The new job is going well. No, really, it's going decently. I have very few complaints, with the exception of the heat. It's traditionally women who complain about the temperature being too cold, so I thought they were responsible for the eighty-degree temps in our humongous office. Where I work is a bit of a cliche, so I asked if we had to fill out a form 8753 in order to get the temperature down below roasting. Even the women were complaining.
Speaking of women, I work near three women or so, who have apparently been sick off and on for months. I told them if I got typhoid, it would be their fault. Little did I realize that they had been playing Pass the Germs for way longer than I have been there.
Sure enough, my throat began to feel icky. This was followed, in short order, by my head ringing and being in a vise. It is difficult to concentrate on your job when you're desperately attempting to fail at falling off your chair. This all happened in one day. So I chose to stay at work and irradiate the rest of my coworkers who had not yet become sick. I'm a giver.
You'll be surprised to learn that I don't get sick like normal people. Being a man, I had to ask my wife if I had a temperature, which she verified. The joke is somewhat on me because whenever I ask if I have a temp, my wife tells me yes. Why we do Fever Theater<tm>, I'm not sure. One day when I'm well, I am going to ask her to feel my forehead, just for fun. And then maybe I'll tell her that's not where my forehead is. I figured the smart thing to do, aside from consuming copious amounts of ibuprofen, would be to take some Nyquil equivalent to help me sleep. It kept waking me up at hourly intervals, like a seriously snoring spouse with a chainsaw.
By the next morning, I was on our Natural Cocktail: zinc, echinacea and vitamin C. You start taking this the moment you feel sick and it will either help you to ward it off or shorten its duration. If you don't have trouble swallowing pills, you will when you see echinacea. It looks kinda like a clear capsule of oregano, only it's the size of a small football (deflated, of course). And it's a good thing I dumped all this crap down my throat because the relatively simple act of sitting on the couch made my skin hurt. When the phone rang, my head exploded. When my wife spoke, the hair follicles on my arm contracted and sent pain shooting to my brain (what was left of it). Even innocent email checking rendered my eyebrows non-functional. My nose does not run but my stomach does: right to the fridge. When I get sick, my appetite goes through the roof. Keep your hands and feet away from my mouth.
SNOW
We're about to get a noreaster, whatever that means. It means PANIC. It means clean out the stores of milk and bread in mass PANIC. Depending on who you listen to, we're getting two or three snow storms. This includes between one and twelve inches of snow, depending on which attractive weather woman you prefer to watch. At least this time they came right out and admitted that there was no way to accurately predict the amount of snowfall, instead offering four different scenarios. This happened on three different networks, as if they were colluding.
The news is calling this the storm of the century. This indicates that total snowfall will be somewhere in the area of an inch to an inch and a half. Mind you, the news also features shots at grocery stores, where the shelves are literally picked clean. You'd think they weren't going to get out to the store for three weeks. They're now calling it Snowmageddon. This is why I get my news online.
The real mess is going to happen tomorrow, so naturally my wife asked me to stop at the store and pick a few things up. She is the one who goes shopping, so it's a crapshoot when I have to enter that dark place. Let's start with walking in: most people have no trouble - not me. I walk up to the door and it won't open. I strongly suspect it is refusing on purpose, perhaps on principle. I'd have the store manager come out and explain it to me but as it is, he's busy plowing the lot (or one of his cashiers).
In front of me at the deli counter is an old lady who is apparently feeding a small battleship's complement. She requires a pound and a half of swiss but it has to be in three packages for some unknown reason. Then some turkey. No, that's not thick enough. Then a half a pound of ham. That's too thick. I held on well, managing not to strangle her with her own turkey pastrami and half an hour later, it was my turn. Mind you, they didn't have what my wife sent me to purchase. It's friggin' cheese - what's so difficult?
Just to make things more interesting, the Deli Lady wound up in front of me at the cashier. It turned out she had a husband, who kinda popped up when the bags were in the cart. I have no idea where he was the whole time; perhaps he was off trying to convince them to sell him three gallons of milk, but in seven plastic containers.
