These have had to have been two of the toughest days of my life. For full details, you can check out my Help I need Asskissing lessons! thread. Basically, my evil plan to make people so scared of me at work that they quit bugging me has backfired dramatically - Jan called me into the office yesterday to tell me that she has received no less than *gasp!* 12 different complaints in the last two weeks from people who are too scared of me to come to me for help! Frankly I'm surprised she hasn't commented on my performance recently before this - I've been overburdened and have been slacking a bit and haven't been motivated to pick up the pace to get caught up, too enamored of just trudging along on the hamster wheel of stress I call my job. I was expecting people to complain - just not about my attitude, and not all at once!
Yesterday's meeting didn't go that well - I was a teary-eyed, sobbing, full on gulping mess and wasn't in my best form. I was feeling attacked and went on the offensive, arguing every single example she gave and defending myself until I was blue in the face. But she did agree to skip the write up in favor noting a verbal warning, so I don't feel that bad for it. I'm sorry but in the end I'm the only advocate I can count on. I'm not going to let myself get dumped on unfairly without putting up a fight. It's just not in my nature.
What truly sucketh was that I felt like she'd gone from ally to adversary in 6 seconds flat. But in today's meeting we worked it all out, I hope and identified where my apparently insane insecurity and paranoia was coming from (I was convinced she was only writing me up to gather ammo for firing me). We also identified ways she unintentionally contributed to the problem so I'm not feeling like I'm being hung out to dry. So I can go home, sex up my baby and catch up on the zzz's I lost last night obsessing over it.
The fucking dog, however has become obsessed wtih my womanly scents again. Maybe coming off b/c is making my smell more alluring - I dunno. She's actually putting all her new-found mental acuity gathered getting treats out of the mental stimulation cube I bought to keep her occupied during the day to use diggin my underoos out of the laundry bag in order to eat the crotches out of them. According to Curt, however she's now gone one step further - she actually got into my nightstand which I must have left cracked open today and killed Barney - my favorite ribbed purple dildo. May we please have a moment of silence for my silicone friend, who was discovered violently dismembered in the living room this afternoon. He will be missed.
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*So long Barney, dear old friend :(
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Freud Get Out of My Head
Freaky dream of the week: It's a sci fi. In space - very large spherical battleships. I've thankfully forgotten most of it, but here's the weird part I can't forget. For some reason testicles provide some substance that powers weapons. Grandma L. shows up with my dead Grandpa's huevos, which have been preserved by the miracle of modern science and recommends they use the smoother (i.e. hairless) one of the two, 'cuz when she and Grandpa used to have sex, she'd have an orgasm every time he "used that one ". WTF????? Am I channeling Freud or something?
Friday, November 21, 2003
Here Comes Santa Claus
How pathetic am I? A local radio station just made a big deal out of "Santa's making a big announcement @4:30", even had the traffic guy track his progress to the parking garage. Then Santa goes on the air and says "2003's been a tough year - we've got loved ones risking their lives in Iraq; the local economy's still not doing well, we had a little bit of snow last week - I think we need a little Christmas early. I hereby ask KLIT to start playing non-stop Christmas music starting right now!" then they play this song from a charity Christmas CD called "Christmas in the Northwest" which is cheesy in the extreme but very pretty.... and I started bawling. The chorus is "Christmas in the Northwest Is a gift God wrapped up in green" and it gets me every time. It's tough to be an atheist during the holidays. Sometimes I feel silly about how damned much I love the Northwest, and feel so proud to be lucky enough to have been born & raised here. My atheist Grandma F. used to say "If there is a God - she's right here. This is God's country - you want a cathedral? Look around!" Maybe that's why Oregon has the lowest % of people "practicing" religion in the country. I can understand craving heaven when you're ekeing your living out of a hard, dusty, blistering desert. But this is heaven on earth - I can't imagine anywhere better!
Maybe it's just PMS making me so emotional, which would be a shame - if you get impreggenated do you still get PMS?
