Category: Work

What a day!

Awake at 5:20 am, poked around the net for a while, then got up and cleaned some pots and next thing I knew I was late for the bus. All quite normal.  Late for work because both the 145 bus and the Skytrain were delayed, who knows why.  At least I didn’t kill myself by falling down that slope – I’ve posted pictures of it, just imagine it covered with a glossy slick of compressed slush.

At 9 the town hall meeting with our new squid overlords.  THEY CAN HAS SWAG!!!  They gave out jackets, and mine is very nice and will probably fit me better in a year.  But I like it. The meeting was full of my coworkers conspicuously signalling to me to get off my ass and ask the new squid overlords some pointy questions like I used to do, but I glued said same ass to my chair.  Besides, I was wearing my “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” t-shirt and I just didn’t look corporate enough.

At work today, Mike McG gamely attempted over three meetings (Patricia was also there) to a) jam Ohm’s law into my tiny pea brain; b) jam info about PV string sizing into my tiny pea brain and c) get my advice/input/loud and unfeigned praise on a totally HAWT Salesforce customization.  This will mean nothing to most of you but when I think of how much time and keystrokes that man plans to save the company I tremble in my granny panties, lemme tell you…

At lunch, Jeff the Queasy (an easily grossed out cowirker) said, “What the hell was with 206, somebody drew Ohm’s law all over the whiteboard?” and Patricia and I are thinking, “Hm, should we tell him?”

Anyway, I didn’t work much because I was in meetings or lunching for like 5 hours.  It was like being an executive, and Tanya took the worst call of the day, honestly, the customer was a jerk to her, and then of course was nice as pie to me.

OH MY STARS.  I have to tell this story, even if it gets me fired.  The marketing department, whom I have been convinced wants to either kill me or slap me into an insane asylum for at least a decade now, put my name on a document….. associated with a phone number which comes to my desk …. and a toll free number that, alas, was one digit out from being correct.  Care to guess what my name was associated with?  A front for a phone sex line. I can die happy now.  All my Dilbert dreams/nightmares have come true.  By all the gods I don’t believe in, this story is absolutely true and I can call witnesses.  And besides, the marketing department has already fixed it.

Our new HR overlord is from Suth Cahlina, and she said You All twice during the town hall.  Not Y’all, that’s trashy, but You All, that’s cute.

Much thanks to Sandy P for the hilarious email about the mighty huntin’ dogs she has, I laughed like a drain.

Then a call from Paul – I’d been expecting to take the bus to his place preparatory for a swim, but he decided to pick me up, and then when I got there it was me, Keith, Kate, Paul and Daxus, and Dan T. dropped by for some soup, and I arranged to spend most of Saturday with Katie, and she plucked my eyebrows (they were raggedy). Katie and Daxus were playing chess when I arrived – Daxus was shellacking Katie. I saw the board and went, Concede, you fool! but they played it out.  After dinner Keith and Paul and I went to the pool and swam and soaked, and then Paul drove me home.  I drove home, but it’s Paul’s car.  You know what I mean.

It was so good to see everybody.  Dan T. said, “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I ate somebody’s dog, and it tasted like a pear, but I didn’t really like it all that much so I had two bites and threw it away, and then the owners were saying, “Where’s Fluffy?”  I cried laughing, he was so matter-of-fact about it.  I light a candle for his dad, who died recently.  I only met him the once, when I gave a homily at the Comox Valley Fellowship, but I was very impressed with him indeed.  He will be missed.

family!!!!

Katie was over and collected her cheque.  Keith was over and played GTA4.  We watched the third episode of True Blood and the sappy and weak Xmas episode of NCIS.  I ordered out but I’ll do better tonight.

It’s snowing and I feel compelled to go to work…. I have no idea why.

This is a candle for Mike…. he’s unemployed and while that’s actually a good thing, he will need another job shortly.

Chris, the dude what helped me with my tech support issue a few days back, loved the Werewolves Ball.  Now I have to mix it better ….

I love the titles to Dave’s stories … have heard many of them and I look forward to hearing more.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

One of the many useful internet acronyms is TL;DR.  That’s when your truncated attention span decides to step out for a soda.

