There's a new ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_news entry up! It has bits about the Open Source Bridge trip.
I had a basically terrible weekend, crowned by having to call PayPal tech support about their terrible website, getting the call disconnected, calling in a second time, and promptly and humiliatingly bursting into tears at one of their very surprised reps. So work was welcome.
At work, it would have been helpful if the Nervous Dev had, in addition to the requirements document template, given me an example of a requirements document which had been well-done.
I have a split keyboard at work. The Stage Manager showed up and remarked on it. He asked whether I had to detach the brain-parts for each hand in order to use it, and whether that made me schizophrenic. "Split personality, surely?" I suggested mildly.
"So am I talking to [workname]?" he asked.
"The better question is, are you *ever* talking to [workname]?" I replied.
"Am I?"
"No."
"All right then!" And he went on his way, which included to the ergonomics center to get himself one of those nifty keyboards. Which, he added, popping back up later, had insufficiently large bumps on the home row.
At my 1:1 with my manager, she mentioned the general need to not get worked up over various things.
Over the weekend, I had spent some time in #adventuresofstnono. Now, St. Nono's is not a clean-minded cloister. There's an ongoing theme of poop, farts, and butts. Thus, when various people were discussing their general dislike of beets, in the culinary sense, I had this advice to offer:
"Don't shove beets up your butt." I figured the conversation would get around there at some point, so I ought to offer my advice before it became necessary.
Now, you can't just say "Don't shove beets up your butt. #fishmumgivesmedicaladvice" to your manager. Or, at least, I can't to mine. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
afuna could possibly, I think...)
"So I had the occasion to give the following medical advice this weekend," I said, instead. "Don't shove beets up your nose."
"Not even if they're really little adorable ones...?" my manager asked, giggling, which was basically the point of the entire exercise.
"NO," I said firmly.
I popped upstairs to retrieve some ethernet cable from the helpdesk guy. The regular helpdesk guy was back. I will have to break him in like I did the helpdesk guys in the old building. Then I dropped by Mr. Zune's office and swapped calendar management tips, and then by my great-grandmanager's project manager's desk.
I feel that I should do this every other week or so, to check in with her, because the amount of bullshit that two administrative professionals can cut through while chatting in person is really amazingly epic. She gave me a heads-up on a little thing which was about to come down the line, and I promised to relay the backchannel bits. So I did, and she did, and everything looks like it's going to proceed smoothly.
The new wing is ... a little louder than the old one. The insulation between the offices is ... lacking. People have been complaining. I am glad that I am in a cube, and not a hardwall, because I cannot in fact hear every blessed word. I conferred with my manager, and relayed the backchannel bits.
So then I meandered over to Purple's office, to say goodnight before hitting the road. It was early enough that his officemate hadn't left yet. Purple had stepped out for a minute, but his officemate (the guy with all the banana stickers on his monitor frames) invited me in. We made small talk; it turns out that his wife in fact works at PayPal, but on something different than what I'd tripped over on Saturday.
Purple reappeared, but promptly got a phone call from R. While he was taking that call, Mr. Bananas asked me something shaped like "So what are you doing next?" I had a little trouble both hearing what he'd said and understanding what the words meant, so Mr. Bananas repeated himself but clarified the "you" by nodding at Purple.
Woops.
I tried to clarify by saying that I (stressing the personal pronoun) was going up to the city for an open house.
"Oh, you're buying a house?" he asked.
It is very hard to tell whether "you" is plural or not, in areas which don't do "all y'all".
I clarified that this was a hackerspace open house. My explanation of this part of the Double Union charter has already developed a shape: when he's never heard of the hackerspace before, say: "It's pretty new; because of how terrible a lot of the other hackerspaces are, it's women-only." Because the decision to limit membership this way did not arise in a fucking vacuum, so I shan't frame it that way either.
Purple got his four-year commemoration object this week. Mr. Bananas showed it to me gleefully. Then he opened one of his desk drawers and showed me (with even more glee) that his was bigger. (Mr. Bananas has been here 8 years to Purple's 4.) I nobly resisted the urge to giggle or comment.
R and The Other Guy showed up. I offered R a hug -- she and lb had just lost a mutual friend. Mr. Bananas had to repeat the commemoration object show-and-tell. I explained to Purple that I had nobly resisted the urge to comment on this aspect, thus forfeiting my nobility.
Kat and I have been just having bad timing, alas. I headed on to Double Union, and got there fashionably late. There was wrangling with the elevator. It is a lovely space, and lovely people. There was various good chatting. I shared the inspirational story of the Randomizer learning to not pull things out his ass.
(Purple: "I have a new phrase. It is: 'When you pull something out of your ass, you know what you're going to get.' "
The best possible answer here is 'nothing', or 'hot air', I believe.)
I don't remember who it was who I promised an Internet Feminists Are Watching sticker to if I got more; remind me? Was itnorabombay?
If Purple's officemate, a guy he's been friends with for more than a decade at this point, has got the wrong idea about the nature of my relationship with Purple, perhaps there needs to be some clarification. (I am not a subtle Lunatic. I am aware that my heart is often very visible on my ever-loving sleeve. But really. An engineer and a lunatic can be hugging-friends-not-kissing-friends even if the lunatic is carrying a non-subtle torch.)
