WW meetings without mom

I usually just weigh in when I'm without mom at a meeting. I'm trying to stay today to get motivated to start tracking again. Its not because I didn't lose weight - I did. Its just because I know if I don't start tracking again that I'll really not do it when I need too.

However, there is this group in our meeting that drives me up the wall. They take over the one whole side of the room and take over the meeting. I feel like an outsider in their presence.

Ugh!

Will I Fight With Best Buy Staff?

So my home computer finally bit the big one – it blue screen beyond repaired. If I could figure out how many components went bad at the same time, it might be worth replacing the parts – but it is rather old and it is a Dell. I know that some people swear by Dell and when I first got it, I loved it. However, I soon found out that it was Dell Hell for me. Plus, I’ve been maxed out on USB ports for well over three years now and I’m running two USB port hubs. With the fact that I just got FOIS, it’s time to get a new machine – and I’m buying it today.

 

This means I have two real options: Best Buy or Circuit City. I just have an issue with buying a computer at Office Depot or somewhere like that. Plus, I will NEVER buy a computer from Wal-Mart. But my history with Best Buy vs. Circuit City is speckled with nothing but bad encounters because the staff they hire think that women don’t know computers. Hell, I’ve helped customers in their stores when I hear that the sales rep is giving them some line of bull crap. It’s when they start to talk down to me that I just start pulling out the big fancy words and pull the fact that I am a network administrator. You think that these fools would just walk away, but especially with the Best Buy staff, they try to hang it in there with me, to out do-me. Which is normally why I go to Circuit City – but the last time I was there I had a horrible experience because I had questions about televisions and I haven’t been back since.

 

If I could stand to wait, I would just order it via work and get an HP machine – but I can’t live without a computer in my bedroom. The work laptops just aren’t mine so I don’t feel like I can fill it up with my stuff. My mom asked if I should get a laptop, but the only laptop I would get is not even Windows based and then I have a whole bunch of conversion issues – plus, I REALLY can’t afford to buy a Mac right now because the one that I would want, well, geeka has it. That’s WAY out of my budget.

 

This is going to come down to brand and price between the two. I really just want an HP. I’m used to setting them up and they are good machines. Plus, whenever I’ve had to have repairs and such, HP doesn’t care where I ship parts – so if I have to have the part shipped to work because I don’t want a part sitting out on my porch, I can do that. So far, on the website Best Buy had 75 HP computer options. I have no idea how many of these will actually be in the store. All of them are Vista (which is another rant that I will have another day because I would MUCH rather have an XP machine, but I’m willing to deal with Vista if it gets me a machine today). But at least Circuit City lets me check stock availability online. They have less HP options – only 11 and they seem to be a model behind on the HPs – but of course it’s all Vista – and about the same price with Best Buy.

 

I’m going to go to Best Buy first – but then the question becomes, if they start to showboat – do I leave? I have done it in the pass... it just counts on how much they try to piss off this computer deprived geeka!

I should be focused on my CCNA training...

This week is the week that the PG is off on his tropical Hawaiian birthday holiday. I had plans. My plans included starting to study for my CCNA that I’m finally going to be allowed to test for in June when I go to Networkers. However, the plans aren’t going so well because I’m so stressed out about the yahoo-half-crazy-man that my PG thinks would be a perfect match to be my Part Time Tech Staff member. I need the PG to listen to me about this one, because I know in my heart that there is no good to come from this plan of his.

 

The horrible thing is, I fear that if I tell him “no way” that means I won’t get ANY staff. I need staff so badly, but I need staff who will work with me. This person... this thing... I’m going to chew him up and spit him out in less than a week. He still can’t talk to me after emails for the past week and a half. He is constantly in this “calming down in peace because I’m stressed out” mode that scares the crap out of me. Computer work is stressful, especially at my place of employment. We hire people who don’t even know what the power button is – so our staff members need their hands held so much. It would drive even the best technicians batty (and I’ve seen it happen in my own very eyes!)

 

But this is going to be my first true ‘supervisory’ experience, but I haven’t been given any choices in this. I’m being given a very possible volatile situation to work in if the PG’s plans stand. This is what has been stuck in my head all day – I should be studying. I need to get working on my CCNA training! I need to focused on that – not this!

Why waste time in pre-training?

I’ve been busy the past couple weeks at work getting ready to deploy fax services. One of the things that I have been so busy trying to do was to train everyone prior to us going live. That way there wouldn’t be much “downtime” and that we could theoretically have the training down and also get some people trying the faxing to work out the kinks. I have spent hours making videos and making them be SLOW videos. I have sent out reminders and even had Texas offering to train people one-on-one. This is all a great plan.

 

Too bad no one took advantage of it and now that we are live on fax services, it’s like no one is trained.

 

Biggest problem? Well, Texas only picked certain parts of the training videos to watch and gave out wrong information to staff. Plus, since she is supposed to be watching the fax machine like a hawk, she has decided that she is only going to that folder three times a day. This just means more people are going to be going into that folder to personally retrieve their faxes. It’s going to create mayhem and there is nothing that I can do to make that stop. She is going to cause everyone to go and try to get faxes and tempt them to send them to other staff members – which is exactly against what the directions are. Staff members are only supposed to deal with their own personal faxes and not handle any other faxes. But if the fax administrator is only going to check three times a day, this is SO not going to work.

 

Less than 24 hours into being live on fax services, I have one staff member who got two faxes that were hers – six times! On top of it, Texas didn’t watch the directions on the video to listen to the fact that she is supposed to DELETE a fax once she has forwarded it to someone. I asked her three times last week if she wanted to sit down and go over how to administer this before we went live, but she declared that it was easy and she didn’t need to.

I know when she finally decides to show up today that she is going to be throwing a fit to end all fits. I just know it. That’s what she does the best and from what I hear, that was what the staff stopped her from doing yesterday. Last night she was going to call me after five to bitch about the fax services because she was sure that everyone was getting copies of the faxes that were for someone else. Sigh.... it’s going to be a long week. Plus the boss isn’t here so she is going to be doing shit all week.

 

And here I thought I was going to be complaining about Queen Medusa who has actually been nice so far.

That freaking PG!

So, my PG is going on vacation on Sunday to Hawaii for 10 days. Do you think I found this out from him? Nope... I found out from my friends in the accounting department. Now, fine... he forgot to tell me. I won’t be too hard on him for that. So today he got busy with some things because our big honcho is in the hospital. I know that he was busy, but I also know that I’m off tomorrow and I need to speak to the PG before he goes on vacation.

I nicely sent him an email asking if he was coming back today and if so, explained that I needed to talk to him before he went on vacation. He responded back in the positive and even agreed that I could use his office while he is gone (yeah, some peace and quiet!). There are lots of things going on and since he has never allowed me to take decision making power, I wanted to get some direction on what I could say yes or no too. So things went on and he arrived back to the building. I was in the middle of getting our intranet back up (another side effect of the bad day yesterday) and I thought I had some time. He even came over to hand me this document that one of my coworkers was retyping because it was a 30 page table/grid thing that I say “NO” too. He wanted me to review it. That’s fine. I put it in my pile and continued to work on what I was doing.