I'd heard KLIT's promos that they were going to start playing Xmas music 24/7 again this year, but had NO IDEA it would be so freakin' early! One week before Thanksgiving?? Come on! But OTOH, I looooove Christmas music and for some reason I'm more "in the spirit" this year than I have been lately. Curt would love nothing more than to go get a tree THIS WEEKEND. So I'm groovin' out to Mannheim Steamroller's instrumental version of "Deck the Halls" right now - feelin' all the world like a twinkle light getting lit up for the first time. I can smell the pine now - maybe I'll give in. :)
Maybe it's just PMS making me so emotional, which would be a shame - if you get impreggenated do you still get PMS?
I'd heard KLIT's promos that they were going to start playing Xmas music 24/7 again this year, but had NO IDEA it would be so freakin' early! One week before Thanksgiving?? Come on! But OTOH, I looooove Christmas music and for some reason I'm more "in the spirit" this year than I have been lately. Curt would love nothing more than to go get a tree THIS WEEKEND. So I'm groovin' out to Mannheim Steamroller's instrumental version of "Deck the Halls" right now - feelin' all the world like a twinkle light getting lit up for the first time. I can smell the pine now - maybe I'll give in. :)
Thursday, November 20, 2003
13th Warrior
Can I just say that Netflix is the coolest thing ever? We watched the 13th Warrior again last night. I like this movie a lot, even though I somehow missed the goddess=evil imagery the first time around. Or maybe I just blocked it out. It happens. Anyway - the cannibalistic tribe who were mythisized (is that a word? If not it should be!) as non-human supernatural-like boogeymen leaves a venus figurine at the scene of a particularly gruesome murder. Then it turns out they are led by a serpent-goddess priestess; whose dreadlocked Medusa-styled head must be cut off (it is prophesied by an old crone) to make the bloodthirsty tribe quit attacking. Meanwhile, the protagonists are 1) an Arabic Muslim; and 2) 12 very "manly" Norse warriors. At first I'm thinking "great.... matriarch vs. patriarchal cultures and isn't it interesting which is painted evil?" but now I'm not so sure. Islam is a given but what about the pre-Christian Norse religion? Sure, they exalted the "manly" arts of war but they had some kick-ass female warriors and gods in their pantheon too, and I thought Celtic influence?. Aside from the cannibalism, the movie actually depicts what I'd think life would be like for the early Paleolithic European tribes who worshipped the Venus figures. They're associated with hunter/ gatherer societies, dwellings in caves and big game animals. So that fits.... but the last figurines only date to about 20,000 BC; and the movie takes place sometime after Mohammed (622 AD? but before the Norse were Christianized (around 1000AD?) so in the end perhaps it's just a "lost barbaric tribe" vs. "civilization" thing?? Still interesting, thought I discovered when looking for that link that this was based on a Michael Creichton book, Eaters of the Dead which was in turn, apparently based largely on Beowulf (as told from an Arab contemporary perspective). Damn - I knew I was missing out on something when we had to read fucking "Moby Dick" in 11th grade honors class instead of Beowulf & Chaucer as the "regular" class was doing. Fucking Hawthorne!
I's a College Draguate!
OK all you people quit giving me Hell - I finally went and picked up my college diploma today. It's only been 8 years - what's the problem? They've kept it nice and safe for me through countless moves, and were nice enough to waive the $30 or so in parking fines 5 years ago that caused them to hold it in the first place. So it's a win-win all around!
What motivated me? Well - there's a couple of annoying women in the office who strike up this tiresome UO vs. OSU rivalry every year just before their big Civil War football game. They drench the office in their school colors and are quite smug. This year I had enough! I felt the urge to point out that there *ARE* other universities in the state of Oregon, one of which I happened to have graduated from and feel pretty damn proud of myself. PSU has, in fact the largest student enrollment in the state. But we highlight education over athletics so our teams have to fight for their funding every year and will most likely *never* make it into the Pac-10 or other NCAAA (or whatever it is) big-time football league. The average age of our student body is 27 - about half are returning adult students juggling school, a job and family. When I was there we had one frat and one sorority each. OSU, on the other hand was the setting for the movie "Animal House" and appropriately so. We may be the youngest school in the state system (est. 1946) but we have the most dignified, mature student body.
