The Lunatic is in my Head

Let's start with the Internet of Shit. I had an Internet of Shit moment right before going to bed, which resulted in me on the phone with Belkin going "I don't have time to give you my name and email, I just want to turn off my light so I can go to sleep and I don't want to move two shelves" in the most pathetic of tones. I have a relatively ancient iPod Touch which won't run the latest version. In the not-latest version, which I have, when there's a "cloud outage" there's a friendly notice that you can still use the app to control your switches on your local network. Except ... the notice covers over the controls entirely, and it's iOS and unlike Android there's no motherfucking back button. And however you clear running apps from memory in whatever old-ass version of iOS I have, it wasn't how the customer service agent was describing. After a few rounds, we tried rebooting. That worked.

Then I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm, and very sensibly stopped reading a thing in the middle of the thing and went off to the conference when my snooze-alarm told me that I had 1 hour until setup started.

I got there 15 minutes early from the planned unlock time. I saw another little (white?) car pull up and it was the chair emeritus.

By the time someone got there to let us in, about 6 of us, maybe more, had gathered. I chirpily spun it to CE as "having crucial hallway conversations", which made her laugh. (Context: she had no idea how to pose this in a helpful fashion.)

The morning got off to a rough start because nobody quite knew what they were doing, and everyone was duckling-ing after me, but fortunately past-me had Written Lists, and also had printed them out, and had broken things done in terms of tasks as well as roles, because I had foreseen that Morning Stuff might have an over-abundance of people trying to do one role and not enough of any of the others, so I sort of decreed that Morning Stuff would have everyone pitch in until people and food started showing up.

I think I was right about needing to buy bowls, for the record. :-P

The food arrived and that was okay. People started checking in and that was okay. The paper check-in list worked like a charm with no terrible woe, and having a ticket type that said essentially "Volunteer - Check in with Azz" served to redirect everyone who was a speaker or volunteer to check in with me after doing the normal check-in! Which was good!

I am so proud of my volunteers. They came together and did the thing, and even when I was completely incoherent from trying to do all the things at once and make all the decisions at once, they followed my lists and I was able to delegate them to do things! All I had to do was say "Yes, that needs doing. You, do #1. You, do #2." and people did it!!!

Instead of 3 tables for the 3 lower-tier sponsors, there were 2. It being bad form to make people share a table, I liberated 2 of the little round tables from the speaker green room, hauled them out, got someone to help me scootch the two beverage coolers onto separate round tables, then carried off the 6' table to the sponsor area of the lobby to deploy.

We were missing a dedicated person on the food, but I was able to fill in at the expense of having someone not at the front desk 100% of the time. It worked partly because there was a recruiter table there, and it was a group that is on long-standing great terms with the organization. So there was that! We needed someone at the front because the event space was not super private -- randos would barge up, and would occasionally wander back to try and scam free food.

The event did not start on time. The first panel ran over. These combined made the carefully-crafted morning schedule go kerplooie. My amazing room wranglers sailed right on through and set timers to follow the timeframe, and everybody was okay. I needed to print 3 sheets of "and this is what is in this room when" instead of 2 -- one for each entrance, plus one for the room-wrangler.

Just before lunch, we'd nearly run out of bottled water, and were down to our last half-bag of tangerines. I was summarily dispatched to Costco, and picked up two flats of bottled water and two bags of tangerines. I think I could have safely have got 3. I had very good luck with parking (partly because I decided to try for the furthest-away spots) and got there and back in record time.

Lunch arrived during the second passing period (of three), so the schedule pivoted: grab lunch now, hit third tech talk, then have a brief social-and-food-if-you-missed-it-earlier window and then dive straight the fuck into the workshops.

There were vegan-and-gluten-free meals which they'd got from the shop across the way; we worked it by setting the whole paper bag on one of the lesser-traffic tables and writing "VEGAN & GLUTEN FREE" on the bag in Sharpie. This way it was visible to people who'd need it without asking, very clearly reserved for people who needed it, and not sitting there and looking visibly delicious for people who ignore signs.

Midway through the afternoon, about an hour before the earliest time the tea (coffee and tea and cookies and mini bundt cakes, with non-gluten-containing chocolates and tangerines and Kind Bars) was set to arrive, R was fading fast and complaining that she needed sugar. (She had also underslept.) I towed her gently along after me into the green room and retrieved some fruit jellies for her, from my Magic Bag of Trader Joe's Food Which I Made Sure To Get So Nobody With Atypical Dietary Needs Would Starve. She started to perk up, and eventually did cave and had coffee.