Once outside of the store, I tried carrying the packages to the car. Fortunately for me, it remained in the place where I parked it. My wife's creamer took a leap right out of the bag, while I had four plastic bags on me. When I got home, the creamer, which obviously had something against me, had once again removed itself from its confines. This was made more amusing by the fact that I keep confusing the trunk release with the gas release. This won't be a serious problem until I start filling up the trunk with gasoline.
The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae has to be the mayor of Philthydelphia's press conference. It's fun to watch because we like to laugh (we're outside of Philly). He emphasized that they're serious about snow removal. If so, this would be the first time. There will be 375 people and 800 pieces of equipment deployed. Two days later, people will be wondering why there's snow all over the place, as if they had no idea it was going to snow. Furthermore, do not throw snow back in the street - it's disrespectful. Disrespectful is promising to clear the streets and failing completely. It would be a fair bet that it's been snowing here for longer than there has been a city of Philadelphia, yet they have consistenly failed to do an even passable job of cleaning up. There are actually cities all over the country that manage to clean up way more snow way more frequently. Driving in Philly is a nightmare with no snow.
I have to go now. The dog is doing us a favor, protecting us from the last bag of Cheese Jax (by eating them). After it gets done snowing, the Abominable Snow Span will grace the freshly-washed blanket on the couch, which was washed yesterday because he was out in the rain and mud.
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Monday, January 26, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
What's Black and Scrubs Your Back?
Martin Loofa.
[timely, no?]
So I have a new job. More on that later.
The real excitement is depression. Let me rephrase that... two solid months of depression. Let me embellish. My dear wife has gone through two solid months of depression. Folks with bipolar disorder tend to swing from manic to depressed (Manic Depression - Jimi Hendrix). Two months of depression is really rather a lot. For anyone. In fact, it's unprecedented here. After a brief conversation with the psychiatrist, it was time to take a trip to....
THE HAPPY PLACE
Yes, the Happy Place<tm>. Otherwise known as The Booby Hatch. Funny Farm. Loony Bin. Madhouse. Laughing Academy. Etc. I'm kinda shocked at all the synonyms for this. I'm kinda unhappy too, as I like to refer to our house as The Madhouse.
It's not what you think it is. Or maybe it is, depending on what you think. Over the years, there have been a few trips there, little with any real comedy potential. Generally, things are pretty calm. This time we hit the jackpot.
There are many units there, for people with different disorders and capabilities. This one seemed fairly nice. I was allowed two one-hour visitations per day (this would have worked better when I was unemployed, not that I'm nostalgic or anything). When I got there, I was introduced to Nina, a very nice girl. Ten minutes later, Nina handed us a note. It said we were a great couple and that Jesus loved us. We should play the lottery precisely because Jesus loves us.
Uh-oh.
Then there was Sara, an eighty year old lady with one of those diseases that makes you shake. She would get so angry at her hands for shaking that she'd yell horrible things at them. Anatomically impossible things. As a result, she scared the poop out of most people (except for my wife, of course). There was also Julio, the Manic Hispanic. Julio is a great kid but apparently under-medicated. They were watching DVDs and Julio was reciting the lines along with the characters. Loudly. Mania and noise have a negative effect on me so we moved to the next room.
In the next room, we were serenaded by Vicky the Snorer. We'd get a word or two out and then [SNORE] and a few more words [SNORE]. A nurse interrupted her slumber to let her know that this was not good behavior. She agreed and quickly resumed snoring.
Nina came back and asked if we had read the letter. Apparently Nina had written a letter to everybody, including the staff and visitors, about Jesus. I think most of them knew already, so it got to be annoying. I told my wife that they had better explain that this was not acceptable before someone with less understanding than me (really?) popped her in the nose.
Today's visit started with Nina asking if she could sit with me until my wife returned. With all of the goodness I could muster, I said yes. She actually got an entire sentence out before she mentioned Jesus. If we weren't at the Happy Place<tm>, I would have brought out my inner Satan. She was good enough to leave when my wife came back.