 

So when I finally get myself ready to go talk to him, I walk to his office and find him ALREADY GONE! Now, what happened to me telling him that I needed to talk to him? What happened to me reminding him that I’m not here tomorrow and that I wanted to have some things in place for while he was on vacation? What happened to be a good boss and caring about what your employees do or do not do while you are on vacation?

I have it in my right mind to just cease doing anything and just study for my CCNA. In fact, other than Monday, I’m going to make it a point to do that each and every day while he is gone for at least ONE hour due to his lack of talking to me before his vacation. I might be compelled to do work instead, but if he can rudely stiff me the conversation that I nicely asked to have, then I can nicely decide that other things are less important than my CCNA.

 

But this has also put me in a jam. I’ve already had three emails since he disappeared silently that require decisions. Now, I guess I could wait for him to make the decision, but since he didn’t talk to me – I’m just going to make the decisions without him. He has left me no other options. Our support company wants to spend a couple days outlining a huge upgrade of our equipment. Two days isn’t that expensive – I’m going to improve it because I need this to get done so I can give our Fiscal Guru a budget number ASAP. The un-nicknamed Part Time Tech Staff person who finally spoke to me today for the first time EVER, really wants to know more of what I need him to do. I don’t know if the PG showed him the job description or not. I don’t know anything about if I’m to buy the full machine or not for this person. Well, what am I supposed to do? This position is to start less than 1 day after the PG returns from vacation. He is going to be swamped with Queen Medusa. I have to make the decision and just tell him what I’m going to do. I’m going to order the additional full machine and I’m going to show the job description to the un-nicknamed Part Time Tech Staff person because that is WHAT I NEED TO DO! This isn’t about what is best for my boss. If he can’t have the common courtesy to speak with me after I request the time to talk to him, then I feel that is a sign that he trusts me to make the decisions that need to be made.

Assertiveness. Boldness. Decision-maker. These aren’t really things that I think of when I think of myself, but screw it --- I’ve been screwed enough by not being these things that I’m just going to freaking do it. I’m sick of waiting for him to do these things and I would have been more than happy to let him feel like he was making the decisions if he would have talked to me. Seriously, if he has a gripe about this and how I’m going to handle this... I’ll let the battle cry ring out! DOWN WITH THE PG!

97 items on the To Do List

97 things on my To-Do List is not a bad thing. Actually, that is sort of low for me. I’m usually running in the 150’s or 200’s. But, when I see 97 as the number, I begin to worry about what have I all forgotten to place on the To Do List... because I know that there are things missing. I know that I must have generalized on some of these items to indicate one thing for something that takes about 25 steps.

One of these is the task “Move Queen Medusa’s account”. To everyone else, this sounds pretty darn easy. You just switch the computer and you are done. But it’s so much more than that. She doesn’t have a replacement yet, so I need to know who is going to need access to her current files. There is a phone to worry about and a database that she is the administrator of that all needs to be changed. I think 25 steps is probably an underestimate now that I got answers to some of my questions (i.e. Is Queen Medusa going to still have to do things for the department she is leaving? Finally got answered with the big “YES”).

 

Now, if this just happened on one or two of my items on my To-Do list, I’d probably be ok, but looking at it, I’m pretty darn screwed because a lot of these have multiple steps and there are going to be follow up tasks once I completed them. Additionally, a lot is about the “part-time tech staff” that I’m supposed to be getting. I know who it is (he doesn’t talk to me), and I have to come up with a  good nickname for him. He is of Indian descent but I don’t want to call him the Indian or anything like that. And I’m not going to call him “guru” because he isn’t better than me (although the boss still hasn’t told me what he does or doesn’t know so I have no idea of what level of skill I’m getting this person with and how out of date these skills may or may not be). So, I’m open for suggestions on a good nickname for him so I can blog about him without calling him the PT Tech Staff. That just seems way to long as it is!

 

Either way, all of the tasks I have for the PT Tech Staff is going to be MULTIPLE things to do – and that’s without putting any training into the equation. And since the boss hasn’t given me any details of when, where, how, and what pertaining to the PT Tech Staff, I’m kind of lost with what needs to be done until I have answers.

 

What’s scary today? Queen Medusa was nice to me.

 

 

How long can you go without talking to your boss?

I used to be in my boss’s office everyday three or for times a day. Since Thursday, I haven’t been in there. Sure, I’m very super busy, but the point is that things I would normally go in there for I’m just making an effort not to. If I go in there while he has been  complete stupid, it’s like I’ve absolved him of all wrong doing and he continues to do things like that.

I know that it’s getting to him because on top of not going into his office, I haven’t spoken a word to him either. If things can get done via email, it’s just better for both of us. I should be doing all the decision making either way with the technology and it is completely ridiculous that I have to go to him with every decision. Why should I have to continue to go into his office as if I’m here to serve him for questions that I could easily answer myself?

 

Additionally, his best friend, Queen Medusa, has been in there most of the day. No reason to wrestle with serpents and crap like that today. I’m trying to get ready for a tech committee meeting and he is being completely impossible. We have problems in all of my offices and everyone is treating me like shit. I don’t have the time for it.

So, I’m going on day 5 of not talking to him and not going into his office. I don’t count talking to him in Tech Committee meeting as talking to him. Talking to him would mean me talking to him in the hallway or in his office. The first thing that may crack may be the talking to him in general, but I’m doing my best to stay out of his office. There is nothing private we talk about either way. Everyone here knows all of everyone’s business either way.

 

I’m sure that all of this is leading up to him being pissed at me and then doing my review (i.e. anyone who works for my boss learns quickly that he only does your review when he is pissed with you and he has issues with ways you are handling things). I guess it’s good that I’m ‘acting up’ now because maybe he’ll do my review.

 

And this time, I have questions about my job and how things are done and why people who are the same level as me are able to do things that I’m not allowed to do. If our Facilities guy (The FG), is allowed to sign off of the bills for the building, why aren’t I allowed to sign off on the tech bills? If our FG and Texas are allowed to supervise and hire their own staff, why aren’t I? All three of us are Coordinators. That would seem to mean that we all have the same job responsibilities, but clearly he trusts me with our network, but not with anything else.

 

So I ask you all to think about this – how long can you go without talking to your boss? When was the last time you tried it?

Queen Medusa won't shut up!

It is hell today. Queen Medusa is still reigning loudly and being the center of attention even more. Plus on top of it, Queen Medusa has our CEO already around her finger along with one Board Member who can’t stop gushing over, “How great Queen Medusa is going to be!” and that “Queen Medusa is the best choice!”.

I can’t stand the attention seeking ploys that she has already employed to get everyone looking at her. She made our outgoing Development Director email all the Board Members to introduce her to them. She has been up here asking for boxes to move and asking about if she can send out her own letters about our fundraising walk coming up on the agency’s bill now that she is the Development Director. They are letters to her friends and family! Ok, maybe it’s time for me to send out letters to my friends and family and have the agency pay for it.

 

Plus, Queen Medusa is leaving a mess with what is going on downstairs. She has basically washed her hands of all activities down there and is sending messages out, “I don’t know who can answer these for you any longer that I have taken a new job.” Well, come on, now... I know that you are taking a new job. I’m not a moron and I’m not deaf either. There is no way that anyone in our agency doesn’t know about this decision yet.

