In a Handbasket

First of all, either Mercy really likes Missy Elliot or she came in here with high hopes that I would toss her a Cheese Nip. Or maybe she likes that I'm singing along. I'm betting on the power of a delicious cheese snack though.

Speaking of which (pretend we were), on Sunday in my 2 year old class, the other teacher started singing and one of the little boys said, "NO! Only him sing!" (whilst pointing at me). Precious kiddos.

And now we get to the portion of the program where I confess that God may just give up on me.

Today my coworker was talking about what she was giving up for Lent. I suggested that she not give anything up, but instead do good deeds. Here are some of the deeds I suggested.

1. Cook me dinner for the next 40 days
2. Clean my house
3. Bathe my dogs
4. Set up a chocolate fountain on my desk

In my effort to help her be a better person, I may have condemned myself to hell.

Also, another coworker posted a FB status about how she needed motivation to go to the gym. One person told her to just think about how good she's going to feel after she works out. We all know that's a total load of crap, so I told her that I usually promise myself cookies afterward if I go work out.

Apparently that wasn't the type of motivation she was looking for.

Strike two and counting.

Forwarding Emails Doesn't Make Jesus Like You More

Also, pressing "like" in Facebook won't 'start a Christian revival, right here, right now.'

I just thought y'all should know that in case you were feeling guilty for not forwarding emails or pressing like.

On to other things...

Maya continues to do well. She's started coming out of her shell (and her crate) a little more and showing some personality. She gets so excited when it's dinner time or treats are being handed out. I was just outside with all three dogs and Mercy tried to play with Maya. Mercy's idea of playing is usually slapping Butter in the face, smiling at her, and waiting for Butter to go for the jugular. I told you they play rough. Anyway, Mercy decided to try to play with Maya by slapping her in the face, so she got a good stern talking to. She doesn't seem to get the size difference between her and Maya (approx. 40 lbs). Maya handles it really well, but she eventually wants to find a safe place to stay out of their way.

Work has taken a turn towards being even more illogical. We're doing another realignment (yes, we just did one in January) after I've finally gotten my stuff under control and running well.

This has taught me a couple of things:

1. It doesn't pay to work hard (literally or figuratively).

2. Apparently all the hard work I did was optional, because even though all the other teams in our organization were told to do the interaction model implementation that I did, I'm the only one who did it and nobody else was reprimanded for not doing it.

3. Nobody appreciates/understands what I've put myself through for the past 8 months to make my process actually work. When things are working, nobody pays attention to the process and they assume it just magically worked out that way by some stroke of good fortune.

4. Unpaid overtime is going to be a thing of my past. They can kiss it.

So anyway, basically they're reverting to an old structure and now I'm going to be the SME (Subject Matter Expert- Basically at the top of the processing team) for my team -- meaning, I'll be in charge of making sure process improvements get implemented, helping out with stuff on the team that nobody else knows how to do, ON TOP OF doing pretty much everything I already do, except the "team leader" is supposed to be helping out with half of what I already do. Oh yeah, and he gets the title of team leader even though he's only doing a portion of what I already do and he continually has to ask me how to do things or has me do things for him because he doesn't want to learn how to do stuff on his own. Also, I know him extremely well, and he's not going to do the stuff I do. My teammates actually laughed when they heard he was going to be "leading" them again.

Don't get me wrong. I really like the guy. He and I have worked together pretty much since I started there (10+ years ago). I don't begrudge him the title. It just doesn't sit well with me that I've worked as hard as I have and made as much progress with making good changes to the process just to have him swoop in and take on a title and get a (now) fully functioning team due to the work I've done all year. It makes me feel pretty much used.

And I'll quit griping now. Just know if you see me and my tongue looks like I've bitten it in half, it's because I'm trying not to say anything that will get me fired....ooh, but if they fire me, they have to give me all my vacation time I haven't been able to use this year and they have to pay unemployment...

Anyway, I think Maya just figured out how to knock the big girls' dog food bowl over (it's on a stand), so I better go check that out.

Your vs. You're: They Aren't the Same

Today I went to an all day leadership meeting. It was facilitated by some kind of consultant type. Our top leadership guy introduced her and really played up the fact that she's from Harvard. I thought, "Oh neat! I've never met a Harvard person before." (Well, maybe I didn't really think that, but one might think that given the introduction.)