The workshops let out early, so tea time happened a little scattershot, and everybody piled into one room for the last panel and wrap-up. I started packing up and breaking down, knowing that it would be a while and otherwise I wasn't doing anything else. I used the now-empty trays from the cookies to separate the leftover sandwich halves into more easily carried portions that someone might take home without worrying about where to put it or if they were going to get through all of those. I claimed one. (After lunch they went in the fridge. Thank goodness for fridges.)

Various people stayed to help clean up. The actual most involved part was me sorting out my stuff back into its boxes, because I had brought A Lot Of Things, many of which were useful. See: tape, label maker, markers, other tape, other markers, and gods know what else.

(acidhelm rocks, incidentally.)

There was a small convocation in the parking lot and then we-all split our separate ways. R had been invited to the party at phone's, but was too tired and was going home directly. My way was in the direction of the party at phone's. ;)

Last weekend: pleasant dinner with Purple and Ms. Antisocial Butterfly, followed by FOGcon and Seanan's book launch party and more FOGcon.

There followed a week of mostly face-down in Freelance Conference Stuff, interspersed with the odd doctor here and there.

I entered into a dialogue with one of the doctors about gender, and how I don't want any. The upshot has included a formal entry of a note to this effect in my demographics section, my proper honorific (Reverend), and swapping my gender marker to Unknown. We'll see what havoc this plays on my medical records.

This came up in discussion with Purple, and some extensive clowning followed. The upshot of all that was that I may actually have a short-form description of my actual gender, which is: Langford Death Parrot.

Thursday evening, my general feeling of malaise resulted in a short walk down to the hot tub, where I soaked my ergonomically annoyed muscles and listened to some neighbors chat about this and that. One of the horror stories involved some really disturbing behavior from a random small child involving a watermelon. I went back and googled; I didn't find anything about a kid (not surprisingly), but I did find a story about an increasingly acrimonious divorce case which had included the following escalating bad behavior:

( Includes implied threats of violence. )

Today was beer bash at Virtual Hammer, followed by dinner.

Purple had a baby shower before beer bash, which was why he was late. (The baby is a co-workers; he's not pregnant.) I warned him about the bread pudding fruit pies (not recommended) and he emerged about 15 minutes later, having been waylaid by a random conversation with a random friend. He is a sociable guy! He was slightly chagrined at having taken so long when he'd said he'd be right back, but I can't complain, since I benefit from this habit of his fairly significantly. (He's very sociable, and observes that I can be very sociable when I know someone, but rather less with new people.)

phone arrived, and Purple had just wondered if Mr. Tux were going to show up at all. I looked at my watch and said that it had just gone five; Mr. Tux didn't usually arrive until at least then. Sure enough, Mr. Tux emerged a few minutes later. R wandered through and chatted with the crowd. My hair and my earrings and my headphones all match. It's great!

Surrealist Band Guy dropped through and visited for a bit.

The fire pit did not light. Someone, not me, will need to file a ticket.

I'd been working steadily on the current dreamsheep, and Purple asked was it the nose I was working on. I sort of distinguish between "nose" and "chin", although in sheeps it's pretty much the same area. Purple took that distinction, and ran with it to some pretty terrible places. He later contemplated the topology of my original plan, and asked some fairly salient questions about the double-eversion phase and terminology related thereto, and also the stealth phase. "Why does this sheep have a green asshole?" The nose vs. chin question led down a chain of logic which ended on etsy with the phrases "docking muff" and "machine washable" (very important, that last).

We'd thought that Ms. Antisocial Butterfly wouldn't be joining us for dinner, but she called. She doesn't leave town until tomorrow. So we decided on a dinner location (Mountain View) and topic (pizza).

The rubber chicken for help system ticket 1,000,000 has seen better days. I had handed it off to Purple upon leaving, but it was in bad enough shape that he really did not want it around. We ceremonially consigned it to the trash, after a last commemorative picture.

Circumstances under which gender-policing can be actually hilarious: ( mention of genitals, non-explicit. )

Purple is great and I want to keep him. We headed off for dinner.

Purple and I circled the first parking garage and failed to find a spot. (I got there first, I believe.) We went up the second, and finally found spots on the fourth floor (out of five possible). I found mine, then he arrived and parked just as I was getting out of my car, so I waited for him while he juggled bluetooth and phone and he joined me at the elevator. Ms. Antisocial Butterfly had arrived on time, and we were a little delayed for once.

Ms. Antisocial Butterfly disapproves of any cracker-eating jerks who give her initials a bad reputation.

