My apologies to those of you who are less-than fascinated with the soap opera of my office life. Bernie and I are having another little moment, and I'm here to vent.
He's an ungrateful little shit. Not content with the fact that I'm doing the Tweenybopper's job without hysteria or lesser trauma, that I've picked up what little I can understand of DiamondGirl's job, that I'm on top of, even ahead of schedule for September's commitments, which are the heaviest in the history of the company, along with 'managing' a free-lance worker and doing the research for two new projects, both of which are going to land squarely on my desk, he's now bitching and moaning because when he's not in the office, I'm not always at my desk when he calls.
Those of you who have been with us for a while may remember that I mentioned the Tweenybopper volunteering to work remotely when she moved to Philadelphia, and Bernie declining the offer because her job can't be done entirely from a computer - there's a fair amount of actual, physical stuff to be done here in the office.
Now, however, he has decided that he's "too old to be embarrassed" and when he's out on a "sales call" to someone's office, I need to be at my desk, for a minimum of 3-4 hours, so that if he has a need for me for any reason, he can reach me.
You know, I'm sorry if he's embarrassed by his woeful lack of understanding of the products his company supposedly sells, but I think there's an easier fix than having 50% of the staff off-line and unproductive any time he's afraid someone will ask him a question. I've been here for six months. He's been here for six years. How has he managed not to figure out what the products do in all that time?
I'm all the more annoyed because time when he's out of the office is usually my most productive time. I tear through a ton of work when he's not here, being needy.
Also, he stated firmly that if he says he'll call me at 9:15 some morning, if haven't heard from him by 9:16, I need to be "concerned" and to be calling him up to see what the problem is. (His idea, among other things, is that someone might be "talking to him" and he might not be watching the time. So, basically, I'm to make a long-distance call to be his alarm clock.)
I continue to be somewhat amazed by all of this. I've never worked with a two year-old before. I've only ever worked with adults.
You know, the kind of people who, if they're in sales, make sure they know the features of the products they sell.
The kind of people who, when they make an appointment, consider it to be mostly their own responsibility to keep it, especially once they get to the point where they've already arrived at the client's office.
The kind of people who don't keep saying, again and again, I know you're not my secretary/personal assistant, but I need you to act like one.
The kind of people who, if they hire you to provide sales support, don't get pissy with you because you can't provide network support.
I keep mentioning "sales" in quotes that way when I talk about Bernie because I've now been privileged (ahem) to hear him doing a presentation to a potentially huge client (that was Tuesday's call) and I found myself...just so underwhelmed that I can't really find the words to express it at the moment.
(DiamondGirl and I chatted about his "sales" ability one time and she did mention that she'd never known him to make a sale. All of the clients he has he either inherited from the parent company or were referred to us by one of those three clients. After listening to him the other day, I can't really say I'm surprised.)
Anyhow.
Considering that he combined the above hissy fit with the news that he's switching to his wife's insurance coverage and that if our current provider won't continue to cover me, I'll have to find alternate insurance (although he did offer to pay part of it) and the news that he's either going to get into a snit and quit at the end of September, or the end of the year, and I suddenly find myself startlingly free of the guilt I was feeling about job-hunting right now, before the busiest four weeks the company has ever had kick off.
It occurred to me the other day (have I mentioned this before?) that between the pay cut Bernie handed me, the loss of my 401K, and inflation over the last 3-4 years, I've lost approximately 25% of my salary since the day I first met this bunch o'crazies. It's just not worth the price.
I just feel certain there has to be another office out there who needs an office manager / shipping and receiving clerk / bookkeeper / cleaner / receptionist / account exec / customer technical support rep / mail clerk / software tester / etc. / etc. / etc. I even feel reasonably certain that a company needing this person won't get snippy with them when they find themselves unable to provide babysitting services as well.
Who knows? Since I actually have over a decade of experience as an Account Exec? Maybe someone out there actually needs those skills?
One of the things that's always annoyed me in my 'professional' life have been the not-infrequent demands on the part of one supervisor or another for me to "sit in" on a presentation "just in case."
"Just in case" of what, I've always wondered?
Bernie pulled that one this morning. He was on-site in a client's office, doing an online presentation to them and another person who was connecting to the meeting remotely. I was required to sit through the 1-1/4 hour tedium "just in case."
I mean, all that could go wrong was for the client's network to go down or for Bernie to be asked a question he didn't know the answer to and I fail to see how having me on the phone could have been useful in either situation. I know nothing about networks and I know nothing about the new product idea Bernie was presenting.
Also, Bernie does lame presentations and while I'm not a salesperson myself, I've been privileged to work with some really good ones in my career and it's painful to me to listen to entirely lame presentations.
Thank goodness for the "mute" button on my digital phone.
While grousing mentally about the gross waste of time (and the death of several brain cells), I fixed and ate my breakfast, took a bathroom break, wandered outdoors to have a cigarette, played at least ten games of Spider Solitaire, and answered a few e-mails.
So, you know, not entirely time lost. Just time lost to doing anything productive.
One thing has to be said. Spending half the day in a vain attempt to get a program working properly does make the time pass quickly. Hours slide by without you even noticing it, which isn't at all bad on a Monday.
(Of course, you could just as easily say, "There went four hours of my life that I'll never see again." But I wouldn't say that. I'm going to try to be positive this week.)
I begrudge everyone everything today but nothing as much as I begrudge you taking up three and a half hours of my day to learn a software program any average rodent could have learned in fifteen or thirty minutes.
The proper sales-related use of PowerPoint is to create an informative and enticing presentation for when you cannot be on-site at a client's location. This presentation should whet their appetites and encourage them to ask for or allow a "real" presentation, or at least call and ask for details and pricing.
When used in a live presentation, no PowerPoint screen should exceed 6 words. In a pinch you can go to 10, but when you hit 15 or more, you can be certain your audience is reading and not listening to you. It is not the proper use of PowerPoint to write a full-fledged proposal on all the minute features of your product in 14 pt text on twenty screens. (Especially not when you insist on using four font colors and three typefaces.) Nor is it actually a "sales presentation" for you to subsequently sit and read these screens to a captive audience.