Continue reading Too Long; Didn’t Read

Back to work

I was super happy to be back at work yesterday.  While I was gone things apparently fell to rack and ruin in the neckrub department. LTGW said, “We were lost without you so I went out and bought an Allegra” which turns out to be a weird back massager thingy.  Two bucks at the dollar store!  Who knew I was so easily replaced? Fortunately that little piece of wood doesn’t enter transactions in our sluggish, crabby and unsupportable ERP, which, so rumour has, will be replaced by SAP in a couple of years so I guess I needn’t worry about being replaced.  Chris liked his atheist greeting card. Patricia liked her pommeau – a Calvados/pear cider blend – and I suspect she’ll like it even better when she tries it.  Robof9 forgave me for not bringing him anything, and I only gave postcards to my other two teammates but AT LEAST it was someplace I’d actually been.

I continue to have issues with jet lag at odd times of the day, but I should be back in the rhythm of things more or less by Wednesday.

Katie was by and organized her stuff.  Then we all watched the last half of an HBO movie Iron Jawed Angels, which was about the fight for the vote for women in the US.  There was an incredible roster of talent and the script was pretty good, although tiresomely anachronistic in a couple of spots.  Hillary Swank was great.

It’s POURING.

I got a wonderful night’s sleep last night.  On Tammy’s recommendation I am taking glucosamine and it really does reduce inflammation in my back and hips.  While in Paris we were talking about her recent diagnosis of osteo arthritis and when I showed off the special noises both of my knees make these days she said I ought to get to a doctor.  Two days of glucosamine and the noise is much reduced, at least in my left knee.  I suspect that stumping down a hill in uncomfortable or non-orthotic shoes every morning is stressing the joints.  I wish I still lived close to Tom and Peggy – I’d probably be more inclined to swim.

Time for a quick hosing down and then out into this rain, which I now laugh at because I have a Goretex jacket from MEC.  Hey, at least I’m not likely to leave the damned thing on the bus, like my last umberella.

Christmas joke:

Ozzy Osbourne said, “Christmas is a time for remembering.  So that’s me ****ed!”

all gone

I wrote a post and it vanished.  That always makes me mad.  I went back through my pages hit on and found this: Please Vote!

And Mars Mission news.

I have a coworker who is addicted to lip balm. He jokes about it.

I am at a super low ebb.  Everything takes a million years; I feel like I can scarcely move.  Fortunately, I have to get up and go to work, otherwise I’d just lie here and moan quietly.  Knowing this state of mind is entirely temporary is useful; I once believed that if I felt bad I’d feel bad forever, and now I know I’ll feel lousy for a while and then it will go away.  Also, I can think of at least three things, off the top of my head, that would make me feel better.  Obama winning, lunch at the Himalaya and seeing some critters.

I just managed four weeks without a single cigarette, not so much as a drag.  That’s the longest I’ve gone in probably 10 years. Unca Dave getting sick was the wakeup call I needed.

Since it takes a month to make a new habit, I’m now contemplating the next peak to conquer.  Hopefully I won’t need oxygen and a Sherpa.

Oh wait, banjo music!

gathering up links and distributing them to the needy

Uke! wakka wakka wakka

Print me up a new liver boys, this one’s no good to me now.

One of the best I quit letters in the history of the English language. (link removed for security reasons)

And now, a surf boarding rat. Or, at least, a rat who is earnestly engaged in the business of NOT drowning.

How do I know chipper’s got a boyfriend ? she’s not sending me links no more!!!  Me happy!  It can’t all be doom and gloom.  Oh, crap, I have about two minutes to shower and power outta here.

True story from a Canadian Call Center

Customer: Hi, I was just wondering if you could tell if cable TV is available at my house. I know it is available in the city, but we are just outside the city limits.

 

CSR: Yes, we have a very expensive and complicated computer program to figure if there is cable TV available at your address. However, if you answer this one question for me, I can predict the answer 99.9 % of the time.

 

Customer: Really, what is the question? 

 

CSR: “Can you see cows from your kitchen window?”

 

Customer: Why, yes I can see cows from my window.

 

CSR: Well sir, you are going to need a satellite system… There is no cable TV available at your address.

ScaryClown dines here

ScaryClown was here for dinner; he was fed buffalo sloppy joes, and he had seconds, lord love him. Also, I received from the mysterious and everedgy Mike (everybody’s favourite chinky chinaman) a call which said, “Guess where I am?” to which the answer could only be “Wreck Beach, you wretch”.

I send glories and posies, firelight and starlight and the light of the borealis, the light of the sea in the night as your oar goes through it, to Chipper, and she knows why.

I light a candle for Juliana and her efforts, and her album.

I light a candle for Carrie and her peregrinations.

For Tanya, and she knows why.

For Patricia, and she knows why.

For Peggy, in her trials with Tom and her usual daily challenges; I quail at the notion of carrying such a load myself, and can only love.

