Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Oh, the irony...

I am attending a mandatory 'customer service' meeting today. It will be hosted (at least in part) by the same HR director who still has not answered my question regarding why I was not accepted into the manager training program.

So... Do I keep my mouth shut during the question and answer session that invariably follows these little presentations? Or do I ask how long a 'customer' should be expected to wait for an answer to a question?

M.W.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Yes, Boss

Last Saturday morning, S. and I were playing together in the living room while L. took a nap, when S. looked up at my and said, 'You're the boss of daddy.' I started to laugh, and began thinking up ways to give Mr. W. a hard time about our terribly clever daughter's powers of observation. She continued with, 'and daddy's the boss of you.'

You know something? She's right. I do things Mr. W. tells me to do, and he does the same. Our marriage is truly a matter of give and take. Funny how S. picked up on it.

M.W.

Inordinately proud of myself

Back in the college days, I had a roommate who nearly always answered, 'I'm inordinately proud of you' when told of some especially good something a fellow roomie had done.

I am using it on myself today!

We are distributing worksheets to various and sundry agents, who will fill them in and send them back via e-mail. The data started out on a single, very long worksheet. Using the magic of macros, I have broken the data out to personalized workbooks intended to go to each agent all while keeping formatting, formulas and security intact (can't trust agents not to monkey about with formulas).

Anyhoo, I'm pretty proud of my programming efforts here, and I know certain clerks will be very glad they don't have to manually copy and past all that data into the 325 workbooks my little series of macros created.

Yay me!

M.W.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

(Yet Another) Valuable Life Lesson

S. was running around like a (buck naked) hooligan rather than heading to the bathroom where her daddy was waiting to give her a bath. I was camped out on the floor with L. cleaning up after one of those poopy diapers that only a parent can truly appreciate.

It was one of those squishy messes that leaves an odor that makes your eyes water. Once you've finished cleaning it up (all while swearing under your breath that you will gouge out both eyes before you feed her whatever-it-was that 'came out' in this manner), you carry it outside, do not pass go, do not pass an inside trash can. Then you spend twenty minutes trying to eliminate and/or mask the residual odor that winds up making you chase your toddler around for a good half hour or so just to 'make sure' she really had finished pooping anyway.

I learned that you DO NOT take a deep breath in order to yell at your older daughter while you are up to your elbows in raunchy poop. I swear I saw stars and nearly barfed into my precious daughter's diaper... It's amazing, to think about it, that I made it this long before learning that valuable life lesson.

M.W.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

You have to wonder...

what on earth happened.

I work for an insurance company, and the company will auction off various and sundry salvage items. Recovered stolen cars, hail-dented sheets of metal, smoke-damaged bedroom furniture, lightning damaged electronics make up the bulk of the items up for auction. Today, the following two item descriptions were posted:

3 month old catnapper sectional, w/microfiber cover. Sectional is in 3 pieces with 3 recliners, it is a total of 196" long. It has vibrator and heater built in. It has a bullet hole in the left end, Recliner in lower back & seat.

an electric guitar with a bullet hole through the body.

I admit to a certain level of curiosity (so far as I can tell, this was strictly a property claim - nobody injured)...

M.W.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Valuable lesson S. learned today

S. learned that if you get your little sister to sit in your daddy's swivel chair and spin her around hard enough and fast enough, your little sister will eventually throw up (just like Daddy warned her).

Fun times...

M.W.

Friday, January 12, 2007

I better get a really good explanation!

A co-worker from my department and I applied to the brand spanking new manager trainee program sponsored by my company last week. He was selected, and I was not. Below is a short list comparing our experiences at the company. Perhaps it will explain why I am angry enough to see red right now:

Him: With the company 3 years
Me: With the company 9 years

Him: Put together a couple of flashy presentations.
Me: Continued to produce at the same exceptionally high levels expected of me, but without the benefit of flashy presentations.

I have some rather serious issues with his professionalism but will not post them in a public place (not that anybody I work with knows about my blog, but I do not wish to slam anybody).

I spend 9 years making the people I work for and with look very, very good. He spends 3 years making himself look good. The bigwigs passed me over in favor of him. A nickel says he misses 3 of the first 6 training sessions by June.

Did I mention that I am pissed? Really, really, really pissed?

I e-mailed our hr director the following:

I appreciate your phone call giving me the disappointing news about my application to the MTP. However, I would like to know what weaknesses lost me the opportunity to participate in this program so that I may address them. Is there anyone I can talk to?

Thank you for your time,

Somebody better get back to me with a really good explanation!

I had a decent meeting with my department head and supervisor this afternoon. Department head asked me point blank how I felt about the decisions. I informed him that I was 'royally ticked.' Not only did he understand, but we began preliminary work to map out a 'marketing plan' for me to get my name out in front of the bigwigs.

Meanwhile, anybody need a good, reliable analyst who is extremely competent with SQL, has the basics for programming in WebFOCUS, knows her way around a CICS/TSO/mainframe environment, can do all kinds of neat things with Microsoft Access, Excel and Word, can develop easy to read reports and has plenty of experience making projects flow smoothly with little in the way of bruised egos? I'm only half kidding on this one...

Funny for the day:
Question: What did the snail riding on the back of the turtle say?
Answer: Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!

M.W.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Sweet, sweet, sweet

L. resisted going to sleep Monday night with some pretty hearty sobs. Now that the girls share a room, S. played big sister and sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle' until L. fell asleep. She repeated the performance last night.

Doesn't it just make you melt?

Corn for the day:

Question: What did Mr. Silk say to Mrs. Silk when she told him they were expecting a little ear?
Answer: Aw, shucks.

M.W.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Just what I need(ed)

http://www.loc8tor.com/introducing-loc8tor.asp

If this sucker wasn't so expensive, I'd be purchasing it to put on the remotes for our tvs and our phone handsets (page button doesn't work when the batteries have died). Maybe even put one on, say, my (lost!!!) digital camera.

M.W.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Where to begin...

This is a nightmare. A work-related nightmare, and I am looking at the rubble trying to figure out where to start.

The server issues on Friday trashed all work done on Thursday and Friday for most people.

My department's shared drive was spared, so nothing lost there.

However, the developer area where I have been working on new reports and procedures had not been backed up since 11/17. I lost everything I've done for the past 6 weeks. Everything.

I just want to go home and cry. Things were tight, very, very tight schedule-wise. Now they're in-freaking-sane.

On the bright side, I was behind. So not as much was lost as should have been... Sad comfort indeed.

M.W.

Monday, January 01, 2007

End of year is stressing me out

I've got the work is stressing me out because I have end of year stuff that has to be done but the LAN has been down since Friday lunch and I can't access any of the files I need in order to get started with end of year plus the WebFOCUS developer server went down too so I can't even get a head start on programming the reports that our sales people need come 1 week from TODAY so I will probably live at the office all this month and won't see my family until February blues.

{sigh}

M.W.