In which there is a new head honcho at work and someone whom I like, which makes this hard to write about critically, wants to make a video of everyone in the office singing and dancing to welcome him

You guys, I hate to have my photo taken. I think there are maybe three photos of me ever that don't make me gag and one of them was my second-grade school photo. I can't think of anything taken recently that I like. Wait. There is one that is not horrible but that's because it was airbrushed. My mom loves to take photos and I guess I should be grateful that there is a photographic record of my childhood, but - I LOVE MY MOTHER - it is torture to be photographed by her. She takes forever and she always wants to make tiny adjustments. The other thing is that she waits until the morning that she is pulling out of our driveway after she has been visiting for a week and I have not even showered yet for the day (as if I would even take a shower on the weekend - ha) and that's when she wants to take a pic of Primo and me.

A few years ago, I finally told her that Primo and I would go to a professional photographer, have our pics done, send her copies, and that would be IT. Done forever. No more photos.

I hate how I look in photos. It's either that I don't photograph well or that I look that horrible in real life and I don't like to think about either possibility and either way, I look like the ugliest girl in the class in my photos. What makes it worse is that the camera loves my sister. I don't think I've ever seen a bad photo of her. I don't begrudge her her photogenicity, just like I don't begrudge her her bosom, but I do wonder why she got all the good genes in the family and I didn't.

I hate how I look in photos.

Primo and I had a friend of his - who has turned out to be kind of a nutcase - divorced her husband of two years, got a boob job, got a knife tatooed on her thigh, started dating some lowlife musician, changed her last name to something from a character from a science fiction movie, posted stuff on facebook about giving him - well - certain sexual favors - and when some of her friends suggested gently that perhaps she might want to slow down on her post-divorce mania, unfriended every single person she knew on facebook - take our photos. Despite her current insanity, she is a decent photographer or at least a decent photoshopper, because in the photos she sent to us, my eyelids do not droop and there are no wrinkles.

I actually don't care about the wrinkles that much. I don't have that many, maybe because I am vigilant about staying out of the sun or maybe because I am not old enough for wrinkles yet, but I do have droops. Gravity is the law. Things on my face are falling and it is quite distressing and my distress is distressing because I never thought I was pretty or vain but now I realize that at least in my 20s, my face stayed where it was supposed to stay. I am in mourning for my youth and the youthful looks I didn't even know to appreciate.

Any of you readers under 40, look in the mirror and appreciate your tight, youthful skin. Look at your abdomen and appreciate it there. You can weigh the same at 18 as you do in your 40s but it doesn't look the same because your skin doesn't hold it all in.

Anyhow, the photographer airbrushed me and I don't look horrible. I don't look like me, but it doesn't make me wince to see the photo.

What does this have to do with anything?

When I started working two years ago, on day 1, a woman showed up with a camera. They wanted my photo to put on the intra-company website.

I said I didn't want my photo taken thankyouverymuch and I was told it was not optional, which I thought was BS because how can they force you to have your photo taken? So I was a bitch to the perfectly nice person from communications who was just trying to do her job and I was pissy and in my photo I am scowling and I look pissed off because I was pissed off and then the secretary who deliberately sabotaged my lunchtime gym going printed my photo and put it up next to the printer by the other photos of everyone in my group so every time I picked up a print job, I had to be careful not to look at myself because I hate the way I look. (That is a very good reason to be nearsighted and never wear glasses, btw - if you accidentally look at yourself in the ladies' room mirror, you won't see much because you are nearsighted.)

I got that stupid photo deal over with and thought I was safe until last week when someone from my company's parent company emailed and said that we have a new CEO and wouldn't it be so fun if she made a video of everyone singing and dancing to a song that shall be unnamed just in case someone from work googles this whole concept. I really like the person who suggested this and my only conclusion is that someone hijacked her email. I don't want to be mean but I think this is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard.

Let's say the song is "Take this job and shove it," which of course it would never be because that would not be the proper message to send to a new CEO and also because you really can't dance to it.

So we are supposed to video ourselves dancing and lip-syncing to the popular song du jour and I don't want to do it.

1. I hate having my photo taken. Did I express that idea before?
2. In addition to hating having my photo taken, I also prefer not to dance
a. at work
b. in front of people from work
c. in broad florescent light
d. without alcohol

Then the third thing is - have I mentioned that I work for an organization that is having financial problems?

One co-worker said, "The new CEO would probably be a lot more impressed to see a video of everyone working."

Let me tell you the fourth thing:

The new CEO is a retired admiral. For those of you not up to date on your military ranks, admiral is the four-star general of the navy.

You don't get to be an admiral by singing and dancing in videos. You don't get to be an admiral by being impressed by singing and dancing employees in videos. Can you imagine a ship of sailors welcoming the new admiral with a video?

I posted a comment about the situation on a blog I really like and another commenter said, "If I were the new CEO coming into an underperforming (sic) organization and saw such a video, I would know exactly where things had gone off the rails."

I will let you know how the new CEO reacts to the video. They are launching it at a welcome potluck lunch.

Oh yes. I said it. A welcome POTLUCK lunch. Discuss amongst yourselves.