Life Lesson #14: I don't want to have your baby. I really don't want to eat an apple with you. That's sexual harassment, and I DON'T have to take it!

I hate Monday mornings just as much as the next person. The inability to sleep soundly, probably a result of not going to bed until ungodly hours on Friday and Saturday nights, is inevitable by Sunday evening. It doesn’t help that I usually lay in bed thinking about all the emails waiting for me and the blinking red light on my phone that screams to listen to the unheard messages. It’s really miserable. I’m getting agita right now just thinking about it.

So as dorky as it is, I’ve taken to checking my work email before the weekend is over. I know. Totally masochistic. But I’m the type of person who prefers deleting the buttload of Viagra spam hits and unnecessary work chatter that I’m cc’d on before getting to the office the next day. This way, I have a more reasonable number of emails to plow through first thing in the morning, which, in turn, helps me sleep better at night.

A big part of why my email load is heaviest before 9 am is because my job requires me to have correspondence with representatives from factories overseas, particularly in Asia. These women (for the most part) tend to work on Saturdays as well, so I get the double whammy of two days missed rather than none.

It’s an odd way to work when you think about it. If you communicate with someone every single day in order to perform your job, you’ve most likely met them face-to-face at some point. I, on the other hand, have not met most of these women. We email constantly and I get many a frantic cell phone call at night asking me to approve a sample or confirm a price so they can begin their day (which has happened many times when I’m out, a few vodka sodas in, making for a rather hilarious exchange), but I’ve never had the opportunity to shake their hands or take them out to lunch.

And so, to make up for never actually meeting each other, my New York coworkers and I have fostered what I can only call somewhat bizarre relationships with these people overseas as a way to make it more personal. The usual hope your day has gone well, thank you for your help, and enjoy your weekend lines have given way to much more intimate conversations. Coupled with the atrocious grammar and language barriers, it can sometimes take a few read-throughs to get the jist of things. A smattering of some of my favorite:

Guess, my son is going to make cookies for selling. I think he will be a businessman in future. In fact, I went shopping by myself tonight… but I told my son/husband I worked overtime... then no body won't stop me to buy clothes… Ha... Enjoy your dinner. Single life is good, no one to bother you! Please confirm the potential order ASAP.

Life is alike this way.. busy and busy! But we need to adjust ourself to suit this life! Ha..... thanks for giving me a chance for shopping and sourcing goods for you! I will try my best to offer something for you! Thanks for asking my health.. My leg is much better... I think it will be recover all this week. My son is an independent boy, he always gives me lot of time to do my own things. He can play / read/ write by himself. Ha.. because his mum is a lazy guy! Take care and have a good day!

I love baby so much , I am looking forward to having my own baby, but we still have so many things to prepare for him or her, the most important is strong body, I am starting to pay attention on it now :-)..., for example food, exercise, clothes. Well, I am also start to cook at our dormitory, but the first time is so terrible! Ha ha...I want to cook rice, but I put in so much water!

My weekend is fine, Saturday evening we also take part in dinner: a colleague's wedding, there always many interesting games during the wedding, for example, to eat a apple (or other fruit) together, but another people will control the fruit through a line, then when the couples want to eat the fruit, then kiss together :-)....and bride take a fresh egg to go through bridegroom's underclothes, you must be very careful since the egg is FRESH, which is very easy to break...

Clueless, Pickles and I often refer to these emails as Gems from our crazy pen pals and will forward each other the stuff we find particularly amusing, or downright confusing.

Personally, I like saying I have pen pals. Who else my age, besides people in similar industries, can say they have a pen pal? It’s just so retro. And I get to learn some really wacky traditions about making babies and cookies.

It might also have something to do with a grammar school pen pal incident that I sadly recall.

