This morning, Denver woke up to find itself in a winter wonderland again. How ridiculous. It didn't snow all winter, but it seems determined to snow all spring.
I am equally indignant over my weekend. I got started with Spring Cleaning yesterday and wound up having two giant trash bags to haul out.
Sadly, the closet cabinet is full up of things I wasn't ready to toss into a dumpster but have no immediate intention of using. When I look at that $200 or so worth of drawing supplies, I can clearly imagine myself taking up the attempt to learn to sketch again. (And I certainly can't afford to replace even a tenth of it.)
How can someone who hasn't been allowed to shop for over a year still have so much stuff? I swear, I spent 60 days clearing useless and unused Stuff out of my bedroom and closet during the Great Unemployment of '07. Since then, even before the pay cut, I haven't been making enough money to buy much new Stuff. From where, then, comes all of this Stuff? How many years of Not Shopping and Throwing Away Stuff will I have to endure before I am not drowning in Stuff? (At this point you should picture me clutching 1000+ books to my chest. Books are not Stuff.)
Still. I did some rearranging so that when I scan the shelves for 'something to read' I see a new selection. I dusted madly. I sorted, filed, shredded (as appropriate) all my papers from the first quarter of this year. I reorganized. Whether I improved or not remains to be seen, but the closet looks tidier.
I'm all peachy again today. I brought a new brand of peaches to eat for dessert. I managed to open the little plastic container without incident but at one point a huge and sloppy chunk leapt off my fork and into my lap. Clearly the peach and I are not compatible. (Or it's a sign that I should stop being lazy and buying fruit in evil plastic containers.) (Which would also be cheaper. But not much, because I bought the peaches at a deep discount.)
Anyhow. Not an exciting weekend, but a cheap one.
And by "They" I mean Webstrainer. And by "Us" I mean the people who pay money to use their site.
I don't know anyone for whom their monitor's available real estate, measured horizontally, is not incredibly precious. Scrolling up and down on web pages is something most of us are resigned to doing and certainly if we're excited about the content, we don't mind scrolling to read it.
But having to scroll from left-to-right, in order to see a whole line of text or a web page's content offerings? I know of noone that does not annoy.*
One of the key features of Webstrainer's new UI is a left-hand nav bar you're supposed to use to move around inside of your account. Even minimized, it sucks up valuable horizontal real estate, but all of your navigation has to be done from that bar, so you're constantly minimizing--restoring--minimizing. Clumsy and amateurish.
The new interface has been a nightmare to use for the last week. The content in the window does not automatically resize to fit the window. (I can only assume someone new to the concept of "frames" made a critical design error and their internal beta-testers are all using 27" monitors and didn't notice.)
I select a line of data and by the time I scroll over to the right, to see the information I care about (they've hard-coded several useless columns of data and fixed them at the beginning of each line, so you have to scroll) I've either lost track of which teeny line of data** I was trying to follow, or, in some cases, it's taken so long for the interface to refresh the view that I've completely forgotten which category I selected and what it was I wanted to look at.
I was already cranky, having been told that not only was I required to be present all day next Saturday at the stupid Gathering O'The Nuts, but that I have to give them Thursday evening, part of the day on Friday, and Saturday evening (unless they buy my excuse of a previous engagement) as well.
NewBoss Anais asked me, quite seriously and earnestly, if I didn't think I'd be interested in hearing the presentations. I'm afraid I momentarily forgot my Company Manners--looking at her in bewilderment and replying, "I'm not going to be here that much longer."
She didn't seem to get it--but doesn't it seem logical that, no, I would not care about the ins-and-outs of the workings of a company I'm about to leave?
Anyhow. I grasped the essential point, which is that it's not optional.
Bleah.
But today is payday, so today's a pretty good day.
I think I had a peak moment just now, with the announcement that Zappos has a discount website now. 6pm.
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* A few months ago, they rolled out a new customized "home page" design that featured--wait for it--a left-hand nav bar you were supposed to use to move around inside of your home pages! You couldn't minimize it, and the bar was hard-coded to take up about 20% of the horizontal space. A storm of bitter protests from users had no effect.
