Interesting (and humorous)Jay. It tweaked my failing memory, but isn't there a large German contingent in Brazil as a result of a WWII -dar I say it- Exodus?

As a female I can honestly say, I'm glad I don't work in your office.

I was so glad you brought us up-to-date on the soap opera that is your life with this woman.

As a female, I'm sorry that I don't work in your office. I love verbal repartee!

Please keep updating us!

Oh, it might be nice if you sent her a few postcards when you are away on vacation!

;-D

I've mentioned that I have a pregnant colleague. She's been rearranging things around the office to accommodate her condition -- she can't reach as far back on shelves as before. This was tremendously enlightening to me; I had not realized that one of the consequences of pregnancy was that it makes your arms shorter. You learn something new every day.

Jay Tea, if you must know most women experience back pains during pregnancy. This makes it very painful when one has to stretch to reach things. I suspect and hope you did not really tell a pregnant woman, "Hey, I didn't knock you up -- I have at least three alibis!". I hope this is just a bad joke to tell your readers.

Don L, you're having visions of "Boys From Brazil". You're correct!

I don't get the Brazilian joke, though I can guess (from the mention of pants) that it must be a sexual reference. However, it is not that her arms are shorter, she just has to stand farther back away from the shelf.

Maybe, and maybe I'm confusing it with Argentina and Mengale becoming an abortionist (what else?)there?

Sabba -

http://beauty.about.com/od/hairremoval/ht/bikiniwax.htm

Think extreme waxing. (Cringes at the thought, then remembers the old mantra "Beauty knows no pain")

Admirable restraing JT, admirable restraint.

Not being HR approved myself I have told female employees the "Hey, I didn't knock you up line."

"It is a tragedy that women become their mothers, and equally so that men do not."
~Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde most definitely became his mother. ;)

JT, my wife will occasionally say to me "What goes through your mind" when I ramble about something. I inform her that there is a three ring circus going on up here (pointing to my head) and just be glad only about 2% slips out. At work, I have to bite my tongue frequently.

Tina S., you have to have followed this saga from the beginning. This co worker is going far beyond reasonable demands. For thousands of years women have been giving birth while working in the fields, having a few days rest a back to it. Now some women treat pregnancy like a medical problem. On top of that, so many women are willing to "choose" to kill the fetus because they don't want it, but when some women want to carry to term, it isn't a fetus at all. Women really screwed up the sympathy quotient. ww

I can top that. I work at a large corp. along with my wife. When I was attending mandatory sexual harassment training, they asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand and asked "My wife works here too. Is it possible for her to sexually harass me, and if so....how do I go about arranging that....?" They quickly segued into talking about not having public displays of affection.... Hee-hee....

Wow! What a memory jogger! Remember years ago the 1st "Sexual Harassment Training" I had to attend. Moderator asked each person "Why are you here?". Usual responses until they got to me. "Because the big wigs downtown can't keep their hands off the female workers." (Which was true and what started the whole ball rolling). SILENCE followed my reply. Then laughter. Suffice to say, I was not 'the teacher's pet' after that.

Volunteering earned time off to another. I never had a problem with people donating in cases of catastrophic need. Especially if it was a good worker who just had the misfortune of coming down with something they had no control over. What galled me where the workers who earned a sick day - and took it. Their balance was ALWAYS zero.

One particular person took his vacation, then came back and complained during briefing that we were short staffed (because someone else was now on vacation). So I told him "That's funny, you didn't appear concerned when you took off for two weeks and we were "understaffed". Well Bozo got really sick, and had the balls to email his co-workers for "donations" of time off so that he could collect a paycheck. At the next briefing, without mentioning names - I told them they were fools if they donated their time - they all knew who pulled their weight, and who was only out for #1. Suffice to say, no one turned in a 'donation form', although I did see several tear one up.

As for pregnant women, besides the back pain, their arms are essentially "shorter" - seeing that their bellies are bigger. It does cut down on 'reach'.