In second grade, we were assigned a pen pal by our teacher. I remember being mystified by the magical land of Mount Vernon that Natalie wrote about. She told me of public transportation routes to her school and a shopping mall nearby where you walked outside to get to the stores. I pictured rolling hills that I would only be able to reach by plane. I didn’t learn until a few years later, when on a trip into the city with my mom to see the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, that Mount Vernon East was a stop on the New Haven line of the MetroNorth commuter railroad.

“Mom, is Mount Vernon East the same as Mount Vernon where Natalie is from?” I asked her in total confusion.

“Who is Natalie?” she asked.

“My pen pal, Natalie. She was from Mount Vernon, but I don’t think that one,” I confidently stated.

“Oh no, Penny, it was definitely that Mount Vernon,” she said.

Well, let me tell you. That was a disappointing day. I decided at that moment that I would never write her again. Up until that point in my innocent life, I thought pen pals were supposed to be from exotic and faraway places, not a city I could get to in twenty minutes by train! We might as well be real friends for crying out loud!

Alas, much like many of my now real pen pals a good eight thousand miles away, Natalie and I never met (although I would bet I’ve taken a Bee Line that she’s been on or perhaps even watched the same film a few rows away at the movie theater in Cross County Shopping Center).

Which brings me to Sunday night.

With my favorite sweatshirt on and cup of decaf tea in hand, I curled up in my desk chair to ease some of my Monday morning madness. I skimmed a few missed emails I must have received after my Friday afternoon bee-line to the elevators. I deleted a few others from Flossie Bright, Madrake G. Mexico and Foxyfrm Behinds.

After a few minutes, I noticed an email from one of the few men I work with overseas. He is actually a head manager for a factory that supplies certain products for one of my divisions. I used to have a rep assigned to my accounts, but she left to pass fruit to married couples or something, and I was never assigned to someone new. So instead, Jeremy has helped me out for the past few months with my orders.

Being much of what his factory makes is seasonal, I haven’t had the opportunity to send him new orders in a bit. Seeing his name in the FROM line, I guessed he was writing to see if anything was in the pipe line.

I think I was wrong.

Sent: Sun 4/9/2006 10:07 PM
To:
Subject: RE: have a good weekend
Hi,
Have a good weekend! We don't receive you email long time. How are you? I am very miss you. I have a request, Is OK? Can I know you? Send me your picture. I know this is liberty. I am a boy. I am verey happy that have a foreign friend.
-Jeremy

I immediately jumped out of my seat and ran to the living room.

“Seriously, I need you to read something RIGHT NOW. I have a feeling a line has just been crossed,” I told Madonna.

“Oh no, what is it?’ she asked. She followed me back into my room and read the email.

“What the? Wait, who is this?” she asked.

“Some guy I work with overseas! He’s like a manger or something and I work with him on some of my orders. Wait. Can you please tell me what you think of this?” I yelled.

“This is so inappropriate! Holy shit, what are you going to do?” she asked.

Honestly, I’m still not sure. I mean, maybe I’m overreacting, but ‘very miss you’ and ‘send me your picture’ just don’t seem like appropriate work fodder. My female pen pals have never written such stuff! And I have much better relationships with these ladies. I don’t think Jeremy and I have ever gotten beyond the casual pleasantries of wishing each other a good day. And I’m pretty sure I once reamed him on the phone for missing a delivery date I really needed. Pen pals we are not, ‘foreign friends,’ most certainly not!

Life Lesson #14: Language barriers, poor grammar and weird customs aside, crossing the line is crossing the line, and Jeremy, not friend of mine, that is what you have done.

This morning, I came in and circulated the email around. Clueless suggested I try and make some money off of this by offering to make him my mail order groom of sorts – perhaps an exchange of money for citizenship. A salesman now feels weird after reading the email and wants to send him a picture of a really gross, old lady. Another woman in production has accused me of stealing all the potential international hunks. Pickles believes Jeremy is actually a twelve year old slave working in the factory who wants to have an American friend since they think we’re so cool.

You know, if Jeremy was really my friend, he’d know where he really went wrong.

At least write I am man. You don’t stand a chance in hell with I am boy.

Idiot.