Sunburnt

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

The title of this exhibit is "I am an idiot."

Today, I had my weekly meeting with my semi-new team lead, the Queen of All (QoA). It was a gorgeous day, so we decided to have the meeting outside. I sort of remembered that I hadn't put any sunblock on my arms, but since the meeting was only supposed to be a half-hour I didn't really think anything of it. 

I am an idiot.

It was just the two of us since everyone else is out this week and we ended up chatting for a really long time. About an hour and a half really long time. 

At some point, I knew I was getting burnt, and I still didn't manage to get out of the sun. 

Why? Why would I be so fucking stupid and allow my arms to turn an attractive lobster red?

Because I am incapable of ending a conversation. I have no idea how to get out of a conversation that I want to be over. It's sort of a chronic problem. I have no concept of the graceful exit. 

It fucking sucks. And (I hope!) I've learned my lesson. I don't care if I'm forced to use my fall back plan (the awkward exit) it's not worth getting sunburned. I'm 28 years old and I need to figure out how to end a fucking conversation when I want to, awkward or otherwise. 

It should be noted, it wasn't so much that I wanted to be done talking to the QoA, so much as I wanted our conversation to be in the shade.

Sigh.

I am an idiot.

Ouch. Aloe anybody?

The Power of Cheese

There's no way around it. I'm having a bad week.

I wore my "Power of Cheese" shirt from Cheese Days today. I was hoping it would help power me through.

"The Power of Cheese compels you!"

So far, all it's gotten me is a speeding ticket.

I keep trying to tell myself that I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but then the little voice of evil in the back of my mind keeps cackling and says, "Yeah, that light at the end of the tunnel? Probably a train. Toot, toot! Peanut butter!"

Shut up! Stupid evil voice.

Bunnies

I've been working like crazy lately, and all has not been sunshine and giggles.
People, equipment, time lines and poor decision making has been making me all kinds of crazy... even more than usual.

As some of you know, I test software for a living. So, I was testing to make sure we could print out images correctly today and this was one of the images I used:

I have no idea why, but it makes me want to laugh every time I look at it.

So, as it turns out, the difference between a day where I want to maim everyone that comes in a 5 ft radius of me and a day when I don't, is a bunny eating a cookie.

Seriously though, it's kind of adorable, right?
Just me?
I'm okay with that.

You Know It's Bad When

Things have been kind of crazy at work lately. They dropped a last minute project on our laps, in addition to our regular workload all due next Thursday. Boo.

The Saint is my counterpart in this crazy mess. She is one of the nicest people I have ever known and very quiet. She usually cajoles the developers into doing what she wants with a sweet little smile. 

So, this dude emailed me a question he should have known the answer to. In general, I'm all for people asking questions and I'm not one to judge people for not knowing something if they have an interest in learning. However, this dude teaches other people how to use the specific part of the software that the Saint and I work on. He should have known the answer. 

I showed the Saint the email without saying anything about it. (Note: We often sanity check one another before responding to other people)

Her response? 

"I can't believe he sent you this. Jackass."

I don't know if you had to be there and know the Saint to know how fucking awesome that is. I've never heard her curse before. It totally made my day.

Maybe I should be worried. I might be rubbing off on the Saint.

Drama, drama, drama

Work has been a high drama place as of late. 

To make a long story short, there is a girl who has gotten involved with a project I am working on. She has come into a project she knows nothing about and feels as though she has the right to tell me and my Counterpart what to do (she doesn't). She is uncommunicative about information we need to do our jobs and gets defensive and angry every time we have asked her to be better about sharing information. 

The first time I asked her to please let us know information we need, she ran to her boss and then the two of them went to my boss (when my boss was the Hammer) without saying a word to me. I'll admit that this created some ill will towards this girl, even though the Hammer completely backed me up. 

As a catty side note, this girl once wore a sweatshirt tucked in to her jeans. *mean girl snicker*

Ha. Whatever.

Anyway, she just keeps causing problems and now other people are getting involved. People who I would not want working against me and thankfully are supportive of me and my Counterpart. 

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate drama? Hate, hate, hate it. Hate. it.

It puts me off my game and makes me feel all stressed out. I don't want to deal with this kind of shit.

I want her to act like a grown-up. I want her to realize that we work in a collaborative atmosphere, not a hierarchical structured one, so she is not in charge of me. We don't have to be friends. We don't even have to like each other. We just have to work together. 

Grow the fuck up and get out of my space. Then, I could go back to forgetting she even existed. Ahhh... just the idea of it is a little bit of heaven.

My Baby's Home!!

