CafeChatNoir

Oh my God, Mondays suck.

The person on the other side of the cube from me is having a full on meltdown, and is about to complain herself right out of a job. (Seriously, what she’s having a stroke over is not that big a deal and she’s just making herself look like a screaming mimi…)

The new guy is pulling calls off the queue out of order. *headdesk*

The line person formerly known as manager has spent an hour parked on a call.

My partner in crime is trying very hard to have a good week, but is being thwarted by dumbass clients.

Hell, I’m having the best morning here by far! Hmmm, Mondays aren’t quite so bad when everyone else’s is worse, LOL.

Snow started up for a while again in earnest, but it’s seem to be really done now. Still not enough to call off work tomorrow, though, damn!

Some more snow shots…unfortunately, you can’t actually see the snow coming down.

The view from my back window this morning:

There was some efficient soul who was out there at 9 shoveling his walk and clearing his car, but the rest of the neighborhood seems perfectly content with just enjoying how pretty it is. Myself, I’m hoping the kids with snow shovels show up again this afternoon sometime. Looking outside, I can’t tell if it’s snowing again or just blowing off the trees - but it really is pretty.

No real plans today other than laundry and cooking - staying inside, warm and dry is pretty much right at the top of the list.

Edit: It’s definitely snowing again.

and yet here I am, pretty much wide awake. I see a nap in my future about 3PM this afternoon.

Last night was a good example of how I really am pretty well brain fried this week. Went to Mom’s for dinner, managed to leave my office badge there. Realized upon coming home, that my pocketbook is either at the office or was nicked out of my car last night while at Mom’s. (Given that the car was locked, I do think it’s in my file cabinet at the office. I hope so, otherwise I am screwed.)

It’s not the worst thing, but I have to also run some errands today, so I have to go to Mom’s, then turn around and go to the other side of the county to the office to get my purse, then come back to go to the store - basically it will be driving 40 miles today instead of maybe 15. Not exactly how I’d planned on spending a big chunk of time today, but oh well.

You know…I could just go back to bed now and beat the rush…

Note to self: Don’t be helpful at 5PM, otherwise you get stuck there til 8, with a dumbassed, nasty client that lies to you from the get-go. And I get to deal with them again tomorrow because I couldn’t figure out their issue tonight… At least they’re west coast, so I get a few hours before the fun begins again.

But, hey, getting out at 8 - absolutely no traffic getting home! Once home, I logged back in and managed to FINALLY recreate a bug that was reported by a client - been trying to nail that down all week. Go me!!

In other good work news, we got our 4th quarter bonus, even though we missed goals. (We made it on calls not going over an hour, but missed on resolution time.) Apparently someone took note of the fact that we busted our asses despite being seriously short staffed and that there was no slacking going on, and felt it would be a good motivator to give us money. Hey, works for me. Additionally, we’re not getting a Q1 bonus at all, they’re going to split the full year budget between Q2,3 & 4, so we’re off the hook though 3/31. It’s actually better that way, gives us a chance to get back up to full speed without losing anything.

I think all of it is in no small part due to the fact that the 2004 Client Surveys came in and phone support ROCKED THE HOUSE. We were the highest rated of any group that regularly interacts with clients. The worst was the account managers, and we got a good laugh out of that.

Another fun thing - I was working an (incredibly stupid) call with a client, claiming impossible things happening. I asked yesterday & today for documentation - went to call her one last time this evening, clicked the call and ALERT! - they’re on support cutoff. BWAHAHAHAHA. I get to close the call and not deal with her dumbass until they pay their bill.

OK, I’ll stop rambling for now, I’m still all wound up from the day, and WOOHOO tomorrow is Friday which means only one thing - DUNKIN DONUTS!!!

Work kicked my ass today. No two ways about it. Oh, our disappearing coworker? Reappeared yesterday and gone again today. She was supposed to bring in some sort of documentation over her absence, guess she couldn’t come up with it. So, she lasted less than a month. Nice.

In other news, Wegman’s is opening in Fairfax on February 13th!! Wheee!!!

I’m just beat all to hell and back, so it’s off to bed for me. Two more days and then this craptastic week is over!!! Lets hope I don’t snap between now and 5 PM on Friday. :-D

Feels like all I did today was spin my wheels. Somehow I managed to close 21 calls, but it sure didn’t feel like it. Damn queue just keeps getting more and more backed up. We had 133 incoming calls today, but only 122 closed. There are 38 open/unassigned calls sitting out there waiting for the morning. Sure I could have spent another hour or so at the office trying to clear the logjam, but the incoming stuff had quieted down and I was too fried to even think, much less help anyone.