 

To make things even better, Texas is MIA again. It’s just a lovely way to start a week. No Texas here to fill up the paper in all of our printers, faxes and copiers. And since she said a while back that no one helps out – I’m not filling paper into these machines either. If no one helps out, that means no one helps out. I’m done covering for her!

 

I haven’t spoken to my boss in a couple days and I’m not going into his office. You treat me like crap, I’m not going to act like nothing is going on. Right now everything is messed up on my job and he knows it. He should be trying to help find solutions for what is going on. He should be trying to be supportive. However, he is just so busy with Queen Medusa that he could care less about how much more work I’m getting because of all of these changes. And I can’t send him emails with more than one question in it at a time, because his attention span is only one answer long. Just more proof that he probably hates me too.

The Shoes vs Queen Medusa

First, my boss is a jerk.

Ok, now I can move on with this post today. Yesterday my boss made the decision about a staff member who will technically sort of be above me. She was promoted internally and everyone else was told PRIOR to the staff who will be working with her were told. I would think it would only be common courtesy to tell me and the other development staff prior to the announcement and prior to finding out during a lunch for the much-loved outgoing development person. Especially when the person who is hired is Grace to my boss being Will. But it’s not like they are funny together. No, instead they are mean and exclusionary. I now will call her Queen Medusa (thanks geeka!)

 

So in the need for massive  retail therapy, I went shopping with geeka and of all wise wisdom, bought a pair of shoes that I probably would have never even tried on. At first I was really going for red, but these brown, peep-toe, high-heeled, slightly platform-wedgy shoes are SO MUCH BETTER! My boss is going to absolutely hate them. I’m going to tower over him. He hates when I wear heels. Now the question will be if he finds out that these are the “I-Hate-Queen-Medusa” shoes.

 

Going into this morning at home, when I put these shoes on, I felt like I could conquer the world. That was before I saw an email from my boss replying back to my message yesterday about how I was disappointed that we were told by others and in a ‘oh-by-the-way’ manner of the hiring decision. I have ethically decided not to read this response at this time. I am sure that I will only be more upset with his response. It will be better for me to read it this weekend when FAR away from him. I also decided that I have to make it my best effort to not go into his office and to spend as much time away from him. He should be spending time with Queen Medusa training her. Maybe he should teach her how to scan and how to use the specialty software. I’m way too busy to do such tasks and he is the boss – that should be his job.

 

But driving into work, my breakfast flipped in my stomach. I really hate work. I can’t even describe how badly I hate it right now. It’s the internal nepotism that was obviously visible to everyone in this hiring. Hiring your best friend for a job that she does not qualify to do is just the biggest example of this. It’s bad. It makes everyone upset and it makes everyone realize that it doesn’t matter the quality of your work, it matters how much someone likes you. I also know that from this point on, if I shrink away from the boss, Queen Medusa will do everything in her power to show him how bad I am and what I don’t do well and tell him how to manage my job and even make some more hiring decisions for him that I will have to live with (she PICKED my part-time tech staff member!).

 

I used to have a great relationship with my boss. He used to like me. I think he just deals with me now. I don’t think he likes me. I can tell you exactly when the turning point was. We were remodeling and Queen Medusa ended up across down in a temporary office while I was with my boss in another location. During that time, we would make ice cream runs almost every day by ourselves. He would actually drag me to go for ice cream even if I wasn’t buying any. He would be kind and say nice things when not even prompted and prodded by other people. He would actually form full sentences and talk to me. But then, he didn’t have Queen Medusa and I couldn’t see that this was Will without Grace – he was Graceless. I guess I was the fill in for Grace but as soon as Grace was reunited with Will, things went downhill very quickly. He started to look at me like he just couldn’t stand me. He wouldn’t go out unless it was for a tech-company related thing. He wouldn’t go for ice cream anymore or anything. Those were things that he all did with Grace. Now Grace is going to be working with him and she will pick what’s left of me in front of him. I don’t stand a chance.

 

I just want to stick it in here, get my CCNA, and then start looking elsewhere. I know that he is sending me to a great conference, but I can’t help but know that it’s actually a payoff. It’s his way of knowing that by hiring Queen Medusa that he was going to piss me off and he hoped that by giving me a conference that I would be happy about that. He knows that I am going to be testing for my CCNA while down there, but my schedule that had been looking hectic, but manageable so I can study has suddenly exploded with a lot of crap and a lot of ‘one-on-one’ trainings for Queen Medusa. I think this is his way of giving me something that I want, but finding a way to make it impossible for me to study so I don’t pass my CCNA and so I don’t become marketable and so I can’t leave. I NEED that CCNA.

 

So the battle begins. The shoes are great, but I don’t know if they are a match to Queen Medusa. She already has Will on her side.

 

Impressing the CEO

When I was a bright-eyed naïve graduate student at the school of social work, I believed that nonprofits were one way to get out of the politics that seemed to be everywhere in school, in school groups, with families, and just everywhere. At first, I held that belief for a long time. Well, not that long. My first internship was where I currently work. In fact, I never left (don’t know if that was good or bad, but hey, it’s work). I took everyone as being sweet and kind and here for the greater good. It may have not been until the end of that second or third month that I started to see the politics. I started to see how everyone made nice to the higher ups and then turned around and stabbed others in the back. I realized pretty darn quick that I was lucky to be an intern for my boss (yep, same boss too) and not for other people in the organization.

 

Since then, I learned which people I have to just suck up and deal with when they are being mean and rude. This would be the woman who is my boss’ Grace (as in Will and Grace because that is EXACTLY who they are, even all the touching and feelie stuff they do). I can’t cross this woman and if I do, she goes running to my boss in a heartbeat. I don’t like her much. I have to buy anything that she is selling because she will hold it against you. I have to let her take over MY meetings as she just runs her mouth on and on and on. Even my boss knows that she takes over the meetings and he doesn’t like it – but he lets it happen. She is Grace.

 

The other thing I realized is that although my boss always says to no to it, it matters to talk to the CEO and give him the update of what is going on with you. Maybe that is the one thing that I’m pretty good at. I’m here early in the morning when the CEO walks in and we usually talk. I give him the update of what’s going on with the computers and he seems to converse pretty darn well with me (when my boss thinks he is a completely stupid as dirt when it comes to computers). I think he is a visionary and he usually is out of touch with what’s going on with the company, but you can’t alienate this man – that’s like shooting yourself in your own foot. I’ve perfected this skill and it’s part of the politics that go on around here. Talking to the CEO about what is going on PRIOR to any upcoming meeting, it’s golden. Making the CEO know that you talk to two board members on a consist basis, that’s even more important.

I used to think that I hated the politics. I don’t particularly enjoy that they go on to the extent that they go on here, but I can see the patterns and I can see how to manipulate myself into a better standing. I guess if I was that naïve grade student from the school of social work, I probably would just sit back and observe the patterns. Now, I do whatever I can to manipulate the politics into a better air of feeling around my standing at the agency and how it impacts my job. I know exactly when to bend my boss’ ear and I know exactly what to tell the CEO and what not to tell the CEO. It’s a matter of sustaining myself in the organization. I think they also take notice that I can manage it and I’m thriving it in. Even my boss has said to me during numerous reviews that he finds my knowledge of what is going on with the agency very interesting and shows that I’m on the ball. I think that is his way of saying that he can identify that I know what the political climate is in the agency and I know how to manage it. Maybe that scares him a little. Maybe it should scare him a lot.

