Some days, you're just sort of out of sync with the world, you know?
First, I got dissed by someone on the Webstrainer forum--another of Mother's Little Helpers got snotty with me when I pointed out that nagging (I didn't use that word) for a progress report every two weeks was counter-productive when you'd been told, clearly and repeatedly, that it was a project that would take months--not weeks--to complete.
This individual has always given me that feeling--you know the one--the one that says that even though you only "know" each other from a public forum, they don't actually like you.
I dislike them now, as well. I always dislike people who push aggressively to get themselves awarded public recognition. The forum is a volunteer gig--if you think you're entitled to some kind of medal for hanging out there, you're quite wrong and should shut up and go away.*
Anyhow. He dissed me. I checked myself over carefully but aside from a minor feeling of irritation that a grown man (I've seen a picture) could be so childish as to behave in that way on a public forum, I found myself undamaged.
Then Newboss Anais came over with the Argonut Assembly schedule--the timetable for the annual meeting. (Did I mention that? It happens every 18 months or so and is happening in mid-September this year.) It seems that with less than a dozen in-house Café employees left to make a show, they can't give me a bye this time** and I'm on tap for the whole affair.
That means from "after work" on Thursday until 9 or 10pm (or whenever I can sneak out).
From 8:00 am on Friday until 5:00 pm. (I turned down the offer of a free! ($10) ticket to an optional event, a baseball game Friday night.)
8:00 am on Saturday through the dinner and big party--say 10:00pm (or sooner if, again, I can sneak out).
A meeting I don't care about with people I don't like at 9:00 am on Sunday until 1:00. Then helping with the clean-up until whenever that's done.
My actual part in the festivities, for the record, runs from 2:00 on Friday to 4:30 on Friday. 2-1/2 hours. The other 30+ hours I'm basically just window dressing. Part of the crowd scene. I'm one of the Noises Off.
NewBoss Anais kept assuring me how interesting I'd find it all--with that shamefaced look people get when they have to make you do something stupid and they would rather not but they have to.
For the record, aside from firmly declining to be treated to a baseball game I could not care less about seeing, I was cooperative, even amiable about it all.
I didn't fuss or mutter or roll my eyes or indulge in any of the other childish behaviors I'm prone to*** when I'm being made to do something I don't want to do.
I also declined to be paid for the hours.
Yes, seriously.
With what I'm earning an hour at this place these days, what difference would it make? Based on my recent experience with the bonus, it would all be eaten up in extra taxes, anyhow. I'm on salary, too. I don't think NewBoss Anais realized it but you really can't pay salaried people for extra hours.****
I got, instead, something of much more interest to me--a couple of comp days. I plan to use them getting caught up on the freelance work I won't be doing while I'm making like a stage prop.
Sheesh.
I'm awfully glad that Rapunzel and Pippi are coming to town before the Assembly. I won't have to worry about being too tired to have any fun!
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* I know I'm in the minority on this one. Most people seem to be very keen on awards and medals and recognition.
I'm not unusually modest or anything. I'm actually highly egotistical. There are maybe a handful of people in the world whose good opinion I value. Other than them, my opinion is the only one that matters to me. I certainly can't be bothering with the opinions of the five billion nitwits on the planet.
(I also have an abiding suspicion that people who tell me I'm wonderful are just too stupid, or too nice, to know better, or be honest.)
I also think that "recognition" you have to force out of people instead of it being a spontaneous gesture of appreciation is hardly worth having.
** Last year my attendance was limited to one day and a dinner that evening and even that felt interminable, in spite of me leaving the dinner table to "step down the hall" and taking myself home instead.
*** It's different. My desk is not a public internet forum.
**** If they pay you, then it means you're hourly, not salaried, and they can't work you more than 40 hours a week without paying you extra and I'm a moron because I just realized that 34 hours of extra salary might actually have been worth having not to mention the idea that in the future I could, with a clear conscience, work a 40-hour week and then walk away from it regardless of what was left undone. Except that I wouldn’t and there's no reason pretending I would.
8/23
What I think is rude is people who say, "Oh, make this! Do us a favor! Make this for us! Cook us this!" And you do and it takes two hours and that's fine because you like to do a favor for people but then you bring it in for them and they don't eat it.
Admittedly, it's not my best effort ever, but common courtesy would suggest that the person who came to me personally and asked for it would have at least tasted it, don't you think?
I wasted two solid hours of my Sunday evening yesterday, making stupid peach cobbler for these people and not one of them has so much as tasted it. Can't be because everyone is one a diet because someone brought in brownies to celebrate Tyro's birthday and everyone glommed onto those.
I'm going to take the pan home tonight and dump it in the disposal.
What's also obnoxious is when you have the cable people out twice in a week and your $100+ a month television service is still wonky. I called them again today and they'll be out tomorrow.
We've actually been trying to get this fixed for months. That part is my fault. I kept forgetting to call them back after they came out and didn't fix it. I should also have been demanding that they put a new cable on (which is what one of their phone support people said we needed) this last couple of times. This time, I'm not even going to let the guy in the front door if he's not carrying a piece of cable.
I'd like to post this short but whiny blog entry, but our internet is down. That, too, is irritating.
8/27
The cable guy came, worked, and went.* The channel I remembered there were problems on is, if I'm not mistaken, fixed. Apparently there was another channel that the R.C. likes that was also picture-wonky. I did not know/remember, I did not have the cable guy check it when it was out, and it is not fixed. Now I have to call them back out.
I meant to call them yesterday but got distracted by, you know, work.* *
Picking a day will be tricky. I have plans for tomorrow morning and so does the R.C.* * * We have very busy weekends planned, so if they offer us one of their Saturday morning visits, that's out.
I'm having my hair done Monday afternoon, so already enough time out of the office that day.
I also have to schedule it around the routine/expected follow-up visit from the bug man. He is coming on Wednesday. (Apparently the Issue we had in June is one that requires a series of follow-up misting, sprays, and general poisonous deluges or the hideous little monsters could make a reappearance.)
I sent the R.C. an email yesterday. If One More Thing happens, we are moving to somewhere that is not broken.
This afternoon they are turning everyone loose half an hour early to attend the annual (semi-annual?) (they did it once before, anyhow) company picnic. Since it's not yet noon and the temperature outside is already over 90, I'm thinking that I'm going to take the option for this optional event and not go.
I would go ahead and post this now--it's certainly long enough, what with all the topics I had to whine about, but our internet is out.
Later - we have access!
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* Did he appear with cable in hand, I hear you asking? He did! When I opened the door, he was standing there with twelve feet of cable!
** Of both the office and freelance variety. In spite of my firm vow to take on no more freelance clients, I heard myself weakly agreeing to take on creating and managing a campaign for CEO Jason's new spousal unit. (FWIW, I stopped to figure out the other day that is all the accounts I freelance for paid me as much as Bernie pays? I'd be almost ready to quit having a full-time job right now.) (Not that I would. Quit, I mean. Not right now, while the temperature is topping 90 every day and the office has central air while my apartment does not.)
(Also? CEO Jason came back to my desk later and lectured me because I don't charge enough for my freelance work. Sheesh. I know that, okay?)