** And I do mean "teeny." I have to set the zoom on the browser window to 80% to see an entire line of data at once, but by then it displays in 6pt type. Since I'm looking at numerical data, the inability to tell if a number is '0' or '6' or even '8'--this is something of a problem.
I had occasion today to go look at the online version of the agenda for next week's Gathering O'The Nuts today, for the first time. I've seen lame prose in my life, but rarely have I seen anything quite so painfully lame.
No web page with less than 500 words of text should have been able to achieve that level of mediocrity unless there was, I don't know, some kind of competition and a hefty prize involved.
I can only imagine that the project was handed to someone whose lifelong determination it has been to remove all of the excitement from the concept of "boring."
It's 'NutNews week. A quick, pain-filled scan of the five articles revealed that the same ChaosManager responsible for the aforementioned (second-best word ever!) agenda is now responsible for churning out newsletter articles.
There are moment when I look forward to my imminent unemployment with relief.
But! It's not all joy in Mudville, nosirree. As I discovered yesterday, our apartment building isn't a jar of jam. I popped home during my lunch hour and now I'm not at all sure I'm prepared to start spending my days there. I mean, not if that woman in the lobby is usually to be found hanging out, chatting on her cell phone, wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants and a bra.
It's a public space, you freak! Take yourself and your dingy undergarments back into the privacy of your own apartment.
This used to be a nice, even sort of upscale, apartment complex. I don't think my life is improved by knowing it's become some sort of slum where a 'ho in a raggedy bra can wander around without causing comment.*
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* Well, not completely without causing comment, because clearly I'm commenting, but you know what I mean. I didn't comment to her. First, she was on the phone and it would have been rude to interrupt her. Second, weirdness scares me and I instantly assumed she was crazy and consequently could be dangerous.
We've had crazy before. One woman, many years ago, was loaded into a truck with padded walls and driven off into the night. IIRC, she had her clothes on.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)Sometimes people are glad you're a Luddite. Today Bert has needed to find an error in some kind of worksheet--but it was an error that showed up only when the document was viewed in 2003. I'm the last hold-out in the office. (The downside? I was kicked off my computer for fifteen minutes.)
Starting tomorrow, the temperatures are supposed to hit the mid-70s. I suspect the remaining three-foot drifts of snow won't last long. That's a pity. I am oddly and endlessly amused by watching the miniature streams and rivers created by the runoff.
I'm being all healthy and stuff these days (I've put on five pounds since I started working here), so I bring a little container of peaches to work with me, to have for "dessert" after my chicken-rice casserole and that's all fine until I go to open the hermetically sealed package and I wind up having to pull so hard on the little tab* that I splash peach juice all over myself and, granted you can't really see it because I'm wearing black but I smell funny.
Actually, I think the peach juice was mostly water, but I suspect I might smell funny.
Two more of the 'Nuts in the process of divorcing their shared marketing campaign partners have announced that they're gonna do it themselves. I've stopped warning of disaster or complaining at all. Ever since Webstrainer rolled out the new, somewhat more complicated UI last week, I've been snickering sneakily.
I keep wondering why they keep employing me, after they've already told me they can live without me gracing their lives. My latest theory is two-fold:
1) It's time for the April 'NutNews issue and they realized none of the remaining staff know how to put the newsletter together;
And!
2) The annual Gathering O'Nuts is coming up in two weeks and they realize that, face-to-face, they can't avoid discussing online marketing with all 40 or 50 'Nuts, but none of them have more than the vaguest possible idea of how it all works.
I'm at peace with it all. Another paycheck! A roof over my head all the way to the end of May!
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* No wonder they were on sale. Childproof!
It's springtime in Colorado and, by way of celebration, Mother Nature isn't dumping a snowstorm on us until later tonight. With a forecast of only six inches, I can't quite justify working from home tomorrow. Very sad.
I'm very bleah today.
I brought some pastry to have for dessert today. Ever since I ate it, I've been thinking that it was just a little off, you know? I guess if I'm dead or hospitalized tomorrow, it's my own fault. I should have noticed as I ate it.
