After picking up my pooch from the vet clinic and getting her all settled at home, I came to work to find myself greeted by nine missed calls. Nine. In four hours. All from the same person. Why? For what purpose does one call and call and call...and not bother to leave a voicemail? Then I logged into my email and discovered a message with the following subject line (and this is verbatim, caps lock and extraneous punctuation have actually not been dramatized for effect, for once): WHERE ARE YOU???
Dear coworker: You are neither my boss nor my spouse. Do not ever - and I mean ever in the completely literal sense - treat me as if I have to justify my existence or my whereabouts to you. Ever. Because I will go rogue badger and extract your kidneys out through your trachea.
Not to mention that the manager of IT just called to follow up on a project that was assigned to me that I had to relegate to back burner status because of several other priority assignments that I was given. He's probably tracking my keystrokes as I type this, so just FYI - I just did the project and sent it on its merry little way via the web-space. Happy now?
Feb 10, 2009
Feb 9, 2009
Unforseen and inopportune emergencies
So here we are, again reminded of the old saw "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". I just returned from dropping the dog off at the vet for surgery. We had to take her to the emergency vet clinic yesterday because I'd discovered she had a swollen ear on Saturday. It turns out that she developed an aural hematoma, which is a collection of blood in the ear flap, due to trauma. According to the vet at the emergency clinic and the vet at the animal hospital, ear hematomas are pretty common in dogs, especially the floppy-eared breeds, and can result from either the dog scratching at the ear, or vigorously shaking its head, due to any number of things. In this case, my dog has had chronic ear infections, and shakes her head a lot. It just so happened that this weekend she may have shaken her head a little too violently, and caused injury to the blood vessels in her ear. The hematoma required surgery, and the vet is also going to treat her ear infections, wich are not only affecting the outer ear, but now the middle ear as well. She also suggested that the infections may be a result of a possible allergy, and said we should try altering her diet to see if that might help a little - otherwise she seems to be in excellent health and great spirits. She'll be in surgery today, then recovery this afternoon. I'll take a half day off work tomorrow and pick her up in the morning.
Two vet trips...
Two minor surgeries...
Four prescriptions...
And almost a thousand dollars later
Feb 4, 2009
It pays to be prepared
...for any eventual scenario. For example - today while rummaging around in my desk, I came to the realization that if for any reason I should have to take refuge in my office building (say, in the event I am stuck in here during the zombie armageddon) that I have amassed a stockpile of saltines and single-serve coffee creamers that would sustain me for approximately 1.5 days before I'd have to fight the staff of the CEOs office for their Coke and left over orange juice (weapon of choice: letter opener sharpened to a sleek razor's edge and attached bayonette-style to the front of an HR golf umbrella, secured with the picture hanging wire I keep in my desk). Of course, considering that the building two blocks down used to be a military barracks and is encased in a modified Farraday cage (not to mention the subfloor being built like a bunker), I certainly would be making every attempt to be there instead. I'd have to gather the rest of the household from their various points around town, of course. That exact plan of escape is a little more risky, and is in need of a bit of fine-tuning, since the calculated casualty ratio so far seems to be running very high.
These are the things I think about while having to spend all day running reports. This project is boring and monotonous, and when it's done, I get to teach the person making double my salary how to read the reports I've spent two days researching and printing out. I've used a ream of paper, which equals a couple of old-growth trees, I think. So to hell with the ideal of the "paperless" office, and who cares about some damn owls, I suppose.
These are the things I think about while having to spend all day running reports. This project is boring and monotonous, and when it's done, I get to teach the person making double my salary how to read the reports I've spent two days researching and printing out. I've used a ream of paper, which equals a couple of old-growth trees, I think. So to hell with the ideal of the "paperless" office, and who cares about some damn owls, I suppose.
Feb 3, 2009
The end is nigh
Take heed people! Budgetpocalypse Naught Nine is upon ye. Or would it be upon thee...?
