Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!

I received the happiest news I’ve received in quite some time last Monday! I was accepted for the promotion and won’t be unemployed come December! This is excellent news on so many levels.

-I won’t be out scavenging for jobs with like 10% of America.

-I get more responsibility in a job I already love. Well, love is an exaggeration because it’s not like I would rather be at work than at home or anything but as a means of bringing home bacon while doing something that is interesting and challenging and where I don’t have to deal with the public, who can often be crazy or angry or both, I like my job A LOT!

-I will continue to be able to go to school and receive tuition reimbursement.

-The extra money is going to make life a lot easier and less stressful.

-It really re-invigorates my work ethic, which had been lacking lately after the layoff blues.

While this week has been overwhelmingly positive, it has also been a very uncomfortable one at work. I’ll admit when I was called in to see my manager after about 5 consecutive people who had just come out of there red-faced with either rage or tears, I put my chances of getting the job about as high as my chances of being offered a swimsuit model contract. Therefore, I whispered quietly to my co-workers “My turn.” When I was informed that I was being offered the position it was all I could do to stay in my chair. Of course I was told to keep this confidential- an absolute impossibility. I had two choices; lie or give their stock BS answer of “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it,” which is exactly the same as saying “Yes, I got the position but I’m going to awkwardly avoid the topic.” I chose option #2 so I could sleep at night.

It was a relief when they finally announced the results. They are kind of shocking. About half the positions they are filling with external people. I am also one of only 4 band 25s to survive. Even three of the band 30s didn’t make the cut. Making matters worse, there is some serious controversy going around the office because two of the people who got it are young, attractive women just out of high school. I know these two people very little so I can’t comment on their qualifications but I can understand people being upset. I’m obviously not going to detail some of the jokes going around about why they got the job as I’m sure you can imagine what people are saying. I’m pretty sure none of it’s true and the hiring leaders simply saw a certain attitude and drive in them that they were impressed by but it’s gonna be an ugly 2 and a half months of raw emotions until all the laid off employees’ last day.

A lot has happened since I last wrote in my blog. Some good, some bad, plenty of ugly. I supposed the biggest news is that I received layoff notice last month. Really the majority of our department received did so it’s not like I was singled out. My position will be dissolved December 18. As much as that sucks I have to be thankful for the huge amount of notice. I’ve never heard of that much notice before and I can be appreciative of that. There are also other things to be hopeful for. There are quite a few positions that are replacing those that have been eliminated, which I have applied and interviewed for. I should be finding out if I will be getting one of those within the next couple weeks. It would mean a promotion if I did. If I get it, things are looking quite bright. If I don’t, some dark days might be ahead.

This summer has been punctuated with some strange occurrences. Hamlet swallowed a fish hook in the Uintas. A driver on a rampage forced another driver on the road into a telephone pole nearby, destroying it and taking out our power for several hours. Keaton finally got fixed at a mobile spay/neuter clinic. Cindy and I hung out with a drunk Mark Kobel and Shauna Lake at a gay night club. I could go on and these are all stories worthy of a good blog entry so I might have to go into more detail later.

For now, I’ve got another piece of news— I’m starting school today! I’m doing something which I should have been doing a while ago and taking advantage of my company’s significant tuition reimbursement to go for my Masters. Despite the layoff notice, Amex is at least honoring the reimbursement for this semester. That’s why it’s a lot more riding on this job I applied for than just money, it’s my education as well. Anyways, I’m taking two classes this semester; a computer class and a math class. The first should be cake. The second scares me a bit. It’s got kind of an intimidating name, Quantitative Analysis, and I’m going into it as a person who had gotten my math generals over as quickly as possible so that I could go on with my English classes and never have to think about another math problem again. Well, times have changed and now I’m determined to get an Accounting Master’s to balance out my education (employers aren’t exactly throwing gobs of money at English majors) and it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of math. And my math skills are rusty. And by rusty I mean a 100 year old bright orange nail in some wrecked ship at the bottom of the ocean rusty. I was hoping to never have to think about parabolas again.