It turns out we have far more PSU alums in the building than either OSU ir UO! Heh. So my boss Jan, the accounting mgr and I all agreed to buy some school sweatshirts and "represent" tomorow; and I got nominated to go to the campus bookstore at lunch today to pick up the shirts and other assorted memorobilia. So as long as I was there I picked up the old diploma. Such a simple, easy thing to do I don't know why it's taken me 8 years to get around to it. Oh well.
What motivated me? Well - there's a couple of annoying women in the office who strike up this tiresome UO vs. OSU rivalry every year just before their big Civil War football game. They drench the office in their school colors and are quite smug. This year I had enough! I felt the urge to point out that there *ARE* other universities in the state of Oregon, one of which I happened to have graduated from and feel pretty damn proud of myself. PSU has, in fact the largest student enrollment in the state. But we highlight education over athletics so our teams have to fight for their funding every year and will most likely *never* make it into the Pac-10 or other NCAAA (or whatever it is) big-time football league. The average age of our student body is 27 - about half are returning adult students juggling school, a job and family. When I was there we had one frat and one sorority each. OSU, on the other hand was the setting for the movie "Animal House" and appropriately so. We may be the youngest school in the state system (est. 1946) but we have the most dignified, mature student body.
It turns out we have far more PSU alums in the building than either OSU ir UO! Heh. So my boss Jan, the accounting mgr and I all agreed to buy some school sweatshirts and "represent" tomorow; and I got nominated to go to the campus bookstore at lunch today to pick up the shirts and other assorted memorobilia. So as long as I was there I picked up the old diploma. Such a simple, easy thing to do I don't know why it's taken me 8 years to get around to it. Oh well.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
So Curt's not delusional
The snow started here about 20 minutes after he called and it's still coming down. We have an official snow advisory in effect until 2:00 now. I'm not sure if that supercedes or compounds the Flood Warning. It's fun & pretty to look at until you have to drive home in it - so I'm hoping it melts before then.
Jezebel Got A Bad Rap!
Finally we get a REAL Oregon winter! The National Weather Service has issued an urban flood watch for Portland until 2:00 pm. Basic recipe for flooding: Take all the leaves that were dumped by a windstorm we had in the last few days, mix with the couple of inches of rain we're due to get in the coming hours and voila! Plugged storm drains and lovely urban pondscapes. Traffic, however sucks. But c'est la vie! Curt had the nerve to call to ask if I'd seen the snow on my way in. He must be delusional - nothing here but liquid wonderland. If there's any white stuff it's melting on the way down. His new office must be at a slightly higher elevation or something.
I got an interesting blast from the past this morning. My old flame & tormented Baptist fuck-buddy T. emailed from out of the blue to see if I'd tied the knot yet. I hear from him maybe once a year when he comes to town, works up enough courage to give me a booty call - the concept of which goes against all of his oh-so-earnest religious beliefs until he gets horny enough to develop some kind of justification that allows it. I really tried to convince him there was no shame in goold old honest, no strings attached sex but I couldn't quite overcome the logic of his minister. For a brief time before he moved away I deluded myself into thinking there might be hope for a real relationship, until he'd show up again out of the blue to get his obligatory shot off and inform me of his inability to develop a healthy relationship with whatever "good Christian woman" he'd attempted to date (with the intention of abstaining until marriage) after the last time guilt had catapulted him from my bed back to Sunday services. Sorry old chum but you're out of luck. I was done playing your Jezebel a long, long time ago.
Speaking of Jezebel - here's an interesting revisionist version of her story along the lines of
The Red Tent
I got an interesting blast from the past this morning. My old flame & tormented Baptist fuck-buddy T. emailed from out of the blue to see if I'd tied the knot yet. I hear from him maybe once a year when he comes to town, works up enough courage to give me a booty call - the concept of which goes against all of his oh-so-earnest religious beliefs until he gets horny enough to develop some kind of justification that allows it. I really tried to convince him there was no shame in goold old honest, no strings attached sex but I couldn't quite overcome the logic of his minister. For a brief time before he moved away I deluded myself into thinking there might be hope for a real relationship, until he'd show up again out of the blue to get his obligatory shot off and inform me of his inability to develop a healthy relationship with whatever "good Christian woman" he'd attempted to date (with the intention of abstaining until marriage) after the last time guilt had catapulted him from my bed back to Sunday services. Sorry old chum but you're out of luck. I was done playing your Jezebel a long, long time ago.