It still doesn’t mean I don’t hate the politics. I really really do. But just as awful as all those political ads on TV, it’s a way of life now and there is no way around it. Maybe in high school I couldn’t handle it. I hated when those in power would just throw their weight around. I just didn’t know to create incentives or how to manipulate the climate around thoughts. I definitely couldn’t handle it in college when all the dancers had all the power. But I think the school of social work did one for me – it taught me all of the skills I needed to become politically-savvy. Who knew that social work would do that?

Tornado named Texas

This is the best way to describe my mostly insane coworker that I call Texas. She is a tornado of sorts. You can always kind of tell when the conditions are right for a tornado outbreak to happen. The clouds get really stormy and dark. The winds pick up and there is just this feeling in the area that nothing good is going to happen. That’s the way it is with Texas in many different ways. Yesterday was one of those times that I could just feel the tension building and waiting to be exploded. She had her review with the boss and from what I know, it didn’t go well. But as long as he was here, she was doing a good job hiding the fact that she was pissed at work. But as soon as he left, things started to unravel. This must be when the funnel cloud formed. She was snapping at staff and snatching papers all about the area. She was slamming drawers closed. She was evil and I knew that it was time to get out of Dodge – and I ran out of the building before the disaster known as a Tornado named Texas hit with full force.

 

I don’t know the facts of what happened after I left and I really don’t want to know either. But today, she came in early and was emailing everyone around how she is here to help everyone. This is the MO for when she has been put back in her place and/or when she has been super bad and she wants the boss to disbelieve what is being said about her. The problem is, this is really just another formation of the Tornado.

See right now she is promising all of these things. She is promising to help people learn how to use our brand new fax services – but then promptly disappears to help with the ‘stress relief class’ or because she is still ordering supplies (again, how hard is it to order 6 boxes of copy paper?). So when she does get back to her desk and there is a whole bunch of people looking for her because she offered this help, it’s all going to explode. This maybe more accurately called a Micro-Burst or something like that. The winds will be the whole hissing and yelling action going on. She is going to storm off downstairs like straight-line winds and just take anyone out between her desk and her escape outside. This all could be avoided if she didn’t stir up the requests for her by emailing everyone that she is going to train them in the next couple days.

 

To add to this, Texas has been on the surface offering support. She is whining now if I don’t give her something that she thinks she can do. I have been burned before – she never follows thru with her offers. She is acting like she wants to know everything that is going on so she can go complain about it behind my back. She acted like she didn’t know that I’m going down to Cisco’s Networkers event in June, although I heard her complaining about it the other day about how unfair it is that I get to go somewhere cool. (Yes, it’s in Orlando, but I’m taking a freaking certification test that I’m really scared about and I really don’t know how I’m going to find the time to study for it!) She has complimented my clothing today (which is a joke because I’m dressed down today and the clothes are WAY too big). I know that one change of the conditions, if I ask if she has done any of the things I have asked her to do, the papers are going to fly, the pencils are going to become projectiles, mail will be like flying cows, and up-up-up-away with the rest of the day.

 

The problem is - it seems as if we are in a permanent Tornado Warning condition at work. We never know when that funnel cloud is going to come down and just wipe us all out of the way. Like Tornados, there usually are no warnings. Our skies don’t turn that funky electric green color and we don’t have a woman on a bike turning into the wicked witch. There is no way for us to know what is going to happen and when it is going to happen – we just permanently know that it is about to happen.

 

So I’m just waiting for Texas to touch down and create more havoc again. Kind of a bad way to anticipate a whole day.

Finally, I'm not in the bad mood at work

I knew the day was going to come. My co-worker from h@ll (aka Texas) who thinks she runs the whole place while doing hardly any work, has been knocked down a peg or two by my boss. I really didn’t believe that my boss had it in him. I really thought that Texas was going to start to cry and he was just going to crumble under the tears. But I guess he has finally had it.

 

She is so trying to be “happy” by badly humming and putting on a fake smile, but when she doesn’t think anyone notices, she is muttering to herself and slamming things around. (Just because I have headphones on and I’m working on a video doesn’t mean that I can’t tell what she is doing.) She is having fights with the Russian Chick (yep, I can’t understand a word that she says either because she has such a heavy Russian accent, but then I don’t yell at her, I just get her boss). She is taking 6 hours on ordering supplies. She has been up and down stairs so many times it’s sickening. I have heard the “I don’t need to work here” and “I don’t have to put up with this” about 30 times in less than a half hour.

 

Maybe she has finally been called out on the way things are. Maybe she was put on notice that the boss does realize that she disappears for hours upon hours without anyone noticing where she is. Maybe she was called out for saying yesterday that no one pitches in when she isn’t here (yeah sure... the paper fairies come in every morning and fill the copier, fax machine and printers up with paper!) Maybe she finally got the review that she was due. Maybe she was told why I don’t talk to her anymore and how I don’t ask her to do anything (because she is all about saying she’ll do something and NOT following thru on it). Maybe she was called out on offering to train everyone on how to use our new fax services and how exactly 0 people have been trained since last week.

Sigh... this is enough to make a girl happy!

April Fool's Day

This is probably one of my favorite days at work. April Fool’s Day is the one time that things just seem to be a bit funnier than normal. It could be the fact that we pull pranks usually on the boss. The one year we moved his furniture in his office (which he then kept that way!). One year we stole is Egyptian blow-up Mummy and held it ransom. One year we took a huge giant box and made it into a little house with a pool, a dog, and even dog poop! Last year, we did nothing to him, lulled him into a sense of security. Instead, we got our facilities coordinator by turning everything backwards on his desk.

 

Well, we continued this year on with the facilities coordinator, as he just also happens to be an April Fool’s baby. Yep, he was born on April Fool’s Day. So there are Happy Birthday signs with his picture on it all over the building. It’s quite festive and he is finding them everywhere. Yep, even in the men’s bathroom (and I didn’t put it in there!)

 

But we did return to pranking the boss. It was brilliant. We have ballooned his office. There are balloons on the floor of his office. We couldn’t use helium because we didn’t have the funding and we didn’t want any of them to get up into our skylights by accident. So, his office is filled with balloons of all shapes (and even two beach balls). There a lot of those punching ball balloons which I’m sure is going to end up hitting me in the head at least a few times today.

 

But the brilliance in this plan is even better. He is going to clean his office out and I know exactly what he is going to do with the balloons. They are going to go into someone else’s office. It couldn’t be better. One prank – two people.

And here I was going to change ring tones – this one is much better!

I Shouldn't Have to Buy Soy Milk...

It’s been a long time since I posted, but I must rant right now, and it is simply because there is no one else to rant to while it is just past 7 am right now. I’ve been enjoying a small splash of Fat-Free milk in my coffee for a while now. About a year ago, I was doing the same thing until magically, half of the small bottle would disappear from when I last used my milk to when I would use it the next morning – which means that someone was using my milk. Now, before you ask, YES – my milk is labeled. Everything that goes into the refrigerator at work has to be labeled with our name and the date that it entered our refrigerator. That is because people are pigs and don’t treat the refrigerator like they would their refrigerator at home. I can’t tell you how many gross things have grown in the work frig.