Shortly before I arrived, Nina flipped out on her group, which upset everyone. I suspect they finally decided to send her to the Jesus Ward. A further person debated me on how great a president Obama is. I had to keep reminding myself to behave. Of course she was arguing this point - the lady was in the mental ward.
If you're still following this, you probably have one question: how did they allow me to leave?
No, the other question: how is my wife.
Thanks for asking - she's pretty good, all things considered.
FALLOUT
You're probably asking yourself what's been going on at the house while Mom's in the hospital.
Glad you asked.
The real loony bin is the house. The pets have taken full advantage of the situation. Marshall has taken to waking me at obscene hours of the morning to go outside. Mind you, this only happens when Mommy goes away. So far he's gotten me up at 5, 3 and 7 on alternating days. Here I am, all set to sleep late (job starts at 8am) and the little monster decides to play Fun with Daddy.
I thought I got away with ignoring him the first time but he showed me: he got into something and had diarrhea. The other times were just for fun. Ever have to keep watch on a dog at 3am, so he doesn't run around the side of the house and bark? In the freezing cold? Naked?
As I mentioned a while back, the cat is diabetic, so he needs insulin shots. Unfortunately his daddy doesn't do needles, so a brave family member stops by to Dart the Cat. Unfortunately the brave family member lost my keys, so the cat missed a day or two. As a result, he's been rewarding me by peeing all over the house. Naturally I found this out the hard way. We actually have puppy pee pads two feet from his litter box because he likes going there for some reason. This is by his Southern Litter Box. The Northern Litter Box is near the kitchen. He avoids that one by peeing on the rug near the sink, which is how I discovered there was a problem. Ever do dishes and wonder if you spilled water, only to discover that it wasn't water? Yeah, that.
Marshall won't eat his food when nobody's home, although he will dive right for cat food, so I know he's not sick. He also goes Fishing for Treasure in the Cat Box, a game nobody wants to watch. To change things up, he 'helped' me clean the rug yesterday. I had to clean the rug because every time I clean the rug, he magically makes tissues appear, then shreds them all over the rug. So he helped me clean by continually sticking his nose in the bag I used for picking up the detritus from the last time he shredded. He really seemed to enjoy that bag. After I got home later that evening, he had gotten into my work bag and consumed three fruit bars, shredding the silver wrappers all over the rug. Mind you, there was not a single crumb of fruit bar - only wrapper.
KMART
On the way to the Happy Place<tm>, I was ordered to stop at KMart and pick up a few games and puzzles for the folks. Happy to contribute, I unhappily stopped at KMart. Unhappily because KMart is a hell hole. Every time I go there, there are unbelievable lines at the cashier. Apparently putting more than one or two cashiers at registers physically hurts management, so they make sure there aren't enough cashiers at any single time.
The parking lot had so few cars in it, I wondered if they were even open. After locating everything I was ordered to procure (coloring books are with office supplies and puzzles are with toys), I made my way to pay for them, with just enough time to get to the hospital.
Heh heh heh.
I had forgotten where I was.
There were exactly two lanes open, one of which had customers bailing out. The register must have started spitting out lungs or bullets or whatever KMart registers spit out (anything but register tape or change). People were fleeing the aisle with arms full of boxes and bags.
I was in the other lane, which had inexplicably ground to a halt, for no apparent reason. Ah, I thought to myself.. I'm at KMart. This is precisely why I don't go there, not even with my wife. Several millenia later, there was only one person in front of me. By this point, I had given up on seeing my wife on time. The lady in front of me had one tiny little box (of fiber bars, don't ask), so this was a slam dunk.
Not so fast, Coloring Book Boy.
The register had stopped spitting out register tape, so the guy allegedly operating the register called a halt to operations (how could one tell?) and threaded the paper into the machine. Or rather, he tried to thread the tape through the machine. He seemed to be a fairly competent cashier, which should have made me suspicious in the first place, so I figured I was in the right line for once. However, the simple act of putting new paper in the register was obviously beyond his meager capabilities. He kept jamming it in, folding it, ripping it and completely failing to get the paper through the slot. I suggested if perhaps he hit it, REALLY HARD, that might help. After a few more failed tries, I told him that I was going to hit it REALLY HARD. I even reached out to help him.