Speaking of Jezebel - here's an interesting revisionist version of her story along the lines of
The Red Tent
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Opus Returns!!!
Only 5 days and counting until the Return of Opus!!!! I'd forgotten how much I LOVED Bloom County as a young'un. Honey, if you're reading this.... tip for Christmas/ birthday gifts: Any any all Bloom County/ Opus books and memorabilia is always appreciated. Some people like Disney, others WInnie the Pooh.... give me Milquetoast and the Basselope anyday!
Why Do the Good Ones Leave?
Newsflash: Double Doh! Jr. has left the building. Resignation letter to follow. Another victim of the company owner's frequent grumpfests. Guess she couldn't take both him and the reborn CostMart dictators. Damn. Couldn't even keep it together long enough to retrieve her jacket and purse. Very sad. Jan's already expecting to inherit her mission to CostMart. She was already scheduled for a meeting with them in a 2 weeks.
The mystery, yet again is how Double Doh! Sr. manages to not get his incompetent ass fired. He's a weird duck. Seriously. Disabled in some unvoiced way. Rumor has it he has Tourett's; or Schizophrenia or something alltogether different and that the owner (Stan) feels sorry for him and is keeping him on until he retires in 7 years or so. He's prone to either a) pass out at his desk or b) have wild gestulating tirades out in the parking lot when stressed - the only audience the invisible demons in his head and the mystified eyes of the marketing mgr peering through her window - which faces the parking lot. His behavior is never quite so alarming as to warrant a call to 911. You never know if it's caused by an actual physical/mental condition or it's just an elaborate coping method developed to help him endure the Wrath of Stan, which he earns himself quite frequently. My hypothesis? Maybe it was *caused* by Stan to begin with and now he feels so guilty for mentally unbalancing this poor man he refuses to fire.
The mystery, yet again is how Double Doh! Sr. manages to not get his incompetent ass fired. He's a weird duck. Seriously. Disabled in some unvoiced way. Rumor has it he has Tourett's; or Schizophrenia or something alltogether different and that the owner (Stan) feels sorry for him and is keeping him on until he retires in 7 years or so. He's prone to either a) pass out at his desk or b) have wild gestulating tirades out in the parking lot when stressed - the only audience the invisible demons in his head and the mystified eyes of the marketing mgr peering through her window - which faces the parking lot. His behavior is never quite so alarming as to warrant a call to 911. You never know if it's caused by an actual physical/mental condition or it's just an elaborate coping method developed to help him endure the Wrath of Stan, which he earns himself quite frequently. My hypothesis? Maybe it was *caused* by Stan to begin with and now he feels so guilty for mentally unbalancing this poor man he refuses to fire.
Jumping Ship
Yesterday was another Jane Squat day. Though I did manage to get up early to attend and run the meeting I'd set up for Shelly, the Double Doh!'s and customer service to go over the latest bombshell Costco online through in our direction. Bottom line is, Costmart is run by a bunch of rigid dominating asswipes who must be half a dozen Roman dictatorial emperors re-born. We received a call on a Thursday that they wanted to go live on the following MONDAY with our rugs online - and the full EDI order fulfillment/ tracking/ autopay juggernaut that "oh, by the way" came with that decree. THe problem is, we don't exactly conform anywhere near the "ideal" vendor model they had in mind when they set up that system, and we don't fit. We don't manufacture our product ourselves; and sure as hell don't hold our own inventory or have any control over how it's shipped. So we're having to cajole/ armtwist *all* of *our* different vendors to change THEIR business model to make this happen; and beg for mercy from Costmart to give us some slack while we're making it happen. Which wouldn't be a problem except the person given responsibility for the arm twisting and mercy-begging is the Doh! Jr. (aka Lauri) who does a shitty job of impersonating an invertebrate. She has no backbone whatsoever.
