OK, NOW I’m peeved!

There I was, happily making an entry for my  blog, and I was JUST ABOUT finished, when I get this error message apologizing for the “routine maintenance”, and to just hit “REFRESH” on my browser to get back to the page where I was.  So Iwent off to play with the puppy, and when I returned ansd hit “REFRESH”, I’m brought back to an EMPTY NEW BLOG PAGE!

I’ve worked in different types of call centers or other jobs where I had to take calls.  As a matter of fact, I just came from work where I had to tell agents we had a queue, and if their computer needed to be rebooted because their on-line tools didn’t work, they still needed to take calls and apologize to the customers for the delay while”Our Systems Update.”  So I KNOW that song and dance!!!  Remember this if you ever call somewhere and they give you that line.  I.T. probably dumped a soda on the server or is playing WOW.

Ad here is what I was trying to upload when we all got into the hand-basket:

WORLD SUBMARINE RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008

They’re neck and neck!!

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WELL, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT TO SEE????????

 

Hope it at least made you laugh!

Diabetes sucks

I am so tired of worrying about everything I eat, everything I do, everything in general.  I wanna be able to see a Snickers Bar and eat it.  I want Circus Peanuts.  I want my Mom’s rhubarb cake, which took mass quatities of sugar to make the rhubarb palatable. 

I’m tired of being a human pin cushion.   I take five injections of two different types of insulin  a day, and that doesn’t include the oral meds or the blood testing.  I’m forced to eat lunch, which has been a meal I had little use for over the years- it always seems to interrupt the flow of the day.  But if I DON’T, the reaction is serious, if not deadly. 

I wanna whine, and it’s MY blog, so I’m going to!!!!  I realize there are other more serious disorder out there, but right now, I wanna kvetch about this one.  There’s an old Army saying: “The most important foxhole in the war is the one you’re in.”  Well, this is mine, and for right now, it really sucks.

Winning Lottery Numbers

I need `em.  I’m so sick of working for morons, it’s not even funny.  I finally saw Office Space last year, and have long been a fan of Dilbert.  They’re so close to reality, it’s frightening.  I saw a sign once that read “This isn’t a job-it’s Hell with fluorescent Lighting!”  That pretty much explains where I work. 

Today when I got to work, my manager told me there was a new process for doing a report to the client for which I am responsible.   They bear a strong resemblance to TPS reports.  So I was in the process ofcreating this report, when I hear hime say “Stop!!  They’ve fixed the OLD way we did it, so we don’t need the NEW way!”  As I did the report, Isaid “You do realize that all of the numbers for today so far are incorrect, because of this?” 

What a manager looks like when stumped

So being the good little peon that I am, I corrected the rest of the numbers FOR TODAY!!  Yesterday, he can worry about.   However, I didn’t do this without trepidation.

Three months ago, I was runing the office at night. I did everything, from issue equipment to monitor call flow. 

 “My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light!” Edna St. Vincent Milay

Did they appreciate it??  No they tried to fire me.  Never mind that everything was chugging along nicely,  I had brought a short-coming to the attention of my then-boss, and his response was to fire me for causing the problem.   I made enough noise up the chain that not only did I get moved to a day slot, but that manager got demoted. 

However, this does put a crimp in the desire to “go the extra mile.”  You never know, they may get rid of you for working TOO hard.

Résumé Blues

Heather (aka: green-eyed devil) has been critiquing my résumé.  She wanted to know my definition of the ideal job. I told Heather: “The job I had with NCRwas as close to ideal as I’ve come. I had my own Company vehicle and my own tools. I was the “hired gun” fixer who was called in when things needed doing, and I rarely dealt with the same people on a day-to-day basis. It was great. Lots of “windshield time”- my area went from Marysville to McPherson to Concordia. Facing different problems every day.”

So Heather, being an inquisitive sort, asked:   “What happened with the NCR job?”

  NCR laid me off in a size reduction move: “Last hired, first fired.”  This AFTER they had announced that the lay-offs would not afect “customer-facing positions.”  I guess I kept my back to the customers.

  I’ve spoken with some of my former colleagues- they consider me lucky.  Some have had their wages reduced, or when their seniority raise was due NCR changed the rules so they didn’t get one.   Their areas have increased but their travel pay has reduced, if not disappeared.  It sounds to me like NCR is on a downhill slide, so perhaps it’s best I “got out” when I did.  That was why I spent a year trying to be a computer contract worker.  I actually did a few jobs with former co-workers and was paid a higher rate.  The problem was it was TOO few.

