Frog and Goat

I mentioned, uncharitably I’m sure, that we let our IT person go at the end of June. She walked out without so much as documenting a thing she did. In fact, I’ve heard that her office is a shitstorm of computers, wires, monitors, food boxes and who knows what else. It’s like she had the rapture and couldn’t tidy up. We’ve been awash since she left with a pretty comprehensive amount of work that needs to be done to our desktops, laptops and other office electronics. We were adrift before she left but always had hope that we’d hear a loud popping noise as her head emerged from her butt and that she’d show up to do her job. Alas, the sound never happened.

Now, I’m taking up some of the slack. I have the administrator password and I fixed five things for one of our managers today. I also made a handout for everyone else in the office in case they are suffering from one of the problems. They can fix it themselves. The fixes and the creation of the handout took me about a half hour. A half hour to fix what was broken for about a year. Makes me sick.

I’m flying back to Richmond on Friday morning so I can meet with our Director and an IT guy from the university*. We’re going to map out what he needs to take care of and what I’ll take care of. In my spare time, when I’m not developing courses, going to school and doing that other stuff I’m supposed to be doing. I already have about six people signed up for software installs in the next two weeks. One person has a copy of Adobe Professional 9 that’s been on her desk since April 1st waiting for an install. Luckily version 9 is still the current release.

*I’m not really flying but my car will be going very fast up 81 and across 64. Look out.

This morning the better-half left the college town and headed home. Then things went to heck. I received an email with a time stamp of 8:40am telling me my Wednesday class has been canceled for the entire semester. WTF. I still haven’t been able to get anyone to answer me about what in the hell I’m supposed to do about that. There is a class held on Tuesdays that I’m obviously not in right now since I’m posting. I hope to get into it and will solve this problem before the week is out. At least there’s still the Thursday class. But, really, who cancels an entire class the day before it starts? Professor Douchebag, that’s who.

After that WTF moment, I talked to a co-worker about a problem we’re having with another co-worker. The problem co-worker can’t or won’t do her job in a timely manner. Her hold-up means the entire unit can’t get training content out the door. Everyone has talked to this co-worker about the problem with no resolution. The Boss has even chatted with her. I think it’s time for the stick instead of the carrot, but I’m the one with a clue stick on her desk. I may not be the best person to ask.

Oh, my mouse stopped left-clicking this afternoon. Yeah. That’s helpful. And, the third WTF of the day. A banner day, really. I went to an office supply store after work officially ended for me and now there’s a new mouse on my desk. The other has finally been picked up off the floor where it landed after I tossed it into the other room. I also bought some new pens. It’s back to school time for sure now.

After the trip to the office supply store, I decided to apply some decals from Blik. I wanted to put decals on the apartment walls, but the lease says no. I snagged the table from the MIL, put new hardware on it and slapped these robots on the top. I have a thing for robots.
Grainy cell camera photo 1:

Grainy cell camera photo 2:

By the way, a college town in the mountains means I have my windows open today and it’s not because I’m a cheap, old lady. It’s because the temperature is about 70. Actually, I am a cheap, old lady who is tired of spending money this week in this very nice college town even if it does have at least one douchebag professor.

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It seems the problem of not having another class has been solved. Of course, the new class doesn’t meet until 7pm on Wednesday night so there’s still plenty of time for another SNAFU.

We picked up the chair for the apartment yesterday. See…cool:

And, I have art by Nut2:

Yeah, I’ve been MIA lately. I’ve been trying to catch up on fun reading, re-runs of Dr. Who (I’m a rebel and like all the recent doctors) and not even checking the blog for spam. There were three pieces waiting for me to pitch them.

I heard this on the internet radio station I listen to when my MP3 player loses power (liked it–the video, meh):

If Lastfm wasn’t so finicky about a good internet connection, I’d listen to that more often, but no. It demands a better connection than I have at work. In an office park. In the year 2010. I swear there’s a tin can and a ball of string on our roof.

Today is my last day in said black hole for a week. I’m working from home tomorrow and then all next week I’m telecommuting from my secret lair in the other part of the state. I’ve been quite busy this afternoon grabbing files for anything I might even remotely think to work on in the next week. It’s a lot of files, but better to be prepared then have to sit and rotate.

Yesterday I nearly had a melt-down at work with all the people not doing their jobs. There’s only so much a girl can take in one week. Just as I was about to unleash the hounds, my entire team turned to look at me and said, nearly in unison, “You mean people are supposed to do their jobs? We thought that was a myth.” That made it better because I knew it wasn’t just me expecting the best out of people and not getting it. We’re all getting mediocre and that’s the new black, apparently.

Last Saturday the better-half and I stopped in at a local thrift store and bought two side tables to use at the school apartment. I painted them and have to say the color in person is a much richer chocolate brown.

Table 1 looked like it had fallen off a truck:

Table 2 was in better shape and only had a minor gouge on the top:

Yesterday we met some friends, took them out to lunch, and then brought home a double bed for the apartment. They swapped out one of their bedrooms years ago to turn it into an exercise room and carefully wrapped the mattress and box springs in huge plastic bags for storage. The pieces are consequently in good shape and they threw in the frame and the headboard. They are happy that someone will be using the bed (and that they got a bunch of space back in their shed).

So, yeah, Jim is hanging out on the porch. We’ve fixed all the screen panels except one little hole that he can slip through but Simon can’t.

We’re not really sure how Simon feels about things, but he is either playing with Jim or putting the smack on him. Since Simon refuses to learn English, we can’t ask him.

Simon alternates between completely ignoring the kitten, smacking him, or reclaiming any piece of furniture the kitten sits on. Simon also shows his dominance by sharpening his claws. Jim is impressed or is at least quietly waiting to pounce during these sharpening sessions.

We took the MIL out last night for her birthday dinner. The better-half invited his paternal aunt and his mother’s sister. I picked up his paternal aunt and he picked up his mother. The mother’s sister managed to arrive on her own, but, naturally, she couldn’t quite finish the job and called the better-half who had to roam around on the street until she lurched into view. I don’t have details on why that happened and there’s no point in asking because whatever the answer it will come down to this: bullshit.

For the next hour and a half we listened to the mother’s sister talk and talk and talk. And, then she talked some more. I’m fairly sure no one else at the table said more than 15 words apiece. When we finally got home, the better-half said it was like listening to a monologue. A monologue about nothing that just kept going and going.

Our waitress was a ditz. She asked every one of us if we wanted our appetizers and salads first. We were nice because what the waitress lacked in skill and knowledge was repaid in quadruplicate by what she had to put up with the mother’s sister. It was worse than the way Sally ordered every meal in When Harry Met Sally.

When I got home, I just laid on the couch and watched crappy television. My soul had already been sucked dry so I figured there was no harm in completely vegging out.

I created them. My co-conspirator and I put them up the other day. So far there have been lots of giggles and no misdeeds in the bathroom this week.

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Update 8/12/10: The posters have been up for a week and the bathroom has NOT been trashed once since we put them up. This morning I was in a stall and heard training participants say they’d like to take a copy back to their home office to post. Success!

Things were especially slow this week at work. So, I put this on my calendar:

Of course the plan was to sleep later, but that didn’t work out.

The better-half and I plan on going out for dinner tonight so I’ll be asking for a pint of something.