One Fish, Two Fish, Raw Fish, Ew, Fish!

Dear BHBs:
I hate fish. I have been invited to a chic private party catered by a fairly well known Sushi chef. Other than rice and dessert, I don’t know what I’m going to eat; or how to make it look like I am enjoying the Sushi without being rude by barfing accidentally into a potted plant. I have to attend this party. My job depends on it. I also have to look moderately cool, because all the cool people eat Sushi.

Dear Crabby Roll:
This is clearly a case of fake it to make it. If it’s a sit-down dinner party, we think you are in deep doo-doo, because there is little chance you can not eat. In that event, you either need to put on your big-girl panties and suck it (i.e. the fish) up or boldly state your new-found vegetarianism to weasel out. But then you have to be a veggie in public forever. Your choice.

If it’s more of a mingling thing, try this strategy:

1. Eat before you get there, so you are not starving.

2. Take a cocktail early, and hang onto it or one like it all night so you have something in your hands.

3. Take a piece of sushi occasionally (always a piece of Nigiri-sushi, slices of fish on pads of rice), but talk a lot so you can just hold it attractively.

4. When you must eat so as to not appear weird, put the food (on a napkin) up to your mouth and eat only the rice while rolling the fish surreptitiously in the napkin. Dump the napkin at the first opportunity.

5. If they have California rolls (i.e. rolls with veggies or cooked fish), eat those often.

You should be able to make it through the night this way. If you wear a smashing dress with lots of cleavage, perhaps this can distract onlookers.

Do not barf in a plant. Do it in the bathroom after dinner like all the other cool girls.

You're a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.

Dear BHBs:
I work in an environment where a person with few skills but large ego has now schmoozed himself into a slightly elevated position over me. I want him to die. Other than actually committing murder, how can I ensure that he will leave me the hell alone? Forever?

Dear Workin’ 9 to 5:
It’s called “Skinny and Sweet”, my dear. Heh heh heh.

Oh wait! You don’t want him to die! Oh. Well that’s less interesting.

Lucy’s dad always says that everyone is promoted to one level past their competency, and it’s usually true. Most of these idiots make up for their lack of skill, interest, brains or wit by being boors. We’re sorry this has happened to you!

We could tell you something like just ignore him, keep doing a good job yourself, you can't control him but you can control how you react to him. Blah blah blah. None of that is fun.

Get something on him. Something provable. Something with a photo. Let him know you have this thing, but will not use it as long as he keeps you out of his douchebag scope. You must keep your own nose clean, however, because if he has pictures of you pilfering the office’s store of White-Out, then this technique will not work. Yes, we know it smells good... but buy your own!

A Flaming Bag of Poo Always Helps

Dear BHBs:
What is a nice way of letting two pain-in-the-ass volunteers go while minimizing the risk of backlash? (These are people who are overly critical and don't do much work themselves).

Dear In a Voluntizzy:
We had to tag team such a delicate question. Lucy and Ethel chime in – with help from a very special guest! *Drum Roll Please!* Meet Lucy’s Mom, our first and most loyal reader, when she remembers our URL. She has a particular talent for dealing with interesting volunteers….

Lucy: Well, Ladies! How do we tell two useless, bitchy people to screw off without saying screw off?

Ethel: A flaming bag of poo on their porches?

Lucy: Well, if they are this annoying, they might not know from whom the poo tolls!

Ethel: Indeed.

Lucy’s Mom: The problem with idiot volunteers is that they drive away good ones! All you have to do is look on the faces of the other people and you know.

Lucy: Excellent point, Mum!

Ethel: We can’t let them lose all their good peeps.

Lucy’s Mom: I say just start to cut their hours. Most volunteers have a certain schedule. Call them the day before they are to show up. Tell them that you have a great new volunteer (or two) who can only work at the exact time/ dates they usually do. You’re so sorry, but you must reschedule them. Over time, slowly cut their hours more and more until they leave you or you phase them out completely.

Ethel: Yes! And if they ever ask you about it – deny!

Lucy: Run away!

Ethel: Run away!

Lucy: My first thought was to begin giving them the most horrible jobs you can, isolating the two of them from everyone else.

Ethel: If you’re in an office environment, send them out for coffee or to run all your errands, have them spend an eternity filing or alphabetizing. Have them format boring financial spreadsheets ‘till they can’t see straight.