*** The R.C. is buying a pair of pants and having her hair done. I am working on a big chunk o'the Boxes To Buckets project that urgently needs to be done this weekend, for various reasons that don't need going into at this juncture.
Having a little trouble with that this week. I made massive (radical) changes to the 'Nut campaigns late last week and now all I can do is bite my nails and wait for data to accumulate.
As NewBoss Anais reminded me a few minutes ago, there's one part of month-end reporting I forgot to do last week. I'm going to start on it in a minute, but thought I'd catch up on my blogging first.
This past weekend was adventure-free. That's good and bad, I guess.
I worked on the storage project (Boxes-To-Buckets - I'm dumping all of those decaying cardboard boxes in favor of keeping the books I have in storage in cleaner plastic buckets and yes I know plastic kills the planet but I am childless, so I've already done Mother Earth a big favor in this lifetime) on Saturday and went to Target to buy some shampoo, then to JoAnne's to buy some thread. Whoopee!
This week I've been thinking about weekends. Now that I'm securely medicated to overcome my slacker thyroid's disinclination to produce, I've decided that it's time to Do Things on the weekends. Shopping has, for me, a limited amusement value. If I need something, then I'm interested in shopping, but window shopping--shopping just to pass time, is not amusing. I am old and don't have that much time left.*
This city is full of museums and parks and oddball little neighborhoods and whatnot. I've decided that it's time to start becoming acquainted with some of them.
The Tut exhibition is, IIRC, the first time I've been in a museum here in two years. Downright embarrassing. I can't even remember the last time I went to a movie, even though I like going to movies. I think it was that ridiculous Sherlock Holmes mess I saw on New Year's Day.
I am making a list. Places to go and things to do. (I'm big on making lists. Not so good at the follow-through.)
I'd like to tour the Governor's mansion but that only happens on Tuesdays. Sigh. I want to go to the Molly Brown house and I haven't been to the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys in years.**
Ditto for the Colorado History Museum, but they closed it. (Not permanently--they're moving to a new facility. I'll miss that old building.) It might sound odd but I think the Denver Firefighters Museum could be interesting.
And tea! I haven't been out for afternoon tea in ages. I'd like to try Wystone's or House of Commons. (I think I've been to House of Commons, but not for several years.)
Sigh. I'd better go do some work.
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* I had my annual appointment with the eye doctor a couple of weeks ago and now I have to wear reading glasses at work, when I look at the computer screen. I'm becoming such a geezer.
** Do not diss the humble comma. It adds coherence to your communication.
That's how I feel today.
Not physically, but mentally. I have 20 days (while the 'Nuts are largely absorbed in the busy season rush) to decide what, if any, changes I should make to their advertising based on data from the new website structure. I realized about ten minutes ago that 60 days just isn't enough data to base any major alterations on, so now I'm sitting here, pretending I'd be doing something worthwhile with my time if I weren't at the office.
Fuss. Fuss. Fuss. So much to do, so little motivation when I'm not at work. Drawing to practice (I'm going to get back into it), knitting projects to work on, books to read, dvds to watch, recipes to experiment with, etc. Sigh.
I have a box o'books and a set of dvds ready to send to the L-i-K-S. Fortunately I'm a world-class procrastinator and I got them packed up but did not get them sent this weekend. "Fortunately" because I'd forgotten she was moving. She sent me her new address this morning. I'll re-address the box tonight and, with a bit of effort, get it to the post office one day this week.
Saturday, I got up and worked for a couple of hours.
Then the R.C. and I decided to do something together--something different. We headed over to Northfield (in old Stapleton, where the airport used to be) to check out the new-style "outdoor walking mall" they'd built there.
That was a bit of an adventure. Owing to an unfamiliarity with that part of the highway, we missed the poorly marked exit we'd been heading for and wound up circling about 220 compass degrees around our destination before we found a through street. (This, mind you, for a mall that is right beside the highway. When you drive past, it looks to be about a 30-second hop to get there.**)
I'll give them this--parts of the area can easily be walked. The big anchor stores (Target, Macy's, JCPenny's, etc.) would be a bit of a hike, especially if you made heavy purchases, but they're reasonably close. (Less than a quarter-mile.) The walking part is mostly non-chain stores or smaller, boutique kinds of stores. We tried on many things. The R.C. was tempted by (and fell for) a necklace. I bought a pair of $8 shorts.
The day was notable only for the restaurant we found, an Asian place called Ling and Louie's. The R.C. had the teriyaki beef (made with filet mignon) and I had the teriyaki chicken. Both were absolutely delicious. The R.C. was feeling a touch delicate, digestion-wise, so I demanded both her and my leftovers to take home.
I got 'em, too, and I've been enjoying them every day since. (You know what I call value? I call a $22 meal "value" when two people have lunch, then there are leftovers for five or six more meals.)
Adventure-wise, the R.C. was pretty much done but I was still eating (as in, still chewing) when the meal ended. Our Little Server Boy showed up at the table with our leftover/takeout boxes and proceeded to shovel the remainder of our food into them.
I had my chopsticks still in my hand. I was still chewing. What part of that picture do you think he interpreted as, "she is done eating now"?
In my next life, I want a more useful superpower than the ability to send service staff nutsoid the moment I appear on the horizon.
(This morning I was passing by some building HVAC techs here at the office and one of them stopped me and asked if it would be okay if they turned the A/C off for ten minutes to install a new part. Why were they asking me?)
Saturday evening was the little treat from 1977, Tentacles. Long-time sufferers on this blog know of my fondness for finding old monster movies--the cheesier the better. What I like is creature features.
This one was bad--but not really in a good way, you know? ( I mean, I had my doubts when the body count was initiated with an eight month-old baby.) I won't ruin it for you, but I did want to mention how very amusing and unusual some aspects were.
For instance, there was almost no incidental music. It's so ubiquitous in moves these days that you hardly notice it's there, but I have learned that you notice if it isn't. It was difficult to stay in the plot--when nothing in particular is happening onscreen and it's not happening in complete silence. It takes very little time before your mind starts to wander.
Also? I know nothing about the director or most of the actors, but I'm assuming the director was either terminally pretentious or g*a*y*. In place of the scantily clad female bodies that litter the screens of today's low-budget films, we got--legs. Lots of legs. Young male legs. (I swear, there was one part of the movie where the camera hadn't panned above a young man's calves for fifteen minutes.) Yes, they were nice calves and I did appreciate the opportunity to admire them, but it's more difficult to figure out who's who if you're never shown anyone's face.
The movie ended with two attractive young men going off together to start a new life.
O-kay.
Sunday, I got up and worked for three or four hours. Then it was Chore Day. I did some sewing and mending that's been piling up. (Just the odd droopy hem or missing button.) I cleaned in a half-hearted way. Porcelain in the kitchen and bath. Floors ditto. Some dusting. Cleaning counters. Tidying up piles o'piled-up-stuff.
Bein's* as I'm back on the diet, I also whacked up a pre-cooked turkey breast and a quarter of a watermelon and got them ready for weekday lunches. Those, a non-fat yogurt, and a baked potato (with salsa, not butter) are what I eat during the week, during the day. If it wasn't for binging in the evenings, I'd be thin!