The proper use of online conferencing/sales software is to show clients graphics and/or interactive demonstrations of your product. It is not to force ten people to sit at their desks and read your "PowerPoint presentation" of all the minute features of your product and listen to you read them all twenty screens of text.
But almost more than that, I begrudge the ten minutes of mine you wasted explaining to me how you were too busy to send out a fax today, so you needed me to do it for you.
I also begrudge the fact that you sent me the text for an e-mail in one document, the client's e-mail address in another document, and then e-mailed me to tell me to send the client the text of the e-mail. I wonder if it will ever in your life occur to you that you would have saved us both fifteen minutes and me a lot of stress if you'd just sent the client the damned e-mail yourself?
Today I have not completed your weekly bookkeeping update, I have not downloaded the client's database info for sending to the database administrator, I have not completed coding the job that's due out next Wednesday, I have not contacted those six other people about sending us database information, and I have not called any of those 40-50 potential new clients to find out for you precisely whose name you should use when calling and the best day and time to contact them.
And, if you ever ask my why I did not get to tasks such as these today, I will beat your pointy little head in with my rolling chair.
Sincerely,
Your (very nearly ex-) employee
Bernie showed up in a darned cheerful mood this morning.
The R.C. was (justifiably) crowing and strutting this morning as her bathroom scales produced a number neither of us has seen in 15 years or more. (Go, you!)
Buehler was here and as chipper as always.
The world seems to be happy. What's up with that?
I'm in a sort of even mood today. Not so grouchy as I was earlier in the week, but not actually going about with a song on my lips either.
Mind you, a world o'fun was threatened earlier today when Bernie, tired of me insisting that I don't know SQL, decided to write his own SQL query, by gosh, but in the end it came to nothing.
I handed him the instructions for logging into the software and wished him luck but DiamondGirl, who still has to use that particular program for the free-lance work she's doing for us, found out what I was doing and demanded that I get his grubby mitts off of her software before he broke it or deleted the entire database or created some other disaster.
It's a pity. I was rather looking forward the whole event. At the very least, his attempt to comprehend the instructions should have provided those of us watching with a certain amusement. (I'm sure it would have brightened up my day.)
I'm never let to have any fun.
In other news, I might rearrange how I do my daily timesheet to make it easier for me. I'm experimenting with it today.
We'll see how Bernie reacts to the simplified format. Since he doesn't really read anything you send him, or at least rarely more than the first two or three lines, it may well be that this is the first time he's seen the data laid out so simply that he can see that only about 50% of my day is actually spent working on client-related stuff and the rest of it is frittered away in such vital tasks as getting the mail, resizing graphics because he has a panic when he realizes that everyone will recognize a gadget that, well, everyone recognizes*, cleaning out spam from the catch-all e-mail account, filing, convincing him to keep his mitts off the SQL database, etc.
Tonight I'm probably going out for Mexican.
Tomorrow I might take a deposit to the bank for the company. I need to make a deposit of my own at my bank, which is four blocks from the company's bank, so it seems like a good use of my time (to me).
Saturday I may and/or may not be going to lunch with friends. It seems to be beyond the powers of the universe to find one Saturday in a month when six women can agree to get together.
When it comes to the immediate future, all signs point to Maybe in my life.
_____________
* I have to admit that I'm amused by his assumption that putting an Avery label over the manufacturer's logo will fool the prospective client into thinking we manufactured the gadget ourselves.
#1 - It's a shame that writing blog entries isn't paying work. I can muster up enthusiasm for blathering on about nothing at all for hours on end in my blog every day. My enthusiasm for my actual paying job wanes after the first thirty minutes in the morning.
Some days, like today, I have plenty of bits and pieces to mess around with, but the only actual job satisfaction comes from checking these things off the list.
#2 - It's a shame that I wasted 50 cents on that package of pens in that "back to school sale" last week. I knew at the time that I wasn't likely to love a pen that cost 5 cents (there were ten in the package) and sure enough, I don't love them. Now I'm mentally justifying paying $5 for a package of three of the kinds of pens I actually like.
A pen should not fight the paper. I shouldn't feel my muscles straining from the force it takes to compel the pen to disgorge ink upon the paper. (Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I don't love these pens.)
#3 - It's a shame I only have ten days of vacation a year. I've been figuring it and with my annual trip to California and scheduling a couple of days to go see my Mom once a year, it's a tight fit to get another cruise in next year (assuming I'm still at this job, and haven't started over and am restricted to something stupid like 5 days a year of vacation).
I mean, I can do it, but that leaves me with no possibility of time off during the rest of the year.
It's been six years since I left the job where I had 15 days of vacation a year and I'm still not used to it. I find that I resent the idea that if I take time off in February and August, I can't be away from work the other ten months of the year.
(I'm finding the numbered list format confining, so I'm abandoning it.)
The more I think about it, the more I'm deciding that this whole "work" thing is stupid and badly arranged. People's lives should be spent living. Not shut up in little boxes.
I used to have a friend who would scrimp and save and pinch pennies all year, then take a mad, extravagant vacation each year. She would go places like Russia or Austria or Florence. She ate out no more than once a month, if that, never went to movies or bought books, or did any unnecessary shopping - like for extra clothes. And I always thought that while I envied her the exotic vacations, I couldn't imagine not living all year long just so I could do something wild and crazy once a year.
Now I want it both ways. I want an exciting vacation every year, but I don't want to have to give up my regular pursuits to get it. I especially don't want to give up the freedom to have an extra day off every so often.
Life is badly arranged.
Although...now that I think about it, the cruise thing probably isn't going to be that big of an issue. I'm not a fan of hot weather and I hate high humidity, so there really aren't that many cruises I'd probably be interested in taking outside of the Alaska one, you know? I'd like to go to Hawaii on the cruise that takes you by the volcano island. But the Caribbean and other destinations other people rave about? Strike me as recipes for misery.
I've thought about the Panama Canal. That would be fabulous - just to ride through the Canal and think about the history of it all. But, again, hot and humid, and those Panama Canal cruises are expensive.