It’s gonna be a long long road to a Masters (I’ve got 14 classes to take BEFORE I even get into graduate school) and I’ve never tried the going to school while having a full-time job thing so I’m sure life is going to be hectic, but I’m very serious about getting there.

Laffy Taffy

I have decided what my dream job would be. I would love to write jokes for Laffy Taffy. I really think I would be good at it too. I don’t think this because I consider myself good at coming up with jokes. I think this because apparently no one good at coming up with jokes works for Laffy Taffy. Someone brought a bunch of Laffy Taffy to work today and we’ve been laughing alright but only at how horrible these jokes are. Here’s a small sample of jokes that have been appearing on my wrappers:

Why did the witch fly her broom? Because her vacuum was too heavy.

When is homework not homework? When it is turned in.

And my all time favorite: What is yellow and has a mask? A Lone Lemon.

Huh?

The Break Room Lady Who Isn't Vindictive

I met a very irritating woman a few minutes ago. I went into the break room to heat up my lunch. Someone else was just getting their food out of the microwave. I looked around the room for a couple seconds to see if anyone was waiting for the microwave but everyone is just sitting at tables so I put my food in. I put the timer on 1 minute. I stand back and after about 15 seconds, some woman probably about my age sitting at a table says “You’re lucky I’m not a vindictive person or else I would stab you with my fork.” I glance over at her and notice she is looking at me and I am completely confused about what is going on until she adds “I was in front of you waiting for the microwave.”

My food was getting close to done now but to be polite, I ask her if she would like to put her food in. Then she gives me a sarcastic “No no.” I argue that she would have been less vindictive if she just went ahead and stabbed me with her fork instead of sitting there glaring at me for the next 30 seconds until my food was done. So anyways, I have probably made a permanent break room enemy but at least she’s not vindictive.

I have recently spent my lunches perusing some of the most hilarious online reading material since Chuck Norris Facts. All two people that read this blog need to go check out www.the-editing-room.com. It has all of these movie scripts that sarcastically trash everything that comes out and makes you see movies in a whole new light. You gotta see it for yourself to know what I mean!

The greatest time of the year!

I decided that if it was possible to freeze the weather of one day to use over and over forever, that day would have been yesterday. Just a few small puffy clouds in the sky to admire. The temperature was cool yet not too cool to wear a t-shirt. No strong winds. Great sunshine to breeze ratio to keep your body completely comfortable. I’m not nearly as outdoorsy as some people but not to be outdoors yesterday evening would be a total waste!

It’s sad how short that perfect transition between Utah’s freezing cold winters and blistering summers are. The next 4 months might as well be named “hot,” “hotter,” “hottest,” and “no seriously it gets even hotter than that.”

I’ve had the strange urge to surf lately. I’ve never surfed in my life and have never been that crazy about beaches yet now I want to go live in a summer home by the beach and surf all day every day all summer long. I think I’ll do that. Oh wait… I live hundreds of miles from any beach and have a wife, three furry children, a job and a mortgage. My summer plan is foiled!

Blockbuster Time!

I’m a big fan of midnight premiers for huge releases. There’s just something about the energy in a crowd of superfans that makes you enjoy the movie, even if it isn’t very good. I was going to midnight premiers even in the days when it was a pain in the ass and you had to wait in line for hours and hours followed by a sometimes nasty rush for decent seats with jerks trying to save large rows of seats by themselves.

Now, reserved seating makes it about 10 times more convenient to go to premiers because you can show up whenever you want. It’s so nice to show up at the theater 15 minutes before the show rather than like 5 hours. Lack of seat reservations is the main reason that I think Century 16 sucks aside from more uncomfortable seating and crappier screen resolution and Megaplex is the way to go. Unfortunately Megaplex is far away and Century is literally a couple blocks away.

