CafeChatNoir

Only took til 3PM on a Monday to hate 97% of the general population.

FUCK. God damn it all to hell, I ask a small favor of someone - “Please take db X to the guy that loads ‘em up cause it was delivered to my desk and I am not in the office” and no one knows where it is now. FUCK FUCK FUCK. She doesn’t even remember me asking (I have a log of it.)

And I am talking to another coworker who is hunting it down - and my god we have bad hold music.

She found it. Apparently coworker #1 completely flaked and never did it even though she said she would.

Well, fuck.

There was supposed to be a midnight game tonight in Anaheim, but apparently the schedule was changed. Dammit!

As completely selfish as it sounds - when am I going to get the Christmas that *I* want? Christmas Eve on my own, Christmas Day with the people I love, screw the presents, forget the stress, just remember what it’s really all about. What is it going to take?

FUCK.

Well, I WAS going to just go watch hockey at 7 and take the damn beeper with me, but instead I am actually physically stuck here until 8. Why? Because my coworkers declined to pickup a call in the queue, I had to get it, this client IS IN HIS CAR and of course, can only give me the vaguest of information on the problem, and has to wait til he gets home to fax me the info so I can actually look at it. I did warn him, I am on call until 8PM only, and after that, he is SOL until 9AM tomorrow morning. I did not mention that I would likely have a raging hangover at that time as well.

And of course, this is “holding up everything” - then why the hell are you in your car?

I know, I know, it’s part of being on call, you get to deal with the “OMG emergency!!” stuff that comes in at the last minute of the day, but dammit all to hell, I wasn’t even supposed to be picking up any new calls today!!!!!!! (Quite the Clerks moment there…)

I’ve been dealing with a lot of shitheads this week, and most of them are my coworkers…

OK, gonna go get a few things done around here while waiting on the fax…

Oh, and my grandmother called to remind me to please bring her winter coat. Done this drill for 20 years now, yet she still thinks I don’t know that she doesn’t take her winter coat home to Phoenix every year.

Hello from Amazon.com.

We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the following item from your order:
   
Laurence Bergreen “Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe”

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we’ve since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this time.  We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize for the inconvenience we have caused you.
   
We have cancelled this item from your order.

I was really looking forward to getting that.

It just occurred to me, we moved here 20 years ago.  20 years, and I’m back right in the same house where I started when we got here, and frankly, feeling about the same way I did then, too, aka “WTF do I do now??”  To be honest, I can’t decide if I am surprised or disappointed at the fact that I never left the area.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

To the asshat in BMW turning onto my street this morning - sorry I slowed you down by actually forcing you to STOP at the stop sign you so wanted to go blowing through, but I was already in the intersection you putz.

Oh, to the client that was pissy because I repeated myself FOUR times - had you actually taken two seconds to listen the first three times, I wouldn’t have had to keep repeating it.

The coworker to my left is on the verge of a total meltdown.  I don’t even begin to know what to do about that to help her - she’s totally freaked out all the time cause she doesn’t know everything yet, and it’s hard to convince her that she’ll do better and absorb more if she just relaxes a bit, and she doesn’t have to know everything yet - but cause she’s in a panic, she’s not picking up anything at all.  She’s also locking horns with the manager, and that’s not helping.

I got home to a message from my boss asking if I would go on 10-7 the next two days due to some scheduling cockups.  At least that’s what I think the message was, the answering machine is quite the piece of junk and really needs to be replaced.   I left her a voice mail on her cell saying I’d see her at 10.

Rain…  Yep, we need it, but it hosed the drive home, which I was an hour late starting anyway.  Trying to explain to the dog that we’re not going out as I am just not tough enough for outside exercise in the rain just isn’t working. 

The lawn folks accidentally left the side gate unlatched yesterday.  Found this out when I called the dog and he came to the door in the carport - apparently he was waiting at the other gate to get back in the yard.  Oh you can bet he got TONS of praise for not running off.  I know it had to be tempting to go wandering.

Couple things on my mind I just can’t shake that are starting to get to the point of being a distraction, and I simply cannot figure out what to do about it, short of bashing myself in the head with a stapler and hoping for selective amnesia.

However, there was a bright spot to the day - I got a coupon for a Starbucks freebie cause they lost my order this morning.  Totally unnecessary, but really nice.  I cashed it in on the way home. :)

QE did a makeover on a nudist this evening.  Highly entertaining.  And I’ve found a new drink recipe I must try - rum, grapefruit juice and lime juice all thrown into a blender w/ some ice.

Someone was attacked in Rock Creek Park the other day.  Apparently police & media are saying that joggers and such should be carrying cell phone with the police number preprogrammed in.  Personally, I’m thinking brass knuckles might be slightly more useful, then call the police after you’ve bashed an attacker in the face and run the hell away.  Seriously though, yeah, it bites to have to think about this kind of crap wherever you are if you’re not in a position where you’ve got an exercise partner that sucks as badly as you do to go and workout with.  Yeah, I could just pony up the money for the gym now, but I really do like to get outside if possible to exercise.

