Sarcasm with a side of optimism.

F&#^@%$ Hell!

I am TOO tired to even get into this weekend. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

posted by v @ 11:03 PM 0 comments

Work Truths II

A Typical Day
Arrive anywhere between 7:45am and 9:35am. Go through several layers of security. Drop off my purse and jacket in the office. Grunt some incoherent morning greeting to overly cheerful coworkers. Separate lunch from giant tote bag of diversions and walk around the corner to the kitchen area. Place lunch in refrigerator. Go back to office. Participate in office banter. If I'm too lazy/tired/unenthusiastic, I will just sit and listen until 10:30am. From this point on, we discuss what we should do for lunch until noon when the collaborative lunch plan is executed. Lunch is eaten and the remainder of people on the program all fit into one office, so we eat lunch together. The group disbands at around 1:30pm. After that, I have no idea where anybody is. I may see them again briefly around 3:30pm, but then that's it. I leave anywhere between 4pm and 6pm. To not go insane, I carefully pack my tote back full of diversions; usually books. On other occasions, I've made jewelry. On really bad days, I am too depressed to do anything, so I just sit around moping for the entire day, eventually cry then take a time out in my car. With all this free time, I can blast through a book in a day, so sometimes I will make a quick trip to the library to return books and grab a few off the "New Arrivals" shelf in the front. Other days, estudio espanol. The worst part about all this is that when I get home, I'm drained and depressed from the "work" day that I don't want to do anything.

Lunch as a 3 Hour Affair
When you have a lot of free time, lunch becomes a major production. It begins around 10:30am with the tummy rumble signaling hunger. This inevitably is pointed out by somebody, and begins the ever-so-important group discussion of, "Where should we go for lunch today?"

On a previous slow day many months ago (and we thought then that it was REALLY bad, little did we know), we determined that lunch choices were influenced by three main factors: fat, lazy, and cheap. These were plotted three dimensionally, and each one of us nerdy engineers took distinct pleasure in getting to demonstrate our competency in plotting ourselves on the graph. We then quickly realized why our lunch decisions took so long: several of our group members are strongly weighted in a single attribute, but neither of them share the same one. Rather than choosing the sensible option, which would be excluding the perceived difficult party, this cheerful diversity allows us to have a full conversation for one and a half hours about what we're doing for lunch.

Getting and eating lunch takes an hour. The additional half hour after lunch is spent describing in detail exactly how tired one is now that they've eaten, and how they wish they could take a nap, and if they could take a nap at work, this is how they'd pull it off. Lunch generally ends with disinterest in one another.

Job "Opportunity" = Sucker Backfill
The problem with finding a job within your own company on a different project is that there are politics at work between your manager and your prospective manager. The new job could be so perfect that it seems like the job requisition was written for you, and even though you might have the qualifications, or be OVER qualified (!!), you still need the blessing of your manager before you can bail. This happened at my last job, and I wasn't allowed to leave because my project was "frozen", meaning all critical people are not permitted to change projects at this time. When there are three of you, even if you're not doing much, the small number makes you critical.

My coworker who also has the same parent company as I has a job lined up. It's his if he wants it, and the new project is eagerly waiting for him. I've heard day after day how much he is underutilized in his current job (he is), and how much the job sucks (it does), and how annoying it is that office politics are so bad that it's difficult to get anything done (they are), and how he CANNOT wait to get out of here.

Yesterday, I looked over his shoulder while he was on the computer and saw a resume for somebody else who was junior to him. I knew immediately what he was doing and called him out on it. "How could you DO this with a CLEAR CONSCIENCE?"

"I...I...need to get out of here."

Apparently, he made the job sound so good that the girl asked why *he* was leaving if it was *that* good. I'm sure he gave the typical "pursue a different opportunity in line with my interests" line. What a crock of shit. The lesson? Be wary of the green grass that you're seeking.

posted by v @ 10:09 PM 0 comments

Work Truths

When things stop mattering, you drive in the right lane no matter how far you have to go. The car in front of me is a land yacht and has an obvious handicapped parking permit hanging awkwardly oblong from the rear view. It used to be a screaming beacon of, "DO NOT FOLLOW ME!" followed by a quick swerve and acceleration in the next lane. It's 9:23am and I'm late for work. Late is a relative term. Work is becoming a relative term too.

Time Distortion
When you do nothing all day, time changes. It's an amazing property that not even Einstein managed to identify and explain correctly. There's the whole two minutes two hours hot stove hot girl quote to capture perception of time distortion, but what he neglected to mention is that doing nothing all day stretches time and also makes you feel like you're stretched too. Remember back in the day of Shrinky Dinks, there were also those heavy paper stock books with a vinyl family in the middle insert? You could peel them off and stick them in different waxy scenarios on each page. And when you got bored playing with your welfare version of a dollhouse, it was always fun to pull in both dimensions to make a stretched out funhouse mirror version of the character. I'm fat, I'm wide, but only two dimensionally. When I sit on my chair at work for eight full hours, I don't sit, I flatten out and conform. I am one with the chair. My beige suit blends into the noncommittal neutral furniture and carpet. I am a floating flattened head.