With my bonus I also indulged myself in a few inexpensive "just for me" DVDs and a couple of books. Sunday is also (as I've mentioned) Being Happy day, so I started one of my new books and watched one of my new dvds.
Sunday evening's creature feature was Empire of the Ants. As a movie based on an H. G. Wells story, it really should have been better than it was. I suspect that that first 45 minutes where we established the sexual and financial peccadilloes of various characters was a Hollywood addition. I do give them credit for trying to establish some characterization, but it meant that the real heart of the story (I won't spoil it for you) was crammed willy-nilly into a half-hour or so block of time at the end of the movie. That block would have made a great movie.
Okay, that killed 30 minutes.
What else?
Yesterday the A/C went out here at the office and I went home to work when the temperature in here reached about 90 or 92. Then, last night, it got so cool that I had to sleep with my window shut. Very odd weather.
Oh! And I've introduced (via email) Gidget and Bernie. I have informed both of them that from now on, the initial and client-contact parts of Bernie's accounts are her problem, not mine.
That's a load off my mind.
I'm pretty sure I've actually done some interesting things recently, but I can't remember any of them right now.
On the calendar hanging by my desk, the 28th of this month is marked as, "28z" and it's bothering me. It's not a holiday (those are marked differently) and it's not something I can find on any other month. Just August 28th.
28z
28z
28z!
28z!
No matter how you punctuate it, it remains insignificant.
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* L-i-K-S - I did that just for you. Heh.
** Driving around Denver involves remembering two rules.
1) You can see it, but you can't get there from here; and
2) If you haven't been here before, we don't want you back.
Late last week, NewBoss Anais noticed that the candy bowl was getting low and brought in a bag o'treats for refilling it. I told her that wasn't necessary--that I was willing to pay for the candy and that I didn't mind that others were eating it because that's why I put it there.
The candy others like is not usually the candy I like. That's why I can keep it at my desk--the 'popular' stuff is rarely tempting to me. NewBoss Anais did ask me what I like, so I explained that I generally only eat Dove dark chocolate Promises and that keeping the bowl full of them would cost a fortune (not to mention making me fat).
When she brought the bag of bowl candy, she brought me a Dove dark chocolate Promise bar as well.
She brought me a latte a couple of days later, just for no reason.
I've never had a boss who was so thoughtful.
It's weird.
Today, the back of my head (you know the part I mean--the part that's never interested in what's going on right now but is always off on some tangent of its own) has been pondering decorating.
When and if The Gidget Co ever actually turns into a working concern, I'll be moving over there full-time. However, me being me, I'm not that excited about the idea of 'working from home.' I like having an office to come to.* I find the office ambience appropriate. A 'work' desk and the horrible fluorescent lighting and the bad coffee--all of it--spells 'work' to my brain. I can be productive--amazingly productive--working from home for a day or two on a special project, but for the day-to-day slog, you can't beat the familiar office environment.
When The Gidget Co gets going and is making us all rich, I'm going to want some kind of 'office' space.
I've been musing over the little studio apartments our complex has. I could walk to work, always an attractive idea. I don't really need 400 feet for an office just for me, but that includes the kitchen and the bathroom--both necessities. What's left is probably just enough to stave off claustrophobia.
In my imagination, I've been decorating one of them up to use as an office. Desks, bookcases, computer, coffee pot. The default carpeting in the complex is a horrible sort of beige that's perfect for an office. I have books that need to be on an office bookshelf. I plan to have desk space separate from the computer desk--sometimes you have papers you need to spread out. I want a giant white board for large-scale thinking and to accommodate my lousy handwriting. A smaller one for appointments and such. (As a rule, I don't appoint.)
I have a rich imaginary life.
I was sitting here working on a new 'Nut campaign that's not performing up to my expectations, and inspecting various imaginary lamps for the one that best-suited my imaginary décor when NewBoss Anais came by with news.
Sadly, what with one thing and another (mostly, I'm assuming the new website), we turned a profit last quarter. Not only that, but we exceeded our target/budget for the quarter.
That means I'm actually getting a bonus with Friday's paycheck. A significant one--running into four digits.
They're making it very difficult to leave this place.
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* I also like being able to leave my work at the end of a work day.
So, the new website is live and more-or-less debugged. Leads are up massively, while the cost we pay for each lead is down massively. It needs more time to prove the trend.
It's the busy season, so the 'Nuts have less time to be annoying at the moment.
I'm running some experiments on significant bid changes on several campaigns but not enough time has passed to produce any meaningful results, so all I can do there is sit on my hands for another week or two.
I've run some mid-month reports--pulling the first two or three weeks' worth of data for a month in advance makes the month end project move a lot faster.
Earlier this week I put together a spreadsheet to compare and contrast campaign performance, month by month, over the last three years.
Right now I'm waiting on another report to run, so I can ponder lead generation and spending for individual days of the week over the last couple of years.
Basically, I'm bored.
The Argonut Café had a concept that they should "develop" territories and that those proven revenue sources would not only be more attractive to buyers but that we could make money from them in the meantime. Not a bad plan at all.
Problem is, it takes resources to run a project like that. They (re-)hired a former 'Nut owner (a close friend of CEOJason's) to manage one concept location in FL and one in IL. It was all working reasonably well until he decided to go do something different earlier this week. In theory, CEO Jason should have stepped up (he's a former 'Nut Afield, himself), but he's busy planning his forthcoming wedding* and, IIRC, moving to a new house, so consequently unavailable.
All that was left was the only experienced call center guy we had on staff. (He's been here for several years, in various capacities.) Now he's gone for the next week--or maybe two--taking over management of the IL location. I have no idea who is handling the FL one. The other call center sales guy, Mr. Un-nicked, is being asked to take his comprehensive 90 days or so of experience and take over the entire call center--which now consists of him and whatever time the front office staff can spare from their own two-fulltime-jobs-and-counting duties.
I'm staying out of it. I'm not that bored.
I'm also a bit reluctant to expose to the other Café employees just how little I've really learned about this place in the last 2-1/2 years.* *
Also, two days of boredom isn't a trend.
It is kind of tedious, though.
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* Seriously? It's a month away, so hardly "imminent." Also? (A) he's a guy, so how much "wedding business" does he really have, anyhow; and, (B) it's a second wedding for both, so not, as far as I can tell, a big shindig.
* * It's a fallacy to think that "industry knowledge" is invaluable in all fields. I haven't bothered to learn about any of the half-dozen industries I manage advertising accounts for. So far, it hasn't been a problem.
I blog infrequently these days. Sorry. Between answering questions on the Webstrainer forum, trying to remember to update my 'professional' blog, doing my actual job, making occasional forays into managing my freelance accounts, and making time in my evening schedule for some fun/hobby/leisure amusements, the days are just packed.
I took Monday and Tuesday off this week--spent the mornings on the aforementioned freelance accounts and the afternoons puttering around, being happy. (I've rather slacked off on my vow to work on those accounts every Saturday and Sunday morning, to keep up with the workload, and found myself in need of some concentrated hours of effort.)