For my mother, and her traversing the dual canyons of the annual checkup and the dead and dying relatives; for my father in his travails without question or comment.

For my grandmother, may she pass into machine intelligence and live forever in the annals of my family, for gold, for good, forever.

For Mr Music and the sleeping giant he imagines into life.

For my cousins; Alex, Alyssa, Darcy, Shauna, Katherine, & John, and Gerald, of course, and his kin.

For my coworkers, Salmon Man, Cristian, Prashant, Jeff, Jenn, Hardeep, Joe, Gianna, Dale, Andy, Heather, Mike B, Mike M, Sandy, Robof9, Peter T, Al Karim, Francis, LTGW, Lindsay, Mel, Graham, Inne, Jeff, Bill.  Chris and Ky and Zari of course.

For the downstairs tenants, may they increase in health and strength.

For my Unca Dave, may he live forever in song, story, fable and myth.

For Lucile.

For Lois, Ruth and their close kin.

For Lady Miss B and her loved ones. For Dr. Filk, Swampy and Maggie.

For Suzanne.

For the ladies (and for the occasional lad) who lunch. All hail Dunnett.

For Spider Robinson and Academie Duello.

For Tammy.

For Rev Katie, and Pope Mary.

For David J. D. and the hard road he set me on,

For Alan.

For the hidden, the unreal, the unseen, for the lies which spin themselves into truth, the stories which harden into tradition, the festivals which anchor human life from one season to the next, a candle, and a warning.

For Keith, for Kate and their dad, Paul, candles, and blessings.

For the people I love and don’t speak of; for the people I hate and don’t speak of.

For my brother Jeff.

Friday Roundup

Watched the opening sequence of Quake IV – not bad, but derivative, like everything else in the universe, including my own DNA f’chrissakes.

I CAN’T get Young Dumb and Crazy out of my head, I was singing it all day, mixed in with the Blasteeze the Laxative Coughdrops Song. “There will be a brief hi-a-tus, then, the mentholated flatus; pop these babies in your mouth, and soon your drawers are headed south.” Yeah, I sang that every time I went by HR today.  Kind of without really realizing what I was doing.  HR is next to the washroom, after all.

I light a candle for Tanya and her hubby – a swift recovery and sweet sweet sleep for both of them, please thanks kbai.

I light a candle for Patricia, and she knows why.

I light a candle for Gianna, who has one of the most infectious laughs I have ever heard.

I light a candle for Robof9, and he knows why.

I light a blowtorch of a candle for Paul, and he knows why.

I light a candle for the start of another church year and the success of the fall gathering.  (It’s a church thingy, the regional fall gathering.)

I won’t be going to church on Sunday as ScaryClown is going to try to set a new record for margaritas before lunch and I’m damned if I’ll miss that. Three margaritas would have me running my hand over the waiter’s ass, and it had absolutely no effect that one could detect on ScaryClown.  Jeff and Keith will also be in attendance. I’ll take the camera this time as I love the decor in the restaurant.

The cats are fine.  Eddie’s taken off a little weight and his digestion seems to be a bit better. Gizmo curled up in Jeff’s lap last night and looked up at him adoringly and then farted continuously for about twenty minutes, he was that relaxed.

No word from Katie; I imagine she’ll turn up eventually but she missed getting Switzerland Chicken ordered for her. Please note that she is learning how to play chess; I am sure her uncle will be cheerfully amused and pleased by this intelligence.

Work sux, but in a good way.  You know, the birthing pangs way.

I saw a rainbow this morning.

More NCIS turned up.  That makes me very, very happy.

And tomorrow, the intelligent & beautiful Shannon and the magnificent & useful Jerome will, in front of their friends and family, pledge their intention to spend the rest of their days together.  They got no worse odds than anybody else, in fact I’d say better, and dayum, they will make pretty children.  Me happy.  And I’ll get to see Mike dressed up, which pleases me, and I don’t have to do any grzsly shopping, they want money.

Check Snopes.com for the Palin letter. Innnteresting.

It feels so good to be home and sitting with the folks.  Life’s good.

Dayum! Missed the zombie walk

Did not get the email this year.  Got it last year. Why am I unloved?

