by Amy Lyle
The longer Danny and I dated, the more I realized that he was an eleven on the looks chart and I was a six, maybe a seven with makeup and a push-up bra. At a party, a girl asked, “Who’s the hottie?” My roommate answered, “Amy’s boyfriend, Danny.” Completely perplexed she screeched to me, “That guy dates you?”
Eventually, my faux confidence wore off and Danny and I were on the rocks—perhaps because I demanded that he spend every second with me and would incessantly badger him about what color the bridesmaids’ dresses should be at our wedding, petal pink or plum purple.
As college graduation approached, things were stale. I begged my mother to take me to Italy as a graduation present because I wanted Danny to think that I was worldly and invested in learning about his homeland. Plus, being away from one another for a month may make his heart grow fonder.
My mom and I had a great visit to Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan. Having never escaped the tristate area, I bought Danny what I thought were great Italian gifts: pasta, a leather belt and a super-cool jacket from a boutique store. When I returned from Italy and gave him the pasta, he said, “You can buy this in the grocery store.”
I moved on to the belt (too big) and the super-cool Italian jacket. “Try it on,” I said.
His super beefy arms wouldn’t squeeze into the sleeves. When he took it off, he held up the tag and said, “This is made in China.”
Danny and I broke up less than a month after I returned from Italy, not because I gave him crappy gifts, but he gave me itchy crabs.{38} The whole time I was in Italy scouting our honeymoon spots and buying what I believed to be perfectly acceptable Italian treasures, he had been canoodling with a girl that worked at Victoria’s Secret. E’ la vita (that’s life).
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS MAKE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Cookies can really cheer a girl up. I’m a terrible baker but my friend, Lise Ode, provides a step-by-step video of how to make the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet, officially named: Chewy Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies.{39}
2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch 3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, melted 3/4 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed 1/2 cup granulated sugar{40}
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk (preferably at room temperature) 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup M&Ms for tops of cookies
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
Toss together flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a medium size bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft, yet thick. Fold{41}in the chocolate chips. They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to have them evenly dispersed among the dough.
Cover the dough and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory.{42}
Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes.
Roll the dough into balls, about 3 tablespoons of dough each and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets, or use a cookie scooper.
Bake the cookies for 11-14 minutes. They will look very soft and underbaked. They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Allow cooling on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack{43}to cool completely.
Research shows that baking cookies reduces stress and boosts positivity. So … cookies are good for you.
MAKE BELIEVE LIFE
When I was in college, I worked as a nanny taking care of the children of wealthy couples living in swanky country club neighborhoods. It was a great gig. They paid me in cash, and I could wear whatever I wanted, eat their gourmet food and do my laundry in their super-load washers.
Coming from a small town, I was immensely enamored with their lives. They drove foreign cars, had expensive artwork and were always attending fabulous parties, charity events and traveling to exotic places.
My favorite clients had a giant house on the nicest golf course in Ohio. Their interior colors were limited to black, white and a touch of red. They had matching Mercedes-Benz sedans, closets filled with designer clothing and lots of staff. They employed housekeepers, landscapers, a swimming pool guy, a gentleman that had the garage code (allowing him access to detail their cars), plus both day and evening nannies.
The very glamorous mom of the house had been a clothing buyer for a large retailer and shared exciting stories about spotting the next trend at fashion shows in Paris and Milan. I believed that when I graduated from college I was going to be neighbors with her. I was wrong.
I DON’T LIKE REAL LIFE
When I graduated from college, it was 1993 and we were still typing our papers on word processors and going to a library to do research because the Internet didn’t exist. Job opportunities were posted in the newspaper’s Employment Section, and because newspapers charge by the line, the abbreviation for the job description was tough to decipher:
Admin. Clk req. type 40 wpm, cred ck, exc. writ skills. Own transp.
This would be a common administrative-type job requiring typing, good credit and your own car. I would pay one dollar at the public library to fax my resume to various companies. Responses were slim. Most of the interviews went like this:
Hiring Manager: Give us an example of a time when you had to juggle multiple tasks under a deadline.
Me: Um … nothing is coming to mind.
Hiring Manager: Are you familiar with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint?
Me: No. No and no.
With a huge boyfriend breakup and no job prospects, I decided to try another market, so I packed my Honda Accord and moved south. In Atlanta, I headed to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (because I wanted to help people) and asked for an application.
While I was filling out over 100 pages of paperwork, the recipients of HUD were coming in with angry complaints of no air-conditioning, broken appliances, smashed windows, missing checks in the mail, and dirty carpet, causing their child to have asthma.