I'm spending some of the time saved by not working so much on playing. Reading, study, and gaming. At the moment, I have so many DS games going simultaneously that I'm having trouble keeping them straight. One hidden-object game, the Harry Pott&r Lego game, Rune Factory, and at least three Harvest Moon games. (A new HM game was just released--must get a copy!)
My recent visit to the Tutankhamen exhibit has reawakened my interest in ancient history. I'm debating getting a video course on the subject but my wish list for courses is already longer than I'll have time to study between now and the end of the year.
Just not enough hours in the day.
Today was the (more-or-less) monthly 'Nut staff meeting. Very little to be discussed.
CEOJason who, IIRC, has been divorced for about six months is remarrying next month. (Weird situation that I don't feel inclined to try and describe.) They want to have a party for him at the office. They also want to schedule the company summer picnic. I will no doubt attend the first and skip the second. (Summer has arrived in Colorado and the temps are in the mid-90s every day.)
I may and/or may not have mentioned previously that CEOJason's younger (by a decade or more) sister is our summer intern here at the Argonut Café. NewBoss Anais is getting most of the benefit of her assistance, which is as it should be--the marketing department has a ton of stuff that could stand to be done but with only two of us left standing, all we can handle is what's most urgent in any week.
This 19ish, maybe 20ish, girl is in college--apparently one of those military programs where she'll be an officer when she graduates--or in line to get into one of those programs, I'm not really sure. She's majoring in marketing so who knows what she thinks she's going to be when she gets out.
I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm not in love with her. She has flashes of humanity--where she seems quite like anyone else--but by and large she's a bit too taken with her own pretty young blondness (she wears her hair long and throws it around a lot, especially when no one is paying her any attention) and her smug satisfaction with her life of privilege. Her expression alternates between sulky (Maybe this summer internship wasn't her own idea?) and vaguely disgusted, as though she was smelling something nasty.
I noticed this expression most especially when she was looking at me today. It struck me as odd since I haven't had much contact with her up until now. We were introduced. She sat in on one local 'Nut meeting and came along when NewBoss Anais and I took a new 'Nut out for lunch one day. Until today, I think that was the extent of our personal contact.
No, Little Smellita didn't really loom large on my horizon until today's (more-or-less) monthly 'Nut staff meeting when she and the heretofore un-nicked sales guy created a minor but obnoxious disturbance muttering about how people thought "free" health care was "free" only because someone else paid for it.
First, the sheer bad manners. Second, the rudeness of dissing the guy, who happens to be Mr. Un-nicked's boss, who had made the joke about the company someday providing health care benefits to employees again. Third, the gross inappropriateness of someone related to the CEO airing their political views in a company meeting.
I shushed Mr. Un-nicked so that the meeting could continue and ignored Smellita.
Yes, the temptation to point out the arrogance of a wealthy college girl--who went from daddy's health care plan to a government-funded health care plan--scoffing at a twenty-something widower with two small children to raise who is finding the expense of health care for his family to be a financial burden was strong, but I resisted. Politics do not belong in the workplace.
There really are days when I ask myself if how committed I am to making this group of rightwing-leaning 'Nuts successful.
The holiday weekend is behind us and I've been buried neck-deep in projects (of my own creation) all morning, but I did want to take a moment to chat with y'all.
There's a guy outside with a shovel. He's shoveling. I stopped him and told him that he shouldn't go to other people's buildings to shovel. If he wants to shovel, he can shovel at home. (I really do think it's kind of late in the season to be putting in new planters, but whatever.)
Rearranging furniture
Friday, I was released from vile servitude (it isn't, of course) at an unreasonably early hour (based on the expectations of those who pay me) and took the opportunity to swing by Target on the way home. I'm abandoning my Ratty Old Cardboard Boxes system of storing books in favor of tidy plastic bins. (Ecologically irresponsible, I know, but there are still times when I buy plastic without stopping to think first.) I bought one each in two sizes so I could test which one will make me the happiest, along with a little chest I wanted for my closet.
What with all the clearing out in the last five years, reorganizing the books I have in storage isn't quite the massive project it once would have been, but I am nevertheless determined to make the whole thing as much work as possible. I'm pondering--do I store--by size, age, or genre? What about authors who wrote in multiple genres--do I store them together or separately? How do I label?
Once home, the in-apartment part of the project went--surprisingly faster than I expected. The R.C. did not escape her place of employment early in the day, so I wasn't slowed down by someone constantly demanding that I not lift/push/carry/shift/shove various items. In two hours, I finished the entire closet, except for getting that now-unloved industrial-strength shelving carried downstairs and tagged "free to a good home."
After my next paycheck (the last one went for rent and part of what I owe for the new mattress) I'm going to treat myself to one of the two bookcases I still need in the bedroom. BTW, after more thought, I realized that the excitingly constructed "lifting shelves" option would only be a cleanliness improvement if I actually unloaded all the bottom shelves and cleaned under them each week, a thing that is highly unlikely to happen, so I'm going with shelves that match the pricey one I already bought. I may run amok and buy both of them at once--I would really like to have that bedroom project checked off the list, you know?
Freelance
Gidget emailed me on Friday saying she had a new client she needed a campaign for. I got it up and ready to go yesterday morning. She's such a pleasure to work with. She gave me the budget, the area to target, and the market. That's all the "help" she offered. 3-1/2 hours, that's all it took.
It took me less time to conceive of and create this campaign--in an industry unfamiliar to me--from scratch than it did to write the email for Bernie's Funhouse client a week ago, justifying the campaign edits I made that actually brought about two leads for them.
Other than that, I did virtually no freelance work this weekend--I glanced at things a couple of times, then moved on with my life. I'm just so over Bernie's boys. (They're all unreasonable because the two campaigns have been live for a month and they haven't sold any of their half-million dollar s/w yet--they want to know what they got for their money.)
I still want to fire him. I'm going to tell him I've given up the idea of going freelance full time. I think that's the only way I'll be able to go away.
Weekending
So, what did I do this weekend? Well, I had fun!
Saturday, a bit of shopping. Target (to exchange the bin lids for the right size), the bed & bath store (duvet cover), drugstore (make-up), and Chinese food for lunch. Doesn't sound that exciting, I guess, but it was hot outside and the stores were well air-conditioned. On a hot summer day, that's pretty much enough to keep me satisfied.
I bought some "privacy film" which is technically in violation of the apartment's rules but I put it on my bedroom window anyhow. I really like the light I get with the blinds up, but there's another building right outside my window and I don't like feeling like a goldfish in a bowl.
Sunday, the R.C. and I took the light rail downtown and strolled up the 16th St Mall to the museum. The weather was perfect--just enough cloud cover to make walking outdoors a complete delight. We loitered through the Tutankhamen exhibit (fascinating) which was not as crowded as I feared but was still too busy for me to really stop and stare to the extent I wanted. Then we saw an all-too brief 3D movie abut the building of the ancient temples. We weren't too good to stop by the children's educational center, either, because that's where the x-ray movie/display of Tut's mummy was being shown, with an explanation of what science's examination of the remains has told them so far.