 

So, someone used my milk back then to the point that I was getting maybe two cups of coffee from a container of milk that should get me more like 10 cups of coffee. So I had switched to soy milk, which no one touched. I really don’t like soy milk, but when it’s in coffee, you really can’t tell the difference. Then I had to really watch the caffeine so I went back to drinking water.

 

But now, I’m drinking decaf and I like to have milk in it. It’s because I use too much creamer if I just use the creamer. It’s within my rights to think that if I put milk in the refrigerator that I would be the one using it. There has been a person here or there that I have offered to use a splash when our Administrative Coordinator couldn’t manage to order enough creamer, but I never gave anyone the permission to just use it with disregard to the fact that I want it for my coffee.

 

The container that I put in there last Thursday should have lasted me to this upcoming Thursday. It’s Monday morning and I put half the normal amount of milk and I’ll be lucky if I get one more cup with my milk in it today. It’s insane! I’m not here to supply milk to everyone else who is too damn lazy to bring in their own freaking milk. I shouldn’t have to buy soy milk either in order to protect my milk. Maybe I should buy a bottle of soy milk and then once that’s empty fill it up with the fat-free milk so I can save the money, keep the milk that I want because no one else will touch it because it says that it is soy milk, or I’m just going to continue to have the milk-thieves take my milk!

I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BUY SOY MILK!

Don't blame me

I love how when all else fails with the computers - its easiest to blame the "untrained" techie who is at the office day in and day out. I love how everyone in the support company starts to point out how you aren't following the rules they follow when its good for them.

I believe I have reached the limit of dealing with problems and being the sole point of blame. I didn't great the beginning problems of what our network issues are. When it was created, I didn't even know what group policy was. Now that it isn't working - I am being blamed.

I hate when fighting with the support company. Nothing good can come from it. In the end, I just want things fixed. I don't care who - I just want them fixed. Instead we are going to play all of these "political games" of trying to find out how it got this bad without dealing with the problem. Days are going to be freaking wasted as we position ourselves along the lines of "we paid for this already and we aren't paying again" vs the "this is beyond support contract and you have to pay for this fix".  Add to the fact that the sales rep likes to be the momma to all of us - its hell!

Resolutions

It's that time. It's New Year's Eve. I hate this day actually. I hate looking back at the year that passed and saying "Man, I just didn't do anything that I wanted to do". This year, it seems to be a lot of that. But, I want to look forward. But looking forward right now doesn't seem that cherry. Each time I see my mom she talks about another food that is going to be eliminated from the house for 3 to 6 months as she takes on chemo and radiation. She says that I can still have it, but that's entirely wrong for me. What if I'm making chicken one day for myself and its the one thing that she wants to eat. I can't possibly bring chicken in this house if she can't eat it.

So, before I get off on another topic, here are the resolutions:

Work:
- I will clean my desk by the end of January.
- I will get one training and/or test for certification
- I will realize that I'm doing my best and that's all that I can do.

Personal:
- I will no longer wink in the online dating. Everyone winks. It's time to write emails.
- I will do whatever it takes to get my mom through all of this and I will not physically harm my sister in the process (although I'm sure it is going to be damn tempting).
- I will go on vacation, even if I have to go by myself and be bored out of my mind. I cannot wait until September when my mother "may" be able to go on vacation with me. I'm getting out of here. I need away from all this craziness.
- I will continue on my diet, no matter how many dietary restrictions my mother gets and no matter how many nights she craves things like Burger King Whoppers (which is what she has been talking about for two weeks!)
- I will exercise, whenever I get the time. It may be dancing with the Wii, but it counts!
- I will try to take care of myself as well as I can. It's going to be hard while taking care of someone else, who isn't going to slow down at all.

Ok, I have to stop this list before I get even more depressed. I feel like I can already chalk up 2008 to being hell. I thought that life was going to get better at some point, but right now, it's just one thing after another. It will be even more difficult if my sister gets the job closer to our house. She'll claim that she is around to "help" but I know my sister. It will be about "free food" and other things. I still can't believe that my mom gave her money for parking at the hospital!

Need to Vent

Maybe I haven’t been blogging just because I haven’t been able to do anything at work about my current situation. Maybe I haven’t been blogging because I’m sick of every entry sounding like a complaint – they aren’t supposed to be, but they just are. Maybe I haven’t been blogging simply because there are hundreds of things to do and simply not enough time in the world to do them.

 

But today, I just needed to blog to vent. It has everything to do with a person named Texas. (Of course I can’t use her real name). I was friends with her when I worked retail and brought her over to my real job with the retail store went under. At first, she did anything I asked, which was nice. I had true help. But then, the ugly head of Texas was found (I like to call it Bush). Bush is an evil person. Bush is a liar. Bush is a manipulator. Bush uses humor and jokes to turn the power in the agency towards thinking Texas is nice. Bush backstabs you a hundred times before you even know that she has started.

 

So, about two months ago, the PG (being a brilliant boss that he is) asked me to “Just keep the peace” and not to “make her be Bush”. So basically, this means pulling back on asking her to do *ANYTHING* of work for me. So simply, I’m doing all the technical support for the entire agency without anyone to rely upon. In fact, it has gotten so bad that the PG has gone back to being my backup. So much for the whole days worth of training we gave Texas with a board member and then with a technician for our support company (whom she has equated to the anti-god or some other evil spirit thing – although he is a sweetheart to me and does me extra favors all the time!) The PG being my backup isn’t working out too well, he isn’t here half of the time.

 

So, Texas/Bush has gone and tried to make friends with other coworkers, but it’s almost sad. She hangs out with the Hoove-er, who is almost as creepy as the name sounds. He cracks jokes about movies that aren’t even funny and if there is a pun in the world, he says it over and over again. And he just stands there and watches people. Yuck! So he has become her new best friend. Which I don’t really care about – it keeps her away from me.

 

However, when we were getting our new phone system, Texas made the decision to tell everyone in the building to come to her first with problems, that she would help them first. Well, that’s all find and good, but most of the time the problems are not user-based it’s more technical end. I have to change a password or for some reason our phone conferencing went down. Well, they all go to her first and then Bush arrives because she can’t fix the problem. I’m not going to train someone on things like this if they aren’t going to do simple things like peel the labels off of printer drums because they bought cheap-crappy labels. So, naturally it takes three to four times longer to get the problem reported to me because Texas/Bush has to pretend to know what she is doing.

Then, usually when it finally gets to me, I get hollered/snapped at/hissed at/complained at by Bush about how long it is taking and how she doesn’t want to ask me to do anything. Well, isn’t that funny... I can’t ask her to do anything and she doesn’t want to ask me to do anything. Well, I didn’t start this craziness. I’m not the one with the mood swings that would cause any swing to spin around the top bar at a rate too fast to watch. I’m always the overworked techie. I’m always on edge because there is always something breaking.

 

But holding my tongue as Texas turns into Bush in front of people that I respect and I care about what they  think about me has come to an end. I’m done with it. I’ve told the PG this too. He is the one that created this mess by never addressing his lack of ability to control and manage her. He had held the peace too long and never did anything.