Also, there might be bugs. I don't like bugs.
Sigh. I'll just tell myself that these days when I'm the only one in the office are practically like vacation. Everything but the fun and the freedom....
Maybe I'll go mad and eat a cookie.
What I need is to go back to 4-10s. I used to work a job where I worked ten hours a day, but I only had to work four days a week. Thus, I had a three-day weekend every week.
What my life needs is more three-day weekends. I need more days off.
Granted, I already have difficulty staying motivated or interested in what I'm doing for eight hours a day, so I can't honestly say my employer would gain, or even come out even, on the productivity scale if I were sitting here for ten hours, but this is All About Me, so I'm not so much worried about that part of the equation.
Yesterday, for instance, Bernie requested a 1:00 meeting. (He always requests 1:00 meetings. He, like many people, takes it as a personal affront that I eat lunch at 1:00 instead of at high noon.) That, and the morning's conference call, were the only things on my agenda. I had things I could dink around with, but no actual work to do that inspired the slightest amount of enthusiasm in my Monday Morning Brain.
Oh, wait. I forgot. Bernie wanted me to find out how much it would cost a client to run a Google Ad (keywords undetermined) in one, or maybe two major markets (not really chosen yet) for some time period that he's not sure about yet. I started to try to do the impossible and figure this out, but then common sense kicked in and I just told him he could run a really quality experiment for $500/month. (Who knows? Maybe he can. If and when he decides what ad to run in what market....) I was pretty excited about that one.
Okay, I don't mind working with the Merely Stupid, especially since I fall into the category myself, from time to time, but working with the Stubbornly Clueless really annoys me. (One time I told him it wasn't possible to do a similar project under these circumstances and he got in a huff, called the vendor himself, gave them all the details he told me that he didn't have, and then returned, triumphant, to my desk to announce that he hadn't found it at all difficult to complete the "impossible" project. How I refrained from slaying him, I'll never understand.)
Yesterday's other Ridiculously Vague Project involved giving him a time schedule for how soon this week I'll talk to some people who have, as he well knows, refused to answer my e-mails and phone calls for several days already, and what results I'll get from them if and when they do ever talk to me. (Yeah, let me send Og The Enforcer over to their offices and force them to talk to me and, while I'm at it, let me gaze into my crystal ball and find out what they're going to say when they do.)
And, finally (there were several idiot projects, once I stopped to think about it), I had to find the names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and specific best method of individually contacting 40-50 people in his latest brainstorm, an industry we have no experience with. Mind you, it's not enough to identify the specific organizations and their contact info - he wants me to call and find out the name of the people he should talk to.
You know what I dislike? I dislike working with a "sales person" who doesn't want to do the work associated with making a sale. If "selling" involved nothing but calling a vetted list of names in a narrowly defined field of potentials, anyone could do it. At least half the battle is figuring out who you need to talk to inside any organization. The ability and the willingness to do that kind of thing is why good sales people make $150,000/year. (I've had this experience before. What happens is I call and ask who we should talk to about doing X and instead of getting a name, I get transferred to this person's voicemail or, worse, to this person directly. So I wind up doing the sales call.)
Subsequently, in our 1:00 meeting he expressed disappointment at my inability to learn to write SQL queries on the fly, to get into a client's database so we could copy it, to produce creative and original marketing plans at the drop of a hat, to create forms in .asp or .php for use on another client's website, so that newly submitted data would write directly into the database being maintained by a database guy somewhere else in a format/program I'm not sure about, and my unwillingness to work for 5 hours on Labor Day, on a project that could just as easily be done later in the week.
It isn't that I don't actually have the time to do some of those things right now, and it isn't that I'm incapable of doing at least some of them, because I do and I'm not. I just resent doing half his job, along with the half of DiamondGirl's that I inherited on top of the two people's jobs I was already doing.
I'm grouchy this week, aren't I?
What else? Anything good to report?
Last night I wallowed in the comfort of the Newly Tidy Living Room and thought smug thoughts about all of those bags of stuff in the dumpster instead of underfoot. It might have been a better wallow had the R.C. not kept mentioning all of the things left to be done, but I managed a decent wallow anyhow.
I was not online at any point. By now I'm so hopelessly behind on reading my usual online sites that I have no hope of ever catching up. I like those sites and I'd like to get caught up. I just don't have any hope of doing so.
Nope. I don't think there's that much good to report at the moment.
That, in a nutshell, encapsulates much of my weekend. The R.C. and I got into one of our sporadic tidying fits and hauled eight or ten bags of miscellaneous debris out to the dumpster this weekend. (It's not that we're packrats - if we were, we'd never throw anything away - it's just that paper accumulates, no matter what you do to try and prevent it.)
We also cleared out massive numbers of books and old tapes - things we'd bought on DVD or inexplicably wound up with two copies of or stuff we'd taped and never watched again.
The whole thing was started by a new bookcase for the living room. (So much of my life revolves around the presence, or absence, of extra book storage space.) We got rid of the dining room table, a useless piece of furniture for people who don't "dine" and opened up a ton of extra floor space. Then we went into a frenzy of organizing and throwing out as we decided what to put on the bookcase we put in the space instead.
This led, as such things do, to the bedrooms, and by the time I went to bed last night, I'd not only cleaned out extraneous books, tapes, and DVDs, but I'd gone through the closet ruthlessly and, I have hopes, finally actually got rid of all of the clothes I will never wear.
I actually have four empty shelves in my room, so I can now buy new books! (Not that I was noticeably refraining before....) I haven't finished with cleaning out books - there are a bunch I just can't decide what to do with - things I bought, read, and enjoyed a lot, but probably wouldn't read again, but I think I've made a promising beginning.
I also did three loads of laundry, went to the grocery store, and did a small amount of vacuuming and dusting.
There's more to do but I ran out of steam and the R.C. has been groaning over her aches and pains since Saturday evening, so it will have to wait. (If we ever actually did the entire apartment at once, entropy would probably reverse itself in shock. I don't get in the mood for "housework" very often.)
