Dear HorroR Stories, I hate my HR Department, they are so strict and I don’t understand why. I never got a dental insurance card and when I went to them to ask about it, they said I never signed up for dental insurance. And then they said I couldn’t just add it on, but I had to wait until the end of the year. Why? I think they are just being bitches. –Crooked teeth Dear Crooked, My first reaction to reading your question was: “Huh, that HR Department doesn’t communicate very well with its employees.” I mean, if you are going to prevent someone from enrolling in the dental plan, you should at least explain why. But then I thought about it for a minute, I looked back on the past 15 years of my professional life and changed my mind. Nope, I’ve got your HR Department’s back on this one. So, just for fun, open up Outlook the next time you are at work and click on “All Mail Items” and then in the search box type: “Open Enrollment.” Depending on how long you’ve been at the company, and how much storage space they allow you to keep in Outlook, you should see at least one email per year pop up. Nothing shuts off employees’ ears like the words “Open Enrollment.” It never ceases to amaze me, I mean we are talking about benefits, which by definition, are good things. Why don’t you care? For those of you who automatically delete any email you get from HR, I guess I should explain what Open Enrollment is before I go any further. Your company has a benefit year, usually it’s the same as the calendar year, but sometimes it isn’t. Toward the end of...

What is the one constant in life? It’s not friends and family, it’s not career and it’s not death (which technically would be the end of life, so hardly a constant). Don’t even bring up taxes—they’re always there, but there are plenty of ways to cheat on them or ignore them until the IRS comes after you. No, nearly everything in the world can be cheated but one thing. Traffic. The ultimate equalizer. The punishment for all of the convenience of our modern lives. If Dante were writing INFERNO today, one of the circles of hell would have to be a traffic jam that lasts for eternity, during which your car’s A/C goes out and you have to pee. As an apartment dweller in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, I spend a sizable amount of time sitting in traffic in order to make it to a job, which I have simply to pay for said Valley apartment. Vicious circle, no?  At times, I can spend up to three hours (an eighth of a day) just trying to get to, or from, the office. And while that can give me a sense of righteous indignation for my sorry lot, I realize there are those who commute much further. This is actually infuriating because these super commuters never seem to complain, diluting my self-image as a traffic martyr. I can only assume they have much nicer homes than mine. They must have, right? I really have no cause to complain. I choose to live in Los Angeles, and when you do that you simply have to accept that traffic comes with the territory, just as rain comes with Seattle, wind comes with Chicago, and a strong odor of garbage comes with New York...