Enlightenment, and Only Platonic Buddies Left Awake

Today was the best. In between the emailing and the wrestling with Outlook and all that, someone on internal IRC complained about the vagaries of the automatic lightswitches in one of the new buildings.

One of the other folks linked to a document he happened to have on hand, which had installation instructions and dip switch settings for the automatic lightswitches in our buildings.

As I emerged from my brief dive into those two pages (lacking an office with said switch myself, but needing to know more, especially about the wholly ridiculous feature where the goddamn thing BEEPS before it automatically turns off), Madam Standards showed up at the entrance to my cube. "Azure Jane, keeper of all knowledge?" she asked.

What she wanted, it turned out, was duct tape. I thought about it, then went fishing in my meeting bag.

"Oh my god, you actually have some?"

I didn't find it in my meeting bag. (And belatedly, I remember that it's actually in the post-it bag.)

"I guess some other kind of tape would do..."

So then I asked her what she needed the tape for. It turned out the problem was the light switch in her room was beeping, and it was driving her absolutely off the deep end.

My eyes lit up with a really disconcerting grin and I dove into the toolbox for my screwdriver and marched off to her office.

I shortly marched back out, popped my face into IRC, and asked how exactly you got to the dip switches. So I printed out the docs, marched back, and did just as I had been told. I was about to put things back, but the Norseman (who shares the office with Madam Standards) wanted to give it a go, and I left him to it, studying the manual and fiddling with the bitty wee switches. He dropped off the papers and screwdriver a bit later.

I added this to my treasure trove of office knowledge, telling any reader that the office electricians would most assuredly take a dim view of one unscrewing the faceplate, pushing the plastic switch cover to the side, popping it off, fiddling with the dip switches in accordance with the prophecy, and then putting it back together as carefully as one had taken it apart. One should file a help ticket instead and have the electrician do it. And Azz certainly did not have a screwdriver in the tool box, and said screwdriver absolutely could not be borrowed. (Mr. Zune is making plans for his afternoon's divertment tomorrow, and may or may not stop by my cube.)

It really was the best possible timing.


lb dropped by later, and was introduced to the current state of my jellybeans. We conferred about the possibilities for literal office politics (the politics of location, who gets what, and territorialism in a time of available hardwall offices which are not in a particular team's block). I conferred with my manager. We had many thoughts.


Purple returned from his hack day, and made a pun bad enough to bluescreen me momentarily. I wandered over, armed with the screwdriver and docs, plus a bonus cup of red-jello-flavored balls. He mentioned that I'd missed a trick -- the Office Depot bag filled with old as balls software, labeled "old as balls software" should instead have been called "old as balls software sack". I pointed out that without the "sack", it was plausibly safe for work, as no one had specified what kind of balls. They could have been red-jello-flavored balls! No one knows!

Purple wrestled with his laptop a bit. I was pleased that some of my suggestions were helpful. We chatted a bit. *sons of our fathers fistbump* There are many things that can be done with a phone-directory-accessible intercom, especially one accessible from without the phone tree. (This was Purple's terrible friend, mostly, the ex-shitlord, via a conversation about whether someone can be "sorta a shitlord", and where the line falls on that.)

If the topic comes up, Purple will disabuse Mr. Bananas of the notion that Purple and I are a "we". To be quite fair, it's reasonable to assume that when the minion from the other department comes by your office in search of your officemate around about normal-person leavin' time, that said other person might be about to leave with your officemate. It wasn't an offensive assumption. Just, it's a great idea to not have certain inaccuracies bounced around.

( misgendering and street harassment, more funny than scary )

We went back to it. We wrapped up around the same time. Purple came by my cube as per usual. I gleefully showed him the package from Rah! He peered at the neatly bubble-wrapped log of imps, then looked into the depths of the package with sudden bemusement. "June 23, 1868?" he asked.

I had, in fact, started giggling and insisted that I needed some of this perfume the instant I saw it in the Only Lovers Left Alive scent listing, and saw that (bonus) it was a white floral. ( BPAL, and Purple's birthday. )

We hit the parking lot and giggled over the guy who has a bot that announces when it's 4:20 every day. We were still standing there chatting when someone hollered out a car window, "What are YOU doing here?"

R had been off at an educational thing with not enough pizza (zero pizza), and was just carpooling people back. Little did she realize that this is actually a relatively sensible hour for us to depart!