In other news, it's Curt's last day at Aegis. He's jumping ship to join that other mortgage banking co. that has been recruiting him for months. No base salary, which is a little worrisome but the commissions are about 3 times better, they pay quicker, turns out they *do* offer full bene's; and they have much, MUCH better programs so he can sell to a broader market. The other guys in the office average about $4000/ month. We could live with that :)
Maybe our luck is turning - I won about $12 off of $5 spent on Lottery scratch it's the other day. I'll "re-invest" and buy more tickets - but the question of the day is, more scratch its... or Megabucks/ Powerball tickets instead? Decisions, decisions..... I did rather enjoy drifting off to sleep that night dreaming about what we'd do if we won a couple of mill. Buy the empty lot next door and build our dream house or remodel the hell out of our house? Maybe both? Curt said we'd just buy someplace new. I don't care if Grandpa the ex-commie was convinced lotteries were evil (selling empty hope to poor people). You've got to have dreams, don't you?
In other news, it's Curt's last day at Aegis. He's jumping ship to join that other mortgage banking co. that has been recruiting him for months. No base salary, which is a little worrisome but the commissions are about 3 times better, they pay quicker, turns out they *do* offer full bene's; and they have much, MUCH better programs so he can sell to a broader market. The other guys in the office average about $4000/ month. We could live with that :)
Maybe our luck is turning - I won about $12 off of $5 spent on Lottery scratch it's the other day. I'll "re-invest" and buy more tickets - but the question of the day is, more scratch its... or Megabucks/ Powerball tickets instead? Decisions, decisions..... I did rather enjoy drifting off to sleep that night dreaming about what we'd do if we won a couple of mill. Buy the empty lot next door and build our dream house or remodel the hell out of our house? Maybe both? Curt said we'd just buy someplace new. I don't care if Grandpa the ex-commie was convinced lotteries were evil (selling empty hope to poor people). You've got to have dreams, don't you?
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Fuck Miss Manners!
I got the thank you's done! WOOHOO!!! And under my 2 month self-set deadline (just barely). Do men just not understand the importance of this stupid tradition? I mean, I'd have happily blown it off in favor of calling everyone and thanking them personally but by all that is Holy - that is just.not.done by a well-mannered bride in society. Curt said he'd already thanked most of his famliy by phone so he didn't see the point in sending a note. Of course he wouldn't! How could he possibly know that this act alone will determine my worth in *some* of his family's eyes? I don't know why I care - I shouldn't, really. I mean, I said "Fuck it" to the white dress, "Here Comes The Bride", traditional ceremony - why can't I say "Fuck it" to the thank you's, too? I guess because I truly *am* grateful for the gifts we received and want to express that. What's so amazing is that according to Miss Manners - brides have ONE YEAR to send thank you's (note - brides, not grooms.... of course). But my family doesn't give a shit about Miss Manners. I was destined to hear "so have you got your thank you's done?" at each and every contact with them until the deed was done. The nagging would not have stopped. So sue me - I caved into societal pressure.
The Buddhists have an interesting take on gratitude. I still haven't quite figured it out - but basically it's the theory that you should give for giving's sake - not with any intent to receive something in return (like a stupid THANK YOU CARD!!). But then, nobody's explained this philosophy to my family yet - and I don't know if they'd go for it in any case. Though Becky has started studying a little about meditation and Zen - so maybe there's hope.
The Buddhists have an interesting take on gratitude. I still haven't quite figured it out - but basically it's the theory that you should give for giving's sake - not with any intent to receive something in return (like a stupid THANK YOU CARD!!). But then, nobody's explained this philosophy to my family yet - and I don't know if they'd go for it in any case. Though Becky has started studying a little about meditation and Zen - so maybe there's hope.
Friday, November 14, 2003
Mr. Rogers for President (of the company, that is)
I swear to Maude I had an entry in here yesterday! Apparently drafts are deleted if you don't post them the same day? Hmmmm.
Didn't make it to the priory Wed - maybe tonight instead. Also did not get thank you's out. This weekend I SWEAR!!!
