Don’t mind me. Just getting the snark out of my system before I go to my one-on-one with my boss in six minutes.
[tags]lolcats, snark, work[/tags]
and you would thank me when it was over
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Category Archives: 9 to 5
Chugging down the fifth
The good news: I hit 10,000 words yesterday. I’m officially a fifth of the way done. Woot!
The bad not-as-good news: I’ve lost my lead, ending the day about 500 words behind the 1,667 words-per-day schedule. But I’m not worried because this weekend I am channeling Chuck Norris. My word count shall blot out the sun.
Work has been ridiculously stressful lately. You’d think that the timing of NaNo would make things worse, it being another source of pressure (albeit self-imposed) and all…but it’s actually been nice to have something totally different to focus on.
It is physically impossible, against the laws of nature, to be utterly absorbed by two things at once. One cannot write and worry at the same time. Unless one’s character is worrying, but then it’s about whether you’ll be able to thwart the bad guy’s evil plan for world domination. This is much more exciting worry than whether the legal team will get back to you in time to have the technical documentation done by the deadline that they themselves imposed because you really don’t want to work 24 hours straight on the last day and still have it be half-assed by the time it goes out because that just causes more fires to put out and god knows we wouldn’t want to prevent them when we can run like chickens with our heads cut off for the next month, now, would we?
I really need to get back to my novel now.
[tags]NaNoWriMo, writing[/tags]
I fart in their general direction
It’s “Q4 crack-down” in the work world, which means I’ve had long-ass days at work this week, filled with “high priority” projects (whatev) and the requisite last-minute requests from asshats whose own lack of planning has naturally become my emergency.
Take that, oppressors!
Hat tip to Jo for finding this long-lost photo of me.
[tags]Wonder Woman[/tags]
Works every time…
Happy Monday…
[tags]technical writing, work, chickens[/tags]
Make mine a double
Ever since I got into the online retail business, I have been amazed at the apparent total cluelessness of the marketing departments. They routinely dream up schemes that are so out of touch with the way things actually work that they leave the rest of us cleaning up their messes for months. Like the time a certain company created a television ad that encouraged their customers to do something that those creative geniuses apparently did not know was a federal offense and thus rather frowned upon.
I think Doug Savage must work at the same place.
Another day in Paradise
Today I went for a walk on my lunch hour. I work in the International District of downtown Seattle, where the city’s most colorful characters hang out on the corners, so a walk is always interesting.
For instance, on one of my strolls a few months ago, I found a hand-written note taped to a newspaper box. I’ve named it “the whoa! manifesto.”
As I was ambling along 5th this afternoon, I saw a small black person of indeterminate gender wander out into the middle of the street, yell at no one in particular a few times, then pull a dollar bill out of their pants, lick it, and stick it to their forehead. It stayed there for a few seconds, then fell off and blew away.
I turned up Jackson and continued walking.
Hold and belo, five minutes later, our paths literally crossed again, this time close enough for me to see she was a small, adult woman. She was walking up the sidewalk, I was walking down. In her right hand she held a can of Budweiser and a lit cigarette. She was about a foot away from my ear when she yelled incomprehensibly at the top of her lungs. The homeless guy sitting off to the side started to laugh.
I crossed the street at the light and turned around just in time to see Yelling Woman was in the street again. This time, she walked up to a white truck that was waiting at the light, punched the driver through his open window, then scurried back to the sidewalk. The driver opened his door for a moment but the light turned green so he closed it and drove away.
A few minutes later, Yelling Woman was being chased around the intersection by a traffic cop, like a naughty kid dodging her father at the park.
Smooth Criminal
For various reasons involving death-wish drivers in rush hour traffic, silly eight a.m. meetings, and false advertising,1 I was in a foul mood by the time I got to work this morning.
After sending off a snarky email to a project manager and her entire team who have ignored my emails and phone calls but still expect me to read their minds and write their crap, I decided I’d better steer clear of any form of contact with humans until I chilled.
So I checked my feeds and discovered that the best chill is a thrill.
That crazy gal over at Unhinged has a couple of old Michael Jackson live videos posted. Respect!
Back in the day, I had Thriller on vinyl and I wore that mutha out.
In keeping with the spirit, I’m posting my own tribute to MJ – with a little help from his friend Fred Astaire, who said of him:
“Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That’s the greatest dancer of the century.”
If you like old movies, especially musicals with amazing dancing in them, check this out. It’s a slow starter but the shot of Astaire at about 1:35 is worth the wait… and the scene with the blonde slides across the floor on her hip to Astaire at 2:59…and Cyd Charisse in a red dress with legs for days… Oh, just watch it.
[youtube]http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=1gB0UNey-Uk[/youtube]
- If it’s not really a belt clip, Ace Hardware, don’t call it one! [↩]
It’s Friday, I’m at work, and my give-a-shit meter reads “zero.”
1. If I could travel back in time, I’d go to the time when God was a woman.
2. Give me motivation or give me vacation.
3. I am listening to “Burgundy Shoes,” by Patty Griffin in my head constantly these days, now that the “sun! sun! sun! sun!” is here at last.
4. Somewhere, someone is thinking “‘Uppity Rib?’ I don’t get it.”
5. I’ll always be a happy resident of Kevinsylvania.
6. My idea of a good time includes beautiful colors, good music, new books, old wine, cozy corners, wide open spaces, close friends, absent enemies, light champagne, and dark chocolate – all of which I intend to have at my party next Saturday (though not necessarily in that order).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to either going out to see the new X Files movie, or collapsing onto the couch to watch I Am Legend on Netflix; tomorrow my plans include miscellaneous to-dos related to Operation Living Room Makeover, and Sunday, I want to rest. If I say that enough times, someday it will happen.
[youtube]http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kWzuLAHnGBQ[/youtube]
Is it Friday yet?
Today at work I got the dreaded “You’ve exceeded your storage space. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200″ message from Outlook. So I’ve spent valuable work time going through my files to see how many confidential and sensitive emails I can delete. (I know I could save them on my hard drive but trashing The Man is much more satisfying.)
Anyway, whilst purging, I ran across a bunch of “America’s Funniest Exam Answers” (or something like that) that a boss sent me a year ago. This one pretty much sums up my job this week. And it’s only Tuesday.
People First
On my lunch break today, I found this plastic dogtag on a counter in the company cafeteria:
I know it’s a cheesy Suze Orman gimmick, but there are worse sentiments to carry around with you. I took a cell photo of it and then brought it to the building Security.
“Hi,” I said to the guard behind the desk. “Do you have a lost and found?”
He said nothing but held out his hand. I put the dogtag in it.
“I found this in the –”
“‘People first then money then things,’” read the security guard, frowning. “What’s that?”
“It’s someone’s –”
“We can keep here for twenty-four hours,” he said, “but if no one comes to claim it, it will go to the main office.” He kept reading the tag as if the catchphrase were a terrorist message in code.
“OK. I just thought someone might–”
He tossed the tag into a drawer. “That’s a really weird thing to have on a keychain.”
[tags]found objects[/tags]