It was not an inexpensive weekend, by any means. Although it might not sound like it, that trip to the Container Store to buy the bookcase wound up costing me $150 for my half of the bookcase and the assorted Really Interesting And Useful Things that I always seem to wind up buying when I'm there, but I do feel, for a change, like I didn't just fritter the weekend away enjoying myself lazily.
Still. It's nice to have room to walk around in the living room. And it's nice to look at the neatly tidied shelves where you can, for a change, see everything that's available. And it's nice to look at my freshly laundered clothing in the closet and realize that everything hanging there is something I'd actually wear. It's nice to be able to get to all of my books (except the ones in storage) easily.
One of the drawbacks, of course, was that as I was moving things around and rearranging them, I found myself getting distracted by dozens of books I haven't had the time to read in the last year or two. I kept being tempted to stop and read through some of them.
But I didn't. That way lies disaster and Living With The Mess for weeks on end.
Today, I am not in the mood to work. Which isn't unusual for a Monday.
And now, I have a conference call. Excuse me.
I'm glad that Bernie came up with a project that requires some online research today. I'm feeling disconnected, a mood which generally leads to me "losing" time during the day and eventually coding time recklessly to anything that looks plausible.
I really need to start going to bed at a more reasonable hour, but I've been indulging in an obsessive bout of fiction reading.
I haven't read much "alternate history fantasy" but I read Naomi Novik's new series (what's available so far) recently and enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm looking forward to the next book, whenever it comes out.
I'm not quite sure what to expect out of "alternate history" books, but I'm a tad disappointed that, at least so far, the actual historical implications are tangential to the stories themselves. I'd anticipated placing magical dragons in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars would produce....
Well, I don't know, now that I come to think about it. I was kind of hoping for more about the Wars, I guess. It's a time period that interests me, but neither the culture nor the battles seem, so far, to be that important to the books. In fact, beyond providing her with a ready-made "villain" and a vague timeline, I haven't yet seen any advantages to setting this series in an "alternate history" instead of just creating a new world. (Granted, she'd have had to do more world-building in the first book which, I suppose, might have been sufficient reason in and of itself.)
I've read most of the "sea" books, at least the major series, around that era. Alexander Kent and Dudley Pope and Merryat, etc. I really enjoyed those, not the least for the discussion of the battles and tactics.
I just started on Cornwall's Sharp series, although that's in India (at least so far) and not, of course, set on the sea.
It's a bit of a surprise to me to find myself reading fiction of the non-genre variety (meaning, non-SF and non-fantasy) these days, but there you go. Something I'd have sworn I couldn't be bothered with a year ago is suddenly fascinating to me. (Before, when I wanted to "learn" about something historical, I generally read non-fiction. I guess, these days, my brain is more interested in stories than accuracy.)
Seen on this morning's inbound commute, courtesy of the R.C.: Jesus is coming. Stash your porn.
Seen in a parking lot last night: Are you out of blinky fluid?
And, an oldie but a goodie, seen on my way home last night: Republicans for Voldemort
So, what else is disturbing your tiny brain today, you ask?
Expense reports. I reported the food items I had receipts for from my trip to SF in May. This totaled a whopping $12.00.
Bernie, on the other hand, nicked the company for "per diem" of $64/day for two days (He only charged the client for 1-1/2 days. Weirdo.), so he made out like a bandit.
I've always filed expenses of my...well...expenses. Now I'm acutely aware that I could have grabbed $96.00 for my time and agro during that trip.
I can't decide whether to be annoyed about this or not. On the one hand, I didn't make a profit off the trip. On the other hand, I did get to spend three hours giving Bernie a large piece of my mind.
I hate when people insist, "let's have a drink and relax." I have no tolerance for alcohol any more. One drink (especially something like sake) and I say precisely what's on my mind. This is an issue when what's on my mind is so rarely polite.
I used to have a boss who insisted that I have a drink with her when we were traveling. She said that's the only way I'd tell her the truth. The problem is that "truth" isn't some fixed object - it's variable, and there are many facets to it. My inebriated "truth" tends to be the worst of all possible worlds. "Tact" is just so not my middle name, you know?
I have to admit, though, that even back when I did have a tolerance for alcohol, my mouth used to get me into trouble.
One time I gave the president of the company I worked for a piece of my mind about carrying on with his secretary, making a point out of saying that it was doubly rude to do it that night, at the company holiday party, when we were in his home. I have no actual memory of this event (champagne makes me black out) but I was filled in on some of the details by my immediate superior at a later date. (I did notice that he seemed surprised to see me show up for work the next Monday morning, but no one told me until two months later that I'd technically been fired that night. Whatever.)
The number of stories I could tell that reveal what a sloppy drunk I am.... But, enough of that. I'm not going to. I have a little pride.
Still. It's amazing where your brain wanders if you turn it loose, isn't it? I hadn't thought about some of that stuff in decades.
Bernie informed me this week that my presence will not be required in LA in September, which makes me happy. I don't like LA. (I suspect, although Bernie didn't say it, that he's not taking me because this is the Hollywood Crowd and I'm insufficiently young and perky for the image he wants to project. He's taking his 20 year-old daughter, instead.)
All else remaining equal, I will be in Sacramento (arriving Nov 8, leaving Nov 10), though. I don't mind Sacramento so much.
The trip I would have liked, Vegas in September, is also not on my agenda. I wasn't all that excited about Vegas, but this is one of the few clients I've enjoyed working with and I'd have liked to meet her face-to-face.
What else?
My niece will not be coming for a visit this summer, as planned, owing to my having lost my mind, and lost track of time, and not having realized that summer is nearly over already and I didn't get the trip scheduled.
I'm not pleased about this and I wish I could find someone to blame other than myself. Sigh. Between the chaos at work (the threat every month that Bernie might just throw up his hands and close us down, interspersed with intervals of multiple simultaneous deadlines) and preparing for the cruise, it seems that I just had very little brain left this summer.
In fact, I spent all spring and all summer planning where to take her, what to show her, and coming up with ideas for what we could do, but I never got around to actually doing anything concrete about it.
