Category: Work

Humor, Work April 2, 2009November 3, 2009

Beating Thursday

“Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy!”
-Cynthia Nelms

Smalldog has decided she will have a good day!

Reasons to be happy today:
1) it’s girl night so Marie and I (and hopefully Kels) will be able to finish the movie we started last week
2) the girl I absolutely hated got kicked off ANTM last night! Ding dong the witch is dead. Oh, sorry, was that harsh?
3) the Pandora playlists I’ve been putting together for work have reached near perfection
4) today must be slow because all the stupid, pigheaded, obnoxious people in the universe came in yesterday, therefore the cosmos owes us a break from Idiots At Large
5) I have a whole bunch of new books to read!!

Humor, Work March 20, 2009November 3, 2009

Working for the Weekend

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
-Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

I’m stuck in a time warp! I ran out of projects before 11am today, and was finished with my mundane busy work before 11:20 when we left for Tink’s farewell luncheon (even though she quit a while ago, we waited until the end of her employee benefit period to throw a party. It doesn’t make sense to me either, plus the lunch mostly served to remind me how much I miss my work wife!). Plus I’m anxious to get out of here tonight because J. is taking me to The Marriage of Figaro tonight for an anniversary present, my favorite opera!

untitled2 But as long as this day is taking to end, and believe me a small eternity passes between clock checks even though the clocks don’t seem to move much, I may wish myself back in the office quickly tomorrow when I’m attacking my future flat with all things cleansing. Fingers crossed that our landlord has fixed the leaky pipe beneath our bathroom sink and hopefully we can paint.

In the meantime, I’m literally twiddling my thumbs! I’ve read a book and a half already, am officially done with my end of wedding planning, and am sick of surfing the internet and refreshing my email page just for the purpose of deleting spam.

Fashion, Humor, Work March 11, 2009

Killing Time

“Are you not entertained?!”
-Gladiator

Let’s face it: work can drag. Actually, and not to be overdramatic, but work can slowly suck the will to live right out of you and leave you an empty, hollow shell.

Overwhelmed Office Worker While there is no known cure for this rotting of the soul, there are several ways to retard the symptoms. Some of the most popular of these techniques include: inventing sports to be played with office supplies, faking long “important” conversations with coworkers the topic of which suspiciously changes to something rather trivial when the boss leaves the area, or surfing the internet until you feel your brain turning to putty between your ears. Personally I blog and read books online, although Hennessy and Daae to chat it up a lot when we get the chance! Another tactic is to strategically let my work pile up in the morning so I have something to do all afternoon, while still appearing to be busy will the boring office maintenance stuff I have to get done every day.

Today there was a new way to make the hours tick by! The university is holding a three day conference of lectures you can attend on the clock. Wise, Susie, Doll, and I all ducked out for three glorious hours from nine until noon and then I had to meet with Maetani at one so basically my entire day has been spoken for. Then I get to do it again tomorrow…and again the day after! Friday the 13th unlucky? I think not!

"I am fabulous, please join me in celebrating how fabulous I am. I'm so fabulous, in fact...oh right! YOU people..."

The introductory speaker I could have done without but in a way she was amusing: basically she talked about herself non-stop for an hour and in no way tied it in with the topic of the conference, made her personal life applicable to any of her listeners, or managed to be inspiring. Maybe that doesn’t strike anyone else as funny but I appreciated the irony of a demotivating motivational speaker. Or maybe I was just really glad to be out of the office.

The amusement continues tonight with ANTM! This week: makeovers! Last week the ghetto un-fabulous contestant Angelea didn’t make the top 12 (for which I was deeply grateful, being unable to get over her bad fake hair, and bad green fake nails) but the other one I’m disliking strongly will probably stick around for a while because even thought she’s an absolute wench she certainly looks modelesque. I wish bad photo shoots upon her.

Oh! Last week’s intellectual gem? Angelea stating, “That girl is really pulling my buttons.” I laughed with unholy glee.

Life, Sad, Work February 25, 2009November 3, 2009

The World Sucks Today

“Every wrong seems possible today, and accepted. I don’t accept it.”
-Pablo Casals

Most of the time my job is at least moderately fun; good people, the occasional idiot that entertains me, minimal paperwork except when said occasional idiot has managed to create a mess of epic proportions, etc. But today I’m reminded of the dark side of police work. A lot of good gets accomplished, but so much more has to be done and people are limited creatures.