A small cheer went through the line as the cashier finally succeeded in putting more paper in the blasted machine. Fiber Lady paid with some sort of loyalty card and, as a result, somehow wound up getting fourteen receipts (I was terrified the paper would run out again) AND a whole lot of change that required meticulous counting out.
Sweaty and nervous, I stepped up to the plate (my only sports metaphor for the year). Register D00d got me checked out in record time, although he bagged stuff up and never exactly told me how much I owed. Having eventually gotten that out of the way, I ran to the car and took off.
When I got to the hospital, I noticed something was missing. Yes, Register D00d had somehow managed to keep one of the coloring books for himself and I somehow managed to not notice it til an hour later. WHY DID I EVER GO TO KMART?
So yeah, I have a new job.
I'll tell you about it next time.
[timely, no?]
So I have a new job. More on that later.
The real excitement is depression. Let me rephrase that... two solid months of depression. Let me embellish. My dear wife has gone through two solid months of depression. Folks with bipolar disorder tend to swing from manic to depressed (Manic Depression - Jimi Hendrix). Two months of depression is really rather a lot. For anyone. In fact, it's unprecedented here. After a brief conversation with the psychiatrist, it was time to take a trip to....
THE HAPPY PLACE
Yes, the Happy Place<tm>. Otherwise known as The Booby Hatch. Funny Farm. Loony Bin. Madhouse. Laughing Academy. Etc. I'm kinda shocked at all the synonyms for this. I'm kinda unhappy too, as I like to refer to our house as The Madhouse.
It's not what you think it is. Or maybe it is, depending on what you think. Over the years, there have been a few trips there, little with any real comedy potential. Generally, things are pretty calm. This time we hit the jackpot.
There are many units there, for people with different disorders and capabilities. This one seemed fairly nice. I was allowed two one-hour visitations per day (this would have worked better when I was unemployed, not that I'm nostalgic or anything). When I got there, I was introduced to Nina, a very nice girl. Ten minutes later, Nina handed us a note. It said we were a great couple and that Jesus loved us. We should play the lottery precisely because Jesus loves us.
Uh-oh.
Then there was Sara, an eighty year old lady with one of those diseases that makes you shake. She would get so angry at her hands for shaking that she'd yell horrible things at them. Anatomically impossible things. As a result, she scared the poop out of most people (except for my wife, of course). There was also Julio, the Manic Hispanic. Julio is a great kid but apparently under-medicated. They were watching DVDs and Julio was reciting the lines along with the characters. Loudly. Mania and noise have a negative effect on me so we moved to the next room.
In the next room, we were serenaded by Vicky the Snorer. We'd get a word or two out and then [SNORE] and a few more words [SNORE]. A nurse interrupted her slumber to let her know that this was not good behavior. She agreed and quickly resumed snoring.
Nina came back and asked if we had read the letter. Apparently Nina had written a letter to everybody, including the staff and visitors, about Jesus. I think most of them knew already, so it got to be annoying. I told my wife that they had better explain that this was not acceptable before someone with less understanding than me (really?) popped her in the nose.
Today's visit started with Nina asking if she could sit with me until my wife returned. With all of the goodness I could muster, I said yes. She actually got an entire sentence out before she mentioned Jesus. If we weren't at the Happy Place<tm>, I would have brought out my inner Satan. She was good enough to leave when my wife came back.
Shortly before I arrived, Nina flipped out on her group, which upset everyone. I suspect they finally decided to send her to the Jesus Ward. A further person debated me on how great a president Obama is. I had to keep reminding myself to behave. Of course she was arguing this point - the lady was in the mental ward.
If you're still following this, you probably have one question: how did they allow me to leave?
No, the other question: how is my wife.
Thanks for asking - she's pretty good, all things considered.
FALLOUT
You're probably asking yourself what's been going on at the house while Mom's in the hospital.
Glad you asked.
