PoodleBoy is getting on my nerves today, although just in a minor way.

I keep asking him to send me e-mails with instructions on doing this and that, because I'm writing an addendum to the user manual for one of our proprietary software products, and he keeps calling me on the phone, wanting to explain it all verbally.

I don't do transcription, PoodleBoy. When I say, "write it down," that's what I mean.

I am irritated by people who think writing something down is too much work. The truth is, if you can't write it down, 90% of the time it's because you don't really know what you're saying. Please don't call me and babble until I make sense out of gibberish. Calm your brain, organize your thoughts, and write it down.

Yeah.

Okay.

And?

The client who thought our demand to have text for their email 72 hours before they wanted it sent out (for edits and coding) was unreasonable, and who swore that if we could give them a 24-hour turnaround, they'd send us absolutely immaculate text in a pre-formatted template?

Has been frantically trying to get their text right and their template functional since yesterday morning. I've received two or three sets of changes and now our contact, who works on a Mac is realizing that their template doesn't display correctly on a Mac.

We tried. They're not getting any more promises of 24-hour turnaround. If DiamondGirl worked on staff and was here all day, every day, maybe we could do it, but she has a real job and she can't keep trying to sneak "rush" projects for us into her work schedule every day. It's just not right to her employer. Of course, we can't tell the client that because we're not allowed to let them know that Bernie's "staff" consists of me and two part-time contract employees.

I'm a bit worried about Bernie. He tried to get me to sit in on a call with that potential new product, the one he's going to be repping. (Needs a name...we'll call it Looney Tunes.)

Okay, so he tried to get me to sit in on a Looney Tunes conference call today, so I'd know what it was all about, and he wants to meet about a new project (with the old product) that's supposed to start in January.*

I think Bernie forgot that I've essentially handed in my notice. He does have a gift for believing what he wants to be true, instead of what's true.

Still. It's MountainMike day. Treats! That's a cheerful thought. (I really need to get back on the diet and drop another ten pounds.) (In the meantime, I bought pistachios and dry-roasted sunflower seeds.)

I sure am glad it's Payday Week. I sent a big check to my credit card company last week and I'm almost broke. I'm determined to pay that card off by the end of the year, though. It's keeping me a bit short of cash but there's nothing I really need to buy and I'm still holding (reasonably) firmly to my new resolution to stop buying stuff just for the sake of shopping.

And I got the last of the surveys boxed up yesterday, ready to ship out today, so that's the last of the huge projects for this month completed. I have a handful of small projects and a new tedious and time-consuming but not difficult project that Bernie handed me yesterday still on my plate, but I'm feeling much less stressed.

Also, now that I've fulfilled what my conscience saw as my duty to stay and get Bernie though the September crush, I'm free to job-hunt. I've dusted off the old resume so I guess I have no reason now not to get on with it.

Except! I have nothing to wear to a job interview.

I'd better go shopping this weekend.

__________________

* Speaking of things that annoy me?

He's bored of our current crop of clients and trying to get Looney Tunes up and running. And that's fine. But our current crop of clients are paying us, some of them a significant amount, and someone has to do their work.

He should stop getting mad at me because I am working on their stuff.

I strongly suspect that he wants to tell me I have to focus on what he's working on and any of my work I can't get done while I'm "being available," I should just do after he leaves for the day. For two cents, I'd explain to him that I am not willing to sit here, being available all day, and then put in a hard eight hours after he leaves at 4:00. (Nor is it possible for me to do all of this when he's not in the office, since he goes mental if he calls my desk and I don't pick up the phone.)

You know, really, I'm not annoyed today. I think writing whiny blog posts is just a habit.