I started looking over the agenda and saw that she wanted us to do the following:

Discuss you're background and role within the corporation.

Really?! She might as well have gone all "text talk" on it and used "ur" for "your."

I won't lie. I corrected it on my copy of the agenda. It's an illness.

Rest for the Weary

Well, last week's gifts from coworkers continued to get better and better. On Friday I received a poster of Edward and Jacob with my face in the middle. As it should be. Ahem.

And I also received a bottle of wine. I resisted the urge to drink from the bottle at work.

Maybe this week they will step it up and bring me narcotics!

Oh. They also cut out a picture of my face and put it on a stick so they can use it as a mask when they need to boss someone around. Aren't they cute? :) Today my paper face told a free range kid to give it all his candy. Apt, don't you think?

This week hasn't been quite as hectic. I'm trying to work as far ahead as I can so as to make the coming weeks not as bad, but as it turns out, I still have a full day's work even when I'm not in red alert mode. I really want to take Friday off, but seeing as how that's pretty much impossible, I'll just take my laptop with me and work remotely. It's nice having a month of paid vacation every year,none of which I can use. That's how they get ya, my friends!

Great nephew turned 3 this week (where does the time go?!) and his pirate party is this weekend. ARR! Can't miss out on that. Trying to talk my sister into coming in from out of state (by telling her all the cool kids are going home that weekend), but so far it isn't working. I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of convincing her.

Now to go finish mowing the yard. I ran out of gas and the boy has brought me some!

Longest Week Ever

How is it that I took Monday off and it's still only Wednesday? Isn't taking a day off supposed to make for a short week?

Probably didn't help that I worked some on my day off, but still!

I think my place of business should implement a new incentive program...a new award, if you will. They could call it the "I didn't make national news today for strangling my coworkers" award. I've had to throw some tough love on some people this week, but eventually I WILL get everything lined out so that I don't have to verbally assault counsel people in such a manner anymore. It would help if people would just follow directions. Apparently my note I sent out last week or the week before with statements like READ YOUR SPECS in bold font did not get the point across. Two more mistakes today because someone didn't read their specs. Very frustrating. I can write all of the simplistic specs my little fingers can type, but I can't force people to read them, apparently.

In other news, my weather-dog would like to let everyone know that there's a chance of thunderstorms tonight. Or at least rain. Or a strong wind. She's alternately tiptoeing around the house and hiding under the desk. This is the dog that's scared of inanimate objects though, so who knows.

I'm considering a brief trip "home" this weekend. It will be the first time I've been home since Christmas. I know, I know, it's only a 2.5 hour drive, but it's so draining. My daddy mentioned taking me fishing which is not going to go over well with my mom, I bet, because she had surgery recently and is very dependent on him. She won't like him leaving her there. Poor guy needs a break, though. I haven't decided exactly how or when I'm going to pull it off, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to take Friday off (very unlikely). Wish me luck!

Naps Should be Mandatory

I would really like to turn some of the empty cubes around me into a napping center. Wouldn't that be nice? Although I can't imagine the lechery that would occur up here if people had access to cots...

Anyway, I haven't worked all night in approximately 2 weeks! Hallelujah! I'm still very busy, but today I'm actually using my lunch hour as non-working time! That's a bit of an improvement.

My new furniture was delivered Sunday. It didn't look so HUGE in the store. Ahem. But I've (with Kelvy's help) rearranged a few things and it now all fits in the living room. I set my old couch out this morning for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters people to come pick it up as a donation. For the first time in a long time, I actually feel cozy in my house. It looks more "me" than it has in a long time, so that's cool. I bought some new lamps yesterday...one of which required assembly by using some Engrish instructions. "Rish of tip over 6 pounds" I like putting stuff together, though so it wasn't too hard or frustrating. Now I have a little reading area with a big comfy chair/ottoman, a blankie, and the new floor lamp that has shelves to hold books or whatever. I'm going to revamp my unfinished book wreath and try to incorporate that into the space. We'll see.