The real loony bin is the house. The pets have taken full advantage of the situation. Marshall has taken to waking me at obscene hours of the morning to go outside. Mind you, this only happens when Mommy goes away. So far he's gotten me up at 5, 3 and 7 on alternating days. Here I am, all set to sleep late (job starts at 8am) and the little monster decides to play Fun with Daddy.
I thought I got away with ignoring him the first time but he showed me: he got into something and had diarrhea. The other times were just for fun. Ever have to keep watch on a dog at 3am, so he doesn't run around the side of the house and bark? In the freezing cold? Naked?
As I mentioned a while back, the cat is diabetic, so he needs insulin shots. Unfortunately his daddy doesn't do needles, so a brave family member stops by to Dart the Cat. Unfortunately the brave family member lost my keys, so the cat missed a day or two. As a result, he's been rewarding me by peeing all over the house. Naturally I found this out the hard way. We actually have puppy pee pads two feet from his litter box because he likes going there for some reason. This is by his Southern Litter Box. The Northern Litter Box is near the kitchen. He avoids that one by peeing on the rug near the sink, which is how I discovered there was a problem. Ever do dishes and wonder if you spilled water, only to discover that it wasn't water? Yeah, that.
Marshall won't eat his food when nobody's home, although he will dive right for cat food, so I know he's not sick. He also goes Fishing for Treasure in the Cat Box, a game nobody wants to watch. To change things up, he 'helped' me clean the rug yesterday. I had to clean the rug because every time I clean the rug, he magically makes tissues appear, then shreds them all over the rug. So he helped me clean by continually sticking his nose in the bag I used for picking up the detritus from the last time he shredded. He really seemed to enjoy that bag. After I got home later that evening, he had gotten into my work bag and consumed three fruit bars, shredding the silver wrappers all over the rug. Mind you, there was not a single crumb of fruit bar - only wrapper.
KMART
On the way to the Happy Place<tm>, I was ordered to stop at KMart and pick up a few games and puzzles for the folks. Happy to contribute, I unhappily stopped at KMart. Unhappily because KMart is a hell hole. Every time I go there, there are unbelievable lines at the cashier. Apparently putting more than one or two cashiers at registers physically hurts management, so they make sure there aren't enough cashiers at any single time.
The parking lot had so few cars in it, I wondered if they were even open. After locating everything I was ordered to procure (coloring books are with office supplies and puzzles are with toys), I made my way to pay for them, with just enough time to get to the hospital.
Heh heh heh.
I had forgotten where I was.
There were exactly two lanes open, one of which had customers bailing out. The register must have started spitting out lungs or bullets or whatever KMart registers spit out (anything but register tape or change). People were fleeing the aisle with arms full of boxes and bags.
I was in the other lane, which had inexplicably ground to a halt, for no apparent reason. Ah, I thought to myself.. I'm at KMart. This is precisely why I don't go there, not even with my wife. Several millenia later, there was only one person in front of me. By this point, I had given up on seeing my wife on time. The lady in front of me had one tiny little box (of fiber bars, don't ask), so this was a slam dunk.
Not so fast, Coloring Book Boy.
The register had stopped spitting out register tape, so the guy allegedly operating the register called a halt to operations (how could one tell?) and threaded the paper into the machine. Or rather, he tried to thread the tape through the machine. He seemed to be a fairly competent cashier, which should have made me suspicious in the first place, so I figured I was in the right line for once. However, the simple act of putting new paper in the register was obviously beyond his meager capabilities. He kept jamming it in, folding it, ripping it and completely failing to get the paper through the slot. I suggested if perhaps he hit it, REALLY HARD, that might help. After a few more failed tries, I told him that I was going to hit it REALLY HARD. I even reached out to help him.
A small cheer went through the line as the cashier finally succeeded in putting more paper in the blasted machine. Fiber Lady paid with some sort of loyalty card and, as a result, somehow wound up getting fourteen receipts (I was terrified the paper would run out again) AND a whole lot of change that required meticulous counting out.
Sweaty and nervous, I stepped up to the plate (my only sports metaphor for the year). Register D00d got me checked out in record time, although he bagged stuff up and never exactly told me how much I owed. Having eventually gotten that out of the way, I ran to the car and took off.
