The Great Food Watch

Up until a few minutes ago I thought the rumor about lunch (that I mentioned in my last post) was going to be just that. A rumor.

It was around 10:30 this morning when I'd heard one of the supervisors might buy lunch for everybody. Me and Desk Neighbor P and The New Guy were about to go out to lunch, but decided to stick around and hold out for the free food. Because a free lunch is most often better than lunch you have to pay for.

So we stayed at work and waited. And waited and waited and waited.

The food just arrived... three freaking hours later!

I was ready to mutiny. Mutiny I tell ya! I was tempted to snack on something until lunch got here, but I had no money (I was only going out to lunch because someone had a buy one get one free coupon) and my emergency stash of stale tastes-like-the-inside-of-a-metal-desk crackers (i.e. old Saltines) has run out.

So I toughed it out. And was rewarded with Togo's sandwiches! Yummy. And since lunch was delivered so late there were a few sandwich halves left over so I went back for another one. Yummy!

And in all the excitement I just stabbed myself in the boob with a pen. I really have no idea how that happened. I was holding the pen backwards and then spazzed or something and stabbed myself in the boob. Now there's a half inch pen mark on my shirt, right on top of the boob for everyone to see.

*smacks hand to forehead*

Is it time to go home yet?

Time for a little Shim Sham Shimmy

It's Friday! And there is rejoicing in the land!

Last time I updated was last week, during my 'friday'. I was bogged down with work, sick with a cold, and looking forward to spending a three-day weekend with some girlfriends.

Now it's a week later and not much has changed. :)

I'm still bogged down with work, and now that my lovely assistant (i.e. the intern) has left and started school, I have no one to pass on all these little tasks to. Or the big-ugly-time-consuming tasks. So now it's all piling up in my In Box. Crap nuggets!

I'm still sick with a cold (or allergies as the doctor said last Friday). The cold stepped up a notch in severity, and in overall general crappiness that just makes you feel slow and tired and icky. Definitely not the way I wanted to feel going into the weekend. I got an infection in both my eyes and they became all sore and red. So red, I swear I looked like some extra in a mutant movie. It would have been cool if it hadn't meant my eyes were so sore and blurry. So I went to the doctor's office on Friday and got a prescription for eye medicine and nose spray. Yay! The eyes are all better now, but the snot is still hanging around. Damn persistent snot.

Oh and my sinuses are swollen like a beeyatch. So much so that it's noticeable. Freaking noticeable! My nose isn't the cutest nose in the world, but its pretty damn 'okay'. Except now the sinus cavities on each side of the nose are swelling. My nose is all deformed now!

Okay, so it's not that noticeable. I haven't reached Circus Freak Show status yet, but if this cold/allergy doesn't go away any time soon I just might. (I can feel the sinuses expanding right this very second. Blah!) The HB has noticed it. And kindly commented to me about it.

Me: Blah blah blah blah bl-
HB: Wow. Your sinuses are really swollen.
Me: Hell yeah they are. They hurt like a... Wait a sec... how did you know? *gasp* Is it that noticeable?!?!
HB: Yep.
Me: *calmly walks to mirror to investigate* Damn. And right before the Vogue magazine cover photo shoot!

If the HB notices it, I wonder how many other people will notice. Other people who don't know I'm sick and just think I have a really weird shaped nose.

Concerned Uninformed Stranger 1: Oh my! Look at the girl's nose! It's all disproportioned.
Concerned Uninformed Stranger 2: Poor thing. I hope the circus pays well.

Even with all the cold/allergy stuff going on I still had fun last weekend. The Evil Snot didn't keep me from shopping and gossiping and laughing and cheering on the Red Knight (Medieval Times is so much fun!) I don't know how much fun it was for my friends to have my snotty self tagging along but I think they had fun too. :)

And now another weekend is here and I'm soooooooooooo looking forward to it. What I really need is a weekend full of relaxation, naps, laundry fairies, big fancy breakfasts cooked by the HB, and more naps. But that's not going to happen.

The HB and I are going to a concert at the Whiskey A Go Go. The IT guy at my work is in a band called Shim Sham and they're playing with a bunch of other bands at the Whisky Saturday night. I thought I'd go check them out because 1) I really can't picture him singing and rocking out so even if they suck, and the other bands suck, I imagine t will good entertainment and 2) it's something to do, a reason to go out and about and get away from the apartment, which is almost always a good thing.

Tickets were cheap, but then the HB and I decided to get a hotel for Saturday night (I plan on staying up way past my bedtime and neither one of us will be in a state to drive home.) Somehow I let him talk me into making reservations at an expensive one. Eek! Sometimes I like pretending I have money and am not constantly thinking/worrying about bills and stuff, which is probably why there wasn't much talking-into going on. :) It'll be the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed at (i.e. most expensive), and I love staying in hotels (well, the nice and clean ones anyway), so I'm looking forward to that part of the weekend.