My horticulture project is going swimmingly! I have not yet killed the basil (it is currently in critical but stable condition). I have two tiny tomatoes growing already! I feel so accomplished. And I have a couple of strawberries growing on my poor pitiful strawberry plant from last year. I haven't even watered that, so it's definitely an overachieving type plant.

Last night, I did the dumbest thing. I fed Butter (she always eats first) and then put her in her crate for the night. I gave Mercy and Butter their nightly dog treats, and then I told Butter night night and went back to the other side of the house to check my email, etc. before bed. In a minute, Mercy came over to me and laid her head in my lap and looked at me with her "aren't you forgetting something?" look. I apologized profusely and went to get her her dinner. Good thing she's such a good communicator. :)

And now back to my regularly scheduled program of being a traffic director/juggler/mind reader/etc. Work awaits.

Spinning My Wheels

Ever have those days when you feel like you've been incredibly busy all day, but can't point to anything that you've accomplished? That's what my life has been like in the past few days. It has gotten to the point that I've been met in the parking lot a couple of times by people asking me questions/wanting to discuss work. I'm going to have to find a better escape route, I guess.

I'm going to also have to try to find a better lunchtime hiding place. Apparently eating lunch at my desk is too obvious. Here's a tip. If you stalk someone and find them with a mouth full of food during a regular lunchish time of day, just keep walking. They might be taking their lunch break. Maybe I can start eating my lunch in the lactation room. Nobody will think to look for me there.

Other than that, though, I think we're getting better at delegating the new stuff out, so that gives me hope that one day things won't be so hectic.

In other news, I started playing Halo 3 again after taking a break for several months. It is with great shame that I admit that I now suck at Halo 3. My rank is already dropping, partially because I've gotten used to the controller configuration for Left 4 Dead 2 and that configuration is totally different than the H3 buttons. I try to melee people and end up throwing grenades. You can imagine how that turns out. My own teammates try to kill me now. I won't stop until I get better though. I'm obsessive. I can't help it.

I Kept Expecting Dwight Schrute to Show Up

What a day! First of all, there was a whole lot of crazy drama that I won't even go into here, but it was sort of like going back to preschool except with adults.

Then we had a meeting that went absolutely NOT the way we had planned. It was sort of like the people on the other end of the line wadded up all of the hard work we've been doing in the past few months and threw it back in our faces.

That prompted my boss to throw his pen across the room when the meeting was over. Which was really funny, actually, because usually it's the other boss that throws things and makes holes in the drywall at work. This guy is usually pretty mild mannered. We proceeded to make fun of him for it the rest of the day. He will not live it down.

And then we had another meeting in a conference room that overlooks the parking lot. We saw a person who works on our floor go out to his/her car and sit for a long time. Apparently this is a common occurrence, so one of the bosses went down to clandestinely investigate while we all watched the show. He pretended he was on the phone (agitated hand motions and all) whilst inching closer and closer to the car. They think that this person goes down and drinks several times a day and were trying to witness it. Funny stuff. Sadly, he couldn't see anything. Too bad we didn't have any binoculars.

TGIF

Happy Weekend!

It's been a fairly busy week at work, but I hope I can make it through the weekend with a minimal amount of "free" work. Things are only going to get crazier in the next couple of weeks, so I have no idea how I'm going to handle everything, but I guess I'll just take it one day at a time.

In other news, Mercy's tooth is still pink. Totally forgot to give her her meds yesterday (bad mommy!), but we're back on track today. One day this week, I saw something shiny in the back yard and went to investigate. It seems that SOMEHOW my neighbors managed to get a Bud Light can in my yard, which the dogs attempted to devour. Ooh whee! This chick was not happy. First of all, Mercy already struggles with alcoholism. Second of all, do you know how sharp a chewed up aluminum can is? Apparently they didn't swallow any of it since they're still alive and all.

In other other news, I finally broke down and took my good migraine meds today after having a whole week worth of headaches and can I just say that after being in pain for that many days straight and forgetting what normal feels like...normal feels almost euphoric. It has not been a good month for headaches around here for sure. I was really hoping that I was seeing a trend (for the better), but this is just as bad as before I started preventative meds. It's probably stress and I'm not sure anything's going to fix that right now. Headaches really put a damper on zombie killing.