This week might be less frantically busy than last week.
dw_news entry up! It has bits about the Open Source Bridge trip. I had a basically terrible weekend, crowned by having to call PayPal tech support about their terrible website, getting the call disconnected, calling in a second time, and promptly and humiliatingly bursting into tears at one of their very surprised reps. So work was welcome.
At work, it would have been helpful if the Nervous Dev had, in addition to the requirements document template, given me an example of a requirements document which had been well-done.
I have a split keyboard at work. The Stage Manager showed up and remarked on it. He asked whether I had to detach the brain-parts for each hand in order to use it, and whether that made me schizophrenic. "Split personality, surely?" I suggested mildly.
"So am I talking to [workname]?" he asked.
"The better question is, are you *ever* talking to [workname]?" I replied.
"Am I?"
"No."
"All right then!" And he went on his way, which included to the ergonomics center to get himself one of those nifty keyboards. Which, he added, popping back up later, had insufficiently large bumps on the home row.
At my 1:1 with my manager, she mentioned the general need to not get worked up over various things.
Over the weekend, I had spent some time in #adventuresofstnono. Now, St. Nono's is not a clean-minded cloister. There's an ongoing theme of poop, farts, and butts. Thus, when various people were discussing their general dislike of beets, in the culinary sense, I had this advice to offer:
"Don't shove beets up your butt." I figured the conversation would get around there at some point, so I ought to offer my advice before it became necessary.
Now, you can't just say "Don't shove beets up your butt. #fishmumgivesmedicaladvice" to your manager. Or, at least, I can't to mine. (
afuna could possibly, I think...) "So I had the occasion to give the following medical advice this weekend," I said, instead. "Don't shove beets up your nose."
"Not even if they're really little adorable ones...?" my manager asked, giggling, which was basically the point of the entire exercise.
"NO," I said firmly.
I popped upstairs to retrieve some ethernet cable from the helpdesk guy. The regular helpdesk guy was back. I will have to break him in like I did the helpdesk guys in the old building. Then I dropped by Mr. Zune's office and swapped calendar management tips, and then by my great-grandmanager's project manager's desk.
I feel that I should do this every other week or so, to check in with her, because the amount of bullshit that two administrative professionals can cut through while chatting in person is really amazingly epic. She gave me a heads-up on a little thing which was about to come down the line, and I promised to relay the backchannel bits. So I did, and she did, and everything looks like it's going to proceed smoothly.
The new wing is ... a little louder than the old one. The insulation between the offices is ... lacking. People have been complaining. I am glad that I am in a cube, and not a hardwall, because I cannot in fact hear every blessed word. I conferred with my manager, and relayed the backchannel bits.
So then I meandered over to Purple's office, to say goodnight before hitting the road. It was early enough that his officemate hadn't left yet. Purple had stepped out for a minute, but his officemate (the guy with all the banana stickers on his monitor frames) invited me in. We made small talk; it turns out that his wife in fact works at PayPal, but on something different than what I'd tripped over on Saturday.
Purple reappeared, but promptly got a phone call from R. While he was taking that call, Mr. Bananas asked me something shaped like "So what are you doing next?" I had a little trouble both hearing what he'd said and understanding what the words meant, so Mr. Bananas repeated himself but clarified the "you" by nodding at Purple.
Woops.
I tried to clarify by saying that I (stressing the personal pronoun) was going up to the city for an open house.
"Oh, you're buying a house?" he asked.
It is very hard to tell whether "you" is plural or not, in areas which don't do "all y'all".
I clarified that this was a hackerspace open house. My explanation of this part of the Double Union charter has already developed a shape: when he's never heard of the hackerspace before, say: "It's pretty new; because of how terrible a lot of the other hackerspaces are, it's women-only." Because the decision to limit membership this way did not arise in a fucking vacuum, so I shan't frame it that way either.
Purple got his four-year commemoration object this week. Mr. Bananas showed it to me gleefully. Then he opened one of his desk drawers and showed me (with even more glee) that his was bigger. (Mr. Bananas has been here 8 years to Purple's 4.) I nobly resisted the urge to giggle or comment.
R and The Other Guy showed up. I offered R a hug -- she and lb had just lost a mutual friend. Mr. Bananas had to repeat the commemoration object show-and-tell. I explained to Purple that I had nobly resisted the urge to comment on this aspect, thus forfeiting my nobility.
Kat and I have been just having bad timing, alas. I headed on to Double Union, and got there fashionably late. There was wrangling with the elevator. It is a lovely space, and lovely people. There was various good chatting. I shared the inspirational story of the Randomizer learning to not pull things out his ass.
(Purple: "I have a new phrase. It is: 'When you pull something out of your ass, you know what you're going to get.' "
The best possible answer here is 'nothing', or 'hot air', I believe.)
I don't remember who it was who I promised an Internet Feminists Are Watching sticker to if I got more; remind me? Was it
norabombay? If Purple's officemate, a guy he's been friends with for more than a decade at this point, has got the wrong idea about the nature of my relationship with Purple, perhaps there needs to be some clarification. (I am not a subtle Lunatic. I am aware that my heart is often very visible on my ever-loving sleeve. But really. An engineer and a lunatic can be hugging-friends-not-kissing-friends even if the lunatic is carrying a non-subtle torch.)
This week might be less frantically busy than last week.