Of course, if I'm d or h tomorrow, it might have been the yogurt I forgot I left sitting on the counter, stuck back in the refrigerator, then ate two days later.
I do live dangerously.
Today I'm in trouble with Fun Bobby for not taking advantage of having been assigned a spot in the parking garage. I told him I'd forgotten, but that's not really the problem. The problem is that if I park there, when I exit I have to go south and I live directly north of the office, so I'd have to go down two blocks, make a left-hand turn in heavy traffic, make a u-turn somewhere back in that residential neighborhood, come back to the main road, turn right, and drive the two blocks back to the spot where I started. For someone with a long commute that might not sound so bad, but I estimate that it would just about double my drive time.
Someone already tried to run me over last night, so I don't need my commute to be any more dangerous. (He wanted my lane. Specifically, he wanted the piece of my lane I was driving in. He was Very. Angry. When he realized that I was not going to evaporate so he could take the space I was occupying.)
Gidget emailed earlier, needing help with her Webstrainer campaigns, so I stopped doing the work I'm paid for and helped her out for an hour.
I was focusing earlier today, and very intently, on the work I'm actually paid to do. But then I had to spend 2-1/2 hours setting up the physical radius of two campaigns for 'Nuts who are next door to each other but who don't get along well enough to share a single campaign. I think my brain melted down. (This process usually takes me about five minutes per campaign.)
Yesterday I took about fifteen minutes out of my morning to go and chat with two or three of my co-workers. I was bonding, okay? People complain that I don't do enough of that kind of thing, so I invested a few minutes in it.
Just to prove that it can be dangerous to goof off on company time, when I got back to my desk, I found that I had fallen hopelessly behind on the technology curve* and was in danger of no longer knowing how to do my job!
I was going to worry about that, but I have a month in which to get caught up, so I decided not to bother.
I have to go to the stupid 'Nuts stupid annual conference. It's in two weeks, which I guess answers the question about whether or not I can squeeze another paycheck out of this place. NewBoss Anais has proposed that we do two "round-table" discussions so we ("I") can tell people what they "need to know" about their internet marketing.
I reminded her that, from my point of view, what they need to know is that it all works a lot better if they don't know anything and don't try to help. She did not seem to feel that this showed the right spirit, but it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?
I'm even boring me today.
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* Webstrainer rolled out their new UI** and it was every bit as confusing as I'd feared it was going to be.
And buggy. I hate how technology companies have taken to beta-testing their products on their paying clients but, in Webstrainer's defense, their program is so complicated and there are so many ways to use it that I doubt if a beta-group exists anywhere in the world capable of actually testing it.
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** User Interface
It's 8:12 a.m. and my day is already a mess.
Today, I'm going to be one of the Ladies Who Lunch. Gidget, Vela, and I are getting together late this afternoon to have a leisurely lunch and a long gossip. I had intended to wear my "interview suit" - not only to wow them, but to get their feedback on whether or not it was as fabulous a first impression as I think it is thought it was.*
Because! When I put it on and turned to admire my profile this morning, I saw Great Globs Of Fat rolling across my back under the jacket. Apparently, the fat fairy visited me last night and my torso expanded by a full size or more. (I tried this jacket on a few days ago and it seemed fine.)
I tried a thinner camisole underneath, thinking maybe the material was bunching, but no dice. Sadly, I do not possess a girdle**, so I hurried to the bedroom to rip the jacket off and put on a different one and at each step, the backs of my shoes ate the bottoms of my pant legs. Which makes no sense because the trousers are plenty long enough.
I put on a different jacket, realized it needed a different shirt underneath, changed that, realized I needed different jewelry, changed that, viewed the ensemble in the mirror, hated it, ripped off the blouse, put on a different one, it didn't go with the jacket and the shoes eating the pant legs were driving me mad, so I took it all off, put on a pair of old but comfy pants and a blouse. And I forgot to change my jewelry, which doesn't go with this outfit, and my shoes, because the heels are too high for this pair of pants, so I look kind of salad-tossed.