The last two times I’ve been to Megaplex were for very uncrowded shows and there have been people sitting in the seats we reserved. Something about this is extremely aggravating to me so maybe I don’t have road rage but I have theater rage. It would have been very silly to kick them out of the seats since most of the theater was empty but seriously, they reserved their seats before us and obviously selected different seats so are they just going out of their way to be a-holes or what? I wouldn’t be surpised with teenagers the way they are these days. I’d be willing to bet 10 bucks right now that our reserved seats will be occupied for the next show we go to on Friday and I’m getting to the point that I don’t care whether all the seats around them are empty, those people are getting out of our seats because someone needs to take a stand! It’s out of control and you don’t see it happening at classier theatres like Capitol and Pioneer.

Anyways, it seems like it’s been a long time since a movie came out that was big enough to get me excited. But now it’s getting close to summertime again and it’s blockbuster time! Wolverine, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Transformers 2, G.I. Joe, there’s just too many big movies coming to name and I plan on seeing lots of premiers this summer. I’ve already bought tickets for Wolverine and IMAX Star Trek, oh yeah!

It's a conspiracy!

I’ve been obsessed with this movie for a couple days now. It all started a few years ago when I saw in the news that the actor playing Andre the Giant in his biopic, Matthew McGrory, died during filming. So this project seemed pretty much cursed from the beginning but I wanted to see it because I’ve read about Andre the Giant’s life and it is pretty fascinating and would make an interesting movie. Then I heard they cast a new lead actor who is like 7 foot 7 named Daniel Gilchrist and resumed production. I just recalled the other day that this movie ought to be finished by now so I checked IMDB and, sure enough, it came out last October.

But here’s where the mystery begins- it seems no one that has seen it has lived to tell of it. I’ve googled it extensively and there are no reviews and not even a single legitimate claim that anyone has watched it. There is more mystery surrounding this thing then Roswell. Netflix has the movie in their database but it can’t be rented. The trailer for the movie can be found all over the place, including YouTube, yet no one is actually able to verify the full film’s existence. This is a full-fledged conspiracy! I have a few theories of what the explanation could be:

1- The movie is so horrendously bad that all viewers died of disgust in the theatres and the government had to step in and plan a huge cover-up operation to protect those related to the movie and their families from a bloodthirsty public.

2- Everyone who had seen the movie was secretly killed by hit men hired by the movie’s producer in order to keep them from spreading the word of this horrendous movie and ruining his reputation.

3- The movie was so horrendously bad that all theatres refused to offend their patrons by showing it.

4- It’s an enormous hoax that managed to fool film websites all over the internet.

I just don’t know, but someday I vow to uncover the truth behind Andre: Heart of the Giant!

Weather Report

It's exactly halfway through April and it is snowing outside. That's all.

The True Story of the Easter Bunny

Everyone seems to think that the Easter Bunny is as fictional as Santa Clause. Yeah right… like your parents could hide eggs that well. No, the Easter Bunny is completely legitimate. The reason he doesn’t make public appearances is simply because he doesn’t quite have that gentle and compassionate appearance that Santa does. The fact is that a cute little bunny is cute because it is little. But a bunny the size of Shaq is scary as hell! I researched the Easter Bunny well and the fact is that there was a time when he did like to visit the kiddies face to face. But it never seemed to go well. Kids were pretty traumatized and parents were too. The following picture was taken at the Easter Bunny’s last public appearance ever. The most popular theory is that the United Nations got a hold of this photograph and sent a secret communication to the Easter Bunny that he could hide all the eggs and candy and baskets that he wanted but if he was caught hanging around with any children ever again, they would have no choice but to arrest him and imprison him at the local zoo.

I really have to feel sorry for the Easter Bunny because he really does love the kids but he will always have to do it from a distance.

