The Best Thing Ever

Since I'm manning up and trying to find a reason not to work at the wind farm any more (by either finding another job, or convincing Annie to fully support me, or convincing her to move), I figured I'd do a few segments on the personalities I deal with here.  There are a few people here that make coming to work fun and worth it.  Those people don't need to be discussed in the blog.  They make me happy.  But there are those that make me wanna walk into traffic.  One in particular:  Best Thing Ever guy.

It usually starts like this:  we're sitting around at lunch.  We're discussing some random thing.  Best Thing Ever pulls out a "have you guys ever heard of X?"  None of us, ever, have ever heard of what he comes up with.  "Oh, it's just the best thing ever in regards to X."  Doesn't matter what.  Movies, Coffee, Dystopic Novels, Tequila, Video Games, Models, TV, Life.  He's just so happened to not only have heard of, but also experienced the best thing ever of whatever you're discussing.  Just thought that he'd slip that into the convo.

Or, somehow, the conversation will be slipped to a place where he can be Best Thing Ever guy.  "Animal Planet, eh?  You know what the best animal is?  Cows.  And cows make leather.  And leather makes shoes.  And I just so happened to have tried these pair of shoes from the West Indies that are the Best Thing Ever.  Seriously, you can look them up on Google."  How the fuck did we get to shoes, again?

He's also the geekiest name-dropper I've ever met.  "My old boss was a Fulbright, Rhodes, [everything else].... Scholar who blah blah blah".  I think he just reads things on reddit.  But no, he's 'met' these people.  "I talked to X, he's only like the most influential person in Y, and you haven't heard of him?"  Nope.  In my free time, I watch porn.

And he smells.  In his defense, it's gotten better since the first 2 weeks.  The first 2 weeks were brutal.  I almost quit, since I was forced to train him.  The whole building I work in smelled.  He made some jokes at lunch about how it was because he's playing StarCraft 2 so much.  No seriously, you smelled awful.  Clean your ears.

And now you are thoroughly familiar with Best Thing Ever guy.  Sad that these 4 small paragraphs so accurately describe him.  He kinda irks me if it's not obvious.

He tells me how to do my job, or how he knows something more than me one more time, and a baseball bat will 'magically' appear in my hands.  Needs more days off,
~RoB

(Really) Busy at Work (Reprise)

So, Google+ came out with games last week.  I'm not positive, but I believe I was one of the first people to have access.  Nothing told me, but it showed up one day, and I managed to start playing Angry Birds.  None of my other friends had started yet.  That's not the case anymore.

Anyway, there's this now:

Yeah, I've already nailed all of the stars on all of the available levels.

Yeah, I found all the Chrome secrets, too. (Peeps need to do your part for the Teamwork levels!)

Wait, most of this looks familiar.

It's my last day of full-time work at the wind farm I currently work at.  I've blogged and facebook'd regularly since I've started working here, yet I still manage to get things done.  No, I still manage to impress my boss by the quality of my work.  I guess those are the benefits you get for being an efficient worker with a top-notch education.  I can do just enough work to blow everyone else at my office out of the water, and then I still have 5 hours left in the day to play games.  I'll miss that when I move on to a job that requires much more effort.

Back to work,
~RoB

Recession. What Recession?

There's been a bunch of talk about the national debt ceiling.  I tried to understand it.  Every time I attempt to learn about anything remotely political, I end up being blind with rage at how inefficient our political system is.  I wish there was some big, fancy SAT word that combined the words frustrated and enraged.  That'd be a better word.

For years I considered myself a straight-ticket democrat.  I still feel like republicans are ridiculous, but the polarized democrats are just as bad.  In fact, I don't even know where I sit politically these days.  What was that word for frustrated+enraged?

Anyway, I'm off track.  The point of this post is my perspective of the impending doom that's been following us around like a sad cloud since the summer of 2008.  Will we end up in a depression era?  Will we finally experience the struggles that taught our grand- (or great grand-) parents how to stretch meals?  Will we reach the point that it's considered a national crisis?  Will credit cards and loans make it even worse for us than it was for them?

My opinion:  who cares?!  I've got nothing.  I've watched the whole world collapse around me.  I hear all these stories of people losing millions on Wall Street, people losing their jobs, forced retirements, lost savings, foreclosures, massive credit card debt.  It sucks, but ummm... welcome to my life...

I slept on a floor for 3 years in L.A.  I lived with roaches, floods, and massive homeless traffic outside my window.  I had it all figured out how I was going to live out of my car, when I happened across an apartment that I could 'kind of' afford.  I have a brand new car's worth of credit card debt, and I refuse to look at the total damage of my loans.  I have two Master's degrees, yet I make the same annual salary as a barista.