Sigh. I was Very Nearly Fabulous today.
Can I have a do-over?
Anyhow. After all of that, I think it's a triumph that I walked into the office only three minutes late. Now I'm sitting here, periodically reaching around to my back to feel those rolls of flab and thinking that I do need both a girdle and a diet.
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* I promise, if I hadn't swelled up like an overstuffed sausage overnight, that suit is gorgeous, especially the jacket which has a very flattering cut.
Although, the reason I wanted second opinions on it as an interview suit is because it's short-sleeved. The rules may have changed, but long sleeves and knee-length skirts or trousers*** used to be the rule for interview suits. Also, I'm uneasily aware that the WNTW bunch have a hate on for short-sleeved suits.
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** I'm not a big fan, though. I'm trying to imagine squashing myself into a girdle but common sense tells me that the fat has to go somewhere, so it will probably squish out the top and the bottom, which means the only solution is a full-body corset which means that by the time the fat oozes out above my head and below my feet I'll be four inches taller and then all my pants will be too short.
Or, you know, my feet will be a mile long and I'll have a mushroom-shaped poof on my head.
I freely admit that I don’t quite understand the theory of a girdle. In spite of the advertising, I know it can't make you actually thinner. Maybe it just smoothes out the bulges, making a slab of flab, instead of jelly rolls? That wouldn't make you look thinner, but it would make your clothes lay flat. Over the blubber. Ugh.
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*** Full-length, of course. The trousers. Not knee-length.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:55 AM | Comments (2)I shopped and shopped and shopped this weekend. And, granted, I didn't spend much money (about $20-$30 more than I'd planned), but I did have a lot of fun. I got new work shoes, so I can throw out the ones with the sole pulling away from the upper. I got new "play" shoes, for walking, so my feet won't hurt on the weekends any more. And, yes, I got toilet paper, shoe polish, and dishwashing soap! (Whoah! Stop this crazy-mad roller-coaster of fun!)
I went into a bookstore and came out empty-handed. !!
I had a little make-up indulgence. Most of you know that I've been quasi-addicted to a reality show called What Not To Wear for the last six months. They're always talking about using "luminising primer" before you put your make-up on. It's supposed to create a "smooth canvas" and should make you glow like a 20 year-old or something. I had me some of that.
I'm wearing it today. I can't honestly say I look smashingly better--or even different--but Girly Toys don't really have to have an effect to make you happy, do they? (Actually, I'm wearing about four layers of make-up today and when I look in the mirror, it doesn't look as though I have any on at all--and not in the good way. Clearly I need a foundation with more coverage.)
What Not To Wear is a bad influence on me. As I wade through the six-month plan (now in its thirteenth month), I find it more and more difficult to keep myself out of stores. I need clothes - and I need them all custom tailored!*
Red shoes! All of the women on that show wind up with knock 'em dead red shoes. (Not infrequently with two or three inch stiletto heels.) I want red shoes!
I have never in my whole life had a pair of red shoes. I think that's sad, don't you?
In spite of set-backs (like $900 worth of car repairs or a 15% pay cut), I have remained focused on fighting my way out from under staggering (for me) debt and am very close to achieving a pay-as-you-go lifestyle. It's very exciting.
I did some rough figuring this weekend and I realized that I can account for almost every penny I made last year. Less than $1,500 is unaccounted for - so I frittered away less than that amount all year on things like eating out, buying books, car insurance, gasoline, Target (toilet paper, shampoo, deodorant), etc.
If you don't know me well, you won't know what an astonishing and sustained act of maturity this has been. (If you do, you probably still don't care, but I'm talking about it anyhow.) It's been a long, tough year but I'm seeing a tiny sign of light at the end of the tunnel.