Finally!!!

I was so happy when I got home and it was there waiting for me in the garage. Shiny, beautiful and as good as new!

I've never really been a car person. In general, I have no real interest, so it comes as a real surprise that I would have this kind of reaction to a car. 

When I saw it, I actually squealed and hugged the car. I hugged a car! WTF?

I had a horrible day at work, too. We found out our workload for the next 3 weeks is going to be insane! Plus, FancyTalker told me he's going to be moving to a different team, which I am not happy about. At all.

It was really nice to come home and see my baby back in the garage. Yay!

I heart my Prius and I am SO happy to have it back. It's been a long month!

Mittens, on Strings

Sometimes, I am not with it. I do not have my act together today. At all.

This morning, in the shower I washed my hair twice. I only realized half-way through rinsing it out for the second time that I was pretty sure I had already done it once already.

I'm kind of bored and unfocused at work. I have stuff to work on, just none of it appeals at the moment. I almost forgot to bring the book I need to study with me to work. Then, on top of that I forgot my iPod, which is a necessary study tool in a sea of noisy-ish cubicles.

If you find me wandering around Madison aimlessly, could you please just pin my mittens to my jacket and point me south. Hopefully, I'll wander on home.

Tanks for Nothing, Danny!

To the douche bag who stole my salad dressing at work:

You are a jerk.

XOXO,
Me

P.S. Also, please return my Tupperware container, as I use it quite often.

Only one more day...

Only one more day of work and then I'm on vacation until the new year. Thank goodness!!

I was going crazy at work all day today. I was barely able to sit still or concentrate on anything. We had a deadline last Thursday and I'm completely uninterested in starting to work on something new. To my credit, I got little to nothing done today. 

I don't know why I'm so excited to be on vacation either. It must be the total euphoria of not having to be at work. I can tell you this, it's not because we have some plans that I'm looking forward to this week. 

Wednesday, we're driving up to stay with the husband's family through Saturday. I like the in-laws for the most part, but here's the thing, visiting them is boring. It's watching paint dry boring. I usually bring four or five books and make it through all of them while I'm there. I think his family must think I'm some sort of crazy bookworm because I'm constantly reading when I'm up there. 

For the most part, there's NOTHING else to do. 

Plus, there is Country Roads.

I hate Country Roads, with a passion. Country Roads is the local diner where the husband's parents live. His parent's LOVE that place. We usually eat up there at least twice when we visit. 

What's so bad about this local diner, you ask?

It's not the food. While nothing to write home about, it's not the worst stuff I've ever had either. 

It's not the atmosphere. CR is clean and well-lit. 

It's the fact that the husband's parents are completely content to sit around CR and gossip with all the locals for HOURS! I'm sorry, but breakfast is not a 3 hour event! 

The last few times we've been up to visit, I've made the husband drive separate so we can leave. I love his parents, but sometimes enough is too much. 

Yet, I'm still completely jazzed to be done with work after tomorrow. Doesn't say a lot for my job at the moment, does it?

Looks like Hell

I must look like hell today.
My co-workers keep commenting on it.

GameBoy: You look terrible.
Thanks GB! He wasn't even trying to be mean. There was sympathy in his voice when he said it.

The Saint: Umm... you just look really, really tired.
At least she tried to be diplomatic!

I feel a little better (throat's not so scratchy and I'm not as cold), but I'm just so fucking exhausted I can barely function. It sucks because the husband and I had to cancel our date night tonight. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the next couple of hours at work before I go home, there's no way I can handle going to dinner and shopping with the husband.

Bright side? We need to clean the house before mr & mrs blume and family arrive next weekend. If I don't feel better, it may end up being a one man operation. Sorry husband, once again, you drew the short stick.

Sick, sick, sick

I think I might be getting sick.
My bones feel tired. I just want to lay down my head on my desk and go to sleep.
Also, the back of my throat is kind of scratchy. And I'm cold.

However, I can't take off from work even if I am sick since we have a deadline on the 18th.
Plus, the husband and I have a little date night planned for tomorrow night that I'm kind of excited about.

Really, what I'd love at this point, is a pause button. I could hit Pause, work this illness out of my system and then press Play when I'm ready to get back in the game.

Since that isn't an option, I'm just going to pretend it's not happening. Maybe it will go away.
The power of positive thinking?

I am not sick.
I am feeling better every minute that passes.

Or something like that.

The Hammer

Forget anything negative I have ever said about the Hammer.
I officially love that guy.
It's good to know that although other people may blow, he's got my back.