Mercy's Not the Only One with TMJ

I don't know if dogs can get TMJ, but if they can, Mercy has it. Her jaws pop so loudly when she yawns...and then I have to massage her widdle face for her. And then she looks at me all crazy.

But anyway, I asked my dentist if I might have TMJ that might be contributing to my headaches and he did a few tests on me and thinks I do. So I have to go back next month for a consultation on what to do about it. I'll tell you what I won't be doing: Getting my jaws wired shut. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to eat Girl Scout cookies with your jaw wired shut? I just don't want to find out about that. Even though it would clearly be a good weight loss plan for me.

I've apparently been thrown into the deep end with my work responsibilities, because all hell has broken loose this week. It's not any of the stuff I've assigned, but it is screwing up my process and making things difficult. Tonight is going to be a long night of delegating stuff and interrupting peoples'free time. I've even combined those two things once already tonight by delegating someone to call someone else and interrupt his free time. That, my friends is multitasking at its finest.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few Girl Scout cookies to eat.

The Hard Part is Over

Whew! Who knew that a "short week" could feel so long? It's been a very energy draining week or two at work, but I've finished the hardest part. I'm transitioning into my new job role and in order to do that, I had to write out specs for every little piddly thing we do in great detail so the person who picks up the work won't even have to think about it...they can just follow my specs. It has been a major undertaking...especially since I'm writing specs for a process that I don't even work on. It's kind of nerve wracking because whatever I come up with becomes the framework for how every other process in our realm will be built. Anyway, I finished all of my rough drafts this week and even had time to polish some of them. So glad that part is over. We go into production with them next week.

In other happy news, I learned that I'll be getting a laptop at work. Yay! That will be fabulous. Now if I could just talk them into getting me a hard office, I would be in business. A girl can dream, anyway.

Invention Submission

You know that commercial that comes on TV with the caveman inventing the wheel? They're trying to get people to submit their inventions...probably so they can totally screw you over and take your idea without giving you credit for it, but I don't know. Anyway, I need to invent a vacuum attachment that works on lungs. I think it would have to be for a wet/dry vac though and I've never seen any specialty attachments for those. I obviously don't have all of the details worked out yet.

Anyway, pardon me if I hack up a lung. I'm not contagious.

Yesterday was just chock full of excitement. There was a gas leak near my workplace, so in their infinite wisdom, they instructed all of us to evacuate...which meant a thousand cars starting up and idling for 30 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot. And several people who didn't feel like jumping in their cars and sitting in traffic, so they just stood outside and smoked. During a gas leak evacuation.

Needless to say, we all survived unscathed. Sadly, the campus was opened back up for business today, so we had to go back. I actually had to evacuate just minutes before a conference call, so I called my boss and asked him to call in to the conference and let the customer know what was going on and see if we could reschedule. He said OK.

Did he do that? Judging from the e-mail I got from my customer, um...no. But the customer rescheduled for an hour later and I had JUST walked in my door and logged in when it was time to call in. It's so convenient to be able to work from home.

(See what I did there? I'm counting my blessings.)

In other news, the free library audio book download thing is working out splendidly. As a surprising twist, I actually remembered where I had stowed my MP3 player for safe keeping, and after that, it was all gravy. It makes my workday so much better when I listen to books as I work. I have briefly considered trying to listen to a book while reading a different book, but then I realized that was a crazy thought and ditched it. I think there's something wrong with me. If I'm listening to something, my eyes need to be busy too. As Frankie said, maybe I should just RELAX.

No, A Tornado Hasn't Just Been Through Here

It just occurred to me that this is my first post of the new year, so happy new year!

I plan to do a little 2009 reading wrap up post at some point, but that point is obviously not right now. Keep your eyes peeled.

Ready for some randomness? Here goes.

I tried my hand at the ruffly wreath (mentioned here), HOWEVER! my Dollar Tree didn't have the same kind of foam wreath base that the person who wrote the tutorial had, so I had to settle for one of those green foamy things. You know those foamy things that florists stick in the bottom of flower arrangements to stab the flowers into? One of those things, but it's in a sorta wreath shape. It's disgusting. It leaves my hands feeling all gritty and nasty. I am not a fan. Also, it is thicker and smaller in circumference than the one in the tutorial. I did not think that would be a problem, but as of right now it just looks like a big fluffy ball of ruffliness. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I'll post pictures of it when I'm done. Over all, it's not a hard project and I can definitely see the cuteness potential. I'm just not sure it's going to work out with the materials I have to work with.