To combat the chronic under-staffing, a bunch of us are being trained to help police dispatchers handle the huge influx of information that would come in an a major emergency, as well as threats to the campus. We had to listen to dispatch records from school shootings to see how such things were dealt with from a dispatch viewpoint. That was bad. Then we had to listen to a phone call from a girl from our campus who committed suicide.

The dispatcher who worked with her was amazing, he kept her talking for almost an hour I think while the police tracked her down. But in the end, she went through with it. We heard the whole thing. EMS rushed her to the hospital where she died, her parents had to tell the doctors to remove her from life support because she was brain dead.

Like I said, most of the time my job is good. Today, my heart hurts.

Friends, Humor, Work February 6, 2009November 3, 2009

Cheese With That Whine?

“Do you just hate happy people today or something?”
“Yes.”
“Well, knock it off.”
“This? Coming from you?”
“Exactly. Consider the source. If I’m saying it, you may have crossed a threshold.”
-C. and Marie

A few lessons gleaned from this week, a few frustrations, and a few observations:

For all you would-be moguls out there, may I offer a humble tip towards being a good boss: Listen to your secretaries. They are the people who are responsible for keeping your megalomaniac ambitions logged, organized, and proceeding according to schedule. Lt. Citrus and Lt. Figaro both laid a project each on me this week without warning, which while it more than quadrupled my workload wasn’t too bad. The instructions, on the other hand, were maddening.

Quoth Lt. Figaro, “So, I’d like you to update this directory of every employee in the department. We haven’t done it in three years or so and it’s entirely obsolete. Theeson was the last person to update it” [Theeson was replaced by Tink who was replaced by Wise who was replaced by me, just for a time frame reference] ” but no one else ever really used it except me, and since she quit I’ve done without it, but I’ve decided I’d like a new copy.”

I tried to tell him that 1) we were hiring and firing half a dozen people within the week so the list would be obsolete by Friday anyway and 2) that I kept an up-to-date roster on the department server already complete with names, call numbers, and personal and professional contact information. “Well, just make it for me then if no one else will use it,” he smiled and went back to his office. I tried not to cry and mentally cut back my lunch hour.

Lt. Citrus’ project was validly important to the university, but the instructions he gave me to do it all came in the wrong order, with outdated software, and logically confusing interjections of last minute ideas, corrections, or modifications. And since it involved the creating, labeling, stuffing, packaging and mailing of literally 100 packets, by the end of the second day I had papercut my fingertips to shreds.

It’s been a long, hard week and I’m intensely glad it’s Friday. And I want Tink back desperately, work without a good friend to grumble about assignments to is drudgery.

Work January 30, 2009

Ring-A-Ding-Ding

“Yes, thank you for making sure the bell works…”
-Men In Black

Batman has the Joker, Superman has Lex Luthor, I have this guy...

I have a major pet peeve, only discovered since working full time. In my office there is a large counter that separates the working space from the patron area, both for a space to keep equipment and computers and because there are some genuinely nutty people that we get to deal with every day and need a barrier for security. My desk is behind this counter. On this counter, is a sign that says “Please ring for assistance” and a little silver bell. I hate this bell. Mostly because, while it does serve a purpose when I am away from my desk, most people who ring it first make eye contact with me, smile (sometimes nicely, sometimes maliciously) and pointedly, cheerfully push its little button on top. And everyone who does this seems to think themselves so clever and humorous, as if no one has ever thought to do the same thing before. I try to head people off at the pass but lots of people refuse to talk to me unless they have run the bell first. I find this particularly irksome on Fridays: the clock taunts me with its slowness while the perky Ding! reminds me how many more people are coming in with problems before I can go home. I hate this bell.

Weird, Work January 27, 2009

Lockdowns, Employment and Otherwise

“This having a baby and going right back to work has got to stop. They may do it in Africa and Asia but here it makes the rest of us look bad!”
-C. to Tink

I’m about to have a managerial divorce from my work wife Tink. She’s going on maternity leave but due to family concerns, a recession-induced hiring freeze on the department, and our need for another dispatcher, she won’t be coming back. Hennessy is moving over from our Appeals department and she’s going to be lots of fun to work with, but I will miss my work wife!