Smoking

I’m feeling like doing a bit of philosophical rambling today. It all started with a coworker, who has been going on and on for a month about how she is finally going to quit smoking starting the weekend of April 4. She really seemed to be getting the word out and psyching herself up for it. I’ve been trying to encourage her as well.

Actually that brings up another rant. I’m surrounded by smokers at work and I have no problem with smokers as long as they are respectful enough to only smoke outside or other designated places where non-smokers don’t have to breathe their smoke. After all, most people seem to do something or other that is detrimental to their health (myself included) and smoking just happens to be theirs. I’m just really thankful I never got into it because I’ve heard how damn hard it is to quit. I don’t think smokers should be punished in any way for their habit but I certainly don’t think they should be rewarded either. Well it’s hard to ignore the fact that the smokers in the office are probably on break at least double the amount of time I am. They go out and smoke at least 5 times per day and they are gone for a good 15 minutes. I only get two 15 minute breaks per day. How is this fair?

Anyways, back to the coworker. Well she claims that she went all weekend without a smoke. Yesterday, she actually went out with the other smokers and watched them while she chewed her gum, which was a bad idea in my opinion. This morning, I ask how she’s doing and she said she had to give in last night because a cigarette sounded so good with her beer. A whopping 2 and a half days! Now she says she is going to smoke the rest of the week and start again this weekend. Sure…

Yet I can’t really blame her. It’s just like any other habit in life that is so damn hard to quit. And one little misstep and you figure you might as well jump off the wagon for a while and start again someday. It’s ridiculous self-defeating perfectionist thinking that many of us just can’t seem to escape. Take diet for example. I’ll decide that I’m going to start eating really healthy tomorrow, meaning several small low-fat, high protein meals per day. But then I’ll be halfway through the day and find out someone brought a big tray of cookies to work. Since I’ve never been able to turn down free food, I’ll have to help myself and then I’ll say “Oh well, I’ve already had a cookie, the day is shot. Might as well get pizza for dinner and have some Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.” It’s so stupid because it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I’d just gone on eating healthy but I make it a big deal by blowing the rest of the day.

I wonder whether it is more difficult to quit smoking or to quit eating food that is bad for you (meaning food that tastes good)? Even though I’ve never smoked, I’m guessing that quitting the bad food is more difficult because you have to eat something and every time you eat your boneless skinless chicken breast and carrot sticks, you’ll be reminded of what you’re not eating—a big yummy bowl of mac and cheese or big juicy cheeseburger and a heaping plate of salty fries.

Like having a smoke, there also seems to be a big payoff in giving in and eating badly. They don’t call it comfort food for nothing. I notice that there is a distinct difference in the way I feel after a healthy meal or a bad meal. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to the healthy meal as well as the obvious benefits. I have more energy for sure but it’s more restless energy than productive energy. I’ve noticed that it’s more difficult to concentrate and I’m just not as relaxed after a healthy meal. I’m guessing this is mostly withdrawals that a smoker would get after replacing a cigarette with a nicotine patch and it will pass after enough time. Unfortunately, food seems as much a part of a social life as conversation. If you think about it, every date, every party, every family get together, and every social work gathering always centers around food. The second question after anyone is invited to anything seems to be “What will we be eating?” At least someone trying to quit smoking doesn’t run into a platter of cigarettes and lighters everywhere they go and they won’t starve to death if they quit cold turkey. Just saying…

2008ers vs. 2009ers

I’m kind of frustrated about the WONDERFUL 2009 1st time home buyer’s credit. I feel like we lost $8,000 even though we never actually had that money in the first place. We did our taxes last night and had heard from a few people that the credit was retroactive. Well, we quickly found out it wasn’t and we were only eligible for the 2008 credit which is basically just a $7,500 loan. And that seems like just what we don’t need… more debt. The frustrating thing is that if we had waited just 3 more months to buy a house, we could have gotten a free $8,000. Just 3 months! As frustrated as we are I can’t imagine how someone who bought their house in late December feels.
Anyways, if I know anything about money, I know that you never turn down an interest-free loan. In fact, that’s exactly what the Travelers Cheques I investigate every day are… an interest-free loan to Amex that ends up making them a lot of money. So we’ll just have to take our pitiful little 2008 “credit” and envy all the lucky bastards who waited a little longer…

