"More Chocolate, less nuts"

I work in an all female office. At first, this seems like it would be a bad thing, and generally I am not a proponent of having that much estrogen in one location, but it’s actually a delightful work environment. Since it’s all ladies, the office would not be complete without a super, secret, chocolate stash. You can generally tell what someone’s day was like based on the number of chocolate wrappers on their desk. A one to two chocolate day is a pretty average day, but when you get up into the five to six chocolate range, you know that it was a rough day. Not too long ago, I had some down time in the middle of the afternoon and realized that our “stash” was running dangerously low. So, I decided a chocolate run was in order. I asked our office manager if she had a preference on what kind of chocolate I got. Nancy paused for a moment and said, “I want more chocolate, less nuts” to which I replied, “Isn’t that the truth!” I have since adopted Nancy’s wise words as a personal mantra for my life. One of the interesting things about being in the “real world” is that you realize it’s full of crazies!! Seriously though, it’s a challenging thing to navigate the waters of the dysfunctional. My mom and my boss have given me the two best pieces of advice when it comes to making my way through rough waters; 1) “you can’t make dysfunctional people happy”- mom; 2) “Don’t get sucked into other people’s dysfunction”-Barb. I hold these words close to my heart and on my refrigerator as I find myself in the midst of one strange situation after another. So, my friends, hold the normal people in your life close…and trade the crazy ones in for chocolate!!