After that, we strolled back to the Mall for lunch (a wicked indulgence in the caloric offerings of Johnny Rockets), and visited a bookstore where, I'm proud to report, I bought nothing. (I didn't fail to find things I wanted. I just reminded myself that I'm no longer allowed to buy new books if I already have a single, unread book in my "new" pile.) (Also? No new books until I buy new bookshelves.)
Then home--and just in the nick of time as the looming clouds condensed into a thunderstorm, the first in a line of storms that rumbled and banged overhead for the rest of the day.
We watched a movie. Giant snails!
Yesterday, I did the freelance work and then took advantage of my room being almost-but-not-quite the way I'm trying to get it by puttering around for most of the day. I knitted, read, watched DVDs, listened to some of my mythology course, did a bit of laundry and some cleaning. It's an aimless sort of process that I refer to as, "being happy." I spent yesterday mostly being happy. (Yes, some eating was involved.)
Hope your weekend was happy as well!
The causes are varied.
#1 - My trusty thumb drive, the one with a ton of invaluable whatnot about my freelance work on it, died on me last week. Since I hadn't copied over the data since the end of April, I'm missing 60 days worth of information--some of it pretty significant. Sigh.
That's the aggravation that's really been preying on my mind the for the last week.
#2 - Due to circumstances beyond my control (sometimes you have to just be at peace with the idea of interruptions) (disinterest and disinclination were also factors) I haven't done much to manage the 'Nut campaigns in the last couple of weeks. I ran one reports this morning and there are red flags all over the place. Fortunately, it's the busy season right now, so I'm not getting enraged phone calls, but I'm determined to spend the next three days getting caught up. Sigh.
Only three days, though, because after that I have to do month-end reporting.
#3 - I've been in the middle of a project of trying to get my bedroom actually organized and tidy. (I believe I droned on about the dumping of that last plastic bookcase a few months ago.) What I need now are two more of the more expensive wood bookcases, but having just spent $900 on a new mattress, I'm having trouble giving myself permission to go ahead and buy them, so I can move ahead with the project.
- #3a - But there's a different bookcase that I saw this weekend that attracted me and I'm thinking of getting it instead. The shelves fold up when they're empty. That would be very useful on the bottom--it would make cleaning under it much easier, no need to completely unload the thing and try to move it--just empty the one shelf. I really like that idea. Sadly, I don't like the look of that bookcase nearly as much, and I'm not at all convinced it won't look cheap and nasty next to my other one.
I'll probably stick with my original selection and keep using a long-handled gizmo to get under them, but the image of myself just flipping the shelf up and swizzing the vacuum cleaner into the space lingers on.
- #3b - Part of the Great Room Reorganization is the Great Closet Clear-out. I'm shocked and astonished to have to report that I actually found another giant garbage bag full of "stuff" to throw out this past weekend. I'm long past understanding where it's all coming from.
#4 - Bernie still refuses to be fired. I billed him a week or so ago for the first few weeks of the work with the Funhouse gang and he paid me - I got a check on Friday. Since I used to work for him, I know that he normally pays invoices only on the 10th! His promptness this time was very suspicious.
I did almost no freelance work this weekend. I had intended to do a number of things, but Residual Aggro over the behavior of the Funhouse gang left me largely disinclined. (Also, yes, I got all distracted by cleaning, laundry, and throwing out trash, all of which I did in a big way. I think I can now officially declare Spring Cleaning as done. I can honestly say that that apartment--at least, the parts of it I'm responsible for cleaning--has not been this clean in a couple of years. Clearing out some clutter so I could get to various nooks and crannies to clean them was very satisfying.)
#5 - I bought some new jeans a while back--maybe six weeks ago. I may have to throw them away. In spite of repeated washings, they smell. They're fine in the washer and when they come out of the dryer, but then a few hours later there's a weird smell--the R.C. thinks it's like gasoline, but it smells like fireworks (gunpowder) to me. I searched around online--a number of people have posted about this in the last five years and the general consensus is that it gets less obnoxious in a few years, but never really goes away.*
Last night I got my PJs out of the closet where they'd been hanging next to the jeans and I realized that the PJs had picked up Smell from the jeans.
I'm really not comfortable going around smelling.
#6 - When I arrived at the office this morning, I immediately noticed that all the doors have fancy new deadbolts on them. (Must remember to get a key.) Clearly that conversation I overhead a week or so ago, between two people from a different office suite, about breaking in to offices was not just random chat. If that's what happened, it's the second break-in this building has had in the last two or three months.
It's sort of peculiar--there are no retail or cash-based businesses in the building and no pharmaceutical offices of any kind. I can't figure out what someone would break into this building for. If there had been wholesale removal of, for instance, computer equipment, I'm sure word would have gotten around, but I haven't head anything like that. (In fact, I've heard nothing--I hate it when there are Unusual Happenings and I'm left in the dark.)
It's possible, of course, that this is related to the previous d-e-a-t-h threat event.
4:00 p.m. update
For anyone who cares? #2, above? I got through 3 campaigns today.
What prevented me from working today, you ask?
30 minutes lost to a follow-up project from last week's issue of the 'Nut News.
An 11:30 lunch I forgot I promised to attend (Obligatory Coworker Bonding) that I got free from at 1:15.
Then a 2:00 conference call--I appeared on time and waited 15 minutes, only to be told it was being rescheduled to 2:30. At 2:30 it was rescheduled to 3:30. At 3:30 one guy dialed in and chatted about his personal life until 4:00 when he and NewBoss Anais decided the remaining participant wasn't going to appear and we' d have to reschedule it for tomorrow.
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* No one knew the cause, although the obvious culprit is the particular dye being used. Personally, I suspect some sekrit government project to experiment on us all. Or, you know. some kind of border fumigation/extermination process.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:02 PM | Comments (6)Today, I am not wigging out. Not. I am determined to be a calm person.
By and large, I had a calm weekend. As if to prove that I actually had been under stress, I slept in until 10:00 Saturday morning. Later, I went to Target (laundry soap, Kleenex, etc.) and Michaels ($5 on sewing stuff) and that's pretty much it. I did some laundry and a little cleaning. I barely worked at all--a couple of hours.
You'd think I'd be better rested today but we're at the time of year when it doesn't really start cooling off outside until 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. and since I can't fall asleep until it cools off, I'm starting this week already down 2-3 hours on sleep.
Still. Not wigging out, which is good.
We believed we were now living in an infestation-free zone. As I believe I've already whined about at length, we have scrubbed, sprayed, vacuumed, brushed, and laundered--over and over and over. We have not seen any vermin since that first twelve-hour period, and certainly not since sprayer man sprayed us last Wednesday.
I am bug, bite, and freak out-free, but the R.C. has been bitten twice, so I called the apartment people today and asked for a follow-up this Wednesday.
Which does mean, yes, that tomorrow evening I have to unload all of the bottom shelves on all the bookcases again so the sprayer man can get behind them, empty the floor of the hall closet and the floor of my closet for the same reason, pile it all on the one available surface (this is not an apartment that abounds in empty table-tops--or even an abundance of table-tops) and then on Wednesday morning the beds have to be stripped so we can heave the mattresses up to lean against the walls and I have to pull the living room furniture out to the middle of the floor.*
On the plus side, no one can claim the blasted apartment is not clean.
