http://tompurdue.livejournal.com/295928.html has an amusing sticker.
http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3381 -- non-political, for some: why star wars fans hate star wars.
http://community.livejournal.com/techsupport/1200479.html -- non-political; "We may be experiencing some connectivity issues at $CAMPUS, please be patient, the fire department is on the way."
http://wibbble.livejournal.com/2584222.html -- non-political; the new face of surly tech support. My roommate: "He looks like he's about to eat somebody."
Via petermorwood: http://www.superdickery.com/oneshot/51.html -- non-political. He warns for beverages. I think I will too.

Fwd: You might be an Arizonan if...
( Read more... )

Management asked me what my costume was. It was definitely notable, because I was wearing all blue, and even that is very notable.

My meeting went very well. I was in the same room as the meeting previous to mine (large room that divides into four; in the corner diagonal from the one where the meeting was). That one was notable for Obso1337 Manager having his son (about 4 and so cute and energetic) with him. The guy was trying to have the meeting, but l33t 2.0 was being very 4 and needing Daddy and needing entertainment. Finally Obso1337 Manager asked me to get l33t 2.0 playing a game on the computer. The 'net didn't load on that machine, so I used the Help Menu Exploit to load Windows Pinball. L33t 2.0 didn't know that game, so I started showing him how to play it. Inevitably, this led to team play of a one-player game, with l33t 2.0 operating the Z left flipper and me operating the / right flipper. There was discussion of whose turn it was to hit the ball. It was completely delightful.

That was not necessarily the most 100% efficient use of my time, but when one of the managers is the childcare for his son and there is a Big Cheese Meeting, that manager is going to be at that meeting, even if the Office Monkey does wind up being interim "here, you keep him quiet" person.

At the start of the meeting that I was to be at, Management remarked that I would be a remarkably good teacher, and had I ever considered that, especially in Special Education. Evidently I am very good at explaining things, and very good at patience, and very good with kids.

The meeting that was mine went well, despite the lack of Access on the laptop of the Big Cheese. The laptop of the Big Cheese was the machine that we were working with for the thing, and communication was so not happening, all across the board. If I'd known that I was the one arranging for all the equipment, I would have done so. I didn't know that I was, and it was almost a Baaraan Show. (That's a reference to a complete and total childhood humiliation, the sort of Public Speaking Gone Wrong experience that is the stuff of nightmares and the reason why I dreaded all reports/public speaking type things until high school. Trauma starts at age five or so...) Fortunately, it wasn't. We got the projector; we got the Big Cheese's laptop; we got my presentation and a copy of the DB on my memory stick; we made sure that my memory stick had no unfortunate images or unfortunately named files on the root directory (very important); we got me with my water bottle and knowing the contents of my database by having re-done a query specifically for show purposes in the two hours prior to the meeting.

My PowerPoint presentations are legendarily good. This one had a nice and subtle background, a harmonious color scheme, subtle animation, good content, and relevant illustrations. Pretty pictures are always of the good. This was very successful, because it wasn't flashy, but it did showcase my skills with the medium, and I didn't have to overtly control it, and then there was a pretty screen to put up at the end to invite discussion. I was going way too fast, but they slowed me down, and it came off (I think) as high-energy and excited rather than pushy or nervous.

Management had me come over to her office to help her with some e-mail issue. It was one of those things where my help wasn't entirely necessary, but I did that anyway. It was good to have some decompression time. Management is much with the love for external hard drives, and is techier than she strictly has to be, but doesn't realize it. She is totally impressed that I made my own external hard drive, even though the technical skill required for that is a HD, an enclosure, and a screwdriver. (Speaking of which, I really need to find the power cable for that. It's probably under my desk.)

I voted. Voting was uneventful. I produced relevant ID, got my ballots, played with my marker, turned it in, had the electronic scanner beep at me, took the long way around home as traffic = for the lose, and got home.

I'm behind on nano. Management knows about nano, and is totally impressed that I'm trying it.

I wound up on zhzh with the crew, hanging out in #election and accidentally hitting myself with chocolate.

Woke up after 7 hours sleep. (Went to bed an hour late.)

Dream had featured rope-climbing, weird buildings on one of the blocks around home. Wood pile sort of construction in a shed, and we'd climbed up and had to get down. There were ropes that we were climbing down, and the wood or plants had all turned into nasty composty rubbishy muck. Obso1337 Super was there. He also happened to be about 8 months pregnant. This was a perfectly normal thing according to the dream. There was no backstory; it just was. Upon waking up, my first thoughts were along the lines of "WTF?!" and my second thoughts were probably very amused.

Obso1337 Super seems to think that the pair of search terms "womens" "testicles" turning up a crazy number of hits means that women have testicles. I attempted to explain to him that he was using two separate search strings, not one single one, and therefore his results meant jack. He is Always Right, though, in addition to being male and 40-ish, so nothing's going to change his clothes the mind he's already made up. This was probably a contributing factor to said dream. Nothing says mpreg like women's testicles.