It's wrong to disappoint children. She was nice about it when I called her and she's going to find out when her winter breaks are in college this year so we can schedule the trip for later, but still.
I am such a waste of space sometimes.
I'm also wasting brain space on idle thoughts about going to the grocery store, about the book I was reading last night, about whether or not I should spend a hundred bucks to get the first new Doctor Who series on DVD, about what I'd do with the $28 million lottery if I had the brains to remember to buy and ticket and subsequently won, and about the truly bizarre-looking construction equipment at work a block away, equipment that just cries out to appear in some kind of post-apocalyptic science fiction story.
My head is all full of thoughts on a dozen different topics recently. Sadly, but as to be expected, few if any of them are business-related.
I think about them on company time anyhow.
I got a thingy from Nestle, announcing that they're still interested in giving me my payout from my antique Ralston Purina 401K, so please tell them if I'm really the me who used to work for Keystone and they'll send me info.
I'm actually me, so I'm looking for a notary today. And a copy machine, so I can photocopy my drivers' license. (How ignorant is it to work in an office that doesn't have a copy machine? What's the point of working if you're not in an office that has an abundance of handy machines and equipment you can use for personal business?)
If I remember correctly, I had about $64 in benefits when I left the company so with the various stock market shenanigans since that time, I probably have $37 now, but considering what the Bush Administration hit squad has done to my already meager savings in the last five years or so, every $37 I can lay my hands on is probably going to be needed.
Sigh. It's a question of information and intent, isn't it? I was raised with the understanding that Social Security would take care of me when I was old. Yes, you should have a bit put aside beyond that, but as long as you had Social Security, you wouldn't be destitute. Now, of course, the current crop of federal lunatics are claiming that they've been forcibly raping my paycheck for the past 30 years but that there's no promise, implicit or otherwise, that they'll be inclined or able to provide the benefits I was supposedly contributing toward. It was, apparently, all a big gotcha!
We got all the money in the world to slaughter people in Iraq but we can't afford for the government to keep its commitment to us.
Grrrr. No. Not. Getting. Political.
Bernie was supposed to be in yesterday but at 11:30 I got a huffy e-mail from him bitching me out because I hadn't called him at home for some information we were supposed to discuss first thing yesterday morning. When I pointed out that he'd told me he was going to be in and that he'd never told me otherwise, or to call him (I didn't worry that he wasn't in by 11:30 - he shows up whenever), he offered a brief apology and disappeared from the internet again for three more hours.
We had one of those Talks on Monday. Not a cometojesus sort of thing, but another talk where he made it clear that he's tired of doing all of this and wanting to quit. Basically, if one of the latest "deals" doesn't come through, he's planning to leave in October or November. (Which isn't a shock, since our current contracts only go through December anyhow.)
He more-or-less suggested that Buehler (primary owner of this little hoe-down) might be interested in keeping this company's operations going for the $200k or whatever they bring in in a year and said that maybe I could stay around to handle all of it.
(eyeroll
I mean, no matter how disenchanted he is with the company, the insanity of turning things over to me to run?
Boggles. The mind.)
On the other hand, if one or both of the two latest Big Deals do come through, then the company will once again be split, doing two nearly unrelated things (which causes schizophrenia in his (only) employee), one of which he's interested in and would hang around for.
He offered to let me work with him on the stuff he's interested in, or to essentially hand over, again, the current clients, and leave me to it.
On the one hand, the current clients are all crazy and he's offered them services we don't know how to provide (he's hired a part-time contractor, which strikes me as an insane leg to rest the health of your entire business on) and that I'm not really enthusiastic about. But I wouldn't be working closely with him, which is a plus.
On the other hand, the other clients, the ones he wants to work with, aren't as crazy, the work would be more focused and fit more in with my skills, and there would be more money in it. But I'd have to work with him, and he's crazier than the clients.
It's all very confusing and I decided to think about it another day.
Besides, it's all also pie in the sky at this point. And, I should point out, one of the current crop of crazies is Hollywood-related and Bernie got starstruck over the contact list they sent us, so if they decide to expand, he's likely to stick with them, regardless of anything else. Aside from Robert Redford I've never been the type to coo over actors myself, so I'm less than indifferent. (Yes, I'm a "media fan" but I'm not an actor fan. I fall for stories and characters, and don't care so much the people behind them.) (Well, except for Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon.)
Anyhow. Bernie may or may not be in today. Let's hope he's less crabby if he is.
There are other things jumbling around in my head as well, but I've probably tried your patience enough for one day.
I read interviews like this and I find myself surprised. Surprised to hear that anyone doubts that Israel told us what they were going to do before they did it.
I totally believe some faction in the federal government approved this plan. No doubt the same bunch o'random crazies who thought "taking" Iraq would be a matter of a few weeks of tidy shelling and then a short, photogenic interval of fending off the love-crazed locals.
(Sorry to get all political.)
Posted by AnneZook at 01:01 PM | Comments (1)8:45 in the morning and it's 78 degrees? I don't care what anyone says, this is not "normal" weather for Denver. Not even in August.
I have a 2:00 meeting with the "oversight" bookkeeper to discuss her "concerns." If one of her "concerns" is that I don’t do things the way a proper bookkeeper would, she's going to get precious little sympathy from me. I was told that my involvement with the bookkeeping stopped at generating invoices and receiving payments. That that turned out to be a lie doesn't surprise me, but I have no intention of taking on any more responsibility in that area. (For one thing, no one with my numeric dyslexia really should be allowed anywhere near a column of figures, and certainly not a column of figures that a company's financial health depends on.)
DiamondGirl will be in this afternoon as well, so it's likely to be lively around here this afternoon.
It's boring right now. I don't doubt there's something I could/should be doing, but I can't figure out what it might be. There are only seven items on my Tasks list, four of which I can't do anything with until Bernie does his part. The other two consist of sending two e-mails and making one phone call. I'm saving those to keep me awake later today.
Maybe I should have some extra caffeine to fortify me? The daily Starbucks trips are one of the things I gave up to balance out the 20% pay cut, but this one's on someone else, so why not? (Buehler handed me another Starbucks card yesterday. Every so often he strolls by my desk, says something silly and nice, and tosses a $10 Starbucks card at me.)