I have too many things to do around here in the next month to sit here and take this abuse. I’m heading towards hiding in the server room (although it’s like a freezer in there) and only coming out when I have too. It’s awful that my work environment has become so hostile, but this is what it has become. I can never know what kind of person is arriving at work for the day... is it Texas or is it Bush. One can never tell. One can never tell how quickly Texas can change into Bush.

 

My bets are on that the PG doesn’t do what he said he was going to do. He said that he was going to sit her down and talk to her about these things. I’ve heard these promises before. I always hear these promises. He hates conflict and he hates making someone do their work. He isn’t going to address this – I’d bet money on this!  He is just going to hope that this blows over, that I get used to doing all of this extra work and that I don’t turn around and holler/snap/hiss/complain back to her someday. Of course, if that happens, I’m sure that I’ll be the one that is wrong. I’m always the one that is wrong. And the PG has no problem when it comes to telling me what is wrong and what I have done wrong.

The best training conference yet

Did you know that 30 million people that mobile blog? Yep - that's me today!

The head of homestead.com is here and is great. He has these myths of the internet and blowing them away.

I need more trainings like this.

Plus they have great coffee.

Finally Done!

If the title doesn't say it enough -- maybe this does below. If you know what I'm talking about - you'll appreciate it!

A New Favorite Humor Site

I cannot believe that I got this link from a somewhat “professional” eNewsletter. Not that it isn’t professional, but it is all about humor and not real support.

http://lolnptech.blogspot.com/

For those of you who love cats, you’ll love this one a lot too – because a lot of these wonderful NonProfit Techie humor pictures are based off of images of cats. There are few on this site that I might have captions for, particularly this one, that looks like th cat is about to be placed under arrest. Well, there are few employees that I'd like to do that too (starting with the PG all the way down to the girl-who-is-hyped-up-on-so-many-diet-A.K.A.-speed-pills-she-can't-sign-on-right-every-morning)

Either way, my first idea was “Step Away from the Group Policy Snap-In”. Once I start editing group policy, I have an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other shoulder. The one is saying "be nice, only make them have a four character password" while the devil is saying "Make it be eight characters long, with at least three of the four - a capital letter, a small letter, a number and a symbol. And they have to change their password every 30 days!". Then when changing permissions to the ability to change things, the angel says "Sometimes being unique and giving the ability to change the background and screensave breeds happiness within employees" while the devil screams "Keep everyone the same!" I am almost proud to say this - but I listen to the devil much more often. When it comes to my network, lock it down! So, at times, I feel like I should be arrested for making so many strong changes to the group policy.

Of course, the caption could be something less about me and more about the employees - “Guilty of using password as a password”.

I had my first phone call for tech support this morning at 5:59 am – I wasn’t even downstairs and people were calling the offices going, “I know that you are there, so can you unlock me from having a frozen account, I can’t get into my Outlook”. I haven’t fixed the problem yet. I’m just bitter that people are freaking calling me that early and expecting me to jump for them. The problem is this user keeps coming in earlier and earlier – and it’s just plum ridiculous. They better not call me on Wednesday morning when I am sleeping in for the big event that evening. They better not even think of it!

If there is National Boss Day - Can there be National Bad Boss Day?

Or rather, “My Boss is a Big Giant Jack-ass Who Doesn’t Know What the Word Boss Means and Therefore He Can’t Function At That Job Title” Day? That would be around the title I would give for a holiday that celebrates my PG. And guess what – none of my coworkers are doing ANYTHING for the PG. We have all decided to pretend like it is any other day.

 

We used to plan elaborate things. We would make false meetings and go meet him in cool restaurants. We used to have fun with it. But somewhere along the line the PG has morphed horribly into this boss who can’t function as a boss. I know that he doesn’t like conflict, but now we’ve added the following things that he doesn’t like to do: make decisions, follow deadlines, correct staff, follow the rules, answer his phone, answer email with more than one word, and be at work. In fact, the list of things that he does do has shrunk too (much like his height). He likes to clean the cupboards (too bad we have a janitorial staff that does that too). That’s about it. Oh, he also likes to poke fun of staff, screw off during work, place the blame of things not getting done because he hasn’t done anything onto his staff (ME!), and generally go around and annoy everyone. A couple weeks ago it was damn magnets (Thanks Geeka! He hasn’t said anything about them this week. It’s been blissfully silent with those things gone.) This week he is deciding to work on our huge event next week. He is asking all of these questions, wanting to see the videos, having suggestions, and worried about the fact that we are down over 100 people in comparison from last year.

 

So, in the glory that National Boss Day is, I have gone researching for some material on Bad Bosses – and man, there is a jackpot of information out there. There must be a lot of PGs out there (or other versions of him). So, to get this started, I must admit that both the Post Gazette and MSN had lead articles on their websites yesterday and today about Bad Bosses. (Now, doesn’t that make everyone stop for a second and say “Why is that?”). Either way, the MSN article gave me the wealth of information that I sought. It started out with this website: http://www.badbosses.net/  - Yep, the Bad Bosses Website. And on this website, they have an assessment tool to rank you boss: Bad Bosses Assessment. Now, this is absolutely the best one to take. Can I say that I love this website? I can also say that this survey calls out the extremes that the PG can be. Let’s just say every one of the passive questions, he scores the highest on. He isn’t the worst boss out there, but when the survey comes up saying “Mayday! Mayday! You could be in store for a  crash landing with a very difficult boss!”, I have to tell the survey that it isn’t telling me something that I don’t already know. Too bad there wasn’t a question on there about “Can you bribe your boss with chocolate and do other people in your office use chocolate to gain favors from him?”.

 

But my research didn’t end there. No way. Instead, I continued on and found some things that I wish I could just drop on his lap someday. There is this website: http://www.badbossology.com/ that has a book called “Coward’s Guide to Conflict” that he ABSOLUTELY FREAKING NEEDS TO READ!  However, this site seems to be too serious for my taste. I’ve already sat through one horrible wrong Stress Management class with the PG – I don’t need more advice that is along the lines of “Before going in to see your boss, take two deep breathes and outline your conversation along with the things you want to achieve”. That NEVER works.

 

So, further research made me find this site, http://www.workingamerica.org/badboss/  which I wish I would have found earlier. I don’t know if I’d ever get the guts to submit my PG into a contest because I’m sure he doesn’t rank up in the categories of being a mean boss, he is just a bad boss. Well, according to this website, he is also known as The Second Worst Boss on the Block: BOZO the Boss.

 

Finally, in honor of Geeka, I googled “My Boss Is A JackAss” and let’s just say, there were plenty of hits (and lots of other blogs – and Geeka was the 6^th site that was on the google search with her post: Jackass-palooza ). So that Geeka doesn’t have to go and look these up, here are some that everyone may enjoy: http://www.workrant.com/

My Boss is a Jackass Message Board

http://www.fthisjob.com/node/60

 

 

Being Polite

I would think if I ever am a supervisor and I have an employee who works the entire weekend a project – let’s say, a big giant video that is going to be shown to 450 people that features popups boxes as in the VH1 Popup Video style along with voiceovers – that the first I’m back at work, that I would stop and see how the progress is. It’s only polite since the employee is probably putting in more hours than what they are being paid for, they are stressing out to no end, and they were categorically against using their own voice for the popup voiceovers, but had to do it either way.