Lucy: If it’s some kind of people or animal volunteering thing, make them clean the bathrooms or the dumpster, or shovel shit all day! A couple of days of cat vomit will take the spring out of their step!

Ethel: That’s evil.

Lucy: Yes.

Ethel: That’s why I like it!

Lucy’s Mom: You two never change. You’re still like you were as teenagers, except now you have booze.

Lucy: And this is bad how?

Lucy’s Mom: It’s not bad. I like booze, too.

Lucy: Awwwww! I love bonding with Mom over liquor.

Lucy’s Mom: Getting back to the question, dips... you could use the two together – phase out their hours while at the same time filling their remaining time with the most vile tasks.

Ethel: Nice. Well, gentle reader, we hope this helps rid your wonderful organization of assholes.

Lucy: And that you didn’t mind our poopie-filled answer.

Ethel: I still like the flaming bag of poo answer.

Lucy: Why not do that, too?

Ethel: Yes - when you care enough to send the very best!

Overlords: 1, Underlings: 0

Dear Cubicle Coach (Marie Claire): I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but it's hard to take my boss seriously, respect her, or follow her directions — basically because I'm smarter than she is. Thoughts?

Dear Smarty Pants:
Being superior intellects ourselves, we feel you. We feel you in our own lives, and every time Dubya speaks. Lucy’s dad always says that people are promoted to one level beyond their competency, and it’s true.

Although feeling superior is such a nice, fuzzy feeling, it doesn’t really help you. You can’t do anything about your boss’ lack of brainpower. The only thing you can control is what you do and how you feel. Concentrate on your job and doing it well, and stop thinking about how much smarter you are then everyone else. It’s not arrogant so much to know you are smarter, because facts are facts, but to dwell on it and be too smug to do your job, well that’s douchey. Keep doing a great job, and maybe you’ll be her boss someday!

Besides, if we went around thinking about how many IQ points we have on the Leader of the Free World, then our brains might melt.

*Sob!* Why, Oh Why Didn't We Meet You First?

Dear Too Real Women:
My female boss has invited me out for dinner. She says that it is to thank me for landing a big client. I’m a single guy and she has kind of flirted with me in the past. How can I make sure that the dinner is all business, as I don’t want to be dessert?

Dear Mr. Irresistible:
Alas, I’m sure there is nothing whatsoever you can do. You must bed her like the stallion you are! Your clear charm and erotic male-ness leap off the interwebs and into our hearts! We are damp with passion just thinking about you, and we are sure she cannot possibly resist you.

Some might say that her “flirting” with you might just be a nice effort to create a worktime happy place for all that you are possibly misinterpreting, but not us. She’s a little woman, so all she really wants is to land a big client-getter like you, quit the better job she has, and have babies to coo at. I’m sure all the women you encounter are the same.

Do try to let her down easy. We double dog dare you. Open the dinner by clarifying the no-sex ground rules. She’ll love the manly and assertive way you have handled the situation. We promise.

Fetch Your Overlord Some Ale and Quit Yer Bitching!

Dear BHB:
Our company has a big lavish retreat every year that every employee gets to attend with activities, meetings, and lots of food and booze. We're always told that we're a big "family" and that all are equal. The company has grown and these retreats are getting very costly, so, several of the lowest members of the "team" were sort of dis-invited this year, by just sort of never being told about it. It got out (of course) and it was awkward. I am one of those lowly people.

Turns out, that the executives get to bring spouses and children - over 20 kids all-together and 8 spouses (7 times the number of actual employees not going at all). Now, I'm having a hard time swallowing the line that it's a financial reason I don't get to attend company meetings, so that the rich boss' kids can go in my place to play and be fed. Am I right to be bitter?
Love, Bitter Bullshit Smeller

Dear Bullshit Smeller:
It's really all about nomenclature. Perhaps you should re-title yourself "Brown Noser" as it has a more positive connotation. Consider volunteering to pay for your own room and board and offer to accompany the higher ups on this lavish retreat and serve as temp nanny to their many, many children!

When you return from said retreat, you may also want to think about sharing your spare time, free of charge, of course, with your feudal overlords in order that you might make their lives more comfortable by cooking and cleaning for them and wiping their dainty bottoms when necessary. Be sure to save some of their godlike poo for adorning of your nose (even though the lowly appendage on your own serf face be not worthy of such an honor).