How in the hell am I getting dragged back into this whole freaking area rug/ CostMart online fiasco??? I thought I'd ducked that headache when Shelly got back from vacation??? Oh yeah... I got a panicked visit from the junior double doh after Shelly had left for the day. Somehow she'd gotten it into her head that I was involved with all the work Shelly's been doing to iron out the business process side of things. Basically, Shelly can't finish her programming until some fundamental questions are answered by our buying dept. and CostMart. But nobody's thought of these yet. Example: how are we going to handle orders with multiple rugs that are backordered and therefore ship one at a time? CostMart is demanding that we give them *a* tracking number - but we'll have several. Turns out, part of the "requirements" nobody gave us before demanding we go live was that we have the ability to ship ALL orders at ONCE - no partial shipments or backorders allowed!!! This is supposedly true for BOTH our online and in -store programs. If a rug is out of stock we're to notify EVERY single one of the hundreds of stores and costco online so they can take the rug in question down from their sample rack and make it unavailable for purchasing.
So what's the senior doh!'s take on this (John)? "Oh, the 4-6 week order leeway should take care of the backorders" (nevermind that it does NOT, currently - we very often have orders backed up well beyond 6 weeks) and just *pretend* that we ship all at once. I'd like to know when Microsoft built in "wishful thinking" capability as part of their development platform. Maybe in Mr. Roger's neighborhood of Make Believe that shit might work, but not here in the real world!. Whose going to magically intercept the calls from the irate customers that get partial shipments? Big Bird? Bert & Ernie?? No, it's now going to be CostMart that's taking these calls so they're GOING TO FIND OUT pretty damned quick that we're lying to them. What a fucking moron. I would kill to find out what John has on Stan that's keeping him from getting his ass fired. He's totally and completely incompetent!
Junior Doh! is just about worthless. She's a buyer - all she knows how to do is find pretty rugs and get the best deals on them. Stan can go blue in the face demanding she & the rest of the dept. step up to actually "manage* their respective product lines, but they have no clue - and end up begging us to do that part of their job for them - then resentful as hell when we refuse. Which would be a good tactic, you'd think except for the fact that nobody, least of all Stan is actually holding them accountable for their intransigence and incompetence. Oh no - he saves that for us.
Didn't make it to the priory Wed - maybe tonight instead. Also did not get thank you's out. This weekend I SWEAR!!!
How in the hell am I getting dragged back into this whole freaking area rug/ CostMart online fiasco??? I thought I'd ducked that headache when Shelly got back from vacation??? Oh yeah... I got a panicked visit from the junior double doh after Shelly had left for the day. Somehow she'd gotten it into her head that I was involved with all the work Shelly's been doing to iron out the business process side of things. Basically, Shelly can't finish her programming until some fundamental questions are answered by our buying dept. and CostMart. But nobody's thought of these yet. Example: how are we going to handle orders with multiple rugs that are backordered and therefore ship one at a time? CostMart is demanding that we give them *a* tracking number - but we'll have several. Turns out, part of the "requirements" nobody gave us before demanding we go live was that we have the ability to ship ALL orders at ONCE - no partial shipments or backorders allowed!!! This is supposedly true for BOTH our online and in -store programs. If a rug is out of stock we're to notify EVERY single one of the hundreds of stores and costco online so they can take the rug in question down from their sample rack and make it unavailable for purchasing.
So what's the senior doh!'s take on this (John)? "Oh, the 4-6 week order leeway should take care of the backorders" (nevermind that it does NOT, currently - we very often have orders backed up well beyond 6 weeks) and just *pretend* that we ship all at once. I'd like to know when Microsoft built in "wishful thinking" capability as part of their development platform. Maybe in Mr. Roger's neighborhood of Make Believe that shit might work, but not here in the real world!. Whose going to magically intercept the calls from the irate customers that get partial shipments? Big Bird? Bert & Ernie?? No, it's now going to be CostMart that's taking these calls so they're GOING TO FIND OUT pretty damned quick that we're lying to them. What a fucking moron. I would kill to find out what John has on Stan that's keeping him from getting his ass fired. He's totally and completely incompetent!