I've always said loyalty and respect are earned; you don't give them away as party favors.
Well, now the Hammer has both.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

I realized today that we do this a lot at work, use the good cop/bad cop angle. 

I am always the bad cop. 

I'm not sure how I feel about that. 

Boys are Dumb.

I wore a blazer to work today.

It's purple and velvety (not actual velvet, velvet-like cotton).

It's darker than in the picture. Much darker.

It's more like a dark plum, than magenta.

The hammer saw it and told me it was very "Hugh Hefner-esque."

Shut the fuck up, hammer.

A month or so ago, I wore a shirt with flowers on it to work. This is the conversation I had with one of my programmers, StubbornAss, about it.

SA: You look different today.

Me: Thank you.

Me: Um, wait a minute. You meant that in a nice way right.

SA: [laughs]

Shut the fuck up, StubbornAss.

What the hell is wrong with the boys in this office?

Let me explain the office rules to you since you don't seem to be getting it.

(Disclaimer: These rules may not apply to every girl)

Rule #1: Don't comment on my appearance.

We're not friends like that. We work together. I don't want to hear what you think about what I'm wearing or how I look.

Rule #2: If you really feel the need to comment on my appearance, it better damn well be a compliment.

Again, we're not friends like that. We work together. I don't want to hear what you think about what I'm wearing or how I look, but if you insist on telling me, it had better be a fucking compliment. Neither "interesting" nor "Hugh Hefner-esque" falls under this category.

And just for the record, this jacket is not "Hugh Hefner-esque." It fucking rocks. I don't care if you like it, you don't have to wear it.

Besides, if it's anything it's more "Joker-esque" if the Joker wore cute, fitted jackets. So there.

Bah!

I was at work today at 7AM for a conference call with the Netherlands.
Bah!
Sounds fancy, but it really just means I was up at the crack of fucking dawn to be here.
I am hungry and cranky.
Ha! That doesn't bode well for the poor saps who signed up for the class I'm off to teach... Suckers!!

Tired

So far, this is not a promising start to the day.
I'm currently at work... check the timestamp, people... it's just not right.
Darkness is for sleeping, not driving to work.

Well, well

Things have been looking up since lunch.

I was on track to have a crappy day.
My slap in the face raise, which was almost worse than nothing at all.
I got a paper cut... because my company insists on giving me a fake pay slip telling me to seek out my real pay slip. Stupid fucking waste of paper that cut my finger.
We have a deadline at work, that I am recently not that motivated to meet.
One of the projects I am working on is not going as well as I might like and it's making me uneasy.
My new eyeshadow which is specifically not supposed to crease, was creased by 9AM... that's fucking ridiculous.
Etc... there have been other things, but (perhaps contrary to popular belief) I don't take note of every crappy little thing that happens to me in a day.

Then after lunch one of my favorite coworker, FancyTalker came into talk to me about some questions they had. It was a relief to talk about problems that weren't mine and FT generally always makes me laugh. It's hard to hold onto grimness and anger when you laugh.

My load is lightened, if not relieved.

It's amazing how the smallest things can have an impact on your outlook and just turn your day around.

Deeply Disappointing

It has been a deeply disappointing morning.

October 1st is the day I get my raise at work.
It was a horrible raise. 5%
In our current economic state, that's not even a cost of living raise.

I work hard.
I work hard so that I am one of the top ranked in my division and this is the thanks I get?
I can look forward to a future of shitty raises no matter how hard I work?
Where is the motivation in that?
Why should I work so hard when I could work 1/2 as hard and get the same raise?

It's like a slap in the face.
Thanks, but no thanks for all your hard work.
Here's a less than the cost of living increase.

To think, I had actually begun to care about my job a little bit over the past year.
Well that's done now.

Fuck you job.

I have to stop thinking about this.
It's embarrassing to cry at work.

Throwing a Tantrum

I am throwing a (mostly mental) tantrum right now.

To my non-techie friends, you'll have to forgive me this rant.

There has been no new compile for 24 HOURS now!
NO new compile!
And I (like an idiot) took the last broken compile.

I have been bouncing off the walls of my cubicle all day, compulsively checking the compile installer to see if it has updated. We broke backwards compatibility last night, so the new compile make take days. DAYS!

I may go crazy before then.

I have stuff to work on... plenty to work on thank you very much... but I don't want to work on any of that stuff. I want to start testing, which I can't do until there is a new compile.

On the bright side, I may have this project I don't want to work on well in hand by the time the new compile comes around.

Stupid fucking bright side...

Thwarted

Everyone I need to talk to at the moment is MIA.
It's pissing me off.

I hate being thwarted.