Sickness

I have been surrounded by sickness for quite a while. The person in the cubicle to the east of me got sick. Then the person in the cubicle to the north of me. Than the west. And then Cindy. I’ve been popping Vitamin C like crazy but to no avail. You just can’t escape that much sickness.

It’s funny that, at least for me, I’m given half a days notice or so that I’m gonna be sick. I just get this weird feeling the night before a morning that I will wake up sick even though I have no symptoms at all. Last night I was in the kitchen grilling up some lunch for today and I just knew that my time was coming. And it wasn’t just because Cindy had been filling up the house with sickness for several days, I just seem to have this weird tingling sensation in my shoulders that tells me to enjoy my next few hours of non-sickness because I will be suffering soon.

It wasn’t that bad when I woke up and it still isn’t that bad. Just a bit of a sore throat, a little achiness, a little coughing. I think it’s going to be the most annoying kind of sickness, where you feel 20% sick for 5 days instead of 100% sick for 1 day. I hate that. I’d prefer to just knock it out in one day of feverish bed rest and move on with life. I don’t like being just barely un-sick enough to go to work and suffer through the day. Oh well, at least the weekend is coming.

The Power of the Puggle

Place: The dogpark. Time: 6:15 PM, sunset. Temperature: Semi-Chilly. Windchill factor: 13. Hamlet, half-beagle, half-pug, all attitude. As he stared up, yet somehow down, at the massive bully of a Rottweiler, a spark of confusion flickered ever so slightly across the Rottweiler’s big brown piercing eyes. The Rottweiler redoubled his efforts, forcing all the intensity he could muster into that hellish glare. The others had run. All of them. Even the lab the size of a horse. What was wrong? What was happening? The puggle didn’t budge. No it wasn’t just that, the puggle was somehow gaining on him. Or perhaps growing larger and larger, not physically but psychologically. Where is the fear in this little dog? From what infinite well of confidence does this portly little beast derive its courage? The Rottweiler couldn’t take it any longer. He shuddered, consumed by terror. This dog park had a new king. There was nothing left to do but flee and beg for mercy. Even before the Rottweiler could turn, the puggle was on top of him, nipping viciously at his heels as the two sped halfway across the dog park. The Rottweiler would bully other dogs on other days but not another 10 seconds would ever go by when he didn’t give the gate a passing glance. For he would always dread the return of a portly puggle named Hamlet.

Burj Dubai

Something that many people may not know about me is that I am obsessed with skyscrapers. They totally fascinate me. The strange part of this is that I haven’t even been to the cities with the highest skyscrapers like New York and Chicago. I am determined to get to New York as soon as I can manage it though.

There is just something about one building that rises hundreds and even thousands of feet into the sky that blows me away. I think it would be awesome to be sitting in my office looking out the window and the cars below are so small you can barely see them. And to know that there are like 100 floors of people below you! My building has only 4 floors and I still feel like I hardly know anyone outside of my room. Imagine a building with 100 floors of people!

Well, for those who don’t follow skyscraping news which is probably anybody reading this, I am really excited about this RIDICULOUS building called the Burj Dubai that is nearing completion in Dubai! The way that skyscrapers usually go is there will be one that is the king of the world for quite a while such as the Empire State building. Then a new building will come along and just barely nudge it off the thrown by an extra couple of floors or a few dozen feet such as the World Trade Center. And then another building will again reach just a tiny bit higher like the Sears Tower and take the title away again.
Yeah well this new monstrosity doesn’t give a crap about all this baby steps nonsense. It’s not just gonna set a new record it’s going to absolutely obliterate it! Get this… the Empire State Building is 102 floors. The Sears Tower is 108 floors. So what is this building gonna be? 114? 116? Try 160! The thing is going to be more than half a mile tall! I don’t even know how it is possible for a freestanding structure to reach this high and be safe but it’s gonna be awesome and I’m somehow going to have to travel to Dubai sometime after September when it is completed to see this insane thing for myself.