And the weekend's just a few hours away! Wheeeeeee!

But for right now I'm just looking forward to lunch. We're working with sort of a skeleton crew today and there's a rumor going around that someone is going to be buying the employees lunch. Weee! Hopefully lunch time is soon because I've been here a couple hours and am a starvin marvin. :)

and in this corner, weighing in at 5.4 pounds iiiiiiiit's The Phlegm-inator!

This week has been hectic.

And tiresome.

And full of phlegm.

Tiresome, because I've been waking up at the ungodly hour of 4 o-freakin-clock in the morning, showing up to work at 5 AM and leaving work at 5 PM. Well, not exactly five. A few days I was able to leave at 4:30 PM. *rolls eyes* My new mantra: "Overtime pay Overtime pay Maxed out credit cards Overtime pay."

Catchy, eh?

And the weeks' been full of phlegm because some time last week I started getting sick. I believe the Evil Phlegm started its slow creep on Sunday. Or maybe it was Saturday. I can't quite remember. All I know is that it was right around the time I started conducting these training sessions at work. Because with the Evil Phlegm cold came it's delightful cousin, Mr. Scratchy Throat.

I've met Mr. Scratchy Throat before, but not like this. This time he's on a mission. A mission to make me loose my voice.

See, I think I pissed off Mr. Scratchy Throat last time he came to visit. Maybe I kicked him out too soon with a wave of cold medicine tablets before he could get his fill of applesauce (a sore throat magical salve) and Simon & Simon reruns. So this time around he planned and he plotted and he diabolically masterminded his way into my body right before I needed my voice the most: for my All Important Training Sessions.

It's been awful. My voice is at half volume at best. When I try and raise it, or I talk too much with out taking a pause or a water break (which seems to be at least every 42 seconds, according to my bladder) I go into a coughing fit. It's really hard to train someone when you're trying not to cough cold germs all over them.

My office mates have been sympathetic because they're sick too. (Everybody around here is sick!) The office mates are not as sick as I am though (figures, don't it?) so when they hear my voice they say, "Ahhhhhhhh. You sound awful!" Then they give me throat lozenges they have stashed away in their desks. I have never been a big fan of the Halls or the Ricola, but I was this week when it was either suck on those things or embarrass myself by peeing myself (I'm drinking lots of water) or rupturing a spleen or something.

At least I'm not as "sick as a dog." This cold could be a lot worse. Snot could be flowing out my nose like a water park amusement ride. Instead it's dripping down my throat, hence the visit of Mr. Scratchy Throat.

I would say my level of sickness could be better classified as being as "sick as a kitty cat with an uncoughable hairball." My throat gets a little scratchy tingle so I hack and cough and make strange noises until everyone turns and stares at me, waiting for something to come up. But it never does.

Which I say "hallelujah!" about because that means the phlegm isn't ready to come out yet. Which means I'm not sitting here in the office with that little rattling phlegmy noise every time I breathe. That's just embarrassing.

So anyways, its Thursday, which is my Friday (I have tomorrow off! Woo!) and I can't wait for the end of the work day to get here. Until then I've got work to catch up on and people to train. And sour candy Peach Rings to suck on (for purely medicine reasons - i.e. the scratchy throat).

*cough*

An Update To Sunday's Posts

I started writing this post on Monday, but never had the time to finish it. And haven't had time until today. (Actually I still don't have time, but I'm doing it any way because I am all-powerful and can get away with it - i.e. I'm writing this when no one is on the office and have consigned my fate to work super fast later to catch up)

So anyway, in case anyone is wondering, that little problem I caused on Sunday, that I was kinda totally freaking out over? It's been fixed. I came in to work Monday, dreading whatever disaster situation I was soon to face. After I got home on Sunday I realized I should have paged the tech guy with a 911 message. Or kept calling his cell phone until he answered. At the time, I didn't want to ruin his Sunday, and figured it wouldn't be that big a deal. My brain was too clouded with self-embarrassment and frustration for messing up the system. And then I got home and all kinds of different scenarios started playing in my head and I realized, 'oops, this could be a bigger problem then I thought.'

So I came into work Monday and found the problem solved for me. The tech guy had gotten my message after I'd left work and fixed it all. It was an easy fix and was no problem at all. It was only a fix that he could do, but still an easy fix. So I'd fretted over nothing really.

But it was good I fretted, I guess. Because while I fretted, the HB made me realize that next time I should keep calling until my problem gets solved and screw everybody else and they're day off!

So 'yeah me!' for learning something new. :)

"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma." -Eartha Kitt

I hate being stupid. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

I'm not completely stupid. I'll give myself that much credit. I'm not book stupid. I can read and learn and study. I can take and pass tests. But that's just a very small crumb of the human existence pie. Being book smart will only get you so far. What's more important is being "street" smart. Common sense smart. People smart. Life smart. Whatever-the-right-word-is smart. At least that's the way I feel lately, long before today ever happened.