Note to self: I’d best come up with a different activity for my 47th birthday…

What an absolutely CRAP day. It’s good to know that I am busting my ass at work so that others can pretty much sit around and not do a god damn thing all day.

Yes, I’ll admit, I didn’t have the shiniest outlook going into the day, but DAMN, I log on, 10+ calls untouched, we’re short because of training, and some folks are simply NOT stepping up to the plate. YES, it’s busy, YES we’re short, so TAKE A CALL ALREADY!

It’s days like this that the thought of handing the housekeys to my brother, saying “Congrats, you’ve got two cats to go with the dog” saying “Sucks to be you” to the office, getting in my car and just GOING is damn tempting.

OK, so I don’t really have anywhere to go, and I’d feel too guilty about the people that DO actually work in my group to do it, but still, what a damn piece of shit day.

And the dog decided it would be a GREAT idea to chew the top off a brand new bottle of baby powder today.

Edit: It also didn’t help that my clients today should not be touching anything more advanced than an Etch A Sketch.

I don’t even have words to describe how incredibly pissed off I am at the world today.

I am tired of being everyone’s fucking doormat, being lied to or just completely ignored, professionally AND personally.

I am tired of setting what I think are reasonable expectations and only finding out that they’re obviously set too high, and then being incredibly disappointed and pissed off because I am so gullible as to think that people actually give a damn.

Fuck.

and I’ll be getting the long distance switched to Sprint here - not only are they soaking me for basic long distance ($20 a month for the privilege of saying AT&T is my long distance provider), the dumbasses applied the payment under the old name to my name, so I’ve got a 3.52 credit on my name, and another bill saying I still owe them 3.52 under the old name.

I am now on the phone with the billing department (transferred from customer service) and they cannot find an account for this phone number. It would seem that even though I repeated my phone number three times, SLOWLY, they still couldn’t get the area code right.

OK, so, I just need these two items netted together, so there is a zero balance on both names. That’s all. Now I have to be transferred to another department. Insane.

I have a confirmation number! And now I am on the phone with Sprint. AT&T, you suck.

Netflix sucks in one very important way right now - there are no phone numbers on the site, and you can’t email customer service without a login ID. So, I had to sign up for a trial run in order to get an email to customer service to cancel my Mom’s account.

Sheesh.

Dog doesn’t seem to like DSL as much as I do - he’d prefer I was downstairs watching TV with him, so I think I’ll go do that for a while.

Oh, how I love being a “professional” - nothing as much fun as paying to reinstate/renew a license I’ve never used and probably never will use… (For those of you thinking, “Why???”, the answer is: Damned if I know. May need it someday I guess.)

Stumbled across this in another LJ Comm I read: Photos that will never make the news Work safe, nothing graphic, but if you’re a smushy sod like I am, they may make you a bit sniffly.

They’re calling for snow again tonight/tomorrow - no surprise given that my crocuses came up last week. :) 1-3 inches overnight and 4-7 by the time it’s all said and done.

For anyone that follows the Oscars, you know about the Razzies that come the night before, giving out awards for the worst crap to hit the screens… Halle Berry won worst actress, and actually showed up to accept it. Props for having a good sense of humor.

Thread in another forum I read, gal was talking about how she just doesn’t take a vacation that’s more than 5 days long, and she can’t figure out what it is in her head that is keeping her from taking long vacations anymore. Me? I’ve never taken more than a week’s vacation before, and frankly, I’m a tad unnerved by the two weeks I’ve got coming up this summer. I’ve never actually been away from my house for that long. Still don’t have a solid plan for the cats yet, either. Mom is checking out a kennel on Monday that our vet recommended that takes both cats & dogs, hopefully it will check out well. Two weeks is just a lot to ask of someone to come to the house and tend to them.

Ah well, it will work out one way or another.

On the very rare occasion (and actually, the first at that) that I would like to sit down and actually use my DVD player, it would be nice if it actually worked.

Much better day at work today, not nearly as frazzling as last week was - even left the office ON TIME!! New guy has jumped into the queue feet first and seems to be doing OK so far - even if he’s only taking a few calls a day, it still makes a difference.

Gently voiced my frustrations with the appliance people over the coordination issues on this project - I think I got my point across without being awful. Windows Media Player 10 is being less hateful today as well, which is helping.

Not going to be a late night for this chick - despite lots of sleep this weekend, I am still beat tonight. However, a good dose of clarity & enlightenment that resulted from a much too late night is worth it. Here’s hoping I don’t squander what I’ve learned.

It’s probably a good thing this headline didn’t come around on Saturday night:
Grinchy Thief Steals Salvation Army Kettle

Onward & upward.

Is just about 3 feet away.

If you want to disappoint me with words or deeds, get in line. This is apparently the week to do it. I have pretty much no faith left in humanity at this point.

I am *this* close to canceling the order for the kitchen, my computer has been rendered damn near useless thanks to Bill Gates and his POS WMP10, I’m getting hangup calls on my cell phone and I’ve spent a good hour and a half just trying to get a DVD to play up here in the office, and it would seem that just isn’t going to happen.