Marley and Me

Tuesday was a date night for Cindy and I. We take turns planning them and it was my turn. I was in the mood for a little light-hearted comedy (especially one with animals) so I thought Marley and Me would fit the bill. It started out very funny; especially for those who have experienced owning a dog firsthand. Then about halfway through, I’m convinced that some other director took over because it did a complete 180. Don’t’ read this if you plan on seeing this movie but first, Jennifer Aniston has a miscarriage, then she has to quit her job and then her and Owen Wilson start to fight constantly and he starts going through a mid-life crisis while she is going through hell at home and they are on the verge of splitting. Then it starts to get depressing. Marley starts to get old and at one point twists his stomach and goes out into the rainy night to die. Owen Wilson manages to find him but the veterinarian says he probably won’t even live through the night.

At this point I have developed a lump in my throat that lasts pretty much the rest of the movie. Marley lives through his condition and we have to watch his health deteriorate more and more until finally he has to be euthanized. And we have to watch every gruesome detail of it with the goodbye speech and the needle and the eyes slowly closing for the last time… I’m pretty sure this was the saddest movie I’ve ever seen in my life! I was depressed pretty much the rest of the night.

The next night, I watch Million Dollar Baby, which many consider to be one of the saddest movies ever. It was a very good movie but really didn’t make me that sad at all. It really got me thinking. Isn’t this completely illogical? Here we have a woman in the prime of her life who is seconds away from fulfilling her dream of winning a championship boxing title having a horrible accident and becoming completely paralyzed. Then, all she wants to do is die so she asks her coach to kill her and keeps trying to bite on her tongue and commit suicide until he finally gives in and EUTHANIZES her with what looks like the same needle that is used on the dog. This is a much more tragic story than a dog that has a very happy life and then is put down peacefully in old age is it not?
What is it about animals? You can watch 1,000 people get tortured or shot or stabbed or blown up and it doesn’t even faze you, but watch 1 animal go through the same thing and you are traumatized. Is that not incredibly strange to anyone? I would almost think of myself as a bad person except that everyone I’ve asked has felt the same way. Poor Marley…

The Demented Wizard of Oz

So I stumbled upon this site at www.audiobooksforfree.com. Anyone who knows me knows that if it’s free it’s for me and audio books usually cost at least $25. The selection is not that great but there are a lot of classics on there and this ought to keep me entertained for a while. Out of curiosity and because I haven’t seen the movie in so long, I’ve been slowly listening to the original Wizard of Oz at work. This must be a pretty tiny book because the audio is only about 3 and a half hours long. It seems like the average novel has more like 20 hours of audio. I’m a little over halfway through now and I’m actually kind of shocked and disturbed for several reasons.

First of all, you know how they say that the book is always better than the movie? Simply not true. This book is awful! A lot of parts are a lot different from the movie and thank goodness because there are some truly ludicrous storylines in this thing. There is also some stuff that is incredibly violent and that maybe kids shouldn’t be reading. For instance, do you know how the tin man really became the tin man? The Wicked Witch of the East put a curse on him that caused him to hack off all of his body parts one by one, then his head and then whatever was left of his torso after that until a tin worker came along and found this bloody mess and saved his ass by turning him to tin. I’m not kidding! It’s kind of demented really.