If you work very hard and accept your station in life, someday perhaps you may even be chosen to become part of the funeral pyre when your gracious lords expire!

I Went to Paralegal School and All I Got Was This Lousy Lover

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we sometimes take advice questions from other sites and answer them. Better. Below is an example.

Dear Too Real Women:
I work in a law office and made the mistake of sleeping with one of the junior partners. I quickly broke it off when one of the secretaries told me that I wasn’t his first office fling. Problem is one of the female junior partners is telling everyone that I slept with this guy and is giving the impression that we are still together. What should I do, I am only a paralegal, which kinda makes her my boss? Do I wait for it to blow over or do I confront her?

Dear I Lost My Legal Briefs:
They make it look so easy on Boston Legal, don’t they? Those people bed hop like horny toads and no one seems to care.

Tongues will wag I’m afraid. If it wasn’t this junior partner it would be that one and there’s little to be done to stop it. Confront her? Why? It’s out now. Hold your head high, ignore it and do not get in a row about it. Just blame the Mad Cow like Denny Crane does.

Our question to you is… did you really break it off because you weren’t his first office romance? I have a news flash for you… *whispers* once you hit a certain age, almost everyone will have slept with someone else before you. Now, if he screws every paralegal in the tri-city area, then he’s not a keeper. But reconsider dropping anyone based on office hearsay. That’s a fancy name for gossip by the way – the same thing you don’t want others hearing about you.

If you’re really bitchy, start a rumor about the chick who’s talking about you. Something involving goats, beer helmets, and karaoke. Yeah. Karaoke!

It's Enough to Drive You Crazy if You Let it

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we sometimes take advice questions from other sites and answer them. Better. Below is an example.

Dear Cubicle Coach:
My boss CrackBerrys me at 1 a.m. I feel like a loser if I respond, a slacker if I don't. What's appropriate?

Dear You Spend Your Life Putting Money In His Pocket:
*Sigh* the days of 9 to 5 are long gone, as men and women who make 5 times more than you think you should be available 24 hours a day to serve them, during vacations, sick days, and God forbid you have to run to the bathroom and pee when his phone needs answering!!

What is appropriate, in our not-so-humble opinions, is work time and personal time being delineated and separate. Now and again, yes, you should stay late to get what needs doing done, but every person needs down time and home time which will not be interrupted by a grown adult not being able to dial their own damn phone. You are not a slacker! No one but third shift should be working at 1am!

What is common nowadays, is a backwards look in time to the days of Victorian servants and masters, with the electronic so-called CrackBerry allowing the masters to harangue their servants 24/7. It is wrong. See “Prada, the Devil Wears” for a fun and stylish morality play about such bosses and the hapless but attractive assistants who attempt to please them. [Spoiler! It doesn't go well.]

Perhaps your boss is e-mailing at 1am because he hates his family and would rather work than deal with them. Perhaps she is an insomniac. What you need to find out is if there is an expectation from this person that you respond at that time. If not, great. If so, find a new job.

The Daily Grind Can Lead to Other Grinding

Dear Brutally Honest Babes:
I have a crush on a guy a work. We work in different departments, but see each other everyday. He stops by my office a few times a day. I think we’re both worried about dating someone from work. What should I do?

Dear Daily Grind Would-Be Dater,
Go with your gut. Many matches are begun in a working environment. We Babes met our men while on the job. Kudos to this dude because he works in a different department from you, so you two won't be easily distracting one another or getting in trouble, (or embarrassing your co-workers). If he works up the nerve to ask you on a date FOR GOODNESS SAKE DON'T YOU GO ASKING HIM OUT FIRST, THAT IS A NO-NO! then by all means have a go. If he just keeps stopping by to visit, flirt. Flirt until he does ask you out. If you hit it off, then both of you make a concerted effort to conduct yourselves professionally while in the working environment, and keep the romance for after hours.

Dear Someone Else: You don't like me! You Really, Really Don't Like Me!

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we understand that at first no one has any idea who we are. So, we will take advice questions from other sites and answer the questions. Better. Below is an example.