When I got to the hospital, I noticed something was missing. Yes, Register D00d had somehow managed to keep one of the coloring books for himself and I somehow managed to not notice it til an hour later. WHY DID I EVER GO TO KMART?
So yeah, I have a new job.
I'll tell you about it next time.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Carlos Santana Does it Again - or Does He?
I'm sitting here, desperately trying to avoid doing anything productive and being incredibly successful. Part of the traditional activity of being incredibly successful at avoiding doing anything productive is the traditional activity of watching something on tv, or in my case, online. I'm what they call a cord-cutter; a person getting away from cable and using the 'net to watch whatever I want. So up pops a Santana concert and I'm glued to the computer, as a lifelong Santana fan.
And who doesn't love Carlos?
I just have a few questions:
* what happened to his tone? That clear, singing sustain seemed to have evolved(?) into a very dirty, high-gain tone without much brilliance (or all the high end rolled off). His PRS namesake guitar is magnificent and has a small camera attached to the headstock, allowing a very interesting view of him playing (providing you don't get dizzy easily).
* Sarah McLaghlin? (yeah, I know I didn't spell that right). I recognize the weepy tune from an SPCA commercial. Carlos is playing a nylon string guitar. It's attached to a stand for no apparent reason. Is this a mic thing? Sarah is desperately in need of hair.
* Carlos seems to be touring with a small circus, including a number of dancers. I wonder if he thought he'd be as famous as Miley Cyrus if he got dancers. Regardless, I'm thinking this would not be a good idea for me - I can barely walk without tripping over my own feet, no less colliding with a lady with a huge, colorful headpiece and a tiny yellow outfit. Normally this would not be a bad thing (I can take or leave the headpiece) but I have a show to worry about.
* Something called Everlast (the boxing gloves guy) came out to sing a song. He's a bit melodically impaired, not singing so much as growling. The best I can do is Dr. John without all the singing ability.
* Carlos' hat appears to be on backwards. Perhaps, like his shoe line with the dangerously high heels, he's making a fashion statement. I make one fashion statement: I give it the finger.
* Lauryn Hill? The rather large fellow in the tan rug must be Cee Lo. C'mon... Carlos really didn't have to go with this concept of using 'hip' front persons. Judging from album sales, this was apparently a really good idea. Sigh..
* No Santana concert would be complete without his Big Jewish Hit: Oy Vey Como Va.
* The Project J and B: this seems to be largely one guy singing Maria and another guy saying UH-HUH for no apparent reason, with no apparent timing. You must be really cool when you say Carlos Santana in a Carlos Santana song; way too cool for me to understand.
* Rob Thomas: I've actually heard this song. This guy can't sing either but oh boy, he must be hip; he has an earring.
So I mentioned I got a job.
Well, let me be 100% accurate - I am logically, technically, provisionally, traditionally and damn near fully working. Soon. Still waiting on whatever it is they make you wait on before your start date. I think we're off to a really good start: H/R gave me the wrong information and I had to complete all of the paperwork a second time.
I asked about a dress code and the answer was more or less affirmative: there is a dress code but they're not going to tell me what it is. It's also possible that they don't know what the dress code is - I'm new here and don't know squat. It is also possible that there are several dress codes, depending on how far from Manglement and the metal detectors you work. At first I objected to the anal probe but the lady with the gun was pretty cute so I let her continue. Of course they didn't find anything but I may go back and tell her I hid a surprise for her.
Oh dear... I have a conundrum... I'm typing this shit out, being creative, and there's now a huge manhunt on the scanner in the next county [there are helicopters and a Dairy Queen involved]. To top that off, my wife just arrived with some sort of double chocolate ice cream with huge Oreo chunks [click].
Saturday, July 19, 2014
The Unemployment Follies (#2)
So, as you might have guessed, I remain without job. I could go ahead and suggest that I'm only doing this to provide my readers with more of what they expect from this blog (whatever that is) but I'll cop to simply continuing to be without employment (temporarily). Ok, it's only been two weeks or so but I'm an impatient little (&$#er.