Then there are all these crazy violent battle scenes in the book. The cheerful, sweet Tin Man you know from the movie is pretty much more like the Terminator in the book and decapitates whatever he can get his axe on, including dozens and dozens of wolves, a poor wild cat just trying to catch a little mouse for dinner and even himself! The Scarecrow isn’t much better though. I just listened to a scene where a bunch of crows try to peck him and he kills like 50 of them by squeezing and twisting their necks until they die. I’m not making any of this up… read it yourself if you don’t believe me. It’s making me kind of sick because I don’t like woodland creatures being slaughtered by the hundreds like this. This book is kind of evil and I’m afraid what gruesome and disturbing thing these supposedly loveable characters are going to do next.
I want to know what was going on in the head of the crazy dude who decided 70 years ago that this was the best material to use for the next great family musical. I also want to know how it is possibly possible that it actually worked out in the end.

Work

As much as most of us like to talk about how much we hate work, it can also be a very therapeutic place. All other aspects of your life can be overflowing with chaos and uncertainty, but when you come to the office, it’s just business as usual for a while and it can really calm you down and get you thinking more clearly. I can think of plenty of times in my life when I was going through a rough patch and I craved work. I would even show up to work for no pay just for the distraction and that sense of calm. That’s all… just a short observation.

Hooray for corporate policies!

There are things about working for a giant corporation that are just maddeningly absurd!

Basically, the company requires all employees to submit their goals for the year to their boss. Then the employee review and rating at the end of the year will depend partly on whether we are able to accomplish these goals. It sounds logical enough but the system is horrible.

First of all, we don’t get to customize our goals based on what we actually do… oh no. Our leaders send us our goals and we pretty much put our names on them and send them right back. The idea is supposed to be that we can do some revisions and even add some personal goals of your own but I’m convinced that the horrible form we use for this makes people just give up on attempting to make changes of any kind. To illustrate, the form was created in MS Word and has boxes where you fill the information in. The goals and descriptions that are already there fit the boxes perfectly. But here’s the fantastic part—these boxes DON’T get any bigger or smaller when you modify the data. In fact, if you add text to a box it will push all of the text from the whole column down so that it starts a huge trainwreck of overlapping boxes. Want to add new rows of goals? Good luck unless you are an MS Word expert and can manually insert extra text boxes to the form.

But it gets far worse than just the form. Our goals are basically the same for all employees with the same title in the department. This is fine for other teams that handle the normal workload, but I’m on the SPECIAL team. The truth is we often don’t have a single clue what we will be doing day in and day out. We might have no special projects that need to be completed in a day (rare) and can help with the regular workload or we might be losing our minds from all the work that is popping up. And everyone on our team specializes in a certain area so we are almost never actually working on the same project. Yet, here’s the kicker… the company requires everyone on the same team to have the same goals! And mind you these aren’t general “Complete all necessary work quickly and efficiently” goals… they have to be very specific about the quantity of work being done. For the teams handling the regular workload, this is fine. They do pretty much the same thing all day every day.
But of course they attempt to come up with a list of the same goals for our team as well, an IMPOSSIBILITY. It’s like trying to base the performance of cops, firefighters, security guards, and medics on the exact same criteria. Yes, they all serve the public but in completely different ways. So in order to get the best rating for the year, one of my goals from the geniuses at the top is to work an average of 3 files per day. The regular teams can do that… no problem; their files aren’t nearly as complex and time consuming as ours. People on my team might even manage that if they get lucky and get small, simple files and don’t have any special projects they are working on. But the fact is, we rarely even GET that many special files per day let alone work them! I’m so busy with my special projects that I’m lucky if I complete 3 files in a WEEK! Of course we complain to our leaders about this and they complain to their leaders, who complain to their leaders but it all comes down to “our goals are due now so just turn them in as is.” So I just sent goals stating the equivalent of “I am a doctor who will treat 300 random patients this year and my goals for the year are to cure 900 patients of salmonella.” Fantastic…

I’d say my spilling average is about as low as most people. Maybe 1 major spill every 3 months and 1 minor spill every 2 weeks. Even though there are only 2 categories of spills, spill math can be kind of difficult. For instance, if I sit down with a bowl of cereal and it slips out of my hand and covers me with soggy cereal, is that a major spill or a minor spill. The answer depends on many factors which involve many questions. What am I wearing? Do I have to be anywhere soon? Are we low on paper towels or stocked? Carpet or wood floor? Dogs nearby? Milk/cereal ratio? Shirt absorbtion? Embarrasment factor—Anyone around? I have been in this scenario multiple times and, depending on these factors, they’ve been both major and minor spills.

