Archive for October, 2005
Serenity
10 October 2005Ok, I’m absolutely in love with Firefly/Serenity. I saw the movie last week, watched the entire series in the past few days, and despite being under the weather and very uncomfortable doing so (y’know, with three holes in me from the gall bladder surgery) I went to see the movie again.
This is just brilliantly made stuff. I implore anyone who trusts my opinion to go see this movie ASAP, and if you like the movie, try and get your hands on the show… it’s even better.
Oh, and here’s this:
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You scored as Kaylee Frye. The Mechanic. You are a natural mechanic, and you are far too sweet and cheerful to live out here. How you can see the good in everyone around you boggles the mind occasionally. Still you don’t seem to be any crazier than that, and it is a nice kinda crazy.
Which Serenity character are you? |
I’m an emo bitch today
4 October 2005Well, somebody has been wanting an update… Here goes. :-P
My goodness. For a guy, I’m so very much on the rag today. Seriously, I’m half-tempted to go to the bathroom and cry myself out… Haven’t felt like that in a while, a long time in fact. And it’s not really justifiable… No big huge thing to be upset about. I guess, tension and resentment have been building for a while against my coworker. I know I’ve complained about her before, but I’ve never really been bothered, until just recently… the past 2-3 weeks.
I can take that she doesn’t work as quickly as me. I probably answer 5-6 times as many calls as she does… some days maybe 10x. But she’s older than my mother, and she’s not an absolute wiz about troubleshooting a problem once and committing it to memory (like I usually am). I can live with all that; it doesn’t bother me. But it’d be nice to get a sense that she even attempts to do her job to comparable effort as I. There have been many days this year, sometimes three days a week, when I’ve noticed she’s never checked voicemail after I arrive to work. From 8:30-3:30, some days, I’m the only one that checks. And forget about e-mail. She has me check the shared e-mail because, apparently, she “gets so much” on her personal office account. (According to Terri, Reba rarely checks her e-mail without being made aware by Cindy or Terri to be expecting something… but we’ll get to that.)
The straw breaking the camel’s back right now are the Biostars. Fall semester, and yet again, we’ve got a batch of new, super-cheapo computers we’re distributing to some users, to replace the super-cheapo computers we equipped them with last year. So far we’ve distributed about 22 of the computers–from setting up the computers network identity to filling out the paperwork to getting it in the hands of the users (at least they come pick them up)–and I’m willing to bet I’ve handled 18 of those transactions. Again, it’s like 4-5x the work for me as it is for her. And yesterday she went to a union meeting to try and get her paygrade improved… as if she works so hard. (Really, is it unreasonable to ask that I get paid like 4-5x as much? That’d make like $4/hr for her and $20/hr for me… I can dig that.)
Came to a particular head today when I came in to a note on my desk to get yet another computer ready for somebody. Fair enough, but in a minute or so, Mrs. On-The-Ball walks into the lab freaking out about, OH MY GOD THE COMPUTER ISN’T ON THE LIST! Whoever left the note for me didn’t enter the recipient in on the spreadsheet. So she starts freaking out about there not being enough computers to go around. Twenty minutes later, after having me run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find out who left the note, she finally decides that there are three computers still available–which aligns EXACTLY with the count I’d been keeping for the past week, as per HER request. *sigh* And then it was back to answering my share of phone calls and 2/3 of hers.
Oh well… At least now I know it’s not just my imagination that she’s… an incompetent buffoon or something. Last week, I spoke to one of the system admin girls (who are now my technical supervisors) about the lack of effort, particularly voicemails not being answered, and she seemed to get where I was coming from. Then today, after I apologized to the other admin girl for, admittedly, snapping a bit at her in the midst of the computer-count fiasco, she said in no unclear terms that she doesn’t know how I put up with my coworker. It would seem that nobody is really impressed by her job performance. (But nobody will do anything, it’s not like she could ever get fired for fear of some age-discrimination lawsuit or something. This is your tax money at work, folks.)
Ah, but enough about that… I’d almost gotten rid of my two-day headache (I can’t take any excedrin this week, and tylenol does nothing for me.) and it’s starting to come back. So, what else to speak of? How about the gaping hole I’ll have in my abdomen in two days? Haha… not really, just four little holes. I’m not particularly worried about it; the anaesthesia is the most unsettling part of me, because I just don’t like giving up consciousness like that. But no big deal; I’ll have a four day weekend out of it.
Had a conversation with Genelle last night, of which I’ll spare details, but it was sort of a personal talk about our friendship, and it was at the same time awkward and reassuring. Awkward to have to admit that yeah, we still have some residual baggage from way back in the day, but reassuring that we’re able to discuss it without queering the friendship. Hmm… I think I think that’s about it for now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go to the restroom. (But not to cry. :-P)