Or, you know, I would be seeing a light, if not for the whole unemployment things. This week they're back to talking about my extended stay in terms of a month or two. Except for one ChaosManager, who said something that indicated I might not be here after next week. (My NewBoss Anais says I can never leave. I had to tell her that I don't put on make-up unless I'm being paid to.**)
Sheesh. Someone has to tell one of the 'Nuts that some territory he wants to market to is not in his "official" geographic area, but we'll let him 'manage' it until it's owned by someone else. Everyone in the conversation raced to claim "not it." What a bunch of fraidy-cats. I mean, comparatively speaking, this guy isn't even one of the mean ones. Whiny, yes, but not actually abusive. I told him myself.
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* Obviously, tailors are not in my budget these days. But I'm not without skills. I have a shirt that would be just the kind of thing I need, if only it wasn't three inches too long. I measured it, cut off the bottom, and started hemming it myself yesterday.
I have no sewing machine, but I console myself with the thought that you can't machine-hem a shirt anyhow. Once I get the hem done, I might even splash out on taking the side seams in a bit. Mad skillz!
** That sounds vaguely obscene.
The problem with really looking forward to the weekend is that it can become difficult to focus on the work at hand on a Friday afternoon.
I am making a list for tomorrow. Shoe polish and toilet paper! Possibly some heavy-duty dishwashing soap. The thrills never end at Chez Anne.
It's impressive, how much amusement I can get from knowing I'm getting one more paycheck, don't you think? I swear, back in the day when I was making a ton of money (i.e., 40% more than I am now), I didn't get half as much entertainment out of shopping. I could come home with a trunk full of shopping bags and be, ho-hum about it all. It's a good lesson in the value of money.
And, yes, I'd trade the lesson for the 40%, but at the same time, I'm sensible enough to understand the lesson.
Apparently it's a holiday of sorts, for the Christian types. I came in this morning to find a couple of pieces of celebratory candy on my desk. I don't eat candy, not really, not except for Dove dark chocolate, but it's a nice gesture.
Yesterday, Jason announced that he thought I should move my desk to be up in the cube-farm aisle next to management. (Currently I'm in the far back corner of the office. The only way to put more distance between myself and my coworkers would be to move me out of the office completely.)
I rejected the suggestion on account of the noise--management shouting and carrying on, a thing that interferes with my afternoon nap--none of which is true but which amused them all--but mostly I don't see the point in shifting myself and the four personal items I have left in the office to a new location. Why waste the time and energy on someone who's only here for another couple of weeks?
I'm not goofing off, you know. I blog for my co-workers' benefit. Someone told me this morning that if it wasn't for the sound of my keyboard, no one would even know I was here. The other afternoon, someone was shutting up the office and they turned off the lights! I had to holler at them. If I'd been writing a blog entry, that would never have happened.
Recently, I was chastised for posting such boring blog entries. Part of me is aggravated. (I know many people who frequently post boring blog entries. Do I take them to task? I do not.) Part of me is concerned. Oh, no! If I post boring entries, all four of you will stop reading? And then what will I do? I'll have to post whatever I want, any time I want, to amuse myself! That will be so different!
Anyhow. I can't make stuff up, you know. If there's no drama, there's no drama.
Yesterday I sent out quarterly performance reports to all the 'Nuts, showing them what's been happening with their campaigns this year. Predictably, today I'm facing an influx of emails from Stupid & Annoying 'Nuts, asking why things are more expensive than they were last year, why projects never implemented aren't working, and what's going on with accounts managed by someone else.
One location was urgent (and almost incoherent) in his request to "carbon copy" what MadBoy is doing.
First, I don't know what MadBoy is doing, because MadBoy is managing his own campaign. I handed him a very good campaign but have no idea what he's done to it in the last four months. He stooped to asking for help a few times (help that I did not give him), because it was running so poorly. This is not behavior I would personally want to model, but we're prohibited from talking about the 'Nuts to each other, so I can't tell the urgent guy.
Second, last month, MadBoy spent almost $900 to get three leads (not "jobs" - just "leads"), so I'm thinking that copying that performance is, you know, not such a lofty goal.
If my head explodes, you should sue these people because it will be their fault.
I'm looking forward to the weekend. It's amazing how the prospect of shopping, even just shopping for a single pair of shoes being paid for with money given to me by others, can cheer me up. It's a bid odd, because I'm not normally All About Shopping.