As I mentioned, Unemployment Compensation comes in at roughly half of what I was making, resulting in a few small changes. The lavish parties, complete with drugs and loose women, have had to stop. Now it's just allergy meds and the wife. No more buying stuff because it's on sale. I know Guitar Center is having a sale too and I can get a bigger discount if I buy two guitars. Something tells me this logic isn't going to fly with the Shoe Buying Person.
QUANTUM COCKERS
We've even had to cut down on the amount of cat food the dog gets. This is what really hurt.
The last time I left the house, I came back to discover that the dog hadn't eaten or drank anything. We started to wonder if he was like Schroedinger's Dog, wherein he stopped existing when we weren't there to observe him. We devised all sorts of clever scientific tests to answer the question but in the end, we couldn't come up with anything that would prove the case once and for all.
Not to worry. Marshall, as usual, came to our rescue. When we got home, this is what we found:
He had gotten into the recyclables, spreading them out nicely across the floor. There's our PROOF that he still exists when we're not there to observe him. BUT WAIT!!! He not only spread the recyclables out, he bloody sorted them. Most of what you see is soda cans. He separated the soda cans (in the kitchen) from the cat food cans (in the dining room). Each cat food can was lovingly placed in the next room and licked clean of any miniscule bits of cat food that might remain after rinsing them out.
I think we should get him a job in recycling and he can support us for once.
MORE JOB STUFF
So there has been another great rush of recruiter contacts this past week. More jobs in Ohio, Wisconsin and across the state from me. One genius saw my resume and wanted to know if I wanted a job in the exciting field of insurance sales. I put my own resume together and can assure you that the words insurance and sales do not appear ONCE. Are they truly that desperate? Do they get paid for each email sent out?
Some of the Job Nonsense is caused by 'someone' putting out the wrong or incomplete job description. I applied for a network security job that turned out to be helpdesk; installing and supporting programs and being on call to answer users' questions and running the phones. Ummmmm... no. I didn't work my butt off in security so I could get a job placating end users who can't grok rebooting their machines, as well as making sure they're plugged in (no offense to the great and tolerant people who do this).
The next job someone sent me wasn't for security at all; it was for a high level engineering job. Also no. I would hate to repeat what someone told me once about recruiters: some of these folks can't get a job selling used cars (not all of them, of course).
Many have asked me about consulting. Well, since I hit the FULL TIME button on all the applications, I dare you to take a stab at my answer.
Perhaps I should consider that insurance sales gig after all.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure I could make it to a job interview anyway. As I was driving down the street, two out of three lanes had been blocked off by those nice men in their day-glo green t-shirts. It seems that the local authorities released some cash for a Neighborhood Improvement Project. Since our area didn't get hit as badly this winter with potholes, the local government decided to heed the loud cry of the area for parity and take some time to install potholes and a few new trenches in the road. I don't know about you but I feel better about the hood now.
I will also have to allow a lot more time to get to an interview due to my unique ability to make any traffic light turn red, simply by approaching it. My wife looked at me in great surprise at a light, informing me that she always makes this light (except when I'm in the car). As if that weren't enough, when I hit the aforementioned hole-installing project, the guy holding the SLOW sign immediately turned it around to STOP. Some people would see this as a curse. Thus far I'm choosing to see it as amusing (or not see it at all).
NEIGHBORS
My dear neighbor (the good one) wanted to know if the house was going up for sheriff's sale (bless his pointy little head).
My other dear neighbor (the 437 year old crazy demon from Uranus) bitched my wife out because some trees were hanging over the fence and all she ever does is sit on the steps and smoke cigarettes and why doesn't she ever clean anything.. yet shooting a neighbor is still illegal. It's a good thing the Crazy Lady is terrified of me... I'd unleash a verbal barrage that would blast her back into her cave before I even noticed what was coming out of my mouth. It would fail, though, as everything else has, because she's crazy AND mostly deaf.
I finally realized what the best (legal) revenge is: keep the place in disarray. She has nothing better to do than look at our property and seethe because it's not up to her standards. So I'll make sure to keep it that way, while still adhering to the letter of the law.