  We’d love to move.  A couple of years ago Mary had a conference in Colorado Springs, so I took some vacation and drove out to it with her.  I always knew if I got her to the mountains, it’d be hard getting her back to Kansas.  Last summer, we went out to visit our …,daughter Rachel ,… in Avon, Colorado- just west of Vail.  She loved Colorado Springs, but fell in love with the Continental Divide.  I’ve looked in Boulder, but mostly they want “local applicants only.”  I think they’re afraid of getting ski bums looking for a place to hang out during The Season. 

  Why Boulder??  Mary works with the Degree-Audit Reporting Program (DARS) in the Registrar’s Office at K-State.  The University of Colorado is in Boulder, and they use the same system.  We figure it’d be easier for her to find a job with the university there, if we move. 

 

  I have my résumé on HotJobs, Monster, Military Hire and a couple of other veteran-specific job sites, as well as with the Government’s Office or Personnel Management.  I get lots of hits, but they’re either for places I don’t want to move (Florida comes to mind) or require skills/education/experience I don’t have.  Or maybe they just can’t see them because of my résumé.

   Those I DO fit, I put in for and never hear again.  This in particular is beginning to really irritate me.  I don’t know if they arrived, if they considered it, or if it hit the trash before they even tried to pronounce my name. 

 

  Gee, this turned into a rant.  A lot of my e-mails do.  Maybe I should post it to the blog.

GED:  “Post it to the blog and let ‘er rip.”  So here it is.

  By the way, I don’t really think of Heather as a “devil”, per se.  There was an incident involving forks on the campus of Kansas State University, but none of them were pitch forks.   I refer to her explanation of her screen name, found here.

One a day

Sheesh!  I feel like I should be taking a vitamin or something.  Seeing as how I’ve only got two hours left to write something, I’d better do it or I’ll hear about it- she’ll probably give me a blast with her air horn, once she gets it working. 

I COULD rummage around in my files and find another existing example of my genius, but where’s the fun in that??   I have a poem which actually got published on its own merit (albeit to no pecuniary advantage) , and I have some lovely rants.  I know– I’ll explain why one of my nicknames at work is Fluffy!

I’m not known for my cheery disposition at work.  It has a lot to do with the fact that I have Stupidity Intolerance Syndrome.  If you’re going to call in sick, DON’T have your kid in the background asking when you were all going to Wal-Mart.   If you’re going to use a class schedule as an excuse for a custom work schedule, make sure that the classes you are taking ACTUALLY INTERFERE with the work schedule that you have.  Likewise, if you are this person’s supervisor,  READ WHAT THEY’RE SUBMITTING BEFORE YOU SIGN IT!!!

Actually, people who work with me regularly get to see my better side, but these morons keep messing up my day.  So, occasionally, I have been known to get a wee bit “snippy” with them.   Co-workers can sense the steam rising from my head, and it can look like a scene from a western where everyone knows there’s about to be a gun fight as they run for cover. 

Oe of my co-workers came across the image below, and decided it looked a lot like me just before an explosion.

Fluffy- Destroyer of Worlds

He was so proud of it, he started calling me Fluffy.  Now whenever I send him anything, I sign it “Fluffy.”  I like Fluffy better than what he used to call me, which was “Sunshine.”  There are still a few who call me Sunshine, but I’ve pointed out that if I’m a sun, I’m a Black-Hole Sun.

  I’m also called Santa, but that’s another post.  Let’s just say there’s a little girl in Manhattan, KS who belives Santa vacations there- because he told her so.

Uh,…

Hello?  Anybody out there??  I have avoided blogs ever since I first heard of them but I have been “called out” by a certain green-eyed devil, so I guess I’ll learn this new trick. 

My Avatar!!

 

  OK, so MAYBE I don’t look EXACTLY like Duke from Boondock Saints, but I feel like I’m pretty close.   There are other resemblances.  I once had a .sig file on my e-mail at work that read “Noted Kansas Crack-Pot and Crack-Shot– It pays to be one if you’re gonna be the other!”  They felt it was too violent.

Since the Green-Eyed one cheated yesterday by putting in the video of “The Last Lecture”,  I shall treat you to one of my favorite poems:

Ode to Drosiphillae

(or Beezelbub’s Children)

 

by Bill Sier

I despise flies!

I don’t need any hows or whys,

I just know I despise flies!

I don’t need any alibies;

Because EVERYone despises flies.

I hate their many thousand eyes!

I hate the way they fill the skies

‘Round sugar bowls, and fresh-baked pies!

I REALLY, REALLY DESPISE FLIES!!!

In fact, I would even surmise

That other FLIES despise flies!

This would come as no surprise!

In closing, let me summarize,

My salient point: I despise flies!

Copyright 1997 William J. Sier

As one Phillistine/critic put it, “You had too much time on your hands in 1997.  WAY too much time.”  I think he was just jealous.