These interactions filled me with passion. I can help these people. They need help. They need homes. They’re not being
treated fairly, I thought. I turned in my application and waited. Eventually, a HUD manager called me back.
HUD Manager: You forgot to check the boxes of the computer programs you know.
Me: I don’t have any computer skills.
HUD Manager: The hundreds of other people that have applied do have computer skills. You can reapply if you gain any skills.
I applied to Delta Airlines to be a flight attendant and checked the box that said I could speak French to make myself look like I had an international flair. How much do flight attendants really say, anyway? Des noisettes? (Nuts?) Boission? (Drink?) I was sure I could pick up the rest when needed.
Unfortunately, I was interviewed by someone who was fluent in French. She rapidly fired questions at me and then scolded me for lying on the application: “Tu ne parles pas français!” (You do not speak French!)
“Apparemment pas assez, au revoir!” (Apparently not enough, goodbye!) I barked at her as I left.
Employment is a tricky game when people won’t hire you unless you have experience, but how do you get experience if no one will hire you?
FALLING LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY
Worst Fall
I finally landed my first real job out of college because a friend vouched for me and went to work for RTM in Atlanta. They owned over a thousand restaurants around the country and employed hundreds of accountants to manage their books. I was an assistant, supporting several regions.
My style id
ol in 1994 was Amanda Woodward, played by Heather Locklear from the hit show Melrose Place. Amanda was a no-holds-barred advertising executive that would lie, steal and cheat her way to the top, looking fabulous in her long jackets, short skirts, pantyhose and stilettos. I tried to dress exactly like her, even though I was an accounting assistant making nine dollars an hour.
Anyway, I was calculating many, many numbers in my Amanda Woodward–looking suit—long jacket, short skirt, thigh-highs, (because it’s over 100 degrees in Atlanta in the summer and who can do payroll with a sweaty crotch?) and high heels— when I got a phone call requiring me to pick up a few reports downstairs. I had to walk to collect actual pieces of paper because the Internet had not been invented yet.
RTM had two very elaborate, winding sets of stairs that gracefully cascaded down to the beautiful marble floor of the lobby. They were very steep and had landings at the halfway points to break it up. The stairs were carpeted, presumably to make them less slippery. As I touched the first step, I was saying hello to one of my coworkers and my high heel caught on the carpet, propelling my body down the steps face-first. I gained so much momentum that I slid over the platform area, flailing and twisting as I tried to grab the handrail, and continued down the next flight.
I can still remember the fall: it was in slow motion, not unlike a car wreck. I was screaming obscenities in between grunts of pain and confusion. When I hit the bottom, I slid several feet on the marble floor of the lobby before coming to a stop at the feet of the group of visiting restaurant managers. I looked up to see twenty accountants gazing down from the glass balcony.
During the fall, my short skirt had rolled up to my hips, my thigh-high pantyhose had rolled down into sad, limp nets at my feet, and my underwear was showing—they read Happy Buns and featured a cheeseburger. As I tried to release my twisted left leg from under myself, I heard Jill, one of my bosses, ask, “Amy, are you alright?”
“Fine, I’m fine,” I whimpered and hobbled out the front door to my car, only to realize I had left my purse and keys on the second floor. I cried for a while in the parking lot before hobbling back in to retrieve them.
Second-Worst Fall
When I was in my twenties, I was in Savannah with some girlfriends, and we attended Fleet Week, a United States Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard tradition in which active military ships recently deployed in overseas operations dock in a variety of major cities for one week. Our Fleet Week was blessed with the United States Navy. Adorable, fit gentleman (and ladies) in their summer service whites descend to River Street by the thousands. As live bands play, the sailors are great sports, obliging tourists with sailor selfies{44}and enjoying the nightlife of Savannah.
Savannah is an old port and the streets are made of ballast stone. European ships, coming over to get Savannah’s cotton, would arrive with their ships filled with stones to stabilize them. At port, they would dump all the rocks in the sea. The stones now line the streets and are very beautiful but they create a walking challenge if you’re wearing any sort of heel and/or have had any adult beverages.
Everyone was dancing and having a great time when I decided to try to jump into my sailor’s arms. I accidently kneed him in the groin and he dropped like a rock, onto the rocks, with me beneath him. After what seemed like several minutes, but was probably only a few seconds, he jumped up, grabbing my arm and jerking me off the ground. When someone does hundreds of pushups every day, they’re very strong. He accidently injured my neck.
