to take selfies, posing for photos taken by other strangers with the various Christmas lights and decorations in the background.

“This is what makes New York New York,” Chris declared, as we zipped through the crowds.

Yes, the crowds are what make New York New York, this city that I’ve called home now for over ten years. But there are so many times when I absolutely hate the crowds and would really like to just appreciate these decorations with no one around and in near silence. That’s probably what this area might be like if we came back at midnight on a weeknight, or extremely early in the morning any day. After a while, the crowds really do wear on you here. I can tolerate it when I’m visiting other new cities as a tourist myself, but here, it can really get to be unbearable, especially in the cold. But this is Christmas in New York, and we definitely do it well here.

I met my mentee after work today at Starbucks. She’s had a really dramatic last week, which included her mentor (through a program where people formerly in foster care mentor foster care children) x-ing her out of her life, accusing her of breaking and entering, and having her granddaughter threaten my mentee over text; a good (now former friend) getting admitted into the hospital for a pill overdose/suicide attempt, who is now ignoring my mentee and saying she only causes more problems and doesn’t genuinely care about her; this former friend’s boyfriend threatening my mentee. It was an earful for the hour we spent together.

I was exhausted. I was already tired from the work week, which felt way too long after the week away we had in Portugal. My morning workouts, full-days of work, plus going out or having to work the first three days of this week really were catching up to me in the form of a regular splitting afternoon headache every single day after Monday this week. This conversation didn’t help. I want to be there to her, to give her suggestions and offer guidance. She does take a lot of my suggestions, but I always think it won’t really help in the long run. She needs to break herself out of all this mess that she is inclined to be a part of, and that’s going to take the power and strength within herself to get that done.

I told Chris about this before we met our friends for dinner tonight. “You attract dysfunction, and she given her life circumstances is going to keep attracting dysfunction,” he said.

Well, I can’t really do anything about that, can I?

I was the only one who rated this person as a “maybe to a no.” Everyone else gave her stellar reviews. But I had to say what I needed.

“If the question is, ‘can she get the job done and is she competent,’ then I would say, yes, she is, and yes, she is qualified for this job,” one of my colleagues said.

This job is not rocket science. You do not need some advanced degree for it. We are not doing open heart surgery here. This is a customer facing role at a SaaS company that has a complex product. But we really are not looking for people who are going to cure cancer or bring world peace. This is not that difficult.

“I don’t think I’m questioning whether she is competent or can do the job,” I countered. “What I am really saying is — what is this person going to contribute to this team and to her customer in her potential book of business that is compelling? Because frankly, if I had to sum her up into one word and be really honest, the word is ‘boring.’ That’s what I took away from this conversation. My eyes were glazing over.”

That drew a lot of chuckles and laughter. The hiring manager grimaced at me, but eventually let a smile out.

And funny enough, I just finished reading Adam Grant’s book Outliers tonight, in which he argues that organizations should not be hiring for cultural “fit,” but rather “cultural contribution.” So exactly what I said — what is this potential employee contributing to our organization that is notable, or perhaps something we are lacking that we need more of or could benefit from?

She’s moving onto the next and final stage, but she has two other strong candidates competing against her. I really just do not want to talk to anyone who is bland and boring during an interview. Otherwise, what is this company going to become?