Tomorrow: shenanigans! Whee!

Tomorrow:

Haul things out of car.
Do not forget Scarily Floral Bag or umbrella.
Wear tights.
Auto shop for tires.
Detail if there is time.

My tweets

• Tue, 20:31: Purple is not allowed to put a fence around his portion of the condo land.
• Tue, 20:31: Especially if that portion is in the pool.
• Tue, 20:32: Nor may he drill a well.
• Tue, 20:32: And fracking is right out.
• Tue, 23:16: RT @kiyala: Adulthood is looking at someone, thinking "I really do not like this man" and then NOT biting them.
• Wed, 08:31: RT @erinrileyau: Just saw anti-vaxxers referred to as the "pro-polio movement" for the first time. Love. It.
• Wed, 09:48: Very refreshing to chat about how much suicidal ideation bites with someone who has also been there. (Not a current problem, happily.)
• Wed, 10:55: #headcanon: Intern Maureen's complaint about the intern death rate is legit: well above the #nightvale acceptable rate (which is p. high)

Fish & Movies

Stopped in at auto shop this morning for the new tires. Got some quality podcasts-and-games time in. Also a large chunk of the emails that just needed reading and filing for work. Then I headed back home because I had forgotten The Bag, despite my reminder to myself about it.

Arrived at work in time for lunch. Didn't see Purple at the table, so I grabbed a sandwich and headed back to my desk, in time to see Purple make a super-late call for lunch. *grin* (I stayed at my desk because there were Things to be done.)

Outlook was being a pain in the ass, so I rebooted while I installed the network cable and switch for the collaboration table. I left it powered off, because there's no need to bleed power that nobody's using when the power switch is right the fuck there.

apraxial showed up after getting a bit (very, but she un-lost herself by the time I got to reception) lost, and we went back to my cube. She poked around it and asked questions while I cross-checked the seat assignments. I explained the easter bunny and reverse easter bunny situation with the peanut butter eggs when she found the first bag. In all she found six. She was very happy with the game.

Various co-workers stopped by; I introduced apraxial as my goddaughter. She got some practice using her new chosen in-person nickname.

We went back to the front desk to get her phone, which she'd forgotten in the hasty dash for the ladies' room.

Eventually it was movie time. We went by Purple's office to retrieve him, but he wasn't retrievable at that time. (apraxial seemed slightly startled to realize that the reason for our detour had been to see him, since the movie was the other way.) He mentioned that he might show up later, and that if I got a text with just one digit, to text him back with our location, as he migh have trouble finding us. I offered to text him back with just one digit, and demonstrated. (apraxial giggled in a slightly scandalized way.) Which of course would not help him find us unless I was waving it, he was correct.

The movie was cute. The lines for refreshments were less cute. The picnic blanket was useful. Purple showed up partway through, and sat almost out of poking range. (But that's why we have umbrellas.)

We headed back, and stopped by R's cube to say hi and introduce apraxial. Then I shepherded us off to the kitchen for water. R and Purple lingered a bit to chat while apraxial and I headed to my cube to make sure we had all the things ready. Purple came by to see us off.

There was a weird plastic thingy on my cabinets. I had wondered if it was a part of the thing, or whether it was just some thing. Purple thought it looked like a screw from a toddler's toy toolkit, and wondered if it was a signal that meant "You screw-up!" He carefully placed it on the edge of my cube.

"[Purple] darling," I said, with my eyebrows.
"Azure darling," he said, matching me tone for tone.
"What?"
"What?"
(many giggles)

So then I took apraxial home, with The Bag.

Despite flunking out of Chinese school, apraxial knows all the terrible words. Why? Well, because her mother has always used them while yelling at her...

Vash actually died on me while I was in the parking lot, which is new and somewhat worrying. I got him re-started fine, but I'm thinking we're going back to the mechanic's at some point soonish.

After dropping apraxial off, I headed back to work (chatting with norabombay all the way), where I did a few more things, corrected two errors I'd made (one not-updated email address, one thinking something was this week instead of next week), yelled at Outlook a bit, and then went over to help Purple yell at his Outlook installation. At which point he declared it quitting time, when everything was still terrible.

And now I'm home, and now it should be bedtime, but I should also probably brush my hair, because I'll regret it if I don't.