 

But simply said, the PG doesn’t know Polite if it bit him in the ass and took his damn magnets away.

 

Yes, the PG has been too busy playing with magnets that make noise when you throw them together than to come see a video that I’ve probably worked on for well over 28 hours since Friday morning at 7 am.  Needless to say, let him destroy equipment with the magnets – there will be no conversations between us. I know that he wants a new freaking blackberry, but playing with magnets around the blackberry is going to do nothing to get me to put his blackberry on our servers. Hell, it’s not going to get him anything if he ruins stuff with magnets.

 

And now, he still has things to do for me, and he is too busy. What the hell? Was I too busy this weekend to work on the video? Was I too busy this weekend to figure out how to make up the popups clear and not translucent? Was I too busy this weekend to place 4 filters on all voiceovers to make it sound better? Was I too busy to find the stupid “bloop” sound for each popup? I don’t think so. Give up the magnets, become a grown man for 6 minutes and 24 seconds and see the damn video!

Irish Stepdancing Monkeys and Moron Magnets

This was a very serious conversation I had yesterday with Geeka on the way back from the very cool farmer's market (butternut squash fo 75 cents, giant heads of cauliflower for $2, homemade sugar-free jams for $4.50). It all started with the fact that we both work with complete morons. More specifically, we both have bosses taht are complete morons. Geeka's moron is the Canadian moron. She has been with this moron for too long. I'm with the Pocket-Gay Moron. Unfortunately, I've been with my moron for longer, but he wasn't always a moron.

However, this opened up new avenues for exploring morons. Because I really think that I attract this special breed of morons known as the "Gay morons". Now I must say, I'm perfectly find with this lifestyle for people who find themselves attracted to others of the same sex. I'd rather know about that first though. I don't know how many blind dates my first gay moron set up on with other men who were more interested in him than me.

Ok, back to business... First, gay morons are not exactly hiding the fact (although the PG is not exactly out of the closet but he isn't all the way into closet either, but he is small enough you can't always see where he is at a given moment). Second, they pretend to be this cool person who has all this fun when in the background they are like models on "America's Next Top Model" - ready to stab you in the back and throw you underneath the bus (or ACCESS van). Third, they need to be the most important person in the relatioship and demand it. If they aren't, they just fight with you so you go away. Fourth, they love to do things just to drive you absolutely batty because they love to see you upsest. (The PG has been carrying around these loud-ass magnets that make noise when you throw them together. He has been using them for over a week now. No problem, but there are tons of computer equipment in my building. Computer equipment that doesn't like magnets.... Getting the picture here?)

I'm not saying that I don't attract other morons and I'm not saying that only me and Geeka are specializing this. I'm sorry to say, but I even think Image Goddess attracted the same Canadian moron that I had. It wasn't our fault that time. We were hurt. We needed physical therapy. We were assigned the Canadian moron. (Although the verdict on this is still way out there. Somehow this man is still sort of right about my knee, although I'm still in pain.)

So the question is out there, if you are a moron magnet, how to do demagnetize yourself? Is there some sort of spray that I can get to get all the morons away? It seems as if I left one gay moron for another gay moron. In fact, I think my PG morphed into a bigger moron after I got rid of the other gay moron. Did I cause that because I no longer had a moron attached to me?

Enough of this -- but here, for some fun and what I teased about earlier: Irish Stepdancing Monkeys:

This Video Sums Up My Work

Simply said, I run each and every time my servers do something like this. My employees DO throw things when things go down. Change this man into a woman and it's me!

&*&*#&!*(#()$#) (Insert Swear Words Here)

Some days it isn’t even worth it. Some of the most basic things that need to be answered, can’t be answered. And when I have a hundred and one things that need to be done, the damn freaking ass boss just starts this crap “I don’t know what to tell you” and “I don’t know” and “I don’t have an answer”. Well, it’s simple – do you want to spend the money or do you not want to spend the money? Do you want me to just patch things together as we always do or do you want to do it the right way? Do you want me to work here forever and ever and ever like a freaking ass slave, or do you want me to be like a human being and actually work a regularly scheduled week?

 

How can I continue to support technology that I have no say in and no control over? It’s insane. I need things and I need things approve. I need decisions – not non-committals. This is ridiculous. We have a $20 million + budget and I can’t even get a $4,000 server approved. But yet wave a freaking new blackberry in his face and suddenly it is a must have!

 

What happened to what the real needs are? What happened to listening to what is right? What happened to TELLING your staff what you want and not letting things just hang in the air forever and forever and forever.

 

This is bullsh$t. There is no freaking way someone can work like this month after month after month. There is no way that someone can expect to be nice and kind with month after month of this sh!t.

 

And now, I get a freaking book that I’m supposed to read and do “homework” assignments because I’m a supervisor. Well, I don’t supervise anyone and I can’t make any decisions, why should I have to do homework? Do I really want to read Stephen Covey’s 8^th Habit book – NO! I don’t have time. I want to have time to get certified. I want to have technical letters after my name that mean something – that say I know what I’m doing. I want to be able to tell stupid technicians that they don’t have to talk down to me because I know what the hell they are saying. Now that means something. That means more than reading a book and doing homework in it. Like I have time for homework?

Maybe I should do the homework over doing the 7 freaking videos that have to be done by October 24^th with freaking pop-up boxes on one of them no less – that the same boss that can’t make a decision can’t seem to write!

Notes from a Holiday Weekend

First, thanks to geeka for sending me this wonderful article. I know that the PG won't ever read it or ever listen to it - but it is so my situation at the office each and every day! http://www.lifeclever.com/jason-fried-working-closely-together-aint-productive/

Now, a couple notes about the weekend:

1. I completed the Steelers/Gatorade 5K in record time ever. I walked mostly (but jogged a good bit) and finished in less than 45 minutes. The time was somewhere near 44:36, but I won't know until offical chip times are in.

2. My sister and her preacher-wanna-be-husband (PWBH) just visit to play wii anymore.

3. My sister has to be bigger than me by now. She is wearing clothes that I stopped wearing and they look awful on her.

4. How long after a wedding are you required to look at wedding things like it is important? My sister brought another "scrapbook" on Sunday and made me and my mom look at it. Plus, the next time we are supposed to see "the wedding video". I thought this would be over by now.

5. I'm sick of hearing the phrase "son of a motherless goose". PWBH just says that way too often and I'm really sick of it. It's a stupid phrase and it totally takes way too long to say it. PWBH thinks it's funny, but it's not - it's annoying.

6. Totals for the prayer - 2 Oh Lords, 4 Oh Gods, 1 Bless your children who are straying (that's me!), and 6 Almighties. Yes, prayer is now a game between me and my mom.

7. I had 5 emails Sunday night to remind me about the phone system at work needing to be changed over. Needless to say, I hardly slept at all on Sunday and I had crazy dreams all related to the damn phones. Thanks to the PG and Stinky to ruin my extra day off.