Oh, and folks - if you ever have to call a support line for something, please do it when you can actually work on whatever the issue is you’re calling about. Don’t ask to leave a ticket open because you can’t get off your butt and do what they told you to do until Friday, OK? Thanks. (Not that I ran into that today or anything…but I closed his ticket.)

In “Cindy is a schmuck” news, someone is trying to do something nice for me, and it was a surprise, and it’s one of those times where there is absolutely nothing you can do besides say “thank you!” (especially in this particular instance), even though the voice in your head is going, “dearie, what are you thinking?” I don’t take well to surprises of any kind to begin with, and I feel like such an ungrateful bitch for the fact that I am not all “woohoo!” over it… *headdesk*

I swear, it’s a freaking lifelong thing for me, and whenever I have tried to get across the point of “this is a bad idea”, no matter how I approach it, it results in a complete and utter disaster. So it’s either grit teeth, smile, & be gracious, or piss someone off. I seem to have no ability to get a middle ground. Nary a wonder that I’m still single, and that my family, though they love me, thinks I am a total whackjob…

It has come to my attention, in a most glaring fashion, that I don’t understand people, nor obviously, do they understand me.

So, do I stay quiet & be miserable or ruin everything and get my point across…

Or just accept that it’s too late at this point anyway…

No matter how much you like your job, there are always going to be those days where you think maybe it’s time to just sell the house, get a trailer out in the sticks and a job at the feed & seed, cause the inmates have escaped the asylum where you’re at.

Today was one of those days.

– On the way in, I look over to the car to the right of me, and the woman that is in the drivers seat is also plucking her eyebrows…
– Then I’m making bets with coworker A over which of us will end up on CNN by lunchtime. (Amazingly, we’re both still out of jail.) She was just riled up from the getgo, I was still annoyed over losing my Saturday to workaholic assholes.
– Then coworker B complains to me that coworker C has an attitude. I could be sympathetic if coworker B wasn’t the Queen of ‘Tude herself many a day.
– Coworker D has not been seen since she left work Thursday night. No one can get in touch with her, and we’re all a tad concerned.
– Then coworker E up and disappears halfway through the day. She eventually showed up on IM late this afternoon. I think her son was having some transportation issues, but still…
– Coworker F redeems most of the insanity by professing his undying love for me, as the recipe for French Bread I gave him was a big success.

Does make one pause and wonder if perhaps it’s time to completely exit the rat race… Anyone just want to give me a bunch of money?

In the “freaky but cool” arena, I bumped into an LJ’er over in rec.crafts.beads on usenet. Internet is smaller than ya think!

Someone on amazon is selling the PDA I have started to covet for $375 (used) - it normally runs ~$500+. That is SO not in the “needs” category right now. Honestly, it will never really be in the needs category, but more in the “OMG I want so bad” category… Bah. The really devious voice in my head keeps telling me it would help me stay organized… God I wish that bitch would shut up, she’s gonna cost me money, LOL.

Dry skin issues - SOLVED!! First, all the chick mags that say drink more water? Lies. I’ve had enough water in the past week and a half to float the QE2, with no improvement. Found a canister of mineral oil salt scrub that I’d forgotten I had and put that all over my legs in the shower a couple nights in a row - dry skin GONE! Woohoo!!

The weekend *will* get here again…

I think I fed the cats twice tonight. I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d fed them earlier or not, and hopefully I’ve at least prevented a 3AM wakeup by the little darlings. I really wish I wasn’t so scatterbrained. :(

Been a bleah kinda week & weekend. The snow that had everyone in a tizzy ended up skirting north of us, so we didn’t get much - I’d kinda been hoping for a big slammer of a storm - haven’t had one of those in a couple years. Of course, last big storm I was snowed in w/another person and 2 dogs, so that’s probably what made it so much fun. Ah, well, there is still a bit of winter left.

I’ve run out of good coffee here, which sucks. Decided against running out to the market today, as it’s been a do-absolutely-nothing day and I wanted to stay on track with that. (Somehow that makes me sound more focused than just flat out lazy…)

I got my Social Security statement this week, and you know, I would prefer they just stop sending it. It’s an ugly reminder that a) I’ve given them a shitload of money I will likely never see again and b) another birthday is around the corner, and look, I’m right where I was 5 years ago… Bleah.

Johnny Carson, gone at 79

*sigh* That just sucks. No other words for it.