We had salad and wings and pizza and scurrilous discussion. Purple commented on weaponized earrings, after observing how my earrings do a delightful little shimmy when I shake my head. We iterated on that a bit. I draw the line at explosions near my ears.

Walking back, he helped me liberate my long loose hair from my briefcase strap, pulling it a bit in the process and apologizing. His weekend plans include heading off with Cousin Antisocial to see the aunt and uncle and helping them haul stuff around, then coming back on Sunday and presumably collapsing a bit. I may inquire after sociability on Sunday, but am not expecting necessarily anything. :>

I have no idea what I'm doing for April Fool's Day.

First, so about my new temp position: I do light customer service for a company handling large-group fuel discount cards.

The large group I work with is people who bought or leased a car & got a fuel discount card as their promotional benefit.

So yesterday this guy calls in. There are some situations where really all you can do is pause and say, "Wow, that guy sure has a lot going on in his life." No single one of the ensuing moments was enough in itself, quite, but the combination...

He calls to ask: since he returned the leased car already, may he still use the fuel card? Actually, yes. When he lets me get a word in edgewise, I advise him that we must send him a new card.

When I can get a word in edgewise, I explain that also the fuel card is linked to a credit card, and the old one we had is expired, we must update. You can often tell when to just ask for the new expiration date. This was not one of those times.

He begins saying, "Gimme your card. Gimme your card. Gimme your card." very brusquely, over and over to someone in the room with him.

Then he asked if it had to be his name on the card. Which it does not, it can also be a partner. "As long as you have permission to use it," I added.

In the middle of the next round of "Gimme.", he got another thought. "Does it have to have money on it?"

I confirm it must have sufficient funds to cover all fuel purchases.

"Oh. (to her) It's the child support card, we can't put money on it."

I agree that another card would be best.

He puts me on "hold" by putting that phone down and calling someone else on another. I can hear his side of the conversation, in which he tells the guy there is this great deal he should get in on by allowing him to use his credit card. See, you can get gas and get paid back for it to the credit card! (Wrong. No refund, just a lower bill 'cause $SPONSOR pays the rest, for X gallons until program end.) And it was NOT A SCAM, JESUS, FINE, WHATEVER, SEE IF I HELP YOU OUT.

He returns & I attempt to clarify his misconceptions. He is doubtful because that is "not how it worked before" but I am firm. He audibly deflates, but rallies in his resolve to go get a prepaid debit card to use. IN HIS OWN NAME.


That is a guy with a lot going on in his life.

I do not think that I betray any confidences by mentioning that $WORKPLACE has pulled in me and my counterpart because things have become very busy for them very fast. So our training is proceeding at a breakneck pace, and we are doing a grab bag of things, including stuff that involves answering questions from their clients.

One exchange, yesterday, went approximately thus:

$CLIENT: "Do you know about X?"
Me: "Uh, I can look it up."
Him: "Are you new?"
Me: "Yep, they just pulled a few people in because things were very busy."
Him: "This is what I need."
Me: "Hmm, yes; have you also considered ___?"
Him: "OMG WOW I NEVER CONSIDERED THAT YOU ARE A GENIUS I HAVE BEEN IN THIS BUSINESS 30 YEARS AND YOU HAVE ONLY -- uh, when exactly did you start?"
Me (somewhat smugly): "Thursday."
Him: "All right, Thursday, so what else have you got for me?"

I have been slowly but surely festooning my cube with little hand-drawn index card signs. The first one that I put up on my first day had my (given) name. The second one was a little rocket ship. The third one was an admonition about the proper operation of the Clippings extension for Firefox. And so on.



After the conversation with that guy, I pulled down my name-card and added "Thursday" to it. :D

I have applied to a temp agency for placement to get myself some work. Part of the process is completing skills evaluations online. I passed the typing test just fine. However, I have run smack up into technical limitations. Somehow, it does not think that either my uncle's machine or my laptop is worthy and/or capable of running its fine Java applets.

I suspect that by the time I'm done hammering on this thing and making it work, I'll have more than earned a more technical place in the workplace than the tame clerical tasks that they provide staffing for.

On the other hand, I might not actually be worthy, and might not actually get it running properly. I might have to admit defeat and trudge myself down to their office, present myself as unable to smack a browser into submission, and use their computer.

Meanwhile, I'm getting dizzyfaced enough that I suspect that even should I get it running tonight, I shouldn't complete the Excel and Word assessments tonight.

All is not lost, however. I type 68 wpm, it seems, on a keyboard I don't like, with my hands at the wrong angle, and running a little ahead of myself in reading the original, and overthinking it a bit.