Doing Nothing, Dissected
I hate when people ask me, "What do you do?" It's such a simple, generic small talk conversation starter. When you do nothing all day, it's a sensitive subject. Do you really think I want to be doing nothing all day? Believe it or not, it is very difficult to do nothing all day though most people think of that as a dream job. There's a big difference between doing nothing by choice, versus being required to be in an office all day to be accessible, with no work to do. See, I'm pretty sure you think "doing nothing" translates into "doing whatever you want" but you must remember that I am still AT WORK, which unfortunately draws a very thick black boundary around what you can and cannot do while "doing nothing". Also, working in a classified environment means no fun gadgets, so no electronics for amusement. And definitely no portable gaming systems. It's often hard to remember that I get paid for "doing nothing", so most of the time, having to come in wearing business casual garb or worse yet, a suit, becomes highly offensive. It's a mockery. Though, one perk about working in this line of business is that it's acceptable to say something like, "I'm sorry, I can't really discuss it. It's classified." You'll notice that if you do run into someone in my line of business, they will often use that line. Then you will think that they're an overly self important asshole, or simply a pompous prick. I assure you, they are neither. It's easier to say "It's classified" rather than "I do nothing all day".

posted by v @ 5:29 PM 0 comments

The Job.

Sometimes I feel as if the day is one long, heavy sigh beginning at 8am and ending every day at 5pm. I think people need to feel productive, needed, and part of something that's moving to completion in order to get some inner satisfaction from a job. My job offers none of those attributes and it's starting to erode my mood into a flatlining blob of mush.

There used to be 37 of us. In December, they let 17 people go; all were from my company, none were engineers. Now, there are only 7 left that I see on a regular basis, and 4 are already committed to other opportunities.

There's a famous quote that goes something along these lines: Every time a friend succeeds, a part of me dies. I laughed out loud when I read that quote because it is entirely true. With my coworkers moving on, I can't help but feel like they're onto something I just can't see. Except now, it's pretty obvious that I'm on the Titanic. We all know how that one ends.

I just don't want to even deal with it anymore. I think I need a fresh start. Everyone is concerned with only what is in their best interest, and my current manager happens to be the program manger of the program I'm on and he's got his hands full. Problem is, there really aren't many other engineering opportunities available in my company. There are, however, many people wearing nice business suits and driving BMWs. I wore sneakers to work the other day. I haven't worn a suit in over six months.

The new people who have taken over the project at the highest level decided it was a good idea to rename it immediately, so that the system that was 7 years in the making (and all the related drama) would be buried quickly. I'm not sure if that's a major marketing mistake, but if people have been expecting System X for 7 years, why would you deliver ABC? Nobody knows what ABC is.

I did two whole minutes of real work today. Your tax dollars are hard at work.

posted by v @ 6:13 PM 0 comments

Soccer, Birthday, and Hippos.

This weekend started off well with a soccer double header Friday night. We had an outdoor game at 8pm, and an indoor game at 10:30pm. The weather was supposed to be partly cloudy with 30% chance of showers developing late in the evening. I work about five minutes away from the field, and when I left for the day, there was a dark grey ominous cloud in the distance. GREAT. Then, tiny drops appeared on the windshield. It would be fun to have both games, but if the outdoor one got cancelled, at least we would play one game. Luckily, the rain stopped, and it was all clear at 7:20pm when we left the house. Halfway there, Craig asks if I have my shinguards. I'm always forgetting something. We go back to the house to get them, and arrive at the field five minutes late. The parking lot is full of minivans, and people are parking on the dividers and grass. Arrghhh! It's some kiddie football thing going on, so there's like, 8 million kids, and just as many crazed parents. I am new to this suburbia ritual. The weather is turning, and the mist is coming down thick and even and looks like a sheet of dust in the field lighting. We start a few minutes late, and I borrow a pair of socks from a teammate because yep, I forgot those too. Ai yi yi!

Halfway into the first half, the rain starts coming down heavy. It was so bad that my contacts were floating around freely on my eye, and I couldn't see anything! It was like trying to see underwater. It kept up for another 40 minutes, but the game went on. We won, and it was a good and fun game, but by then we had to go to the indoor place to play our second game and it seemed to be not such a good idea anymore now that we were tired. We were playing this team that's full of ringers and everybody hates them because they're good, but they're also very obnoxious. One noteworthy incident that occurred was me cornering a player who had the ball against the wall. He's not exactly cornered since the field is oval shaped. Anyway, this guy wedges the ball between his feet and bunny-hops a few times with it wedged in between away from me. I was in complete shock that someone would even try to do something like that because first, it's obnoxious, and second, it makes me look really stupid... SO, I'm not being nice anymore and will make a mental note to knee and hack next time.