Last night when Butter was keeping me up by barking incessantly ALL NIGHT LONG, my sleep deprived mind got the idea that I need to make a rag quilt big enough for my Queen bed. Visions of easy quilty, warm, cozy goodness danced in my head. I have a rag quilt that my sister made, but it's just a throw size. She made one for pretty much everyone in the fam and we all carry them with us like Linus. When we're all together, there may be 2-3 in the room at any given time. They're wonderful and they don't seem all that difficult to make. I went online to try to get an idea of how much fabric I would need to buy (I <3 Google!) and it says that if I want to make it with 4" squares, I'll need 2736 squares. Good grief, that's a lot of squares! I can also make it with 6" squares and "only" use 540 squares. Tedium, thy name is quilting. Anyway, we'll see where I decide to go with that. I want to make a black and white one (because my walls are red and not everything goes with red), so let me know if you know of a place that has good deals on black and white (prints are ok, not just solids) flannel.

Speaking of getting in over my head, I'm sick to death of my house being a mess, so I'm trying to incorporate some of Flylady's ideas about home management into my daily routine. I hope I don't ever have a medical emergency because there's no way I'd let strangers (or anyone else for that matter)into my house with it looking like this. I'd have to meet the paramedics on the porch.

Let's see what else? I got a new job role at work. It has the word "manager" in it, but I don't have to manage any people, I just have to keep the customers happy and make sure everything in our process moves along according to plan. It's going to be an interesting adventure. I've been doing pretty much the same job for nearly 10 years, so I'm excited about changing things up a little. It's going to be challenging (in a huge way), but I don't think I'll be nearly so bored anymore.

And with that, I need to go declutter. {singing}One room at a tiiiiiiiime, sweet Jesus...{/singing}

Wasting Time

While I'm waiting for customers to get back to me and am pretty much at a standstill, I figured I'd post.

It seems as if the adage "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." has not made it through some of my coworker's heads.

There are daily occurrances of some of them Facebook stalking their friends and commenting on how stupid the friend's pictures are. Really? Is there nothing better to do? You'd probably just have to be here to get the full experience, but it's pretty silly. Sometimes I wonder if someone has secretly plopped me back into Junior High as some kind of psychological experiment. There's nothing meaner than three or more girls in a room together and that's the truth. I would not survive a second round of junior high because I would probably do something that would land me in jail. Assault and battery comes to mind, but I digress. :)

On to happier things!

I'm about 3/4 of the way through one of the library books I borrowed. Maybe I will finish it tonight in record time (I usually just BARELY have time to finish my book club books before the meeting).

On a sad note, I am very behind in my reading this year. Usually by the end of October I have finished 70-80 books. The count for this year was a whopping 33 books! It's OK though. I just chose to use some of my reading time for other things this year.

Speaking of which, I guess I could be reading right now since nobody has gotten back to me on my work-related questions.

I will not, not, not...

beat someone with a blunt object. But just to be sure, someone should hide all the blunt objects. And probably the pointy ones too.

I have been busy busy busy at work, which is fine. I prefer being busy to being useless, so it's a good thing. Except that it doesn't leave me much time to do other people's jobs for them, and yet they persist in requiring it of me.

I try to be proactive and write up training manuals for people so that they can just copy and paste what I write into a job and make it work, but apparently the concept of copy and paste is lost on certain people, because they still get it wrong. Every. Time. In strange and illogical ways.

Send me an e-mail asking a question and I answer it -- at this point, it would be a good idea to do what I instruct you to do to fix your problem rather than doing the opposite of what I tell you so that you have to call me 10 minutes later and ask me what's wrong.

If a customer's specs say "do XYZ", and you don't follow the specs so the customer e-mails and asks you to "do XYZ", it is not necessary to e-mail me to ask if you should "do XYZ". All signs point to yes!

Ouch! I just pulled out a clump of my hair.

I have spent about 4 hours today doing work on stuff that I don't "own".

On the bright side, there was a baby shower today, so I got to eat cake. In every dark cloud, there's a piece of cake. Or at least there should be.