Later....
In the end, I didn't go to Starbucks. Call it inertia, laziness, or whatever. I stayed here and worked.
Another thing I gave up, of course, were those weekly Amazon.com orders. I've only had two orders from them in the last 3-1/2 months. That's a lot of self-restraint, but with the second of those two orders scheduled to arrive on Monday, I'm feeling more celebratory than deprived. (I should point out that I spent $250 at other bookstores during that 3-1/2 months. Self-restraint only goes so far when it comes to books.)
I was thinking about it because UPSteve was in today and we were talking about what a wasteland this place has become. When I started here, there were ten people plus a couple of part-timers. Now there's just the three of us in the office and I'm frequently here alone.
I don't mind being alone - I tend to be a lot more productive without interruptions, but there's just not enough work to do. And the work there is? Is largely boring.
If it's not calling someone to make sure they got Bernie's fax or his e-mail, it's bookkeeping or, as I said yesterday, calling companies randomly to see if any of them remember making some custom product that's sort of indescribable for us, no, we don't know how long ago it was, five or six years maybe. (Oddly enough, I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated about making that call.)
"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. This is not the circus."
In Spanish. Anyone?
Posted by AnneZook at 04:53 PM | Comments (2)In retrospect, I could have made a better entry out of that.
Me, schlepping around in the Great Outdoors cursing the lack of air conditioning and trying not to step in any thing that looked like...something you shouldn't step in.
My cell phone stubbornly refusing to work when I tried to call the locksmith, proving that having a cell "in case of emergency" is a waste of time.
The woman designated to go around the site with me and help me pick everything up declining to leave the comfort of her air conditioned office and choosing instead to stand in the doorway and point out the various places I needed to visit.
Making five trips by foot to the farthest site (forgot the list of where things are, forgot the packing case to put it all in, forgot the key to the padlock, had the wrong key to the padlock) before the idea of driving percolated through my heat-frazzled brain.
The padlock that refused to unlock, resulting in me wasting fifteen minutes trying to cut through the unbreakable/un-cuttable cable for. (I wound up damaging the cable and eventually coaxing the padlock to surrender.)
I'm sure there's something funny in there somewhere. I'll let you know when it occurs to me.
Got one of those snippy little e-mails from Bernie this morning - this one essentially accusing me of intentionally making his life harder and sabotaging his business trip by not realizing he'd changed subjects without warning in the middle of an e-mail exchange.
A brief moment of irritation and a quick look at jobbing.com produce the information that I can work in Japan, teaching English, for a whopping $26k a year. I think not.
Anyhow, job-hunting on company time is wrong.
Update, much later.... You know, call me silly, but it actually seems to me that if you send a client an e-mail and get a return receipt that they've read it, you don't really need me to call them and ask them if they read it.
Also, if you sent a potential client an e-mail discussing the details of some agreement I haven't been involved in and don't know anything about, it makes more sense for you to follow up with them to see if they have any questions than it does for me to do it.
One assumes you're trying to look "professional" and give the impression that this company is larger than it is, but the end result is that we look like a bunch of disorganized lunatics.
(Also? While we're discussing stupid? Stupid is sending a client an e-mail, then asking me to call them and tell them you sent an e-mail. Do you have any idea just how stupid that is? I know you don't trust technology, but considering that you're trying to sell these clients on technology solutions to their problems, it might be better if you didn't let them know it.)
Posted by AnneZook at 01:51 PM | Comments (2)8:30 - Arrive at office, check e-mail, check voicemail, etc., etc., etc.
8:45 - Proofread changes to client's website, send DiamondGirl multiple e-mails outlining the things she's forgotten to upload or just not done. IM exchange wherein she makes it clear she's tired of doing "hourly" work for us now that she has a new job. I refrain from mentioning that I told her when she agreed to it that she was crazy.
9:15 - Go to bathroom, take packing case down to car, prepare glass of ice water for road trip.
9:30 - Head out on trip, realize I have no idea where I'm going, return to office, MapQuest destination, leave again.
9:45 - Drive north for several years while I contemplate whether or not I woke up in a Hell dimension this morning. Eventually the sight of a Starbucks sign convinces me that I'm not in Hell, just getting too close to Wyoming.
10:55 - Arrive at destination, make contact with client and find out locations of products to be retrieved.
Refrain from cursing Bernie (out loud, anyhow) as I realize he's spread the 17 product boxes over seven locations in what has to be the world's hilliest fairgrounds. Demand and receive permission to drive onto fairgrounds, so I don't have to haul 195 lbs worth of equipment around.
11:05 - Discover I've locked my keys in my car. I was wrong. It is a Hell dimension.
11:25 - Locksmith arrives and lets me into my car. I pack the products I've collected so far into the trunk.
11:30 - 12:37 - I walk halfway down the fair site to "the big tent" only to discover that the padlock key in my pocket doesn't fit the lock on the product boxes. Return to car and retrieve different lock. Halfway back to the "big tent" I remember that I received permission to drive onto the grounds. Return to car, drive to site, get product boxes. (Glance in mirror and realize that not stopping for more water on the drive was a bad idea. Based on my coloring, I can't be too far from yet another minor run-in with heat exhaustion.)
Retrieve product boxes from the other five locations, then return to first location as I realize I forgot one product box. Many bits and pieces are tossed loose into the car. Where did Bernie hide that other product case?
In spite of temperatures climbing over 95, the lack of shade or air conditioning, the absence of ice water, and the presence of far too much dirt that has the unmistakable pong of dried cow chips, I do not run over the six children who have decided that fun equals walking as slowly as they can move side-by-side down the driving lane, laughing over their shoulders at any cars that get stuck behind them.
12:45 - Return to client office to demand and receive the other packing case they "forgot about" when I was there earlier. Stop to pack all of the loose product boxes and accoutrements into this packing case.
2:00 - Arrive back at office, still flushed and feverish in spite of car's A/C and a huge glass of ice water procured along the way.
Unpack debris from car and dump into shipping room. Suck down more ice water.