Cause I was stuck at my desk working all day yesterday, I wasn’t able to get out and try to keep the walks cleared or anything while the snow was coming down, so I was gonna have to do it today.

BUT - there was just a knock at my door, and I look outside…

YOUNG MEN WITH SNOWSHOVELS!!!!! They’re now clearing off the car and walk now for a mere $10.

Seriously, I hadn’t expected to see any young entrepeneurs out taking advantage of the snow, because it seems in this day and age they all have profitable computer consulting businesses they’re running from home… :)

I hope they make a ton of money today.

I’ve got a big ol’ case of “I just don’t give a fuck” with a healthy dose of “why do I even bother” thrown in going on this weekend. No real reason for it that I can ascertain, but it’s definitely there.

So, it finally started to snow and I decided it would be better to just stay here than go in and either get stuck, or have to just leave in the middle of the day. About 5 minutes after the “I have to leave now to get to the office at 9″ point, it stopped. It has not started again…

Been slow so far, had 1 person answer when we did callbacks (he is now on the “workaholic” list), and someone else has called in and managed to leave a wrong number, so she’ll likely call back again and hopefully not be all pissed off that no one called her back… (We tried!)

You know, it’s really sad when the most interesting part of your week is getting a Citrix connection for work.

Pull strings to wrangle a remote connection, get up this morning and not a snowflake in sight yet…

At my office, there are two ways to remotely access the network. Via the dialup server or via Citrix. For a very long time, only Very Special People got Citrix, the rest of us were stuck with dialup. Which is fine, if I can work from home when the weather goes to shit, I don’t much care if it’s a slow connection and ties up my main phone line. Except that they have now shutdown the dialup server. And it’s gonna snow tomorrow. And I have to work.

Realizing this earlier in the week, I inquire as to Citrix access in case the weather is shitty. I watch boss fill out the forms. Today I inquire as to the status and she says that they didn’t have enough lead time. I call Bullshit. Not on her, but quietly to myself, as I know it doesn’t take any real amount of time to setup a Citrix account on their end, and it’s a thin client I can download myself here at home. This means the form has gotten stuck in some damn inbox somewhere. So I’m talking to my buddy in IT and bemoan the fact that I have to work this weekend, the dialup server is no more, which means I have to get into the office no matter how crappy it is, since they couldn’t get me Citrix in time. He says, “Send me a list of all the apps you need, and let me see what I can do.”

Within a couple hours, I have instructions on how to get it installed here, the account is setup and all is right with the world - and the form is still in someone’s inbox awaiting approval.

I was able to get it installed and tested here tonight with no problems whatsoever and it just goes to show, sometimes you just have to know who you can quietly bitch to in order to make things happen, and it pays to be nice to folks, cause then they’re willing to help you out. A big ol’ thank you email has already been sent out to those responsible.

And OMG, it is SO much better than the dialup server was.

OK, everything that needs to be done is done - go me! I will be crashing shortly, cause I am just too dang old to be out partying until the wee hours anymore. I am so not ready for the weekend to be over yet. Maybe tomorrow with it being a fed holiday, things will be slightly quieter.

In all seriousness, this weekend had to suck major rocks for Brad & Co. I am looking forward to the full writeup on what happened - cause right now it sure sounds like Internap has a different definition of “redundant power systems” than I do.

OK, things are starting to approach a state of “good enough”, which is very good, since I’m moving rather slowly today - kitchen is done, which is always the biggest PITA. Second biggest is the office, which is next.

As a warning to all, sometime in the next couple weeks I will be attempting to not smoke anymore. This will likely cause a drastic increase in the crankiness of my posts, as I have absolutely no doubt that this will not be pretty. They say you should tell people as it will help you. I think it’s because that way when you kill someone, you can say in all honesty in court, “Your Honor, I told him I wasn’t smoking anymore and the dumbass continued to piss me off.” (Did a bit of a practice run this afternoon and I got a bit twitchy… No advice, please, as I will likely take your head off***) No set date, just when I’m out of what I’ve got, I’m out.

, if you can give me the rundown on how much space a PDA really needs, that would be great. I’m just in the “vaguely thinking about it” stage, but it’s been so long since I had one, I have no clue whatsoever how they really work anymore, and it would be good to know for decision making. Hell, they have mp3 players built in nowadays…

OK, off to get things finished off so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. (For sleeping in until a rather obscene hour, I’m still damn tired.)

