Body by Infomercial

I hardly ever watch infomercials. In fact, I generally become annoyed that Law & Order isn't showing and change the channel. However, every so often, when I am extremely bored, a little depressed, or suffering from insomnia, I am sucked into one of the many half-hour "Have a Brand New You with Minimal Effort" pitches that play on almost every channel in the wee hours of the morning or on the weekend.

My first foray into "Body by Infomercial" was the Swimsuit Perfect six-day diet and exercise plan. I embarked on this six day arduous ordeal the summer of my sophomore year in college. It was a dismal failure, and I demanded and received a refund. Here was the gist of the plan: One ate 3-5 small meals a day, drank several special "Swimsuit Perfect" teas, and did at least 18 minutes of cardio a day (apparently, the body doesn't start burning fat until after 18 minutes). The meal plans were atrocious and absolutely painful, especially for an Epicurean such as yours truly, yet I followed them to the letter. I even boiled my chicken -- a nasty way to prepare chicken that leaves it completely tasteless and almost impossible to eat. After this week of famine, I saw virtually no change in my physique, which irony of ironies, I would be so happy with now, and I vowed never to try anymore infomercial diet plans.

Fast forward a couple of years to the emergence of Proactive solution, my second stop on the Body by Infomercial Train. Of course, this was before P. Diddy, Vanessa Williams, and Jessica Simpson tried it, but strangely Rodan & Fields never asked me to endorse their product. I don't really remember whether or not the skincare products were effective, but I do remember that they kept sending me replacement products that I did not order and billing me for the aforementioned. A poor graduate student who had to spend almost all of her student loan to replace a drowned car, I had no patience for this financial hassle, and I pledged never again to order any more beautifying infomercial products.

And yet, five or six years later, I am once again taken in by an infomercial promising me gorgeous thighs in just twenty to thirty minutes a day. I couldn't resist purchasing that marvel of physics, the Lateral Thigh Trainer. Of course, the company forgot to send me the free resistance bands that I was to receive for ordering within the next 18 minutes. Maybe that's why it didn't work and ended up relegated to different closets in the apartment before it came to rest in the streetside garbage pile.

When will I learn? A few weeks ago I purchased my latest Body by Infomercial package, the Slim in 6 plan. I was once again seduced by the standard "look like this in 30 minutes a day blah blah blah."

The ginormous package I received included DVDs, resistance bands, and various booklets, most on eating well, and they also sent along a "free" measuring tape. At least this time I received everything I ordered; however, many of the diet suggestions are conflicting. One booklet says to plan your meals based on the 40-30-30 plan outlined by Barry Sears (I happen to love the Zone diet, so this sounded good to me); however, another section recommended snacks more along the lines of 80-20-0. I received a useful book of recipes for low glycemic index foods, but the portions were way too tiny for anything more than a snack, and they didn't really confirm to the 40-30-30 rule, either. Somebody named Mishi also came up with a food pyramid that they sent along, which is helpful and interesting, but not really a dietary regimen. You can visit the website and receive a "customized" meal plan, but these are pretty bland and a bit incomplete.

Of course, I discovered upon playing the DVDs that only the start up video, which is used on solely the first two days, is close to 30 minutes in length. I believe that for the duration of the plan, I will be committing 60-90 minutes a day. This is a bit frustrating because my time is quite limited as it is. Furthermore, I can only workout at least three hours after a meal, but I have to eat 5 times a day every 2-3 hours. Given my schedule, this means I can only work out in the mornings or three hours after my last meal. If you know me, you realize this is not going to happen given that I can barely get to the office before noon as it is and that the Musical Genius has a hard time preparing the evening meal before 10:00pm. I am compromising by working out at least two hours after I eat; this is the best I can do.

In short, I don't think I'm going to be a Slim in 6 success story. However, after 5 days on the plan, I do feel much better, and while I'm not completely following the oft-conflicting dietary suggestions, I feel much better and am no longer recessing into blood-sugar-crash coma between 3-4 in the afternoon. The workouts are thorough but doable for the most part -- although I think I might have pulled one of my obliques and don't know how I'll manage through that and the menstrual cramps I'll be having this evening and tomorrow (sorry if that's TMI). I guess I'll find out. Ironically, while I have 30 days to demand my money back, it's a 42 day plan. At present, I'm leaning towards seeing it through to the end. I suppose I'll just have to run the risk of being conned by the infomercial monkeys once again.