I don't know what kind of vermin we're talking about. It can't be the B-bug because the R.C. got bit once while stretched out in the middle of the brightly lit living room floor, reading a book.
It can't be the Carpet Ones I had them spray for last week because the R.C. says she didn't feel the bite happen. One of those Carpet Ones bit me that first night--trust me, you couldn't miss that, especially if you were awake. (Think of being stuck carelessly with a large, dull needle.)
Also, Bernie refuses to be fired, even though I sent him an email last week saying to find someone else. Instead, he called today to offer me three more crazies clients and also to offer to come down to Denver so I can lecture him on setting client expectations. (He remains very eager to have me freelancing full-time. How do you tell someone who prides themselves on being a "marketer" that their skill-set and knowledge are inadequate to provide the necessary support to enable you to work for them?)
Tonight, I have (rescheduled) plans to get together with friends. I need a night out so badly.
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* I am not going to start on the project this evening. We did all of this three days in advance the last time and I'm still tired just thinking about what a PitA it was trying to live around the furniture instead of with it.
I am having far too much life these days.
'Nutwise, we continue to suspect serious problems with data collection for the new websites. Unfortunately, the guy primarily responsible for the code is off on his honeymoon, so all we can do is to collect questions until he returns. Things are going to the wrong place, winding up in the home office because the system can't figure out where else to send them, or seeming to disappear into thin air before magically reappearing hours later.
I'm helpless without the reporting tools I need. Things might look wrong, but if I can't get the data I need, I have no way of figuring out if they are wrong. This is a very seasonal business. Are the performance changes we're seeing related to seasonality or are we a disaster ticking toward total meltdown?
I really don't want to think about it.
Also 'Nutwise, me taking on the Ontarians campaign has proven to be a problematic suggestion, involving political and financial complications I was previously unaware of.
Because the 'corporate' office for our northernmost neighbors found it easier to pay for the advertising themselves than to convince the Ontarians 'Nuts to kick in, the individual Ontarians have come to view lead generation as SEP. They expect a magic flow of free and constant leads.
Because said corporate office is now tired of funding the advertising, they're reluctant to keep paying.* They want us to take it on (and, not incidentally, make the Ontarians pay for their own advertising from now on).
Because the whole northern set-up is quasi-independent, we don't make as much revenue from the Ontarians as we do from the Stateside 'Nuts, under the best of circumstances. That means we will need to charge a slightly higher campaign management fee for the Ontarians than we charge the Stateside 'Nuts. This is a problematic suggestion to a group of people who aren't even paying for their own leads, much less for campaign management.
But--and this is where the migraines start--the new website structure means the Ontarians campaign is now driving traffic to the Café's .com website, instead of the original .ca website. That means that their poor quality scores and poor campaign performance are, for the first time, having an impact on what I do. A very unsavory one. The campaign cannot be left as it is. Someone has to start actually managing it.
I've had little or no time for routine campaign management for my own 35 campaigns in the last 30 days. Website issues and other 'Nut-related projects are taking up almost all my time. I logged in and glanced at a few campaigns yesterday and found my own quality scores in the basement, headed toward the sewer. (The affect of the Ontarian campaign now sharing our domain name, yes.)
I really don't want to think about it.
In the land o'Bernie, I haven't heard from him in two days. That's fine. I spent all weekend trying to explain to him that this account was doomed before we started, because of the client's "I don't know what I'm doing but do it my way anyhow" approach and I'm still not sure I got through to him. Now that the entire account is garbage, he's convinced the client to stand back and let me manage it--with the unexpressed but clearly implicit assumption that any failure from here on out can be blamed on me.
I haven't touched his campaigns since Sunday--just didn't need to be depressed that badly--but I do plan to glance at them today. I have my fingers crossed that some of Sunday's massive changes are producing performance improvement--no matter how minor. The campaign was pretty much in the sewer, so any change in performance would almost have to be an improvement.
I really don't want to think about it.
I had little time to manage Gidget's campaigns this past weekend. Haven't really heard from her this week (or last) that much, either. A few requests for data that I pulled and emailed. Must find time to see/chat with her this week. She wanted me to set up a lunch date with DiamondGirl, but neither my work day nor my brain are leaving me the freedom to do that at the moment.
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* Also, their campaign is appalling. The first commandment of campaign management is, "Thou shalt not leave a campaign unmanaged." As far back as I bothered to check the data, they've been breaking that one almost daily.
Life on the home front remains--eventful.
I spent two hours on research Sunday night and have determined that the b-u-g issue is not what we suspected--it's a beetle, instead, of the "carpet" variety. (Clearly I have been slacking off on cleaning the baseboards next to the carpet, since that's where they tend to come from. In my own defense, I doubt that anyone could keep that 20 year-old carpet really clean, but the truth is that I have not really focused on that part of the floor. I am now unlikely to forget it ever again.)
I've been frantically cleaning around and next to baseboards for several days. We haven't seen a bug in four or five days*, but I am Deeply Suspicious of any surface--especially any close to the floor--that hasn't been swept, vacuumed, cleaned, and then disinfected.
Even after last Wednesday's cleaning frenzy, I (and the R.C.) found it possible to spend most of the weekend cleaning. Laundry (bedding and clothes, over and over), floors (including spot-cleaning a couple of stains) over and over, bathroom (no bugs there, but it has to be done every week anyhow), kitchen (no bugs, but ditto), hauling out yet more trash, taking donations to the charity drop-off, moving a few things to storage, etc.
The hall closet is now clean and tidy--a project the R.C. and I have been meaning to get around to for six months.
My bedroom closet is both cleaner and neater. Not exactly tidy, but there were things I wanted to do that I can't do until after tomorrow.
I've managed to get to 75% of the baseboards in my bedroom (must unload that last bookcase's bottom shelf tonight and finish the job) and about 50% of the living room (there are only so many hours in a day) and the ex-ter-mina-tor comes tomorrow so that should help finish getting us cleaned up.
I was supposed to meet friends for dinner this evening but I've had to cancel. I have too much left to do this evening and I just can't think about anything but that my living environment is Unclean! and that I am a disgustingly bad housekeeper.
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* In reality, we only ever saw them during one 12-hour period. I saw them at 3:00 one morning, we started disinfecting the apartment at 2:00 that afternoon--the R.C. saw one at that time, I saw three, and we never saw another one. Nor have either of us been nibbled on in our sleep. I suspect I got all, or nearly all, of them that first day. Which has not prevented me from Wigging Out on a daily basis ever since. Every piece of lint I see on the carpet leads my brain to see b*u*g*s and I go into a short cleaning frenzy for that entire area.
It's so nice to be back at work (Hah!) Even CEOJason made an effort to speak to me Monday, not only thanking me for the special candy bar I bought him before I left town, but saying that sales dropped off 50% the week I was out of the office (by way of indicating my importance).
No one asked me about Las Vegas, though. NewBoss Anais asked if I had fun on my "week off" is all. No one else mentioned it at all. I was gone for a week. Maybe no one noticed?