As I mentioned, Unemployment Compensation comes in at roughly half of what I was making, resulting in a few small changes. The lavish parties, complete with drugs and loose women, have had to stop. Now it's just allergy meds and the wife. No more buying stuff because it's on sale. I know Guitar Center is having a sale too and I can get a bigger discount if I buy two guitars. Something tells me this logic isn't going to fly with the Shoe Buying Person.
QUANTUM COCKERS
We've even had to cut down on the amount of cat food the dog gets. This is what really hurt.
The last time I left the house, I came back to discover that the dog hadn't eaten or drank anything. We started to wonder if he was like Schroedinger's Dog, wherein he stopped existing when we weren't there to observe him. We devised all sorts of clever scientific tests to answer the question but in the end, we couldn't come up with anything that would prove the case once and for all.
Not to worry. Marshall, as usual, came to our rescue. When we got home, this is what we found:
He had gotten into the recyclables, spreading them out nicely across the floor. There's our PROOF that he still exists when we're not there to observe him. BUT WAIT!!! He not only spread the recyclables out, he bloody sorted them. Most of what you see is soda cans. He separated the soda cans (in the kitchen) from the cat food cans (in the dining room). Each cat food can was lovingly placed in the next room and licked clean of any miniscule bits of cat food that might remain after rinsing them out.
I think we should get him a job in recycling and he can support us for once.
MORE JOB STUFF
So there has been another great rush of recruiter contacts this past week. More jobs in Ohio, Wisconsin and across the state from me. One genius saw my resume and wanted to know if I wanted a job in the exciting field of insurance sales. I put my own resume together and can assure you that the words insurance and sales do not appear ONCE. Are they truly that desperate? Do they get paid for each email sent out?
Some of the Job Nonsense is caused by 'someone' putting out the wrong or incomplete job description. I applied for a network security job that turned out to be helpdesk; installing and supporting programs and being on call to answer users' questions and running the phones. Ummmmm... no. I didn't work my butt off in security so I could get a job placating end users who can't grok rebooting their machines, as well as making sure they're plugged in (no offense to the great and tolerant people who do this).
The next job someone sent me wasn't for security at all; it was for a high level engineering job. Also no. I would hate to repeat what someone told me once about recruiters: some of these folks can't get a job selling used cars (not all of them, of course).
Many have asked me about consulting. Well, since I hit the FULL TIME button on all the applications, I dare you to take a stab at my answer.
Perhaps I should consider that insurance sales gig after all.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure I could make it to a job interview anyway. As I was driving down the street, two out of three lanes had been blocked off by those nice men in their day-glo green t-shirts. It seems that the local authorities released some cash for a Neighborhood Improvement Project. Since our area didn't get hit as badly this winter with potholes, the local government decided to heed the loud cry of the area for parity and take some time to install potholes and a few new trenches in the road. I don't know about you but I feel better about the hood now.
I will also have to allow a lot more time to get to an interview due to my unique ability to make any traffic light turn red, simply by approaching it. My wife looked at me in great surprise at a light, informing me that she always makes this light (except when I'm in the car). As if that weren't enough, when I hit the aforementioned hole-installing project, the guy holding the SLOW sign immediately turned it around to STOP. Some people would see this as a curse. Thus far I'm choosing to see it as amusing (or not see it at all).
NEIGHBORS
My dear neighbor (the good one) wanted to know if the house was going up for sheriff's sale (bless his pointy little head).
My other dear neighbor (the 437 year old crazy demon from Uranus) bitched my wife out because some trees were hanging over the fence and all she ever does is sit on the steps and smoke cigarettes and why doesn't she ever clean anything.. yet shooting a neighbor is still illegal. It's a good thing the Crazy Lady is terrified of me... I'd unleash a verbal barrage that would blast her back into her cave before I even noticed what was coming out of my mouth. It would fail, though, as everything else has, because she's crazy AND mostly deaf.
I finally realized what the best (legal) revenge is: keep the place in disarray. She has nothing better to do than look at our property and seethe because it's not up to her standards. So I'll make sure to keep it that way, while still adhering to the letter of the law.
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