Junior Doh! is just about worthless. She's a buyer - all she knows how to do is find pretty rugs and get the best deals on them. Stan can go blue in the face demanding she & the rest of the dept. step up to actually "manage* their respective product lines, but they have no clue - and end up begging us to do that part of their job for them - then resentful as hell when we refuse. Which would be a good tactic, you'd think except for the fact that nobody, least of all Stan is actually holding them accountable for their intransigence and incompetence. Oh no - he saves that for us.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
I'm developing a sinus/tension headache as I type
Might be the contacts I wore today - I usually save them for weekends and evenings out. And I'm cold in my little hole in the wall. Waaaah!
Somebody on the Phoenix posted this really cool link to help rescue animals: animal rescue . Every time you click the button it sponsors some kibble. But looking around there are some pretty terrific gifts & items for sale where the proceeds go to either animal rescue, or rainforest protection, or breast cancer research, etc. It's going to be a lean Christmas but I think I'll buy all my presents here.
In other news I'm happy to report that since I've been off the ortho b/c my libido's made a bit of a comeback. Now if we don't conceive it'll be Curt's fault - he's back on Wellbutren which I think is bringing his down, again. Seems like we can never get a break. We're doing OK on the new diet - I'm rather enjoying coming up with creative ways of cooking healthier. If it just weren't so damned expensive!!!
It's been awhile since we've been to the priory. We should really go - it's just so hard to drive somewhere after a hectic day and frustrating drive home fighting traffic. And my meditation is slipping - I don't remember to do it at all on the weekends, or in the evenings and don't do it very long in the mornings. I need to work on that.
I think I'll head home a bit early and try to get some actual thank you's out.
Somebody on the Phoenix posted this really cool link to help rescue animals: animal rescue . Every time you click the button it sponsors some kibble. But looking around there are some pretty terrific gifts & items for sale where the proceeds go to either animal rescue, or rainforest protection, or breast cancer research, etc. It's going to be a lean Christmas but I think I'll buy all my presents here.
In other news I'm happy to report that since I've been off the ortho b/c my libido's made a bit of a comeback. Now if we don't conceive it'll be Curt's fault - he's back on Wellbutren which I think is bringing his down, again. Seems like we can never get a break. We're doing OK on the new diet - I'm rather enjoying coming up with creative ways of cooking healthier. If it just weren't so damned expensive!!!
It's been awhile since we've been to the priory. We should really go - it's just so hard to drive somewhere after a hectic day and frustrating drive home fighting traffic. And my meditation is slipping - I don't remember to do it at all on the weekends, or in the evenings and don't do it very long in the mornings. I need to work on that.
I think I'll head home a bit early and try to get some actual thank you's out.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
We're being Invaded by Masked Bandits!
The case of the disappearing post. Let's try this a 2nd time.
I've been much more productive lately at work. It helps that Timmy's got our new superfast terminal server up finally so I can actually DO something from home. For some reason I'm feeling much more motivated - could be the insecurity with Curt's job is making me really, really grateful for mine? Ya think? It is a pretty sweet job all things considered - even the money. I get to do what I enjoy and feel good about the company and service we provide. Ann tells me Stan's long term plan is to turn it into an ESOP which would be nice, and not go public. I've kind of been missing old D&B lately and working in an employee-owned shop would feel good again.
Curt was planning to stick it out at Aegis until the first of the year. His boss is really helping him so he doesn't get fired, but now they're yanking the self-generated leads commission and that's kind of the last straw. He's going to have lunch with a mortgage broker who really wants to hire him but they don't have benes or a base salary, which is troubling. But the commissions would be much, much better and their market isn't so pigeonholed so he'd likely be much more successful.
So I've apparently adopted a few more critters than I'd intended to. The family of raccoons that live in the neighbor's tall fir tree stand has finally gotten up the guts to brave the kitty door. It may just be one of 'em, I can't tell from the muddy little paw prints they're leaving on the dryer. I knew I was starting something when they began showing up to share the alfresco meals I was leaving for Jack in the carport last winter. Now that he's coming in to eat, I guess they think they can to!
As long as they're being respectful guests and not destroying things or eating ALL of our cat food, I'm trying not to be too concerned. It's just hard to get over the thought of there being WILD ANIMALS coming into my house. Curt, on the other hand is more than a little concerned that I'll start petting them and they'll end up in bed with us, too. Wish I had a Flo Control to discourage the buggers.
