harping on about oprah

admittedly, i do tape the oprah show every day, mostly so i don't miss out on any celebrity interviews or favorite show episodes. but i find her hard to watch.

don't get me wrong - i realize that her influence on mainstream culture is undeniable. who can be down on her for encouraging millions of people to read books that don't have fabio-esque men on the cover? or her establishing a school for girls in south africa and giving them a chance at success? she's an icon.

but she can't interview. and she's so self-centered, it's not even amusing anymore. i was just watching today's episode. her first guest was hill harper, an actor, who was on the show to talk about his book about mentoring young black men who don't have role-models of their own. he graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and then went on to receive his Masters in Law from Harvard - pretty academically accomplished, i'd say. he began to tell oprah about how he couldn't understand why celebrity role-models wouldn't acknowledge their educational backgrounds. he gave puff daddy/p. diddy/sean combs as an example and wondered out loud why puffy never talked about his degree from Howard University (probably why he's such a good businessman, assuming his degree was in business!). Instead of piping up about puffy's education (which I had no idea about!), oprah says, "Howard University - that's where i just received my doctorate from last week!" yawn. i turned it off after he was done talking.

she should go back to doing solely puff pieces because anyone who goes on her show to talk about anything of substance should expect to have their fifteen minute bit contain 13 minutes of oprah just talking about herself. i'd be insulted.

i may just be pissy because i had another incident with the Mentor. i had drafted something for the Ninja and he came out to give it back to me and said, "okay, if this is the language in the template, then we'll go with this." i said, "well, we didn't actually have a precedent on the system so i just did a search in the system and only found one example." the Mentor happened to be standing right there at the printer so she leans over and reads it, makes a face and says, "pthbbbt! yuck! i don't like that wording at all. it's no good. you obviously didn't look at any of my examples." as she walks towards her office to find me some "good" wording, i said to her, "well, i guess it wasn't named properly because i didn't find it and i searched extensively." the Ninja said that if she had an example ... he left it at that. i walked away to vent. i was livid. and i can hear her shrieking from her office, "ok, i found it! are you ready to take this down???" i didn't answer. she comes out of her office, sees me hanging out of someone's office (this is after hours - i was not on the clock) and turns to the Ninja and shrieks, "well, typically ungrateful! asks me for help and then takes off!" do you know how hard it was for me not to turn my head towards her and tell her to FUCK OFF?

i walked to reception to bitch and she followed me. annoyed, she said, "well, do you want to ask me about it tomorrow then?" i figured i would just bite it and listen. she dictated over my shoulder and that was it. the Mentor then left for the day and i marched right into my administrator's office, tearing out my hair. she took one look at me and said, "close the door. what did she do now?"

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. why can't the Mentor leave the firm or at least, just leave me alone???