My major spill of the last 3 months involved not tightening the lid on a carton of liquid laundry detergent enough while leaving it on its side overnight. I don’t remember a spill of any kind in January but yesterday and today, I have spilled no less than 3 times. And if you add in the embarrassment factor mentioned above of all these being work spills, they could all be put into the “major” category. When you put all this together, it looks like I am not allowed to spill again until 2010.

First, I’m at my co-workers desk yesterday while she is on break searching for certain papers when I knock over her mug of iced tea. I am a really talented spiller so I managed to avoid any essential paperwork or electronics and keep the pool contained around the mouse pad, which absorbed much of it. I desperately hurried to get it cleaned up before she got back, which I actually managed to do, but there was no hiding the soaked mouse pad. Busted!

Today, I am grabbing my yummy (and healthy) lunch of minestrone soup out of the fridge and as I’m carrying it back to my desk partly by the tupperware lid (terrible way to carry something), it comes plopping off and the soup goes all over the very center of the carpeted aisle. After scraping as much as I could into the garbage, the remainder sat right where every person in the room walks past it probably a dozen times per day looking like fresh puke. Apparently the maintenance crew had better things to do than MAINTAIN a clean work environment because they didn’t show up for their work order all day.

Oh and I wasn’t done yet… I still hadn’t even touched my own desk yet. So after getting my replacement lunch and a coke from the cafeteria, I promptly gave the bottle a nice elbowing and emptied a quarter of it over my desk with that nice loud carbonation fiz sound that can be heard several cubicles away. It’s just a good thing that I am an amazingly talented spiller and somehow the pool of sticky soda literally stopped millimeters short of my important paperwork. Amazingly no one seemed to notice this last one so people only think I’m really clumsy rather than incredibly clumsy.

Blogging Responsibly

3 and a half years. That’s how long it has been since I have made a single blog post of any kind. Why? I really don’t know. I love to blog. I spent countless hours in my early college years blogging. I may have spent more time blogging than studying. So maybe I quit for the best. I don’t think people understand what an all-consuming addiction blogging can be. I was part of a blogging community where everyone has their blogs on this single message board and everyone was great friends so what you would do EVERY SINGLE DAY is, first of all, write in your blog. Then you would read everyone else’s blog. Then you comment on everyone else’s blog. Then you would go back to your blog and see what comments had been written about your blog. Then you would respond to those comments about your blog. Then you would see how others responded to your comments in their blog. Then you would respond to their comments on your comments about their blog. Then you would go back to your blog…

Okay, enough, I think you get the idea now. I remember spending several hours at a time doing this without even realizing it. One day I had had enough and I never went back to that evil blog community again. And now it doesn’t even exist anymore. Thank the lord someone destroyed that terrible place! My new policy is blogging in moderation! Anyways, if you’re going to blog, I’ve always found blogspot to be a nice, reliable place to do it. They still have my old blog from my big study-abroad trip in London in 2005. Check it out at www.lukeinlondon.blogspot.com.

Another great blog on this site is cousin Sally’s, which I do read religiously. I mean who doesn’t? She is not the only Dorris to blog here but she is definitely the most consistent. Check it out at www.sansoms.blogspot.com. Kudos to her for almost always having photographs to go along with almost every post. I’m much too lazy for that and I’m not making any promises but I’ll post as regularly as I can.