The pain was excruciating and my neck was stuck in a severe sideways pose. I looked like I suffered from some sort of palsy. I didn’t want to disrupt anyone else’s night so I slowly plodded to a bench and tried to look as natural as possible. People thought I was either straining to see something or doing some nighttime neck stretches.{45}
Finally, my girlfriends schlepped me to the hotel and gave me some Tylenol PM and the remote. After three weeks, I could finally move my neck normally.
Worst Fall Not My Own
My friend Shannon is a yoga instructor. Saying someone’s a yoga instructor exudes everything wonderful and positive in the world, which she is. My friend Beverly and I do not even gossip around her because she’s so pure. When Shannon and I play tennis, I always tell our opponents she teaches yoga because they instantly know that the match is going to be honorable. Yoga teachers don’t cheat online calls or throw out Mother F*****! if they miss a shot. She’s literally balanced and can do the Eka Hasta Vrksasana (that’s the one-handed tree pose for those of us that are not yogis) without even stretching.
Shannon was treating her two adorable girls and their friends to mani-pedis and Chipotle for lunch, surely celebrating good grades or accomplishments, things I personally am not that familiar with. The group ordered and found a table. When they called her number to pick up her black bean, peppers, onions, pico de gallo and extra guacamole salad bowl, her salon-issued disposable flop curled under her foot, evoking a cartoon- character-level slip and fall.
Black beans and guacamole exploded all over Shannon and several Russian businessmen that had come in after Shannon’s group. A sixteen-year-old female employee told her flatly, “You can get another salad if you want,” but no inquiry was made to her possible broken tailbone. Less than ten minutes later, she got up to refill her Coke and fell AGAIN with the same velocity as the first fall (damn you, flimsy flops!) as the Russians were still wiping the pico de gallo off their ties from the original fall.
Shannon sued Chipotle for $9 million{46}and moved to Maui where she hosts yoga retreats for women who want to cultivate discernment, awareness, self-regulation and a higher consciousness level.
FIFTY-FIVE HOURS A WEEK
For over ten years I worked for one of the largest employment agencies in the world. My Atlanta group had thousands of contractors, from file clerks to certified accountants, contracting for companies all over the city.
I loved being a recruiter. I got to help people land their first jobs or move people into better positions—and I got a commission. Plus, I always had great stories about all the crazy people I encountered in the world of temporary staffing.
Many of the applicants were educated professionals that were taking contract jobs to “get in the door” of large firms or had just moved and needed something immediately. However, most of the candidates were crazy and could not hold down a full- time job. About a third of the people that applied were unqualified due to their criminal background history, credit issues and/or drug usage.
One woman, working at a manufacturing facility, fell in love with the accounting supervisor and then discovered he was married. For weeks, she drove a van with a banner on the sides that read “Joe is a cheat.”
We had multiple men apply for jobs and then show up for the contract as women. Neither we nor our clients cared if people were transgender or cross-dressers; they just needed to pick a gender and stick with it for that assignment.
We had a slew of daily cancellations, and contractors had lots of excuses for why they couldn’t work. Sick children and car problems were the most common but we heard everything: doctor/dentist/orthodontist appointments, parent-teacher conferences, out-of-state visitors, quitting because they hate the job/manager/pay/location, interviewing for other jobs, and even “to get an abortion.”
Mike, who was already on probation for missing so much work, called to tell us that that his mother-in-law was in a car wreck and had been beheaded. Our office called his employer (our client) and got him the week off. We sent flowers to his home. On Friday, when his wife came to pick up his paycheck, my entire staff greeted her with hugs and condolences for her mother’s tragic passing. She had no idea what anyone was talking about and said the only reason she was picking up his check was that he was at a NASCAR race in Birmingham.
We would have to remove contractors from our client sites for every issue imaginable: sexual harassment, fighting on the job, stealing company materials, handing out religious or political information, accessing
pornography, and lying on time cards. And these were the people that passed the background check.
Good help is really hard to find.
I GOT FIRED
THE FIRST TIME
I was fired from Burger King when I was in high school because I only wanted to run the drive-thru. I loved wearing the headset and calling in orders.
When the manager approached me with what looked like a large putty knife and told me to scrape the gum off the underside of the tables, I insisted, “But I’m the drive-thru girl!”
He handed me the spackle knife and said, “Scrape.” I turned in my blue polyester shirt and BK visor and left.
THE SECOND TIME I GOT FIRED
When I worked for a jewelry store at Christmastime, I accidently forgot to take a customer’s engagement ring out of the ultrasonic jewelry cleaning machine. On Christmas morning, his fiancée opened a neatly wrapped, yet empty box. My boss told me that he really didn’t need any more holiday help.