It's a pity I'm not unemployed today. It's sunny and a balmy 73 degrees out there. I would very much like to be out, taking a long walk or even a nap in the park.
No, I don't know yet when I'm going to be actually unemployed. Conversations continue to range from "a couple of weeks" to scenarios that sound more like a couple of months. I'm okay with that--more paychecks are always good. On the strength of continued, even if short-term, employment, I applied a huge chunk of my modest cash reserves toward decreasing my still-painful credit card balance.
Getting at least one more paycheck than I anticipated also justifies (in my mind) a wild and extravagant shopping spree over the coming weekend. I'm going to take my fifty bucks of "mad money (hoarded winnings from scratch-off lottery tickets, my "birthday" cash from the company, and the results of cashing in my bag o'loose change) and indulge myself in a desperately needed new pair of shoes. Maybe two, if DSW is offering good prices.
Okay, "extravagant" could be a bit much, but it's fifty bucks I would have saved for groceries if I'd wound up unemployed this Friday.
Less drama, more blogging, that's me this week. I don’t know why. My commitment to the job is as strong as it ever was--my commitment is always the same. As long as they keep paying me, I keep doing the work. I guess it's possible that I overdid the work a bit. Things were so quiet last week that I tore through my usual workload in a hurry, under the assumption that it was a lull and as storm was coming. So far this week--no tempest.
I don't really know how to deal with two quiet weeks in a row. It's a bit dangerous that there are so many good books online and available to read at any idle* moment. (But I'm being strong.)
Am I boring or what?
The coolest new online time-wasting toy I've found this month is the Addictomatic. Type in whatever you're interested in and it sweeps around the internet, scooping in related posts, tweets, articles, videos, and images. It's also a cool place to find a collection of other web-hoovering programs.
It's good for tracking when your friends are talking about you, if they use a dozen different venues online and you don't have time to check all of them separately. *
I occasionally type in the 'Nut corporate identity, just to see if anyone is talking about us, but what I like better is to type in something bizarre (yellow balloon) (baby giraffe) (blip) and see if it can come up with any related posts.
It takes very little to amuse me sometimes.
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* Speaking of idleness?
Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's font for nine guineas a term--no extras--used to say he never knew a boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the use of the Prayer-book, that it was highly improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should leave undone pretty well everything that I ought to do.
I have an unending passion for Jerome K. Jerome.
* * Sometimes, ego-surfing in this fashion can be scary. What is it that makes people think some randomly inspired, half-baked post on a topic someone knows nothing about--what is it that makes them think it's worth dredging up five or six years later?
Do not cite me as a source, people! I don't know nothing and I don't got no credentials to prove it!
Little to report on the 'Nut front today. An incredibly brief conversation with NewBoss Anais yesterday afternoon revealed the fact that she would be "grateful" if I would continue showing up for work next week. Beyond that, she knoweth not, but she promised to find out in today's management meeting. Her best guess is "a couple of weeks."
Gidget has come to me with about ten "how do I...." questions already this week and is grousing because I'm not yet unemployed :-) and available to do this stuff for her.
I continue to reside in a world where no one can pay me but everyone wants my services. Flattered but homeless, that's me. *
I've done a fair amount of work today, including one "monthly" project that I realized had not been done since early November. I even returned a call from a 'Nut, which is normally against my policy. (I reached his voicemail, though, so I didn't have to talk to him. Since he's one of the Bowery Boys, that made my day a little brighter.)
Yesterday's HairMan appointment passed without incident, unless you consider having to have my color done twice to cover the stubborn gray an incident. I've been dyeing the gray since I was 22. I was trying to add up last night just how much I've spent over the years, but I finally gave up. A lot, anyhow.
Last night's outing cost me a cool $100. When I made the appointment, it was under the assumption that I would be sending out resumes and (with luck) going on interviews and that it would behoove me to look my best (youngest). I can't afford to have it done again for a long time and now I'm thinking I should have rescheduled.