The majority of my nightmares now include some variation on this theme

On an unrelated note, I am learning lots about driving in icy weather. I got my original driver license on Guam where the temperature never dipped below 75 F on a cold day. I never knew I’d have the experience to physically dig my car out of ice in a parking lot, nearly swerve off a road due to no fault of my own, or live in constant fear of killing a small child inadvertently. However this morning I discovered a new perplexity: my locks froze! I eventually got in the passenger’s side door and scooted over to drive to work, by which time that door was functional again, but honestly!

Work January 15, 2009November 3, 2009

To Catch a Thief

“They said they were just doing it for fun.”
“To the tune of Grand Theft Auto? What is this, a video game?!”
-Detective South and C.

Law enforcement, even from a secretarial standpoint, is pretty interesting. I’d never make a career out of it, but I’m getting a lot of fun info on people that I’ll hopefully be able to turn into good writing one day. But some of the stuff we deal with is stranger than fiction, no one could make this stuff up!

That big case that the detectives cracked? Turns out a bunch of college freshman went on a burglary spree that eventually culminated in finding dropped keys taking the car, and using it for a week before dumping. It only took one tip and somehow the detectives managed to unravel it all, high five, guys. But, heck, these kids weren’t even born in the same decade as me!

Another robbery occurred yesterday in the campus library. Thanks to a description by the victim, we found the stolen item listed for sale on Craigslist, matched the seller info to Facebook (of all things!) where he was handily wearing the exact same clothes in half of his online photos as in the security footage, and voila!

Oh, and who gets to do all the paperwork for these sorts of things (all criminal counts for our friends the car thieves that all have to be recorded, filed, copied, put into correct format, and hand delivered to the county attorneys)? Your friendly neighborhood secretary, C.!

Hopefully since they managed to solve almost every theft case from the end of last year in one feel swoop, I’ll be able to get some of the more mundane work done that I haven’t for a couple weeks. Office supplies must be ordered, stats must be entered, letters must be written. Obviously I get to do all the fun stuff around here…

Work January 6, 2009

Just Another Manic…Tuesday

“Is it just me, or does lying in a hammock on a beach while sipping down a virgin strawberry daiquiri sound really good right about now?!”
-Tink

Small Dog is a little under the weather...

Some people loathe Mondays with a passion, I am not one of them. My anger is reserved for Tuesdays. This is because even though you’ve survived the first day of a week…you’re still stuck at the beginning of it. Today is proving no exception. Six days into the new year, I’m happy to report my goal is still holding up (which comparatively to years past is pretty good) and I’m still getting up earlier and eating breakfast. The downside? No amount of good intention or resolution stands up against the twisted machinations of the universe. I was up, showered, made up, coiffed, and fed by 7:30 so I could head out to work a bit earlier and beat the almost knee deep snow in my parking lot. Trouble was, my keys went missing.

Along with Tuesdays I am plauged by missing keys. Freshman year I kept my roomates in a state of constant irritation as every morning I inevitably turned our dormroom upside down in a frantic search for them. This morning my entire flat fell prey to my ravages.

So, couple missing keys with bad weather to make me a half hour late to work, toss in a power outage that knocked out our office for several minutes (to boost hope of our being sent home early, only to have it wrenched cruelly away when the lights flickered on again), and a bad hair day…not even my new leopard print shoes can bring me joy. And it is a bleak day indeed when shoes can’t makes my spirits soar!

Home, Travel, Work December 22, 2008December 22, 2008

Evil Forces at Work

I must stop this whole thing!
-The Grinch

The weather gods are against me! I fly out to London tomorrow and currently the snow is inches deep and still falling in my western city. And through Minnesota too! Every ten seconds I look out the windows at the ever rising white stuff and have to make a conscious effort not to gnaw my nails down to the knuckles as I envision being trapped in Minneapolis with nothing but moose and my thwarted rage for company on Christmas Day.

I have a suitcase full of presents, it’s my younger brother’s birthday on the 27th, I haven’t seen the other brother in over a year, my little sister is getting bigger all the time and the next time I see her she’ll be 12, I want to sing carols at the top of my lungs while my mom and I cook Roast Beast, and I want my dog!

Why why WHY must the fates ally against me? Every year I go through this panic. Freshman year I was caught in D.C. for a night due to a broken down plane, another year there was a near miss flying out of NY. This year I’m cutting it very close by flying in on Christmas Eve.

On a more positive note, the snow is slowing and they are closing the university early so I can finish packing before heading up to Fairy’s house to spend the night. Fingers crossed for good travel, best of luck to all and to all a goodnight!

Small Dog Syndrome