We lost that game by a lot. Boring details. Got home, and was showered and having dinner a little after midnight. Watched football and an episode of Monk, and finally went to bed at 2am. The next day, we were sore and incoherent and very off schedule. I went to see my manicurist so now I look like a real person again, thank goodness. Random errands, and other boring stuff, the most noteworthy being fighting sleep at 7:30pm. Yes, we are *that* exciting.

Sunday was Kara's surprise birthday get together and we met at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. The food is good, and reliable but the service was horrible. What can you expect at Tyson's at 1pm? We got her a bracelet from Tiffany (*wink-wink*) and Julie gave her a small Vera Bradley change purse in lime green. Drew gave her a light saber I think. I guess the gifts reflect the type of relationship we have with her. It was a nice outing and I think Kara was happy about it too.

After that, we drove into DC to make a quick trip to the zoo. Except it's not as trivial as it sounds because DC is friggin impossible to navigate. We were very lost, and off the map (as usual) and getting frustrated vowing never to drive in DC ever again, but then we finally found it, and saw that there was a much easier way to get there that was more familiar to us. The zoo is free. It's $12 for parking if you decide to park adjacent to it though. The pandas were not on display, and they were the big draw last summer as there was a panda cub. Two years ago, the cheetah cubs were hot. They're big now, so nobody cares about them anymore. We went to see Craig's favorite animal in the Elephant House: the hippo. They have pygmy hippos there, which are the size of giant pigs so it's more manageable than a real full-sized hippo. One was up against the edge of his cage closest to visitors and he was just kind of standing there sideways. He's very round, and his skin is dimpled and dark grey but very shiny like some kind of synthetic material. It's all the natural oils from the skin.

He turns around and there's this pink protrusion sticking out like a tail, except it's lower. Much lower, and pointing out and back like a tail too. Except the hippo already has a tail kind of like Eeyore.

me: "What the hell is that?"
Craig: (big eyes at me) "Stop looking at his stuff, geez!"
me: "That's his...thing? (there are children around, mind you) But...but, it's pointing the wrong way. Are you SURE????"
Craig: (huffs) "Yes!"

The hippo turns so now he's um, pointing right at me, and I swear to god, his thing slightly retracts, and the very ends of it winks at us. I look over to my left at a mom, and we make eye contact and burst out laughing. We're surrounded by clueless children.

Craig and I go to the next cage, which is a different type of hippo (taller). I'm still not convinced about the thing. I go back to the pygmy and sure enough, it's gone and there's a little holder thing visible similar to what a boy dog has, and yes, it is pointing the WRONG way. I'm perplexed. I guess they....rear end each other simultaneously? Pictures on the internet indicate that they go about it the normal way.

me: "I don't think they can do it the normal way with that little thing.."
Craig: "I'm sure there was more of it hiding in there."
me: "GROSS! But it's still pointing the wrong waaay!!!"

Every time I go to the zoo, it's always an interesting experience.

posted by v @ 9:17 PM 0 comments

Piano and Baltimore

So I'm feeling better now, enough to be fully cognizant of the fact that despite being out of it for the past week, work hasn't changed and it still sucks. Today, I made four more crystal bracelets to be given out at some future date as Christmas presents. I've stared at them so long though, that I'm kind of attached, and I really don't want to be giving them away. Sparkly is a good distraction.

Yesterday, we trekked all the way out to Baltimore to see Ruut play at a pub in Fells Point. She's really good, though I think most people are not very patient when it comes to the girl-and-a-piano schtick. She will inevitably be compared to Tori Amos. She seemed a bit too normal for the whole rocker-chick thing, but that makes her even more likeable! She played for a solid 45 minutes as the opener for Naked Blue, and it was great. There wasn't even a cover or ticket fee for this event! We stayed for her set then had to trek back to DC since it ws a school night. Where there are bars, there are late-night pizza joints, so of course we had to grab a slice before we left. Pretty good, but Tony's is better.

What else is going on? I had a mini shopping accident at the outlet last week. I really shouldn't have gone to the outlet in the first place, since that's where most shopping "accidents" occur, but it was with purpose! I wanted to exchange a skirt for a different size. (Fine print: Didn't need the skirt, should've returned it, will do that next time, maybe.) This was during Labor Day weekend, which is probably not the best time to go to the outlets either, especially for one who is prone to shopping accidents.