Oh, well. HairMan is also suggesting he might be ready to move ahead with his website project and that maybe in the future we can trade some of my expertise for his. I know the feds hate it when you barter instead of trading easily taxable cash, but who cares? * *
Bored and boring today, aren't I?
Oh, and I talked to Gidget again and she decided we can take on some of the 'Nuts on a freelance basis--as long as we pick and choose. So, you know, another step toward making her fledgling company profitable and creating my own new job! Pursuant (such a fabulous word) to paragraph #2 above, she can't wait to turn all of the "stupid software junk" over to me so she can spend her time talking to clients and being creative.
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* If it weren't for gross exaggeration, my day would have no drama at all.
* * For the record? I support their taxation of money. They print the money. It's thanks to them that we have an easy, portable way to transfer value and I agree that they're entitled to a cut. Like a royalty.
But I've never agreed with them trying to tax the value of bartered goods and services. They don't own me. My time, knowledge, and abilities are mine, not theirs. If I choose to trade my time for a pizza instead of the $5 it would take to buy a pizza, that's my business.
And, yes, I know I'm not on firm legal, moral, ethical, or logical ground here, but that's what I've chosen to believe today.
(My morals are flexible if I need a haircut? How pathetic is that?)
Yes, we had snow, off and on, all weekend. No, we did not actually get a blizzard. Some meteorological thing happened in the middle of the night Friday and most of the moisture passed us by. We had frigid winds, cloud cover, and intermittent snow all weekend, but I doubt if our total accumulation was more than three or four inches. And, yes, true to typical Colorado weather patterns, today we have bright sunshine, dry roads, and there's a kiss of spring warmth in the air. No, this isn't our last brush with winter. Not as far as I know, anyhow. We're due for another storm later this week.
Weather aside. (I wish I'd been paying attention so I'd know just precisely when it was that I became so interested in weather. When I was younger, I would frequently wake up and be surprised to see six or eight inches of fresh snow. I never paid attention to the weather forecast. Now, sometimes it's the most interesting part of the nightly news.)
No, I have not yet talked with Jason to find out whether or not this Friday is going to be my last day. I hate people who ambush me with complicated questions first thing on Monday morning, so why would I do that to someone else? I plan to hunt him down and chat with him tomorrow.
Today, I don't want to draw attention to myself. There comes a time when the home "touch-up" of my roots isn't cutting it any more and I have to spend the money to have the job professionally done. And, yes, this is that time. I want to slide out ten minutes early, so I'm staying quiet.
I went to lunch, though. (Worth mentioning since it's something I do about once every two months.) It was Fun Bobby's birthday today and a group of people decided to take him to lunch. Since I've done very little voluntary bonding with my co-workers, I went along. (You never know where your next job lead might come from.)
Yes. If I can eat dinner and read a book at the same time I watch television--and be able to follow what passes for a "plot" on the show? It's stupid. Which is why I don't actually watch a lot of television.
No. I disagree with the ending. Booting up my computer is part of my workday. Why should I work an extra ten minutes a day just because the company computer runs like molasses?
I'm a bit at loose ends today. Not knowing how long I'm going to be here - I'm hesitant to start any long-term projects. But it's been so long since I've just done my "normal job" that I can't remember half of what it was I used to spend my time doing....
Posted by AnneZook at 01:31 PM | Comments (2)I think I'm laid off again--in the short term, I mean. We had Mandatory Bonding Brown Bag Lunch Wednesday, then an all-staff meeting. When Jason mentioned marketing, he pointedly did not meet my eyes when he talked about "things we'd like to do to the website someday when we have money again" and then later he did say I would be staying on to "transition" the accounts - which is more of a two-week project than a four-month project.
OTOH, for the rest of the time I'm here, the staffing levels are down so far that we've all been given parking spots in the garage!
The next snowstorm is set to move in around midnight. In the meantime, the skies are turning yellow and the wind is howling. If I was in Kansas, I'd be watching for funnel clouds. As is it, I'm watching the clock and wishing it was time to go home. I'm just over this place for one week.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:19 PM | Comments (2)