2:30 - Write long, whiny blog entry about my sucky day.
And yes, there was a dead skunk.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:49 PM | Comments (3)Theoretically...if you worked from 8:30 - 5:00? And there was something to be done one day, that needed to be done between 8:00 and 5:00? Would you go do it at 8:00 if your boss was out of town, and then leave half an hour early that day?
Theoretically, if you had something to be done one day that involved an hour-long drive, instead of your usual 20-30 minute commute, would you do the driving on your time or the office's time?
These are the kinds of things I never used to consider before I worked for someone who monitors my every breath and constantly suspects me of lying about the work I'm doing. I find that, if closely watched, I'm reluctant to do business tasks during my personal time. I don't drop off business bank deposits on my way home any more and I don't use my lunch hour to go to the post office or the office supply store.
Brooding.... I've already lost fifteen minutes today and it's not even 10. I can't account for what I was working on. I have now officially wasted six minutes trying to figure out what I was doing during those fifteen minutes. (Which just goes to prove that timecards are bad for productivity.)
(And I've wasted five minutes blogging about it, which might just prove that someone should be keeping an eye on my productivity.)
Today's tasks include transcription, a thing I loathe, and bookkeeping, a thing that bores me and that I'm bad at. Also, researching the cost of buying more of a custom-made product that no one here seems to remember where they bought in the first place, as well as the whereabouts of a small gadget they can't quite describe and that might not actually be in the office any more.
At the moment, the idea of doing the bookkeeping bores me fractionally less than the rest of the list.
Something about my face says that to people. Tell me about yourself, I want to hear. My face is nicer than I am.
This past weekend in the grocery store, a little old man pushing a big old cart overflowing with food confided in me that he thought it was time to stop shopping but, never fear, he'd left some food for me.
Yesterday, a woman standing outside the office building revealed that that hostage situation that ended so badly (here) was taking place across the street from her home and that she was concerned that the 5 year-old that was killed might be a friend of her son's.
Last week a semi-stranger (someone I've seen around the building occasionally), informed me all about how Grandma Barbie got fired for being incompetent. (Grandma Barbie, so-named because of the unfortunate juxtaposition of a hairstyle and wardrobe suitable for a 20-something in 1976, combined with a face that was nearly seventy-six, used to corner me in the foyer of this building and tell me about her son who was fighting in Iraq.)
And a complete stranger knocked on the office door to tell me he was looking for someone in a different office suite and went on to say that he figured I probably didn't care, but.... He went on to fill me in on all the details of the well-paying job he lost last year, the poorly paying job he's had for the last eight months, and the new, well-paying job he was starting this week, but he had to complete his work ticket for that office suite before he could leave that job and did I have any idea when they'd be in?
Check-out clerks tell me about their meal breaks, the UPS guy tells me about his route, the bi-weekly snack man tells me about his wife, clients I've never met and barely e-mailed with tell me about their vacations four years ago, people I see in the elevators tell me about their pet's illnesses or cutest tricks--what is it about me that says, "I crave to know about your life?"
If I were really a writer instead of a fake (remind me later to tell you about my novel), I'd probably be garnering nuggets o'fictional gold from all of this. As it is, they're more like stones of stress. I'm sorry everyone you work with is crazy, okay? I can't fix it. Everyone I work with is crazy too. It's the law. Only crazy people can get jobs. (While you're agreeing with that, don't forget to look in the mirror.)
I'm glad you had a great vacation four years ago that was almost but not quite entirely unlike the vacation of mine you pretended to be asking about. I wasn't going to inflict my vacation on you, okay? No need for a pre-emptive vacation blocking strategy.
I'm really happy that your wife approves of your career choice and I'd like to think that that kind of supportiveness isn't really rare. I'd like to fantasize about a society where everyone makes a career choice based on personal happiness and not just financial rewards.
I'm sorry for your tragedies and I'm happy for your successes but before we part, can you explain to me why it was me, out of the six people standing here, that you chose to confide in? I'm not Empathy Gal, honestly. I'm famed for my indifference to the welfare of random passersby. (Seriously, if this turns out to be my superpower, I'm going to have to rethink the costume.)
I guess my face says, "open for chatting at this location" but I'm not. I'm thinking about my novel. (I told you we'd get to it.)
I have to yank out at least 30,000 words, now that it's developed a plot that isn't what I thought it was, and I'm not sure how many of the remaining 20,000 are going to be viable. I need a whole new opening and the hero's character and history need to change. Also, I'll need a new subplot.
How many sidekicks does a hero need? I'm thinking two. One for comic relief and one with a Mysterious Past. It's hardly original but that's one of the benefits of not writing for publication. You can use as many clichés as you want.
Also, should there be romance? Or, failed romance? (Probably not failed romance, no. I'm not much for angst.)
I already know there will have to be Familial Ramifications somewhere, but I hadn't thought about a girlfriend. He might need a girlfriend, although I can't yet think of what plot-related purpose she'd serve. As it stands, there really isn't any rhyme or reason for it to have a romantic subplot, so maybe I'll pass.
I guess I could make one of the sidekicks female? (Or, both of them?) Of course, I well understand that by Contemporary Fantasy Standards, I'm required to make my hero female and endow her with brains, sex appeal, an unusual facility with weapons, and the physique of a 6'4" male bodybuilder hyped up on synthetic testosterone injections, but Contemporary Fantasy Standards make me tired sometimes.
Besides. As the plot stands now, females would have to be second-class citizens to make the story work, and the world I've created really doesn't have a place for that kind of bigotry.
I do have a lot of world here. I need a story that will use all of it. Maybe I should start with some short stories? They could even comb out the back-story of the main character(s)?
Or, I could just keep thinking about it all for another five or six years, until the mood passes.
It's supposed to storm later. I can feel the extra humidity, even inside our hygienically sealed modern office building.
The R.C., who remains bitter about the lack of sunshine, the near-constant drizzle, and the cool temperatures we had on the cruise, was a little bitter on the forecast for rain. Me, I don't mind Colorado rain as much. You only get clouds while it's raining (and sometimes not even then) and it's very rare that even a rainy day doesn't also provide a few hours of glorious sunshine. Also, it beats the heck out of 95-100 degree temperatures.
