Kevin's Watch

Sorus wrote:Is it Friday yet?

It is for me! And only a half-day at that. Then a long weekend. Hooray. (I need it. )

--A

I get to herd cats today. We're having our annual fire drill, and somehow I got sucked into being on the Crisis Team. So I get to go around to all the lawyers' offices and poke my head in and have them tell me, "This is just a drill, right?" and go back to their meeting.

EDITED to avoid a double post: Glad that's over. We only had one lawyer who wouldn't leave her office. I think the rest left early for Starbucks. OTOH, we had cookies and cider waiting in the lobby for us when they let us back in the building. So I guess it was worth walking down 11 floors....

Avatar wrote:

Sorus wrote:Is it Friday yet?

It is for me! And only a half-day at that. Then a long weekend. Hooray. (I need it. )

--A

Lucky. I need it too. This has been such a long week, and I don't even know why.

Ali - that's when you carry one of those flamethrowers from Aliens and tell 'em it's not gonna be a drill if they don't move their arse.

aliantha wrote:I get to herd cats today. We're having our annual fire drill, and somehow I got sucked into being on the Crisis Team. So I get to go around to all the lawyers' offices and poke my head in and have them tell me, "This is just a drill, right?" and go back to their meeting.

EDITED to avoid a double post: Glad that's over. We only had one lawyer who wouldn't leave her office. I think the rest left early for Starbucks. OTOH, we had cookies and cider waiting in the lobby for us when they let us back in the building. So I guess it was worth walking down 11 floors....

We had an earthquake drill a couple of months ago. The building supervisor came around and let us all know we were supposed to have a drill at 10:30. Since that's about the time I have to move my car in the lot across the street I left a little early for that chore.

Good thinking, Damelon!

Sorus wrote:Ali - that's when you carry one of those flamethrowers from Aliens and tell 'em it's not gonna be a drill if they don't move their arse.

Not a bad idea. Wish I'd thought of it. Ah well.

I do have my Flamingo Head of Doom, tho. I should carry that around with me during the next one....

I have no idea what the Flamingo Head of Doom is, but for some reason I'm picturing Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition popping through a door brandishing it. That probably has more to do with my general lack of sleep this week.

Sorus wrote:I have no idea what the Flamingo Head of Doom is...

Me neither, but I am visualizing ali in an ornate pink headdress and standing on one leg in the door of an attorney's corner office, saying "Fly said the flea. Flee said the fly. So they fled through a flaw in the flue."

How's that for sleep deprivation?

I think you win, yeah. I don't know what you win, but hopefully it doesn't involve pink feathers.

Unless you like pink feathers. I don't even know what I'm talking about at this point.

If you guys keep this up, you *might* win the Flamingo Head of Doom.

Basically it's a plastic flamingo head on a stick. The stick is perhaps 18 inches long. There's a trigger on the stick at the opposite end from the flamingo head. When you squeeze the trigger, the flamingo's hinged jaw opens and closes.

I've been known to tell people that I use it to keep my attorneys in line....

Everyone listen up. A good portion of Sorus's stress is due to me and revamping the copy center. I have taken over some of her space and done it without permission. Sorus, I intend to consult with you tomorrow about re-arranging different space and have talked to Kin about moving the customer pickup area into receiving.

On other notes, our regional head of HR was in today. I walked in to start my shift and she treated me like a customer and I laughed and explained who I was and she laughed and felt really bad about not recognizing me. I told her it was probably the fact that the last time she saw me I had short bright red hair and now i have slightly more than shoulder length dark brown hair. Anyway, later during her visit we got a chance to sit and talk about stuff and it went very well. Sorus, she asked a bunch of questions of me about both Berkeley and our store. Especially about Kin and i told her that I thought that Kin would be a great manager and so forth and from her convo I think they are leaning towards promoting him and keeping him in our store for a while which I think would be GREAT! I hope it happens. For him and us both.

Unwork stuff. i left work early only to find that BART had issues so I got home only half an hour before i normally should instead of the hour early I left. I had issues yet again with my clipper card when i went to work. It red flagged and the station agent yet again told me I needed to add money and i told him, NO, I bought the monthly pass, I paid 72 bucks for it with unlimited BART in the city and he said it was reading as a regular pass out of cash. Once again I walked out after they scanned my card, passed it over the entrance reader and was just freaking FINE. So I guess that I buy the monthly pass, it works.... sort of. I have the agent scan it the two to three times a week it denies me access and then lets me in and I should be ok with this. Great. So essentially I get to have approximately two days a week that my transit pass works, the other three I get to have a snarky obnoxious agent tell me to add money when I paid for a monthly pass and then instead of paying I try it again and it works. Great. At least I have this dance routine down. The same station agent who has told me to add money about ten times this month treats me like I am some sort of street crazy. He gave me serious attitude today, telling me, "Ma'am, I told you you need to add money." and I told him, "I told you I bought the monthly pass so why is it that after every time you scan my card with your booth reader my card works again just like I said? Is this my fault?" and when I left the booth I swiped the card and it worked fine and so I did a dramatic arm gesture. I know it was obnoxious but for f--ks sake. I was ten minutes late to work BECAUSE of that guy treating me like I was a crazy and moving in slug time to help me. It's happened enough that next time I am going to request his name and complain. EVERY OTHER BART person I have dealt with when it comes to the card issues has been more than helpful. Ok, end of tirade

aliantha wrote:If you guys keep this up, you *might* win the Flamingo Head of Doom.