***It’s not that I’m trying to be a complete ungrateful bitch, I’ve just heard it all at this point.

I am doing a fine job of sitting here procrastinating this afternoon instead of doing any of the number of things that need to get done around here today. :)

Went out and had Japanese food w/ last night as repayment for taking care of the dog. Went to Murphy’s afterwards for Irish coffees and yelling and laughing and having a generally mad fabulous time. I have to take care of the dog more often. :)
I’ve started up the ol’ newsreader again this weekend - another fantastic tool for procrastination.

I’ve been looking at PDA’s lately and I have to admit, I’m confused. How can you have an iPod that’s $250 and has 4G built in and then a PDA that is $300 and it only comes w/64MB of RAM and you have to go buy a compact flash card on top of it? Is it all the built in software that makes it cost so much? Maybe I am just not looking at the right ones.

OK, really going to go get some things done now. I know I’ll be pissed if I have to stay up late to get things finished, so yes, I should definitely get off my butt now and make sure that doesn’t happen… I just need to find the worst thing on the list and do it first and then it’s all downhill from there.

(Start of this post: Fri evening about 8 PM…)
Given that my friends page reads: Our data center (Internap) lost all its power, including redundant backup power. We’re currently dealing with bringing our 100+ servers back online. Not fun. We’re not happy about this. Sorry… :-/ More details later. it may be a bit before I can actually post this sucker. Frankly I am very curious to hear just what happened.

Beeper has been quiet all night, so that’s a good thing. Probably will be quiet tomorrow too, as we’ve got two folks in house. So VERY glad it’s Friday, even though my weekend to-do list is several miles long and getting longer. The ham salad & bread baking that never seemed to happen this week WILL happen this weekend, come hell or high water. But for now, I’ve got a pizza on the way (there was no internal debate on the matter tonight) and a Corona with a lime and even though it’s 30 degrees out, I can pretend that I’m at the beach. :)

The good news about the weekend to do list is it’s all here at home - given that the weather has gone quite cold again (after being over 60 yesterday!) I have no real desire to leave the house anyway. So, it’s baking, pickup for cleaning folks on Mon, absolutely insane amounts of laundry, and possibly stripping my computer and starting over, cause it’s kinda been running like shit lately. Maybe I can just get away with defragging the hard drive - I’ll give that a whirl first I guess.

It’s January 14th, and I still haven’t started my taxes. Not even installed software yet, as I haven’t even bought it (or borrowed) it yet. I think this is a record for me, and frankly, it makes me a little itchy. I do need to get off my butt and get that tended to, and the sooner the better, given that I am getting a refund from the state. (I can’t get my deductions to the point where I *don’t* get a state refund. Drives me nuts.)

Woohoo - pizza is here.

OMFG, it’s a good thing I love my cats. I got a piece of pizza, came upstairs and then hear this tremendous crash. Being smart, I put the full teakettle on top of the pizza box, so they couldn’t flip the box off the counter and feast. Snoopy, being more determined than I am smart, decided to just get the teakettle out of the way. So, I just walked into a kitchen with the floor covered in water (Did you know that 1 decent sized teakettle has enough water to cover about 100 square feet of kitchen floor?) and a cat on the counter who is realizing his main avenue of escape is water covered…

OK, the latest update at of 10:35 EST, LJ is on dirty power and trying to “assess the state of the databases.” That just doesn’t sound good at all. I’m thinking by the time this post hits LJ, it’s going to be well past Friday night.

In other news, it’s interesting to see Brad posting over on Slashdot this evening explaining why they don’t just auto-on all the databases… Some amusing posts over there on the subject - http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/15/0311214.shtml Also, I can’t help but think that the folks over at Six Apart are in need of new undies with this little incident.

Well, it’s way late now, so off to bed with me and we’ll see if I can post this in the morning.

Sat, 10 AM - still borked. Ouch. Getting stuck with the beeper over the weekend is nothing compared to what their tech crew is going through. I suppose I should be getting things done about the house, shouldn’t I?

11 AM, still borked, and I guess I do qualify as an LJ addict now. I need my cartoon fix, dammit! That, and it’s really sinking in how much I a) enjoy reading other stuff and b) posting my own day to day insanity. No doubt by the time I can post again, this posting will be long enough to prompt several to drop me from their friends list, LOL.

1:30 PM, I’m getting the shakes. Great, I need a 12 step program for blogging.

6:00 PM In a fit of despair, leave house, go out, eat, drink & be merry. Come home and go straight to bed. Wake up at insane hour wondering if LJ is back up.

5:45 AM LJ appears to have finally returned sometime in the past 12 hours. Shakes go away, all is right with the world again.