Ah, the sagas of the work place. Glad I'm retired!

Trade your vacation time for future child labor considerations. At least have the kid rake leaves when he hits two...

Don't be tweaking HR too much unless you have another good paying, FULL-TIME job lined up. (Which I know for a fact you do NOT, because less than 300,000 such jobs were created in 2010.) I say this because last year I mentioned in passing to the State of NH Dept. of Labor that my employer frequently had me working several hours a day without pay. Within hours of that conversation, HR decided to "lay me off."

Happily, after enjoying a summer off, I found one of the 660,000 part-time jobs created in 2010 (which in a nation of 15 million unemployed was like winning the fucking lottery). But my "tweaking" of HR cost me an 80 percent pay reduction that, at age 54, will last the rest of my life

Also, in part-time Obama world, there are no issues with benefits, vacation days, sick days, or maternity leave. No such thing exists. Although holidays are good: that 15-hour shift means I get more hours that week.

Oh, John S, you really put a damper on a fun thread. You are absolutely correct though. Economy is so bad that HR (enforcers for the corporate fascists) will often start briefings with allusions to the bad job market and "Who's your daddy?"

Hmmm... This activates a cherished fantasy, the one where it's the MEN who get pregnant. And their 'arms get shorter', they spend 2-5 months having close communion with the toilet each morning, begin to eerily resemble a walrus, pee their pants every time the little darling in their belly kicks them in the bladder etc., etc., etc.

Someone ( I think it was Dave Barry) once said that if men had the babies, we'd each have a continent to ourselves.

A woman's arms get shorter when they're pregnant because (A) they are now carrying a basketball in front of them in the form of a baby... and (B) they are less inclined to lean forward and press their stomach against something as they try to reach.

That took all of 5 seconds to figure out.

But it did give you a chance to pay a fitting homage to Beavis and Butthead -- oh! I said "butt"! hehehehe

It's often said that the quickest way to kill a joke is to explain it.

Woop ought to be charged with felony humocide.

J.

Victims, Tina and Woop, victims taking up the spare space in your cerebral attic, but pregnant women as such? No!...that's just present day self-indulgent horse feathers. The woman in all known societies, except the social progressive model, came equipped with a backbone. A wide ranging choice of mothers, grandmothers and back through the years ordinarily and invariably had ramrod backbones, even in their confinement. This proud memory adheres especially to people of long years, (myself certainly), whose female forebears had not been convinced by social activism that life short changed them for being women. In the last thirty of our 52 years of marriage Gaius and Gaiette have watched the fashioning of a 'new woman strain', one that is often far, far more self-orientated and hardly worth more than two cold beers and a quickie up against the railway bridge on a Friday night. (But thereby hangs a tale...for another day). For the nonce, however, if Jay Tea points his finger at the office sniveller and you leap to correct him for feigned victimhood's sake, just expect that your seed is likely being cast upon the ground; infertile ground.

"I would have guessed that if you weren't wearing pants."

See now THAT'S what I'm takin about!!
Laughing soda out of your nose.....
You can't get this stuff at just ANY blog.

And then a few PC trolls to chime in for good measure.
Ahh Wizbang....

Strange isn't it, that libs have no sense of humor?

One doesn't jump into a lake, without learning how to swim. One doesn't attempt to drive an auto without some rudimentary instructions. One shouldn't engage in unprotected intercourse without expecting the likely result. And society should not pay those who flaunt the rules,as is now the case. Then there are those fools who carry the baby for eight months and then choose to enrich some butcher/ doctor who specializes in "Late term Hits". It would be far cheaper, for this countries pocketbook, if the TSA were told to "forget the airports, we want you to search purses for condoms, before the ladies go out on the town".

.... there is a three-ring circus going on up here (pointing to my head) ....

Only three rings, eh?

Oh, Dear Lord, that I should ever know such peace.