Things like work: monitoring/validating for fun and profit. (Underpants.)

Tuesday is my Friday. I got to work. I got to monitor. Joy! Whee! I had five people to monitor, which stretched into seven sessions (with one restart, because it was just a day like that) and then I got to validate.

( Technical validation stuff, wherein I explain the concept, utterly rock at getting stuff cleaned up, and talk to someone's somewhat confused grandmother. )

By the time I was done validating all the things I could validate, it was seriously time to clean up. Cute Chick Monitor and I have the same schedule. "Thank goodness it's Friday," she said as we were counting out the headsets and briefing/debriefing each other on the shift and on local events (why am I the bearer of bad tidings?); this informal sort of thing, which would be called "gossip" by the unenlightened, is vital to smooth functioning of the monitoring team. (She and I both have Wednesdays and Thursdays off; I've noticed that the worst of the "The monitors are going to wrack and ruin!" e-mail commentary happens in reaction to Wednesdays and Thursdays, which gives me a certain level of concern for the rest of the team, but makes me very happy about doing my job well.) We discuss things that are likely to have impact on the smooth running of the monitors, but yet are not crucial enough to send official e-mail about, or are personal and therefore shouldn't technically have anything to do with the workplace, but the personal often does affect the workplace, even if it's just that someone's likely to be out for a while because his wife died. (I wish I had gotten a chance to know her. Cute Chick Monitor hadn't even known that Figment was married.)

New monitors are being recruited; I submitted one suggestion based on my general "OK, I'm Officially Impressed Now reaction after monitoring the person and having them consistently rock my socks. I got e-mail back saying they'd look into it. *grin* You know someone's good when their performance on a bad day is something you'd overlook as "normal" in 90% of the people on the floor, except you know their quality of work, and you're so concerned as to check up on them and make sure they're OK in person afterwards.

Blond Mohawk Monitor (new to the monitoring team, and someone I've looked upon with favor for a while) was on the phones today, on one of the generally more dreadful surveys, and was jokingly asking me to pull strings and get them off the phones and go home early. What strings? <azzgrin> It shows a lot about my maturity level that my last action before leaving was to flag Blond Mohawk Monitor's attention, and make the face where I stick out my tongue, cross my eyes, and waggle my fingers from my ears. (He did snicker, but did not do so on an open line, and thus did not have to explain, "I'm sorry about that, my supervisor was making faces at me.")

Fwd: Lipstick in the bathroom (a smart janitor)

( In which some much-needed education on cleaning is laid forth to some schoolgirls... )

Beds

Sis and Marx are getting a "new" bed -- her grandma's old one. This is much-needed, as there have been complaints about back and so forth.

marxdarx disassembled the bunkbed from their room yesterday evening, and reassembled it in my room (with my somewhat ineffectual help) last night, to the tune of much clanging and banging and occasional curses. I now have an Actual Bed for the first time in a good four years; this one is much sturdier than the one that BJ got (which creaked and rattled in a most alarming way any time someone touched it) and I like it.

Both mattresses from the top bunk are thoroughly nasty, and smell very much of Wet Bed. (I wish I'd had the foresight to sniff those mattresses when I was throwing out the twin mattresses that I formerly had, but alas...) Therefore, they shall be History. I have currently parked the salvaged couch cushions up there in the top bunk. The cats are very much enjoying this. shammash looks particularly regal up there. Watching him attempt to walk around on the bare metal bars is amusing. I pulled the final mattress out from under him a few minutes ago, and he attempted to lounge on the bars. He was happy when I put the couch cushions back up there.

I have improvised a privacy curtain for the bed for when there are random strangers in the room, and/or for when my bed's just a mess, and/or for blocking of ambient light. This is the same large piece of fabric that was the curtain for the Little Fayoumis and helping keep the light out of his eyes when he was trying to sleep, held on to the top bunk rail with a few strategically placed shower curtain rings, the sort that snap together. The effect is tidy and very, very black, as the fabric's black, the bed is black, and the shower curtain rings are black. ...This is altogether unsurprising, of course.

marxdarx has gone off with Clover and her husband to pick up the bed. I'm going to go back to bed, now, to catch up on that little thing they call "sleep".

Finally.

37,384 / 100,000 (37.0%)

I've gotten past the brawl, now, and some food problems sneaked in there and surprised me. 10 minute writing bursts are really good for word count. I'm going to do that more often.