Dear Cubicle Coach (Marie Claire):
I have a colleague who clearly doesn't like me. She makes lunch dates and small talk with pretty much everyone on the floor except for me. I don't know what I ever did. Would confronting her about it be mature and honest or drama-inducing?

Dear Ms. Needy:
Here’s a good life lesson that your Mother probably should have taught you: not everyone is going to like you. Here’s another: no one at work is obligated to like you, hang out with you, chat with you, lunch with you, or do anything other than work with you! Confronting her would be drama-inducing, yes, and also needy and awkward for everyone. You are sure to become an office joke should you proceed with this plan, so please don’t do it!

If you want to be friends with her, because you genuinely like her and not just because you feel left out, make more of an effort to get to know her. Ask her about her life & family. In other words, be friendly. You say she makes small talk with others… have you ever made small talk with her? Unless you’re just an ass and don’t know it, or have an unpleasant Patchouli smell or something, you’ll probably become her friend the natural way, not the crazy, demanding, gossip-inducing way you have suggested.

Dear Someone Else: Just a Little Harmless Ass Grabbing!

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we understand that at first no one has any idea who we are. So, we will take advice questions from other sites and answer the questions. Better. Below is an example.

Dear Cubicle Coach (Marie Claire):
I work in a male-heavy office where banter often leads to sexual jokes about the female receptionist. I don't want to make a big deal of it, but I do think their talk is offensive. Should I just laugh along like one of the guys?

Dear Beatrice Arnold,
We here are BHB love the new show on AMC called “Mad Men”. It’s set in the early 1960s and is chock full of the sexual harassment women have been fighting to end for 40 years now. Well, all women but you. Bet your sweet-ass-in-that-tight-little-dress those same men are laughing along about you when you’re not around. I’m not sure how you missed this memo, but Sexual Harassment is against the law now! We don’t have to put up with that bullshit anymore. Google Anita Hill, grow some balls, and make a stand about it. How can you look the receptionist in the eye if you don’t? We suggest a tape recorder, to make the reporting easier. Document everything. For your receptionist’s sake, good luck.

Dear Someone Else: Riding My High Horse

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we understand that at first no one has any idea who we are. So, we will take advice questions from other sites and answer the questions. Better. Below is an example.

DEAR E. JEAN (Elle): I earned a degree in political science, and it was the most poisonous department—full of small-minded, pessimistic people. After graduating, it quickly became obvious that my expensive degree would not get me a job. So now I’m attending graduate school, studying finance. I don’t like it and I’m not good at it, but at least it will guarantee me a career.

But should I even try to be rich? I won’t be happy unless I make the planet a better place. But how do I support myself and save the world, E. Jean? So many liars, bigots, and know-it-alls are screwing it up!—Running from the Rats

Dear Running from the Rats While Riding My High Horse:
You are obviously a wonderful, self-sacrificing, and truly amazing person~clearly much better than the rest of us schleps. We suggest you start your own religion. Yes, yes, we think being the self-appointed leader of a religious cult is just the career for you! Think of the potential you will have for earning some tax exempt dough via the offering plate, and also becoming savior of the world, AND condemning all the “liars, bigots, and know-it-alls” to eternal damnation! Oh, one thing more~Kool Aid got such a bad rap. Why not have your followers try Gatorade, or maybe Crystal Light instead.

Dear Someone Else: I Really Need a Life

Here at Brutally Honest Babes, we understand that at first no one has any idea who we are. So, we will take advice questions from other sites and answer the questions. Better. Below is an example.

Dear Cubicle Coach (Marie Claire),
I feel uncomfortable peeing and primping and what have you in the ladies' room if my supervisor is in there, too. Am I overthinking this, or would you recommend holding it until she clears out?

Dear Leery Pooper,
You are not over thinking this; in fact, you should think about it more. I can’t imagine anything else more important for you to deal with and think about than crapping or applying mascara in vicinity to your boss. The smells! The wands! It’s all so stressful. Although, when I first read your horrific tale of woe, I thought that maybe just peeking into her office to make sure she’s there before you go to the loo might avoid this exasperating situation altogether. But then, what would you think about? Life? Career? Sex? Family? No. It’s good you took the time to write us [er, Marie Claire.] We’re here to help. Hold it, my friend. Hold it and do NOT apply that blush. I’m sure your boss has no idea you fix your hair or pee. Better to keep her thinking that.