So, I guess my point is:  I don't feel the recession.  I've been in a recession since before it was cool.  I'll still be in a recession when the country straightens itself out.  I feel more like the world is being brought down to my level, evening out the playing field.

I hope none of you are feeling it, but it's not like I caused it.  I haven't missed a payment on anything... ever.

I can't wait 'til I'm not broke as shit.  That's gonnabe nice,
~RoB

Racist in the Workplace (Response)

I was bored, so I went back through to get a glimpse of how my blog has evolved over time.  I made it all the way back to my Racist in the Workplace post, when I realized the picture links didn't work any more.  I'm sure this is going to slowly happen to all of my pics over time, and I can accept that since I don't create many of my own pics.  However, for some reason, this interested me enough to investigate.

As it turns out, the company actually changed their blatantly racist ways.  I'd like to think it was due in part to my blog.  Let's not bust that bubble yet.  The new 'Handcuffing Police Training Mannequin' is no longer a black guy:

Hey, it's a white guy this time, but who pulls their shorts up that high?

However, their new attempts at being politically correct just aren't quite cutting it yet.  You're trying.  I get that, but maybe you should have like 1 other person read it before you update the website with your next great idea.

... this African American version reveals sculpted characteristics of the black race. An excellent manikin for use in environments where human participation is dangerous, including pole top, confined space, collapsed building, smoke room, ladder carry, and extrication exercises.

Yeah, I don't know exactly what the 'characteristics of the black race' are, but it appears to be a wider nose, a less stylish haircut, and bigger lips.  I also don't know why a white mannequin can't be used for practicing dangerous environments/exercises.  Oh, and African American Rescue Rudy apparently sits down on the job, while Caucasian Rescue Randy is up and at 'em:

I can't be the only one keeping these people in check, cuz I really can't afford a lawsuit,
~RoB

T-T-T-Telephone

I share a line at work with a new legal intern.  For the most part, he knows that most calls come for me, cuz I'm the man.  We both have Caller ID, so he should be able to intercept any calls for him.  However, there have been all kinds of wonderful ridiculousness that we've learned so far.

We've learned that only women in prison still use payphones.

We are in different buildings.  So, we can't just wave each other off when calls go astray.  We needed a system.  If we both pick up, there's a dialtone in the background, but we can talk as if we have our own little secret communication line.  We can't transfer calls, and if either of us dials our number, it forwards to the cell phone of a (rumored to be cute) girl that used to work here.  We settled on just keeping gchat open, which doesn't really change anything on my end ;)

On Monday, my phone started ringing while somebody knocked on the door of my building.  It apparently locked itself in being slammed by the wind.  By the time I got to my phone to pick it up, the voicemail was starting.

I actually have to go to this intern's office to get my voicemails, since the lines are all screwy.  Apparently, the message system turns his speakerphone on if a message is being recorded (probably for screeners).  Anyway, his phone turns on automatically.  Here was our gchat, afterward:

12:48 PM intern: when [someone] called you earlier it played on my speaker phone for some reason

 me: awesome

  i picked it up as the voicemail was picking it up

  it was an odd occurrence

  shouldn't happen again

12:49 PM 

intern: i hung up but was contemplating yelling PENIS and then hanging up

12:50 PM me: I probably would have peed myself

12:53 PM intern: should have done it...

12:57 PM me: it would have been too much for Monday morning

Glad to know I'm not the only one who has urges to yell 'penis' at inappropriate times,
~RoB

Porn at Work

I don't know how things were when the internet first got going (I was a child), but I imagine it was easy for employees to roam cyberspace freely whenever their jobs included computer work.  It was super slow, so it didn't really matter.

Before long, employers bought software and hired IT people to control the websites that people could access at work.  No ebay, no facebook, no porn.  Wtf?  "The internet is for porn."

Well, the power has returned to the people!  Why?  Smart phones.

The other day I opened up my iPhone for something, and it still had a porn page open.  I giggled.  (You can lie to yourself and judge, or you can google 'iPhone Porn'.)

I didn't actually watch any, but I could.  Most of us can.  That's simultaneously screwed up and refreshing.  There's zero accountability now.  I can put in headphones and you wouldn't even know.  I could be sitting at my desk watching porn right now.  Or now.  I know I am not the first person to figure this out.  I pray that Michael Scott isn't taking advantage of this down the hall.

Do you have any clue what your boss is doing in his office with his door closed at this very moment?
~RoB

(He/she's probably shopping on eBay.  Bosses don't have sex drives, but they make more money.)