Anyway. There have been crazy budget related meetings all over the place the last two days, we've been issued a travel and expenses freeze for "nonessentials" (because, you know - that worked so well six months ago), and managers are throwing worst case scenarios all over the place, which is freaking out the staff. My husband is convinced that either he or I - or both of us, even - will be on the chopping block before the summer. Here's where we are, for those keeping score: last year the organization "gave back" just over 10% of base operating funds. This year they returned 4%. Sometime between next month and next calendar year, we are expecting to return additional operating funds - anywhere from 5% to 15%. So, overall, we're looking at a possible total reduction of 20 to 30 percent over a three year period, most of which came from vacant positions or by eliminating positions and shifting personnel. The palpable levels of stress and anxiety have ratcheted up to almost unbearable extremes. Today while the new budget assistant and I were waiting for our manager to end a phone call so that we could meet with her, the Governor's assistant in his regional office here (which he very rarely even uses except for "photo op" trips) shooed us away rather sternly, because she thought we were talking too loudly outside of the office of one of the Governor's aides while she was "conducting business" in her office, which we were sitting right outside of. Because that's where the only available chairs were! And were were speaking at a *reasonable volume*. Then, very shortly afterward, the budget assistant decided that she needed some paper, so she grabbed a couple of reams from the storage room in the CEO's offices with the intention of replacing them once we'd bought our own supply, and the boss's assistant saw us walk out the door with the paper and proceeded to bitch us out about that. By the way, this new coworker, who I thought was kind of quiet and would keep to herself, has turned out to be kind of bossy and agressive. I'm now being referred to as "woman". As in "Hey woman, are you coming to this meeting or what?". I do this with my friends, in a playful & teasing way. The way this woman says it...I dunno. Forced comraderie is not my style, at any rate. I don't know if I can take much more of this...
Update: this new coworker is already starting to rub certain people the wrong way (I've heard this from no less than three different people in the last couple of days), and she's only been here for two weeks. This does not bode well.
Anyway. There have been crazy budget related meetings all over the place the last two days, we've been issued a travel and expenses freeze for "nonessentials" (because, you know - that worked so well six months ago), and managers are throwing worst case scenarios all over the place, which is freaking out the staff. My husband is convinced that either he or I - or both of us, even - will be on the chopping block before the summer. Here's where we are, for those keeping score: last year the organization "gave back" just over 10% of base operating funds. This year they returned 4%. Sometime between next month and next calendar year, we are expecting to return additional operating funds - anywhere from 5% to 15%. So, overall, we're looking at a possible total reduction of 20 to 30 percent over a three year period, most of which came from vacant positions or by eliminating positions and shifting personnel. The palpable levels of stress and anxiety have ratcheted up to almost unbearable extremes. Today while the new budget assistant and I were waiting for our manager to end a phone call so that we could meet with her, the Governor's assistant in his regional office here (which he very rarely even uses except for "photo op" trips) shooed us away rather sternly, because she thought we were talking too loudly outside of the office of one of the Governor's aides while she was "conducting business" in her office, which we were sitting right outside of. Because that's where the only available chairs were! And were were speaking at a *reasonable volume*. Then, very shortly afterward, the budget assistant decided that she needed some paper, so she grabbed a couple of reams from the storage room in the CEO's offices with the intention of replacing them once we'd bought our own supply, and the boss's assistant saw us walk out the door with the paper and proceeded to bitch us out about that. By the way, this new coworker, who I thought was kind of quiet and would keep to herself, has turned out to be kind of bossy and agressive. I'm now being referred to as "woman". As in "Hey woman, are you coming to this meeting or what?". I do this with my friends, in a playful & teasing way. The way this woman says it...I dunno. Forced comraderie is not my style, at any rate. I don't know if I can take much more of this...
Update: this new coworker is already starting to rub certain people the wrong way (I've heard this from no less than three different people in the last couple of days), and she's only been here for two weeks. This does not bode well.
Feb 2, 2009
"This is one time when television fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."
The Steelers won the Superbowl!!
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And Pennsylvania's most famous fat rodent predicted another six more weeks of winter.
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And Pennsylvania's most famous fat rodent predicted another six more weeks of winter.
"According to German superstition, if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas - winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early."
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