Anyway, to make a long story short, there was a big shopping incident at the Gap outlet where three pairs of corduroys were purchased, along with a sweater and two boatneck 3/4 sleeve t-shirts.

I feel guilty.

I hate almost all of my clothes. And here's a big THANK YOU to Craig for pointing out that I have "mom-jeans". Those are going to Goodwill ASAP. And if you're still in the dark about mom-jeans, queue up "SNL: Commercial Parodies" on your Netflix, and you're in business.

The soccer season is in full swing again. And by full swing, I mean that I keep signing us up for teams. It must be an obsessive compulsive thing. I have to point out though, that I am no longer "that person" anymore. I don't get hit in the face by the ball anymore. In fact, it's not often that I accidentally get hit. It kind of makes me wonder how the hell I managed to get hit so much initially. AND, I have been invited to play on other teams and it's not a package deal! (Though, all of them would gladly take me if it meant acquiring Craig...Hmmm...)

I think I made an enemy on our indoor coed team. There's this one girl who Tracy insisted we have on the team. Now, I really can't say anything especially since Tracy and her husband have been running the team for the past few years. I just stepped in to make it a little easier for them. I've seen this girl before, but I couldn't remember what kind of player she was. Tracy insisted that she was good, so we pulled her in. At our last game, she was hanging out in the back. I don't know how it came to be that playing defense became equivalent to taking a break... ANYWAY, I was pretty exhausted from sprinting up and down and we were in the back together which is kind of stressful because if the other team gets past you, that's it.

posted by v @ 8:08 PM 0 comments

Sick.

I made an appointment to be seen last week because my allergies seemed out of control and I felt like shit all week. Even sitting in my empty office was a challenge since I was getting chills and walking down the corridor felt like walking through a tunnel in a fun house. My head didn't feel right, but I didn't have a fever or anything that seemed like an infection so I went to work last week anyway.

If you wake up with a sore throat, you're done. That's how it started last Wednesday. I thought maybe the house was too cold, or we had the fan on a setting that was too high. The next morning, the sore throat was worse. My glands were definitely swollen. The third day, the wheezing started. The fourth, fifth and sixth day, I lost my voice. The doctor took a quick look at me, and announced that I had the virus-that-is-going-around. You have to wait out viruses, so antibiotics don't help. She said, "Stay home and rest." I can do that. I slept another six hours and I still feel less than normal. Can't wait to be done with this and get back to normal.

posted by v @ 5:53 PM 0 comments

Can't talk, sorry!

No, seriously. My voice is gone. Gone, gone, gone. I've been feeling under the weather lately thanks to my allergies. It's weed season now, and it's making me feel *SO* crappy that I cannot wait for everything to die and be covered by a 3' blanket of snow. I don't have any allergy problems in the winter. Maybe I should move to Alaska.

I'm back from a quick visit to Philly. I had a good time, and better yet, it only took me 2.5 hours to get home! I might have been going 80 for a little bit. I was in the car alone, and all that driving gets really boring without company or entertainment. I couldn't even be a completely annoying female-SUV-driver-on-a-cell-phone (you can throw Asian in there for good measure if you want) because it hurt so much to talk, and when I could squeak something out, you wouldn't be able to make it out anyways. On the bright side, I could text message! This is a good idea. Especially while operating a huge motor vehicle. Did I mention that I'm not proficient at texting at all, and squeaking out any text takes me 5 minutes? As a general courtesy to my fellow travelers on 95, I move over to a slower lane and cut back on the speed. It seemed like every time I had to do this, I'd pass a state trooper. Pretty cool!

T came over for a short while. Not being able to talk is a real drag. Craig did the talking. I mimed for a little bit, but got tired. Then we left for our first outdoor game since the spring season. It was long, and we won by a goal that kind of just happened without any oommph behind it.

In other news, Craig got the parts car out of the house. It's spread out in several different boxes on the shelves. The body itself was mostly rusted out, and had to be discarded. It's a good thing to have these extra parts just in case!

That's it for now. Time to get this lazy day started!

posted by v @ 10:07 AM 0 comments

College!

I'm visiting Melissa this weekend partly to see her new home for the next four years (!!) but mostly for the kT Tunstall concert which was last night, and which was awesome by the way! It's very weird to be in a freshman dorm. All these college kids look so young to me, which means only one thing: I'm getting old. When I arrived, I was wearing work clothes so I looked even older. Good thing I brought some clothes with me from Delia's! And, what is with these super trendy college kids? We need to bling Melissa out. She'll have to ask V for help with that one. I'm useless.

The college's surrounding area is a little ghetto. I guess that's typical though.

If I am not lazy today, I will take some photos!

posted by v @ 8:52 AM 0 comments