I want to blog the fun, and I will, with back-dated posts, but in the meantime I'm getting behind on blogging current drama.
Continue reading "'Nuttery Updates"Home Drama. Sigh. Color me humiliated.
Before I start, let me say that the apartment gets dusty sometimes, especially in summer when we have the windows open so much, but we are not dirty people. We do clean regularly. We don't have any animals in the apartment, it's an inside entrance, so we don't track in mud and/or whatnot from the outdoors, either. We bathe, do laundry, carry out the garbage regularly and frequently, and don't let nasty dishes sit around in the sink or on the counters.
I'm just saying that if Some People don't stop delicately suggesting that I do some cleaning and/or change my bed linens occasionally, I'm going to start screaming.
Continue reading "I'm back and I'm buggy!"Still doin' it. Two steps forward, one step back. Cuss and repeat.
After reloading all the Nut ads Tuesday (a "hard bounce" for each campaign"), I was told later that same afternoon that the absence of a closing slash / at the end of each URL was giving the fancy new software a migraine, so I reloaded (hard bounced) everything again.
Wednesday morning, I was reminded of a conversation I had with someone on March 25 and the casual decision I seem to have made (and promptly forgot) to put some special 'stuff' at the end of each URL for the new web pages to track campaign traffic a certain way. I've already hard-bounced about a third of the campaigns a third time. Webstrainer is so going to hate me.
I mean, I'd give it a pass and add this 'stuff' gradually over the next month, which would be easier on the campaigns, but NewBoss Anais is desperately anxious to see good results from her nearly year-long quest to get these new pages live (which is fair) and the 'stuff' in question captures about 70% of our data results so I'm going to hard-bounce the remainder of the campaigns tomorrow--under the theory that a long weekend is a better time to rearrange the universe yet again.
Also, I have a weird rash on my arms that's 99% likely to be dry skin as the result of over-exfoliating under the theory that if a little is good, a lot must be fabulous. It's not contagious and not spreading, but it's very unsightly.
I did not manage to fight off the determination of Bernie's newest client to make me rush through loading the Dollar Funhouse's Funhouse campaign--didn't have to. They decided on their own to let it wait a couple of weeks.
What they decided to do instead was demand that I load an entirely new campaign--one I have neither researched nor prepared. I lost the battle on that one, so that's my Saturday morning project (aside from hard-bouncing the rest of the 'Nut campaigns.)
A few minutes ago, Fun Bobby dropped copies of a notice from the office building's management company on everyone's desks. It seems that a client of one of the financial companies renting a suite on the first floor of the building has threatened to come back to the building with a gun and kill her and a lot of other people.
At this point, a bucket-load of stress has invited massive anxiety over and they're holding a party with a lot of tension. All over my nervous system.
I so want a vacation.
(Wait! I'm taking one! Cannot wait.)
That's a colorful colloquialism that deserves wider usage. It's so apt.
I, myself, have been UtMYiA for the last week or so.
First, the final push to get the new 'Nut website live. I think I blogged (using my alternate persona of a h8r) about that last time. Mostly minor squabbles with the design company. Yes, do we want what we asked for. No, it is not okay if we do not get what we asked for. Yes, we do need our data. No, we do not need to justify to you why we need our data. Yes, we need the functionality we contracted for. No, doing without that functionality is not okay. In the end, we got most of what we needed with the rest "coming soon." Sheesh.
NewBoss Anais showed up at my desk at 3:30 yesterday afternoon, saying happily that the company was ready to go at that moment.
Since I've been making it Very Clear Indeed that redirecting the ad URLs for all of the campaigns was something I needed 8 hours to do (and that was not something that could be done a week or two in advance), I was less than thrilled. Of course, I dropped everything and worked on it for the next two hours, logged in late yesterday evening and worked on it, then came in today and worked through the rest of it, eventually getting it all done at 10:30 this morning, but still. (I had time to do everything but double-check the URLs. I'm activating them now and hoping for the best.)
Then we flipped the switch and it was time for link-testing. On the section of pages I was assigned to test, the first six pages I clicked on each popped an error message. That inspired a great deal of confidence, I promise you.
After 30 minutes of testing, when I realized that none of the test submission forms I was creating were going through, I was even more impressed by the designers' competency. (Our initial email of inquiry was met with, "I dunno. It worked when I tried it a different way in a different environment." So professional.)
Then, of course, there's Bernie. The Freethinker's campaign isn't live, I'm not sure where we are with that one, but the other one (which I've now decided to identify as the Dollar Funhouse) is raring to go. The Dollar Funhouse actually consists of two separate products. One is the Dollar, the other is the Funhouse.
Bernie emailed me on Friday that they wanted the Dollar to go live this Wednesday and to email him over the weekend (he knows I work mostly weekends) with any questions. I sat down on Saturday morning, did as much as I could do, sent Bernie my questions, and didn't hear back from him until Monday. I had a big tired on yesterday evening, from all the 'Nuttery, so I didn't get it done.
Reminder to self: I need to email and let him know I'm out of town all next week and that the Funhouse can't go live until some time after I get back to town.
In the midst of this, a client of Gidget's is abruptly ready to have their campaign go live. They want it live--wait for it--yes--Wednesday! Since I have received none of the information I need to actually create a campaign (audience, services, budget, etc.), Gidget promised to send me all of it today so I could build the campaign tonight.
As it happens, this client is a Special Category, I can load the campaign, but I'm at Webstrainer's mercy when it comes to getting the ads to show. I'll file for an exemption, but if Doittoit (Worst. Nickname. Ever.) does not, in Webstrainer's eyes, qualify as Legitimate Business, there may be trouble. There shouldn't be any problem--they are legit and I see similar businesses being advertised, but who knows?
I'm a little grouchy, yes. I watch television one evening a week--Tuesday evening. Between building campaigns, loading campaigns, and checking 'Nut campaigns to see how the new pages are performing, tonight is going to be hell.
I was going to blog about the party I attended on Sunday and the seminar I attended last week and the new books I bought (work-related) and my upcoming vacation, but I've already spent more time on this post than I really had to spare today. We have a couple of Prospective 'Nuts coming in for a meeting to learn All About Internet Marketing at 8:00 tomorrow morning, and I really need to do some prep work.
Up to My Ass in Alligators
Posted by AnneZook at 02:47 PM | Comments (2)I'm very over this week.
Also, I'm a h8er.
I h8 software companies who understand your specs but decide something else will be easier for them, code it to suit themselves, and assume you'll accept it as a fait accompli,threatening you with massive delays and cost-overruns if you tell them to do what you told them you wanted in the first place.
I h8 consultants who carelessly advise creating 'custom reports' which 'take a lot of time but are worth it' without stopping to consider that it's just me here, I don't have a staff of people I can assign to spend a month coding custom reports to capture everything I might need someday.
That's why we use the database, you moron. If the world changes and I need something completely different, we'll have it all in the database.
Wanting us to drop the database because it means you have to consolidate data? Don't care. I spend all day, every day, consolidating, filtering, sorting, and contemplating data. Cry me a river, from your high-priced office with the administrative and software staff sitting outside your door.