Jerome came by for lunch in the middle of a day which was to be endured and not enjoyed.  He was the only bright spot.  I love him so… I could get extremely mushy about him, but when I like people I’m pretty happy animal about it and don’t bother hiding it.  Anyway, I got to introduce him to my coworkers by their blog names (bwa, likewise ha!).  Best part of lunch: getting outside the building to talk to him alone and then having one of our old workmates come up after his run and beg forgiveness for not attending the stag (which was a good mix of coworkers old and new, and family, not too big and not too, uh, well, dumb).  Second best:  Allegra archly announces “Jerome is getting married this week!” to which ScaryClown responds, “What the fuck do you want to be doing THAT for?” while Robof9 murmured, “Run away, run away!” in demented counterpoint. (They too are my coworkers….)  I’ll leave out Jerome’s immediate response, which is not for public consumption (at least if he wants to stay on course for getting married on Saturday) and cut to his next words, which were said with that large, eerie blue gaze of his, “She doesn’t appear to be crazy!” at which point I was justabout helpless with laughter, because all I could think of was how amused my dad would be at the shenanigans (and you would have been, it was like being in a really good sitcom for about 30 seconds).

AT SOME POINT, Katie is going to have to negotiate staying here while she’s in school.  She’s talked to me and she’s talked to Jeff, but we’ve never had the dreaded “all three of us” talk.   Sooner or later you have to have the dreaded talk, and the only comfort you can take is that somebody is lying, and maybe even you, but ground rules are necessary and will require reiteration. (Otay, that sounded bitter, but I was thinking of something other than the sweet gig I have here with Jeff – even if the landlord’s dog shat in the yard just as I was getting home last night).  Katie stayed overnight, and she has a cheque in her bag which would be sufficient to bring tears to my eyes if the leg cramp which woke me up at 4:15 hadn’t accomplished that task.  Rule number one is gonna have to be a little comment on the toilet lid.  It stays down.  Otherwise I can hear Eddie slurping in the night about three feet from my head, an uncanny noise which does not make for cheerful dreams, what with the toilet being just the other side of the wall.

Katie K’s Vegas postcard came here after she got back.  Made me smile.

I answered another Craigslist ad. For Jeff’s response, scroll up and check with ScaryClown.  More politely stated, of course; Jeff is never rude by accident.  I have YET ANOTHER email address now, but I hate my hotmail and telus and sfu accounts and I will be collapsing them all down by the end of the year.

Migraine signs.  Oh, it’s gonna be a peachy peach of a day.

PARTAY

We saw Brian C off to his new job in fine style – and I used the opportunity to record Buy me a Beer in front of a live audience.  Yes, I got permission from Party Boy and the management of the Golf Course first, so I may be a self-involved putz, but I’m not entirely without a clue. Also, I distributed neck rubs all round, except for the people who said NO, and it’s amazing how many of them I just said, “I know YOU’RE passing” to, and they just looked at me… then the next person would openly mock them and thank their good fortune.  This happened more than once, so the cumulative effect was quite funny.  One of the people I worked on had been shit on by a crow, but I worked on her ANYWAY because the crow was considerate enough to let fly along her spine well below her shoulders.  Also recorded Housewife’s Lament.  There were forty people there at the height of the festivities, largest turnout I’ve seen in 11 years of employment…. Maybe 45.  There was a LOT of people there.  I was going to do a guest list.  LTGW gave me, Jeff, Keith and Patricia rides home, or roughly home- the 25 bus was waiting for us at Brentwood, as if it was meant to be.

Another NCIS blowout day.  I made waffles for breakfast, unbelievably good meatloaf for dinner, wiped off the back deck table, wiped off the kitchen counters, folded some laundry (which Jeff did, and thanks cats! for urinating on Keith’s bedclothes!) and otherwise did squat.  I’m having a lazy day.

Tomorrow Scary Clown and Keith and Jeff and I are going to eat brunch down on Main St.  Then in the afternoon I hope to see daughter Katie, who really is a very nice woman to talk to on the phone.  And I talked to Peggy, and I talked to my mother, and Mike called to tell me that Bounce’s clone, in the form of a 5 month old male kitten, has cruised into his life.  He’s been adopted.  That makes him happy.  Happier making still is that it’s Jerome’s stag tonight.  Mike vaguely quoted the email saying something about how Jerome didn’t want anything too stupid or strange, but uh, anytime I’VE ever gone drinking with those guys, magically delicious, improbably fun things happen, so seeing as how they will be drinking AND the Dalai Jarmo will be there, I suspect a good time will be had by all.

Jeff bought an elcheapo camera to record the antics of the cats in the living room, as time without number one of the cats has done something unutterably cute and we’re blocks from a camera.  It lives in the living room now.

I watched my newly posted video a couple of times, and about halfway through the video (deleted as being pretentious bushwah, with a side of smug).

The air conditioner is running.  A Kenyan took gold in the marathon.  The world is okay.