Random Updates

1. The monkey at Doggy Camp is a Capuchin. Very cute, but a little scary at the same time. It makes a lot of noise rattling around inside its enclosure. I'm also told that it lures the dogs over to its enclosure by offering them "monkey chow" and then when they get close, it takes their collars off and hides them in its house. Cheeky monkey! Butter stayed at Camp while I was out of town and the lady said she did really well. So I pretty much can already tell the lady is a liar. :)

2. Mom's surgery went well. She's at home now and is receiving home visits from nurses and physical therapists (because they said she oughta go to rehab, but she said NO, NO, NO.) My poor daddy...pray for him. She's also dealing with bouts of nausea and some fever. Not sure what that's all about, but I'm sure it's not pleasant. The good news is that her pain is much less than before she had the surgery.

3. I got to spend a little time with my great-nephew when I was down there and I just get crazier and crazier about him. I went to his daycare's Easter party and watched him for a little bit, then we checked him out of daycare and took him up to see my mom. That kid sat in my lap and listened to me read an entire children's book to him one and 1/2 times. He's 20 months old. I could not be more proud.

4. What else? We've got clients in town (again) this week, so we've been spending a lot of "team building" time with them. It's a little exhausting being in meetings so much (and devoting our lunch hours and our after hours time to entertaining them), but it's good to get to know them a little better.

It's 8:46 and I'm exhausted. I think I'm going to play a little game of Halo and then call it a night.

Weirdos

I got this company-wide e-mail today (basically a newsletter of sorts) and this line in the e-mail cracked me up:

In an unprecedented demonstration of fundraising moxie, one associate even kissed a pig!

I have never understood what the big deal is about kissing a pig. It seems to be a fairly common fundraising tactic and it's not like they bring in a big, smelly, muddy, foul-tempered pig. They bring in the cutest little (clean) piglets for people to kiss.

If I had a pig, I would kiss it every day and tell it how pretty it was. On purpose.

You Thought You Were Rid of Me

I know I've been missing. Wait...did any of you notice I have been missing? Does anyone even read this anymore?

Anyhoo, I haven't had a lot to report lately, so I've remained silent. Here are a few factoids I've scrounged up for you.

1. I bought a Xbox 360 last week. Squee! I have't played Xbox in years (only the old system), so it's neat to see how it has evolved. I got a good deal on it too ($100 discount during checkout at Dell.com, and it came with 3 games, a wireless controller, and a headset to use with Xbox live).

2. For V-day (aka VD), I got Halo 3 and a subscription to Xbox live. Nothing says "I love you" like giving someone the opportunity to pretend she's The Master Chief. And kick random strangers' butts worldwide. Just sayin'.


3. Unfortunately, in my several year sabbatical from Xboxing, I have gotten extremely sucky at video games, so the butt kicking might just be a dream at this point.

4. Speaking of sucky, every work day is full of surprises. The other day, a coworker really wanted to know what a certain word (I won't spell it out b/c I would hate to disappoint someone who does a search on it and ends up here!) that rhymes with gel-ratio meant. So when it was finally explained to her, she wanted to know how anyone would know that word and proceeded to ask everyone who walked down the aisle if they knew what that word meant. Loudly.

I told her I was embarrassed for her because she probably shouldn't be yelling that word out at work...when clients were on the floor, but she said she wasn't embarrassed because nobody knows that word anyway.

While We're on the Topic of Homeless Pets

It's time for another glimpse at the company classifieds!

Tiger is looking for a good home. Tiger is a nice kitty who is in no way possessed by Satan...no matter what the picture might lead you to believe. Tiger would LOVE to eat go home with you. He LOVES to eat children!

Bonus!

Sometimes there are hidden advantages to working in a cubicle environment. I overhear interesting conversations.

Person 1: What did you get from downstairs? (our food kiosk)
Person 2: Turtleini
Person 1: Oh, what's that?
Person 2: It's like lasagne.

...

5 minutes later.

Person 2: That's not how you say it. How do you say it? Tootleini?
Person 1: I don't know. I've never had it.

________________

As an aside, I would not be surprised if they were selling some form of cooked turtle downstairs. The food is sometimes questionable.