I suppose there's some work I could be doing at the moment. I haven't really surveyed my desk yet today. I am drinking coffee, a necessary component of working for a living, and letting my mind run through my vague memories of last week to see if anything "urgent" pops to the surface. (It would be more to the point to check my notes and my tasks list, but not nearly as peaceful.)
Okay, guilt is setting in....
Later.... Waste of time. My tasks list consists of something I can't do until Wednesday, something I need to do on the 28th, a phone call I've been avoiding for a month already, something I can't move ahead on until Bernie makes a decision, and an e-mail that Bernie intends to write. Not exactly earth-shaking stuff.
I remember the Mad Doctor popped up at 4:50 last Friday with a letter to go out, but since neither he nor Bernie has seen fit to provide me with the insert that desperately needed to be enclosed, I can't feel much urgency around that one.
Heard from DiamondGirl last week as well. She's not liking the new job. She says she'd rather be back here, fighting with Bernie, than sitting there cutting and pasting all day. (I feel queasy at the thought.... Now that I've browbeaten Bernie into timidity, I'm not really thrilled about the idea of going back to the Bad Old Days.) It never fails to amaze me how little the people doing the hiring know about what any particular position inside a company actually entails on a daily basis. She's had a couple of other interviews, though, and thinks she may get an offer from one that she really likes the sound of.
I'm still on the fence about job-hunting myself. On the one hand, this job is boring and stupid and what work there is neither challenges nor interests me. On the other hand, I'd rather not be out there again, after only five months of employment.
Maybe I've find someone willing to pay me what I like to think I'm worth? (That 20% pay cut still rankles.)
Part of me knows that Bernie really would like to close down the company and admit defeat. But I also know that he has contractual commitments through mid-November, so he can't. Also, if the Latest Hot Project comes through, he could easily regain his enthusiasm for the whole thing, you know? (We had a talk about it one day and I pointed out that owning your own company isn't the joy that people think it is. By now, he gets that, but now he has this fantasy that he can be a "consultant" and then all of his problems will be solved. Whatever.)
One of the things I meant to do (and didn't get around to because of trying to get through my reading backlog) this weekend was to hit the job sites just to see what's out there. DiamondGirl says there's a lot on jobbing.com and, oddly enough, craigslist, a site I've never really investigated.
I should do that.
And not in the good, piratical way.
I'm going to have to find a new radio station to wake up to. I've put up with a lot from this one over the years, but I really do think being forced to hear Carol Channing mangle Hello, Dolly at 6:30 a.m. is just outside of enough. It's very cranky-making.
You might say it's my own fault, for choosing the kind of radio station prone to playing show tunes but still. There have been hundreds, even thousands of good musicals staged over the years, most of them filled with people who can sing. There are hundreds, even thousands of songs I wouldn't mind waking up to.
Also, I wish whatever circus it is that tours around the country every fall would use some phone number that's not one digit off from our office's toll-free number. If it doesn't, I'm going to have to figure out how to say, "I am not the circus" in Spanish.
When I was younger, I used to amuse myself by trying to memorize a variety of phrases in various languages, just in case of need when traveling abroad, but "I am not the circus" never made the cut. (Mostly I worked on, "Don't shoot me, I swear I'm Canadian." The USofA has had their moments of unpopularity in Europe.)
It doesn't take much to start my Monday off on the wrong foot, does it?
I have officially given up on trying to get caught up on my on-line reading after the cruise. There comes a point when you have to admit that, if you read fifty sites or so a day, they can post more stuff than you can ever hope to read. I spent hours trying to get the backlog cleared this weekend but it isn't going to happen. I'm just going to clear it all out and start over. While I'm at it, I'm going to clear out my bookmarks. It's ridiculous to try and keep up with 50 sites that update daily.
I may be back later. I'm feeling chatty today.
As usual, I've been back from vacation for three days and I'm having trouble remembering now how nice and relaxed I was a scant 72 hours ago. Bernie isn't wigging out, fortunately. He's even developed a mild sense of humor while I had my back turned. Just a lot of work waiting for me.
I'm largely caught up today. All that's left are the bits and pieces - things that got pushed aside because they were small (that's what I've been working on this morning) and one larger project I keep avoiding because I don't understand what's going on. (I really should spend some time on that.)
I can see it's going to be another one of those days when I can't figure out how to fill out my time. I've been here for 2-1/2 hours and I've been working but I can't account for all the time. (No, the three minutes I spent typing these three paragraphs do not count.)
Time passes....
Now it's 2:00 in the afternoon and I've lost an entire hour.
I know I did some other work than what I made notes on today, but I sure can't remember what it was. Just, you know, stuff.
I wonder what Bernie would do if I put down an hour or two under "don't know - probably dinking around" some day? Or even just, "general messing around"? Sigh. Considering that he "works from home" two days a week, of which (if the phone/IM/e-mail trail is to be trusted) he works about 4 hours, I find it annoying that he thinks I can account for every minute of my day.
(Also, since he has a bad habit of underbidding jobs based on how long he thinks it should take things to get done, instead of how long he's been told, over and over, it actually takes, I'm sometimes tempted to find some other way to code actual productive time. But that's not today's problem, since I have no billable work to work on.)
I know other people have to do this in their jobs, but I find it hard to code the time spent washing dishes or cleaning out the refrigerator or sweeping the shipping room floor or looking for e-mails from before I worked here to try and figure out how to do some project, or just sitting and thinking about e-mails I get from clients.
And sometimes I forget to watch the clock so I don't know what time it was when I stopped one project and started another. I've been here for five months and I still haven't learned to do that all the time. (I have never been a clock-watcher and I hate it that this job is trying to turn me into one. I come in, I work until I get tired, then I check the clock and usually find out I should have gone home half an hour ago, so I pack up and go home. The next day I repeat the process. The only thing this "timecard" situation is doing is making sure I leave at 5:00 on the dot every day.) (Yes, it's been five months and I'm still grouchy about having to do this.)