For someone who is supposedly an adult, I am WAY too pleased with the fact that Jello Pudding Pops are back in stores. They are still just as good as always.

So, this morning, I put on my shoes and get ready to go to work, realize I’ve left something upstairs. Go up and get it, and then at the top of the stairs, my shoes decided I should really hurry up and tried to fling my entire body down the stairs. Fortunately I caught myself, but my left knee & ankle are still not happy about the whole thing. And this is why I usually don’t wear shoes in the house - because they try to kill me. And Target really doesn’t like it when I wear shoes.

The week has been slightly calmer at work. I do need to find a few minutes to sit down with my boss and do a mini-review - with all the flux in staffing right now, I want to make sure I’m focusing on the right things to make a good impact.

Funny thing - boss just got reading glasses the other day and I asked her if they were new - poor gal, she is just *dying* that she needs them. They’re a -1 magnification, which is near-nothing. As I pointed out that were it not for thinlens technology, I would be wearing coke bottle lenses. To which she replied, “Wait, those are real glasses?” Yep. If I take them off and hold my hand out at arms length, it is blurry. That’s how crappy my eyesight is.

Our person that is leaving to go to design is on the 11-8 shift, and the person going PT is on 9-6 - no mention yet of how they’re going to reshuffle the schedule. Can’t say I’d mind terribly moving to a later shift as I often don’t get out at 5 anyway, but at the same time, my 8AM buddy and I make a pretty kickass team. Beeper this weekend, so I can sleep in tomorrow - yay!!

As of noon today they changed the format to all Latin music.

They were pretty much the only modern/alt rock station around. And now we have at least three Latin pop stations.

So, if you ever made it to a WHFeStival, that was your last…

Finished this bracelet this evening. Started it ages ago, but my eyes started yelling at me for the teeny, tiny freaking beads….

Today was *much* better than last week, despite having two folks out part of the day. Hopefully last week was just the “OMG, it’s 1/3/05 and I have to get everything done today no matter how badly I screw it up!” group and since there are more of those than clients that take their time and do things right, perhaps we’ve gotten the worst of it out of the way for busy season.

I’m trying very hard to fight the urge to order a pizza. Really, I have things I could heat up that would probably be ready before the pizza guy even got here. But…hot, yummy pizza brought to me that I wouldn’t have to do anything but open the box… Well, that bit of willpower lasted a whole half hour I think from when the thought first entered my head. Yes, I have no self discipline whatsoever… Telling myself I can take leftovers for lunch.

No discipline + excellent at rationalizing things. Whatta combo… No wonder I can’t keep myself organized or on a workout schedule, or on any kind of good routine, LOL.

posed an excellent question in her journal, which is just too good not to share:
What would your 10-year-old self think of you if you sat down with him/her over lunch today?
– Would think my job was cool cause I get to play with computers all day, and would totally dig the Jeep.
– Be very happy that I have 2 cats
– Be rather upset that you don’t magically become a neat person when you get older and that I am still a slob.
– Be disappointed that I never did make it to 5′10″ and that the chest fairy didn’t make a very long stop at my house to say the least… :)
– Think it was the coolest thing EVAR that I can eat or drink whatever I want, but be completely horrified that I voluntarily eat veggies. :)

And to show how long it takes me to get one of these posted as I write, get distracted, wander off, wander back…in the time since I started I have ordered the pizza, eaten it, and wrapped up the leftover and put them in the fridge & freezer…

I can go to bed with a clear conscience. The wash has made it to the dryer, I’ve made lunch for tomorrow and replaced some lightbulbs about the house. (Light on the basement stairs is a very good thing.)

Maybe tomorrow night I’ll bake some bread - didn’t get to it today, and I am thinking it may be a soothing way to unwind after work tomorrow, which I have no doubt that I’ll need. Last week was just so flipping bad. Felt like no matter what I did, I couldn’t make a dent in *anything* - not work, not home, not anything. I am on beeper next weekend, which is good, cause I at least get to sleep in on Friday morning a bit, and not be on the queue as much, which is already sorely needed. Busy season is going to be a real bitch this year I think.

Perused my resolution list, and I’m pretty much sucking wind at all of them, except the cooking one. The market has eaten 2/3 of a paycheque already this year, which kinda bites for the finances, but is good incentive to keep taking lunch to work. :)

Despite getting up at 9 and taking a 2 1/2 hour nap, my body is yelling for sleep again. I hope it’s not the same vague unspecified crap I had earlier in the year, never actually got sick, just kinda felt crappy for a couple weeks. That would kinda suck. So, to bed for me.