I haven't got much of these smarts. Or, probably more accurately, I don't have as much as I feel I should have. (Maybe that's part of the problem). And it's distressing. It's like having an irrational fear of ladybugs. You know the ladybug won't do any more damage to you than drop a little poop on your finger, yet still you shriek and duck for cover anytime one flitters by. Irrational!

I know there's nothing wrong with being stupid, at first. Everyone is stupid until they learn. That's just how the process works. I know this, and yet sometimes I'll avoid a potential Show Everyone How Stupid I Am situation. Not all the time (I have plenty of non-stupid moments!), but sometimes. Sometimes I just can't help myself. And I don't know why. I just sort of freeze up. Hide. Evade. Avoid. Shy away. Just to keep from looking stupid.

How stupid is that?

I know that a great way to not be stupid is to ask questions. To confront the situation my instincts might tell me to avoid. To make mistakes and learn from them. I know there's a need to be stupid once, to avoid being stupid on future occasions. I know this, yet sometimes that's just not enough. Not all the time, mind you. But sometimes.

It's something I dislike about myself. But I can recognize this about myself, which is a start in the right direction I guess. I know I want to change, and knowing this is half the battle, right? Where's G.I. Joe when you need him.

So I'm working on it, and have been for while. I like to think that I'm getting better at it. (Then again, sometimes I like to think that I'm as skinny as a Super Slurpee straw with Wonder Woman superhero abilities, so I might not always be the best judge of self. *ahem*)

But seriously, I am getting better at it. I give myself permission to be stupid every once in awhile. Well, okay, its more frequent than 'every once in awhile,' but you get the point.

*checks Today's To Do List... finds Give Self Permission To Be Stupid... marks down a big fat checkmark next it*

And then I learn from the 'being stupid'. Hopefully. Most of the time. That's the plan at least. :) Because "life is about constantly learning, and once it isn't, you might as well be dead." One of my favorite high school teachers, Mr. Hevener, told our history class this once. I liked it, believed in it, and therefore wrote it down to keep with me always. As a sort of reminder, I guess, that 'oh yeah, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Learning."

Well, that's all I have to say about that. I'm so done learning for the day. Is this crappy Sunday over yet???

Hello. My name is Loon. And I'm a moron.

I'm a well balanced person. I eat vegetables for the body. And for balance I eat chocolate for the soul. I say mean things about stupid drivers on the freeway. And for balance I graciously let people cut in front of me who've been waiting a millennia to turn on to the crowded street. Sometimes I have flashes of pure brilliance. And for balance I sometimes have moments of pure boneheadedness.

Today I had a colossal moment of utter boneheadedness that will surely be marked down in the Annuls of Loon.

I'm at work today. On a Sunday. And boy does that suck. But it was my choice so I guess I can't bitch too much. I have to train a bunch people and thought 'hey, I'll come in on Sunday and train the couple of guys that work on Sunday and knock them off my list right away and I'll show the bosses that I'm super committed to doing a super job!' Plus there was the whole 'overtime pay' motivating factor.

So here I am, training people. And it's gone well.

Until now.

See, while I had a break between sessions I thought I'd be clever and do my administrator job stuff and change a couple of settings that needed changing. I haven't had time during the normal work week, but hey, its Sunday! And now I have time.

So I'm changing things and its all good in the data 'hood. Then I think to myself, 'you know self, I'd really like to change the setting for this field, see if I can make it more user friendly.' So I tried one or two things, nothing happened, so decided to leave it to the Head Data Guru Guy who's helping us prepare for the Big Scary Audit and went on my merry way. I didn't think anything I tried was that major, that it would have any effect what so ever on the system, because nothing changed. I clicked on properties, clicked on one fucking button, and when I pulled up the properties window again the button was no longer clicked. So I thought it didn't take. Something took though all right. Took my sanity along with it too.

I frelled up one of the work modules in the system. A major one. The one that I'm doing the training in. Go me!

Blah.

I have no idea what I did wrong, and I can't fix it. I open up the work module and I get a mean little error message. It looks like a bunch of gobblygook: 'Error to file 2000345EE38375'.

Translation: You are a MORON! Step away from the system NOW!

*sigh*

I've totally screwed up my Desk Neighbor's day. He works Sundays thru Thursdays, so today's his 'Monday'. And he can't access the module he needs to do most of his work on.

*bangs head on top of desk*

So I guess that means no more training today.

Yip-friggin-ee.

I seriously want to cry. I won't, because it's really not that big deal in the whole scheme of things, so why bother really. I'll just pout instead.