Have been noticing a disturbing technical trend. Wrote it up for the workplace. Hope to hear back on it. Darkside will viciously mock one of the pieces of code involved.

Came in for my shift as scheduled. Since my social life revolves around

1. time with Darkside
2. writing group
3. LJ
4. #lj_support

and none of those were conflicting with work, I elected to remain for the second shift.

There is general bogglement over the UnF spreadsheet. The thing is cracktacular, and will be more so after I wind up customizing it for each team. It looks complex at first glance, but really it is not entirely. I realize that $ISSUE_SIDE_JOB has a lot more paperwork than some jobs. I wound up customizing the Team 1 version of the UnF spreadsheet. I left it in their folder for them to play with.

Snarky Lady has started calling me Joanie, and it is spreading. (She started this because the Old Gum Lady Phone Goon calls me that. The Old Gum Lady Phone Goon likes me. It's good to be liked.) It almost feels like home. Added to that is the fact that some of the new people and temps are starting to wonder if I live there... Pink Shirt Guy said that I might as well.

It is entirely bizarre that my entire department is looking up to me as the Tech Person. I can troubleshoot most of the common problems of the department! If not, it is not usual that someone else can fix it. I am already reasonably proficient with entry-level dialer puzzles.

Next Sunday will be another potluck. This time, we must explicitly #include Comic Pirate Super. He was not called properly last time.

My schedule got fried up, scrambled, and served over toast. I'm half done with my work week this week at this point. My usual work week is Thursday through Sunday. (Four days. Usually over 40 hours at this time of the year.) This week I'm working Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Work is insanely busy. ( Read more... ) I fear becoming too sarcastic for my fellow supervisors to stand.

Other than that, I'm plugging away on the new book, which is now fueled by my work-related burnout issues, rather than hampered. I'm not sure what my options for the upcoming season of insane holidays will be. I have limited transportation, so Thanksgiving may be rather more quiet than it was last year. (Besides, Lady Malfoy hasn't invited me, and I'm not sure if she'll extend an invitation this year, given that they may want a very quiet family Thanksgiving, and I'm still dubious as to my Family status.)

"Behind on sleep" seems to be a chronic status and part of the job description, rather than an emergency state. This does not make me happy, but not many things have been making me brilliantly happy of late, not that stick. Last night I was very punchily giggling over, in turn, the stuff I was writing, and the Arcata Eye police blotter. The two bear a certain stylistic similarity to each other.

We've now got two walkers on the floor bearing the name David R. We have to distinguish them by hairstyle -- ponytail or flattop? Flattop David seems to have geeky leanings in his spare time, and has near-infinite patience with what I politely call "operator error" on the part of some of our less technically savvy employees. I approve. I have no plans to collect either of these Davids, though both of them are distinctly cute.

Darkside has not been about much lately. I'm hoping he's in this weekend. It's difficult for me to articulate exactly how much he means to me. It's difficult for me to describe how much stress I shed in one minute in his company. It's difficult for me to find time with him. If all else fails, I'm going to be using my e-mail.

I seem to be evolving into the sort of character who can work in an office. This is a crash course in office politics (and, in my case, how to avoid them). ( Read more... )


[edit: Oh, yeah. And I'm sick. Like, snot-nosed ill.]

Seven and a half hours before the workplace calms down enough for me to do anything besides work my tail off. Seven and a half hours without any appreciable downtime.

It's good to be appreciated, right?

Notable incidents of the day included the cup with cookies in it; Stressy College Chick Shift Ops Super attempted to hand them off to about three different other supervisors. By the third attempt, I could no longer keep a straight face.

One of the employees here, a phone goon, looks like he's wearing Groucho Marx glasses, because he has thick dark eyebrows, dark-framed glasses, and a mustache. The effect is comical if you're not expecting it.

Cute Geek Super to Stressy College Chick on tampering with her food on the dinner run: "I won't spit in your food -- my little friend will spit in your food." Silly Cute Geek Super. (It amuses me that Cute Geek Super is one or two years younger than I am.)

Figment's monitor report came back with a decent number of stars on it. I grinned when I saw that, and got a star out of my Check-In Equipment Box and slapped that on the monitor report as well. The supervisor for the job (who hasn't got a nickname yet; I think he should perhaps be Phone Call In Super, because he has a wife and an assortment of friends who always call in for him) started giving me a hard time about it. This led to Rev. Nice Super adding to the hassle, and then Stressy College Chick as well. I turned an interesting color.

There was discussion of metal vs. wood baseball bats to be used as a blunt instrument, and whether or not the person over which the metal baseball bat is whacked can hear the nice "ping" sound when the bat collides with their head. (Clone Name Super said that yes, they do; his cousin had a close encounter.)

So, an interesting day.

Tomorrow I'm a phone goon; I may well take it the heck off, because I'm so exhausted. (Yep. I checked with Stressy College Chick, and both of us are taking it off. Yay!)