I h8 people who think building glitches and gaps into a system is job security for them. "Oh, we can just do that for you when you ask is not job security. It's incompetence.
I h8 having wasted over 30 minutes of 'Nut time this morning writing a document for Bernie to explain why his client's budget running out at noon every days means they are missing most of the day's search traffic How stupid do you have to be not to understand it just from hearing the words?
I h8 realizing that I have at least eight hours of work to do for Bernie this weekend, on top of the Gidget Co client accounts I need to work on.
I h8 knowing that the as-yet unapproved campaign structure document I sent Bernie to forward to the Freethinker will probably show up in my in-box on Monday with a request to have it all ready to go by Wednesday. But with massive changes, including to that as-yet undersigned special landing page Bernie is supposed to be providing.
Yes, today I h8 both having a job and having free-lance clients.
Free-lance? I'm over working every weekend and double-checking things during the week. (I log on around 10:00 a couple of times a week and review everything quickly and, okay, it's not a big time commitment, but it's a pain--especially if I find something that needs changed.) I'm over Bernie calling me or asking me to call him twice a week to explain why their $12/day campaign isn't pulling leads for the client's $2M house. I'm over spending hours and hours of time above and beyond what I can bill writing explanations and justifications for my decisions--trying to dumb it all down enough so that people who can't figure out how to log in to their accounts can approve a complicated strategy. (I am big time tired of having to explain myself to someone who would probably have sold the blasted property by now if she had ever picked up the phone and talked to one of the leads I drove her, or even answered one of the information request leads the campaign produced.)
Job? For the last week, the only non-rainy/non-snowy hours we've had during the day have come around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and I have been having weird and unusual urges to go out and enjoy those hours, instead of sitting here, working for a living. I don't think I want to walk as much as I just want to not be here.
Which is kind of weird, because nothing has actually happened this week. I mean, nothing Big and Bad, you know?
I'm just…over it.
Yesterday evening, I accomplished absolutely nothing. No excuse--I just went home and slumped in a chair. Probably because it was all dark and gloomy and wintery-looking outside. It's spring in Harvest Moon Sunshine Islands, so I gamed for a while. Watched a really bad disaster movie (volcanoes). That's about all I remember.
Later, I had one of my periodic bouts of killer insomnia, which I only defeated by turning my nighttime fan to "medium" to produce the necessary level of white noise and enough of a cool breeze to make me comfortable. Maybe if I'd thought of doing that two hours earlier, I'd have gotten more sleep.
Anyhow. Naturally the heat is off in our apartment building (no one expected a mid-May snowstorm) so this morning the room was cold and the fan was blowing such a gale of wind I couldn't force myself to get out of bed and turn it off.* I did eventually, of course, but not until 7:50. So, I was late for work.
And now I'm going to be groggy and unfocused all day. It's only 10:00 and I've already started four or five projects, then dropped them five minutes later to meander over to another idea and dabble with it briefly.
Some weeks, things just don't quite run smoothly, you know? It's like you're a half a degree out of focus every day or something.
I'm on my fourth cup of coffee, so we'll hope for the best.
This morning the office is full of random men. I think they're window cleaners. They all have buckets.
I was having a thought--the kind that might have led to a brilliant breakthrough but was more likely to inspire me to eat breakfast--but I lost it when one of them started to climb up on one of the desks. No! They're not actually desks, okay? Just cubicle-things and I'm pretty sure that one wouldn't take his weight. He thought better of it, though.
Yesterday, in the all-staff 'Nut-together, NewBoss Anais announced that I'd gotten my Webstrainer certification. I didn't like to correct her--I've done the first exam with the second, actually hard one still in my future--so I played along.**
She made me explain what it all meant and then asked me about my shiny new game (content advertising) and for a moment I forgot myself (no one understands the kind of jargon I tend to use or what some of these accomplishments really mean, much less what it took to accomplish them) and lapsed into excitement.
Later, she came over and told me how much she and CEOJason had enjoyed my enthusiasm and how much they liked seeing me so excited.
Weird.
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* I laughed when I first saw those remote-control fans showing up in stores, but I'd have paid big money this morning to be able to stretch an arm out of my warm cocoon and turn that blasted blizzard-maker off.
** Also? I found my score unimpressive. And, yes you might say a pass is a pass, but I don't feel that way. I told myself I should be able to get 95% without breaking a sweat, so a result of 91% is now and forever just--not enough.
It rained last night, which turned to snow in the late evening, now the first storm is moving out ahead of the next storm moving in, and the tornado sirens are sounding.
Apocalyptic!
Also, I took the first (fundamentals) part of the stupid Webstrainer certification exam today. I would like to rant about test designers who can't decide whether to test to the material or to the ability to complete a task, but I'm awfully busy at the moment.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)Good morning!
I'm making a determined effort to be cheerful today. Yesterday got a bit aggravating but there's no reason to take it out on today.
First, I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I was receiving the (unearned*) honor of being named one of Mother's Little Helpers on the Webstrainer forum, right? The official announcement was made today and there's a thread of nice comments.
Mostly I'm now ashamed of myself that I still haven't gotten around to taking the stupid certification test. It's moved up on my priority list from the "just do it" category into the "by the end of the week or else" category.
And, speaking of things that haven't gotten done, I did send DiamondGirl a screen cap of one of the Gidget Co's website pages, explaining precisely what I didn't like. That was several days ago. I checked the site again this morning and it's still got the same unprofessional sloppiness. Sigh.
If I weren't such a procrastinator myself, I would so email her and abuse her.
Last night I was doing a final tidy-up in the kitchen before going to bed. I opened the dishwasher to put in a dirty dish and there was dirty water standing in the bottom. Another plumbing problem. Since it was after 11, I didn't call maintenance. It was on my list of things to do this morning but the idea occurred to me that the water might have been there since Sunday's adventure, so I ran the "drain" part of the dishwasher cycle this morning and it did seem to clean up the problem. I'll check again when I get home.
I answered an email from the L-i-K-S this morning. It seems that Our Brother has disappeared--phone disconnected and the place he and his wife have been living for the past twenty years empty. He's not one of life's overachievers, Our Brother, so this disappearance has me worried. He's either taken off cross-country on some weird and unlikely get-rich-quick excursion, or even that ratty trailer became more than he could pay the lot rent for and they've moved in with some other borderline indigent friends.
I'm fairly concerned. Our Brother and I were very close when we were young. Very close. That was a long time ago--our relationship never really recovered from his decade-long stay in the Bratty Boy stage, but the core of it remains.
When I think of him, I tend to remember the days when it was him and me against the world and the two younger girls had either not yet made an appearance or were both at the baby-lump-in-a-crib stage. Although the R.C. is only two or three years younger than I am, Our Brother and I lived through a lot in the years before she turned sentient.
I don't often think about them--it wasn't necessarily a pleasant time, but it did make a bond, you know?
I'm not going to think about that now. I should be working. Also, not a cheerful topic.
So far, this week is taking more effort than there's any actual reason for, okay?
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* Really. I mean, yes, I post a lot but that's not necessarily the same as being incredibly wise, you know?