*pout*

I put in a call to the Head Data Guru Guy. Left a message on his voice mail. Hopefully he checks his messages before I leave today so he can help me fix it before all my training sessions tomorrow. All five of them!!!

Gah! I'm so embarrassed. I'm supposed to be the Local Guru Administrator and I'm such a bonehead.

Okay, it's 10:30 am. I'm going to carry on my little pity party somewhere else. Like at the AM/PM mini market down the street where I'll buy a 64 oz soda to drown my sorrows in.

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Self-esteem:: right now its pretty damn low. Details (i.e. 'I'm So Stupid' rant) to come later
   
2. Migraine:: what I'm on the verge of getting. Waaaaaah!
   
3. Phoebe:: Cates
   
4. Nervous:: Nelly
   
5. Punctual:: something I wasn't this morning. (I'm at work right now. @#$%&)
   
6. Liver damage:: too much booze
   
7. Legal disclaimer:: Warning: Contents in Coffee Cup are HOT Dip Shit
   
8. Reverend:: pastor
   
9. Supple:: boobies
   
10. Binder:: school

Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. *

Hello to all you first time readers, strolling in from a search engine or a link or whatnot.

And a super special hello to all you frequent visitors (from the quasi frequents to the borderline stalker frequents) who keep checking back in to this dinky little blog to see if I've posted anything new.

Which I haven't in a while. My bad. Hmmm... wonder how long its been....

*looks at date of last post*

Egads!

Has it really been that long??? Time sure flies by fast when your workload about doubles and your brain turns to mush. I remember the good old days when I could read blogs and write in blogs and visit fun links and play games on the internet and etc, etc, etc. All while at work!

Now my company and bosses are freaking out because of this big bad Audit Team that's coming to town. Ooh! Beware!

Translation: a lot of busy work for me. See, I work for a company that's owned by a Monster Company that has its fingers in a million different pies. And the Monster Company likes to make sure its little companies are performing at least up to par. So its been passed down the line how important this Audit is. Normally two to three people show up to Audit one of the Monster's businesses. This time? For lil' ol' us? They're sending "three to four" Audit-eers! Ooh, scary. I swear, when my boss (a new one - just in time for the Audit - oy vey!) said this in our new weekly How Much More Crap Do We Have To Clean Up Before The Audit meetings, he looked scared. Maybe it was just for our benefit. So we feel motivated to work harder. But this boss has been through one of these Audits before at a sister facility. So he should know first hand how serious this all is... eek!

So everyone's scrambling, making sure we're doing stuff right, and that we're prepared to answer any question the Audit-eers might throw at us. Fun times all around. Bleah. At least I'm able to work some overtime because overtime pay rocks the cat socks!

I know I've complained about the work situation before, but its such a big issue in my life right now. I'll be at home, trying to relax and forget that I even work during the day, and a problem will pop into my head. "Oh, I've got to remember to call So And So about Such And Such." Then I realize I'm thinking about work and smack myself in the forehead. The smacking is only a temporary fix to the over worked brain problem. Heh.

When I have had time to write or blog or whatever, the only thing in me to write about was how sucky my job is at the moment. And that just sucks. And yeah, that's what the above couple of paragraphs were about, but now I've got more than just sucky suckness to write about. I've got a happy news. Yeah!

Hopefully I can get back in the swing of things soon. Because I miss writing in my little blog. And it is sort of cathartic in a way to write it all the suckiness down. So I should spend time writing - an Exercise in Exorcising the Work Demons. Because it's for my own good dammit!

:)

So okay, the good points before I get back to work. I wish I had more time to write about them. Maybe I'll get to them later. Maybe I'll have time on Sunday, since I sort of volunteered myself to work on Sunday to train a bunch of people and *grumble grumble bitch bitch bitch* Yeah. So anyways... :) The good stuff:

* The HB found a job! A much, much better paying job! Woo!

* I'll be writing a check next week to pay off the balance of my car loan. And it's only half of my normal monthly car payment. So after next week NO MORE CAR PAYMENTS! Woo!

These first two Happy Points make my nearly empty bank account glow with the warm fuzzies.

* Girlfriend Weekend is coming up. Not this weekend but the following weekend. Zoink is coming down to visit, and the two of us will be storming Princess AJ's castle. I am so so so so so looking forward to this. I'm only taking the Friday off for vacation (along with the weekend of course) but it will be a much needed work breather. Girlfriend Weekend! Woo!

Damn. I thought I had another Happy Point to share. Oh well, I'm sure I'll think of it later. Later when I've done some work and cleared up some space in my brain. Sorry Happy Point, read the sign. No Vacancy.

Heh.

Okay. Back to work. I'm setting a bad example for the intern. Unless of course I've bogged her down with so much work she can't concentrate on anything else. If that's the case then, well... oops. It'd be bad to break the intern. She's still here for another week!

*title quote provided by Homer Simpson