The Expense Syndicate

I have discovered during my time in the financial services industry that small people who have no authority, garner little respect, and are frustrated because they are not higher on the corporate food chain often like to lord whatever power they think they hold over whomever they can get away with oppressing. Sometimes, given my association with the special agent who keeps the firm afloat, I escape the badgering. However, on too many occasions I am not so lucky. Consider my latest run in with Very Annoying Assistant from what I'll call The Expense Syndicate, populated by those small people referenced above.

But first, by way background, you need to know several things:

• As a temp, I used to review expenses on our old (and better) system. Very Annoying Assistant submitted the worst, most convoluted expense reports I have ever seen. She was always including itineraries and travel approvals for trips not even remotely associated with the receipts she submitted while, of course, for the submitted receipts, there was no documentation. Why VAA was even considered to review other people's expenses reports is beyond me.
  
  
• My expense reports are incredibly thorough and detailed, and when we were still using the old (and better) system, people from Accounts Payable used to e-mail me to thank me for creating such fabulous reports, supplemented with memos that should be up for literary awards.
  
  
• The new expense system has been the bane of my existence. Even though in beta testing I brought up many potential problems and ways in which it would complicate my life and suck my will to live, all of my concerns were ignored. Now Accounts Payable must audit all of the special agents reports and Amex bills for the past year because his accountant and I are having a terrible time getting his corporate Amex statements to reconcile (which I told them would happen). While I love going the extra mile for my favorite super spy, both he and I think that it is ridiculous that I should be forced to spend all this time on the phone with his personal accountant because The Expense Syndicate insists on making the creation of an expense report into some Rube Goldberg project.

The special agent and his occasional diva fits strike such fear in the hearts of The Expense Syndicate that they rarely, if ever, bother me about his reports -- except to reject our annual department Christmas lunch, which still irks me seven months later. However, his associate generally strikes people with something else not so useful, so when I submitted his taxi expenses, VAA promptly sent the report back with the following:

B: Please change the the [sic] conference/seminar expenses to taxi travel. List the conference as the business purpose. Also tell associate that he will need to keep the white credit card copy, not the pink, as it is much more legible. Thanks, VAA, Most Incompetent Person on the Planet.

Seriously. Seriously?!! She sent the report back because two cars to conferences were charged as conference-related expenses and she didn't like the color of the car receipts! When I told her that technically he was not traveling, and that the receipts were conference-related as she could see by the conference documentation I had to dig up off the web because associate had lost it, she rudely and patronizingly told me that associate was "traveling" to a function (this was even worse than when she tried to show me how to do long division, a pointless and irritating encounter I won't transcribe here). While I could see her point (I always note the special agent's cars to meetings as taxi travel; the temp had just made an entry error, and I hadn't caught it), to send something back for such a petty reason seemed a bit much to me -- especially considering that when I reviewed expenses, the Reviewing Guru was very insistent that we not send things back -- even VAA's abysmally incoherent reports -- unless it was absolutely necessary because it's simply not nice to increase someone's workload and annoy them when you can easily remedy the problem yourself (in this case, by changing the business purpose or just ignoring it -- it's a freaking taxi expense!).

Furthermore, I hate -- HATE -- being addressed as B. You know my name; print the whole thing out. I do not go for nicknames, and certainly not for initials.

However, it was mostly her utter rudeness and almost palpable schadenfreude-ish malicious glee over $30 in taxis that completely enraged me. I almost quit my job -- literally -- over this mess. I left for an hour in the sizzling heat and almost did not come back because I was so furious. This one situation is just a microcosm of the absurdity that goes on in this place every freaking day (but less today, Auntie M, because your old boss in not in the office).

In dealing with this, the associate, whose expenses are already closely scrutinized because he keeps taking cars at unauthorized times and eats his overtime meals at shady, illicit restaurants (not really -- they're just not on our corporate dining site) decided that VAA and her close friend, Annoying and Incompetent Office Manager, are emissaries of the "how to inflect maximum annoyance" mafia. While he and I don't agree on much (though since I so skilled in dissimilation, that would be news to him), we definitely see eye to eye on this. I sooooo need to quit this job.