8. My scanner doesn't work with the Mac! Boo-hoo! More work to do at work. Groan!

Meme? Yep

After four really long days and one huge water main break that may make me wake up early if water isn't ok at work - I'm finally going to get to this Meme that Image Goddess tagged me with a while ago.

The Four Things Meme

Four Jobs I Have Had In My Life:
A Michael's Arts and Crafts Sales Associate (twice - once during undergrad and again when the school loans hit the mailbox!)
Van Driver for a disabilities organization
Toys R Us Cashier (during the Pokemon craze!)
Jack-of-All-Tech-Trades (that's the current one)

Four Places I Have Lived:
Pittsburgh
My Aunt's House in Pittsburgh
My Godparents House just outside of Pittsburgh
Work

Four of my favorite foods:
Sausage
Salsa
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
Doritos

Four Places I’d rather be right now:
Walt Disney World
New Orleans
Disney Cruise Line
Toronto

Four movies I can watch over and over:
While You Were Sleeping
Shawshenk Redemption
Any of the three Pirates movies
A Knight's Tale

Four TV shows I like to watch:
Las Vegas
Ugly Betty
Kyle XY
Clean House

Four websites I visit daily:
YouTube
Microsoft
Post Gazette
My work's webpage (it opens up automatically)

Four early musical influences:
Nelson
Madonna
New Kids on the Block
Annie, the musical

Four Computers I’ve Owned:
NEC desktop
Dell Desktop
laptop given to me from geeka
multiple and always changing selection from work now

So, I was guessing that I'm supposed to tag four people - how about two? Sorry, geeka. And, since I gave the whole outline of how I know geeka and Image Goddess - Steamed Puddings you are tagged.

When it rains - it pours

We've had water main breaks at work before. Usually it's not too bad.
Well, follow the link below for what I have had going on at work today.

It isn't bad enough that I have enough work to work the entire Holiday
Weekend -- but now, I can't get out of my building!

"More Raw Footage From Oakland Water Main Break - Video - WTAE
Pittsburgh" The link:
www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/14013767/index.html?taf=pit

The water has sort of stopped now, but now there are huge chunks of road
broken off and all of the roads here are blocked. We have no way out!

Signs that your "Backup Person" shouldn't be your backup

I have a person who is supposed to be my backup person to network issues. She is supposed to step up and help me when things are not easy and when I can’t just simply do enough things to get things done. It’s actually a joke. It’s a big joke. Really, she doesn’t qualify has help. She doesn’t qualify as backup either. Here are just some ways that you can spot if someone shouldn’t be your backup:

 

1. They need directions with pictures on how to empty out the internet cache.
2. They need directions on how to hit the button that says “CLOSE” on a pop up box.
3. They write emails bashing the technical help desk and send it to the technician that they absolutely bash to pieces in the email and forget to send it to you.
4. They call helpdesk to have them reboot a server because they are afraid (even after they were given one-on-one training by a big-wig Microsoft trainer who knows the network personally).
5. They always offer to help but suddenly are “going to be late” on that day.
6. They don’t respond to important emails
7. They forget how to install printers.
8. They forget how to turn a computer off.
9. They forget that we have updates running automatically at night.
10. They forget to tell you when they have changed toner out so you don’t run out of toner.
11. They bitch about you behind your back.
12. They mess up changing a user’s password.
13. They tell people to go to them first with any problems.
14. They can’t install regular printers, but they can manage to install the color printer for their friends.
15. They install game software without seeing what they were installing.
16. They gave someone the secondary administrator password to a regular user who said they knew what they were doing.

 

 

Ways to Update My Resume

So, my wonderful CEO decided since I have a Masters in Social Work, I need to apply to be a Field Instructor. It’s a non-paid thing and it has an application a mile long. The hardest part is that I have to include a resume. I haven’t updated my resume in ages. But then, there hasn’t been much to update.

 

I can update my job title as here was my progression: Development Associate, Community & Technology Facilitator, Community & Technology Coordinator, and now Technology Coordinator. Wow, how exciting is that!

 

But then, I have to write what I do. So I guess I have to find a way to promote myself as being the technology slave in good terms that sound professional. I guess installing toner for the idiots who don’t know how to install it will be: Performing maintainence and upgrades to hardware. Then, when I have to clean the toner out of printers because someone has managed to break the toner that will be: Creatively enhances usability of hardware.

However, this is already getting boring to me. The easiest way to describe what I do is as slave.

Which leads me to the other gripe of the morning – and it has to do with the damn stress management class I have to go to. In class yesterday, she told us that we choice be pessimists and optimists and that we can control everything. However, I would say, when you entire job is to handle everyone’s problems and their pessimistic issues. I don’t get to hear “Oh this is working so well”. No, I only here “this doesn’t work” and “this never works” and “you never can get this to work right” and “you broke it again” and “you didn’t do this for me”. Yeah, I can really turn those kinds of things around. I wanted to tell this woman it’s a two way street – that if you get shit in, you are going to give shit out. That’s reality. That’s life. There is no way to make shit into floral potpourri!

I Should Be Working - Instead, I'll Blog

Since I haven't blogged a lot of late, I'm going to try to get back on track. It took Image Goddess to get me back on track, although I was reading hers and Geeka's blog almost every day. It was also knowing that someone else was reading my blog. It was a big shock to go to Steamed Puddings to find out that I was even mentioned. So, before you continue on, you might want to read how I was mentioned on Steamed Puddings first... because I'm going to answer how I am actually attached to Image Goddess and Geeka - so if there are more of you out there reading, you know the story.

Of course, we protect our identities. This isn't because we are scared (ok, well, we are sort of scared and if it gets known, our honesty might just drop off and then we would be boring). If I didn't protect my identity, I couldn't possibly talk about my boss the Pocket Gay or complain about my co-working Texxxxx-aas (think of it of how William Shatner says it in Ms. Congeniality).

Ok, back to how the trio of us know each other. Truth is, I've known Geeka since middle school. Yep - we were in chorus together in middle school and we are still friends now. All through middle school, high school, college, and multiple years of post-college education. But I must admit now, I am no longer an academic-minded person. I got my masters in social work (yeah, it makes no sense now...) and I got out into the workforce, working a technology-based job for a nonprofit that likes to give us a salary in peanuts. Through all of those years, Geeka has been there for trips to New Orleans, watching my dog, and all other crazy sorts of things. It has only been the last few years that she moved so close to me that we shout things to each other practically every other day.

It was from Geeka that I met Image Goddess. It was sort of a friend-of-a-friend thing until we had someone else in common - the same odd-Canadian PT guy when we were both hurt and partially cripple. One day, I was there, doing leg lifts for a bad right knee and I looked across the room and this girl looked like someone that I knew. I think we both had that thought, but it was Image Goddess who asked the odd-Canadian PT guy if it was me and then we got to spend a lot of time together in PT. (Between the two of us, I think we have a whole good body and a whole bad body). Image Goddess was there when I practically tried to shove the odd-Canadian PT guy's head in my crutches when he wouldn't let me off of them - and this was for when my LEFT knee went bad while fixing the right knee.

So, maybe I have answered some questions of how three of us know each other. Even though I may be sarcastic here, I'm even more sarcastic in real life - something that I am trying to fix - but that is a blog for another day.