I've been much more productive lately at work. It helps that Timmy's got our new superfast terminal server up finally so I can actually DO something from home. For some reason I'm feeling much more motivated - could be the insecurity with Curt's job is making me really, really grateful for mine? Ya think? It is a pretty sweet job all things considered - even the money. I get to do what I enjoy and feel good about the company and service we provide. Ann tells me Stan's long term plan is to turn it into an ESOP which would be nice, and not go public. I've kind of been missing old D&B lately and working in an employee-owned shop would feel good again.
Curt was planning to stick it out at Aegis until the first of the year. His boss is really helping him so he doesn't get fired, but now they're yanking the self-generated leads commission and that's kind of the last straw. He's going to have lunch with a mortgage broker who really wants to hire him but they don't have benes or a base salary, which is troubling. But the commissions would be much, much better and their market isn't so pigeonholed so he'd likely be much more successful.
So I've apparently adopted a few more critters than I'd intended to. The family of raccoons that live in the neighbor's tall fir tree stand has finally gotten up the guts to brave the kitty door. It may just be one of 'em, I can't tell from the muddy little paw prints they're leaving on the dryer. I knew I was starting something when they began showing up to share the alfresco meals I was leaving for Jack in the carport last winter. Now that he's coming in to eat, I guess they think they can to!
As long as they're being respectful guests and not destroying things or eating ALL of our cat food, I'm trying not to be too concerned. It's just hard to get over the thought of there being WILD ANIMALS coming into my house. Curt, on the other hand is more than a little concerned that I'll start petting them and they'll end up in bed with us, too. Wish I had a Flo Control to discourage the buggers.
Monday, November 10, 2003
Introducing the Double-Doh!'s....
I've gotten exactly jack squat done at work today. That should be a standard unit of measurement, you know - "jack squat" - or maybe "jane squat" to be equitable.
In any case - I've christened the Buying Dept. the "Double Doh!" department and it seems to fit. Thankfully they've all been out of the office this week but boy did they try to fuck us over before they left. Jan asked them to do one simple thing to help us enable CostMart's recent bug up the ass decision to put our area rugs on their website. Find out why they'd need the freight broken out as a separate line item from the sku (it's not with the in-store area rugs). Because depending on their answer, this could have significant impact on us when all the data starts flying electronically. Like we won't get paid for the freight - on *either* the online *or* online rugs. They basically lied to our faces in the meeting to discuss and said "sure" but then when Jan asked them the next day what CostMart had said they not only hadn't asked, but flat out refused to do so. Basically they'd called the meeting in the first place to try to dump the whole damned project in our laps (as usual) - nevermind that it is very much NOT our job to deal with Costmart or our vendors) and when we didn't take the bait they said "fuck it - IT/Acctg will be forced to deal with it when it all falls apart after we go live".
Once Jan figured out their motives she put the fear of Stan (the owner) into Lauri without the John-Doh! buying manager part of the equation in attendance and got her to play nice. One call to CostMart determined it was a non-issue. See how hard that was?
In any case - I've christened the Buying Dept. the "Double Doh!" department and it seems to fit. Thankfully they've all been out of the office this week but boy did they try to fuck us over before they left. Jan asked them to do one simple thing to help us enable CostMart's recent bug up the ass decision to put our area rugs on their website. Find out why they'd need the freight broken out as a separate line item from the sku (it's not with the in-store area rugs). Because depending on their answer, this could have significant impact on us when all the data starts flying electronically. Like we won't get paid for the freight - on *either* the online *or* online rugs. They basically lied to our faces in the meeting to discuss and said "sure" but then when Jan asked them the next day what CostMart had said they not only hadn't asked, but flat out refused to do so. Basically they'd called the meeting in the first place to try to dump the whole damned project in our laps (as usual) - nevermind that it is very much NOT our job to deal with Costmart or our vendors) and when we didn't take the bait they said "fuck it - IT/Acctg will be forced to deal with it when it all falls apart after we go live".
Once Jan figured out their motives she put the fear of Stan (the owner) into Lauri without the John-Doh! buying manager part of the equation in attendance and got her to play nice. One call to CostMart determined it was a non-issue. See how hard that was?
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