Not sure if that's a prize or a threat, but it totally works with the whole Monty Python thing.


edit: and Jenn, your organization has nothing to do with my stress, everything is fine where it is. I'm not even 100% sure why I'm so stressed out, but I have had an extra 1,500+ price changes this week with people scanning outs before I have all the tags up, which leads to writing pages and pages of reports that make me look really, really bad.

Spending an extra 30 seconds trying to figure out where you moved the scanner is not stressful. Spending 30 minutes waiting for someone to finish with a scanner so I can do my job and worrying that the DM is going to walk in and bite off my <random piece of anatomy> is very stressful. Having an inch-thick error report for this week is very stressful. That goes onto my record for years.

The copy center looks awesome. Don't worry about affecting 'my' space - that has changed more times than I can count and it really doesn't bother me.

aliantha wrote:If you guys keep this up, you *might* win the Flamingo Head of Doom.

ZDon't bother warning them. They'll never expect the Pink Flamingo Head of Doom. Nobody expects the Pink Flamingo Head of Doom.

Day off. Feel pretty good. Going for a climb.

--A

my captain seems unable to organize her staff. had a officer quit this week - leaving 1st shift with 5 officers and me (2nd) with 3 officers. so does she drop a c/o down to me? no in fact the next two days i am working ot, with just the one officer. 1st shift will have three officers both days.

other than that - all is bright and cheerful.

danlo wrote:The day seems to be conspiring against against me, but I've noticed if I move really fast I may not only outrun it, but conquer it!!! LATER!!!

quote of the year thus far, albuquerque! i'm snaggin that for my 2011 sig. yahbaby!

Sorus wrote:Is it Friday yet?

tis now!

phew i missed a lot this week not peekin in here!

I switched to Verizon about a week ago from Cricket (a discount carrier), and I just got my first bill.

I know the telecoms companies like to overcharge people, but the bill is literally 50% higher than the price I was quoted in-store. Time to go ***** at them...

Yes, that sounds very much like Verizon Wireless...

Cambo wrote:

aliantha wrote:If you guys keep this up, you *might* win the Flamingo Head of Doom.

ZDon't bother warning them. They'll never expect the Pink Flamingo Head of Doom. Nobody expects the Pink Flamingo Head of Doom.

"Among our diverse weapons are..."

Sooo, today has been good and bad so far.

The bad stuff:
* Ran out of milk, so no cereal for breakfast.
* Fire alarm went off as I was getting ready for work, so I didn't have time to brush my teeth. (Ick.)
* Stopped at the Corner Bakery to get some oatmeal, but they only had a smidge left.
* New software was pushed down to my work computer overnight -- an add-on to Outlook. Some of my attorneys have *massive* mailboxes, all of which had to be indexed by the add-on. It took almost two hours to open Outlook.

The good stuff:
* The fire alarm turned out to be a false alarm.
* The Corner Bakery folks felt so bad about taking my money for the oatmeal when they didn't have a full serving left that they threw in a free bagel.
* Travelin' Guy bought me a latte when he heard how my morning was going, and had the barista draw a heart on top with foam. (Awww!) It had pretty much disappeared by the time he gave it to me, but it's the thought that counts, y'know?

So I guess, on balance, it's been a pretty good day. Just kind of off-kilter.

Just got back from baby appointment with the wife. She is 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. It's gonna be any day, folks.

Having a crazy and awesome couple of days... right now, feeling so thankful for people in my life who have smacked me upside the head and told me things I needed to hear at various points.

One thing is... I've been having minor car troubles taking up much of my time, but it's like "well, this is what I'm supposed to be dealing with right now" and it WORKS... like I'm floating on a cloud, pressing on & doing sensible things. repeatedly. and the problems don't shake me like they would other times - and then ALSO really cool conversations and situations arise that just blow me away. (I've got a ridiculous amount of energy too.)

Also, I just wanted to wish you folks in the southern hemisphere a belated happy first day of spring - wooo-hoo! cambo, av, and your compatriots - your turn has come!

and cags- and by any day... you mean hopefully today or tomorrow- wooo!