At the rate things are going, I fully expect that the next news headline I see will be something along the lines of “Salvation Army bell ringer mugged & money for the poor stolen.”

I’m tired as hell, cynicism has kicked in full force and taken over.

Spent yet another 8+ hours at my job, followed by 2 more hours sitting in technical trying to figure out why our ESS product keeps breaking. (Because it’s PIECE OF SHIT, that’s why, but I digress…)

10-12 hours has been the norm the past couple weeks, because of this POS add-on product. I know there are other people out there with more important jobs that work longer hours, but this is ALL ABOUT ME, dammit. My life is once again revolving around work, with a break for eating and sleeping, and that’s about it. Damn, what a life that is.

I’m right smack where I never wanted to be, which makes me think that it’s all predetermined and free will is just another crock that someone came up with because it sounded better than jumping off a cliff.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, I’m right back where I was 5 years ago.

People who say, “You have all the time in the world” are full of shit. They just can’t remember when it was that they ran out of options…

BRING IT, BITCH!!!!

God, I am SO riled up this morning for absolutely NO reason whatsoever.

And for the love of all that is good and holy, people - it’s FISCAL YEAR, not PHYSICAL YEAR!!!!

I am in a completely pissy mood this morning. I know I shouldn’t let the rest of the world get to me, BUT THEY’RE ALL JACKASSES, and they totally put me over the edge today.

Pisces Horoscope Overview
Every word you utter will carry weight and take on a life of its own. You may not realize it, especially if you’re angry. Now that you know, think for a few seconds before you open your mouth.

Yeah, thinking, thinking, still going to open my mouth. :) described me the other day as a “self-healer” - ie, oftentimes when something bothers me, I will stop and decide if it is really of any real consequence in the grand scheme of things. More often than not, it isn’t, so I just let it go. (Which probably isn’t the best idea as it tacitly encourages reprehensible behaviour, but that’s another post.)

Not today.

Society at large, it’s time to get your heads out of your asses and realize what you do and say and don’t do and don’t say AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE. So, stop and THINK about that at times, OK?

And freaky stapler girl here at the office is getting married. That did wonders for my mood, too.

There are three very large, very angry, and very STUPID wasp-type flying things that have managed to get in between the screens/storm windows and the regular window in my bedroom. The window right next to the bed, of course.

They’re making quite an ungodly racket that is making my skin crawl so badly I am now going to go sleep in the living room.

Dear God, Karma, Fates, whoever may be in charge:

I have tried to get through this week you flung upon me with some tiny measure of grace & dignity. Admittedly, I have failed on more than a few occasions, but I have tried my best.

However, sending the plague of flies into the kitchen this morning was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.** You forced me to show a complete disregard for the sanctity of life by getting out the can of “Pleasant Aroma” Ortho Flying Insect Spray and dispatching them post-haste.

**Please note: I have gotten to a point of maturity where I no longer have a kitchen that would normally attract bugs. No open food, no science experiments in the sink, no tiny neon “Miller Lite” signs that would indicate this is a party house for insects. I strongly suspect a stray lime wedge in an empty beer bottle in the recycling bin. So I sprayed the hell out of that, too.

If you are going to get on an elevator, do NOT have a conversation with someone who isn’t getting on the elevator. Say, “I’ll talk to you later” and get your ass on the lift.

Semi-quiet, non-complicated day today so far. Nice.

At the rate things are going, it would seem my entire Friends list is going to end up in Texas… For those that can up and move like that, I applaud you. I don’t think I could do it. Not that I really have anywhere to go anyway. :)

For not slugging the jackass behind me in line at the store at lunch. Hello!! Personal Space! It’s not like a need a 6 foot radius cleared around me, but something more than 10 inches would be good.

…person has asked when I am getting married…

I am running out of socially acceptable responses.

I am dealing w/ a fear of committment - I can’t fix that for someone else. I do know that bringing it up will most certainly drive that person away.

*sigh*

So, folks - please, stop asking.

…just having a full on meltdown to get it out of the way.

FTR, I like to travel. However, I don’t travel “well” with others. On my own, I am fine, with anyone else, not so much. Yes, I do have control freak issues, why do you ask?

I am supposed to go out of town Wednesday morning for a week. I need this break. However…

– I have an engagement Tuesday night after work that will run late.
– I have two days of work between now & then
– I have a ton of laundry to do (it is in progress)
– I really have no clue what I need to take. (I’ve checked the weather. That helped. Some.)
– I am still not 100% healthy yet from whatever galloping crud I had.
– I still have to get more cat food.
– It has just come to my attention that the extra housekey is not where I thought it was.
– I am worried about leaving the cats for that long. (If I had a dog, I’d probably never leave the house.)
– The cleaning service is in tomorrow. This is a good thing, but it is also the last thing I need to be worrying about right now.
– I don’t know how much cash I should take along. I need to figure that out.

OK, I have to go back to the store and get the cat food I forgot this afternoon. And resist the urge to get a large box of cookies and container of milk.