Friday. Finally.

I wanted to update you on my "Ton of Suckage" week. I really wanted to be able to update you and say that the week had gotten so much better and I'm back to loving my job. Yeah, I know, I'd also wanted to win the lottery.

I've actually been contemplating some of the big picture questions over the past few days. You know, the "what am I doing with my life?" and "what do I want to do with my life?" questions.

Luckily, I've had Christopher to come home to every night and snuggle on the couch. I honestly don't know how I'd have made it through the week without him. And, also luckily, I've got one person at work who is in the same basic position I'm in (underpaid, overworked, desperate for a way out), so we can commiserate to some degree.

The one thing that has definitely happened is that I'm no longer going to be complacent about work and slacking off on searching for a new job. That's been a problem for me from time to time - I get frustrated with job searching and so I decide to just give up and settle. This week has reminded me that I can't do that.

So I'm kind of starting a new chapter - I hope. Searching for a new... something.

I'll keep you posted.

Suckage by the Ton

I've been told - politely - that I complain about work a substantial amount on here. I've also been told that some of my best postings are the ones where I kind of just state the facts and let it go. With those two thoughts in mind, I offer...

This week (and it's only Wednesday) has been a whole lot of suckage at work.

I spent about 3 hours yesterday training the person who is going to be taking over 1/3 of my current job. The 1/3 that I actually enjoy doing. And I'm guessing she's making about twice what I make. And I got to train her and provide her with materials. The part that really sucks? I kind of like her and think she might be fun to work with. If the situation was a bit different.

This morning, having placed an order for 6 boxes of a title to ship from the warehouse, I was told that only 4 were available. So I contacted the person who has been dealing with our inventory and she told me that the stock won't be available for probably another week. This wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't told me a week or so ago that it would be available now. When I asked her about it today, she told me I shouldn't have assumed anything, I should have asked her. I pointed out that I did ask her, and was moving forward based on what she told me. She said she couldn't figure out why I was getting so frustrated. The part that really sucked? She brought me chocolate later in the day to apologize - so I had to stop fuming. (Side question: If she hadn't realized that she had, in fact, been in the wrong do you think she'd have brought me chocolate? My answer to that would be "no.")

The final fun of the day came from the IT department. I found myself being lectured by one of the IT guys on how great a new file management system is going to be. Here's the catch: he fully admitted that he has no idea what I need the system to do. He also very obviously didn't want to hear what I need it to do. He kept insisting that he was trying to figure it out, but instead of asking and listening, he walked away from me and talked to someone else in the office because he feels I'm "adverse to change" (yes - he said "adverse" not "averse"). The sucky part? I can see why he's excited about the new system - but I also know that it's going to make some portions of my job a lot more labor-intensive.

Thus sucketh another day.

Movie Monday - The Mechanic

You know how last week I talked about going to a movie I knew nothing about and loving it because it wasn't anything like what I might have expected?

Well, this time around we went to a movie we didn't know much about and enjoyed it because it was basically exactly what we expected it to be - "The Mechanic."

Here's what you need to know: It's a Jason Statham movie. Which means there's a lot of things getting shot at and blown up. And fast cars. And... well... blood.

Actually, there was a lot more of the latter than I was expecting. Not that it wasn't within reason. It's not like they were throwing extra blood around like they do in slasher movies. They simply gave us the amounts of blood that, really, you would most likely see if you rammed a javelin through someone's leg. Or threw someone off the top of a building and watched him go splat on the ground.

There is, in fact, a plot. It focuses on family and expectations. And it focuses on people being shot and things being blown up. Which, in a movie like this, is plot.

Was it a great movie? No. Was it anything shockingly original? No. Was it everything we expected it would be? Yes.

Overall grade: B. Among other things, I never did get why Statham and his British accent were living in New Orleans.

Super Bowl Sunday

I admit it.

I was doing all sorts of things earlier today, and had planned to blog this evening. And then I realized that the Super Bowl was about to start and I hadn't blogged.

So now I'm watching the Super Bowl, and we'll have to wait until tomorrow for a more comprehensive posting.

Here's hoping the commercials are worth it.

Friday Food - True Thai

As you know if you read yesterday's blog, last night Christopher and I went out to dinner at True Thai with a couple of our friends. We'd never been there before (even though we've driven past it a lot), but we decided it was time to try it out. (For the record, saying "Time to try True Thai" aloud is really hard.)

A friend of mine at work raves about the place, and was telling me suggestions on what to get to eat. We sort of took her suggestions - especially the ones about what to avoid - and made our orders.

The Crispy Beef appetizer with sticky rice was very good. The cream cheese wontons were great - although the dipping sauce wasn't quite what we were expecting (it was a vinegary sauce, instead of what is - at least around here - traditionally a sweet sauce). My Holy Basil Fried Rice with chicken was very good - not overly done, just very much the flavors that should have been there. There were Drunken noodles and a "7-vegetable Rainbow Medley" (which, I'm sorry, I did not taste). And Christopher got a Massaman Curry with Beef - and he ordered it "spicy" (which is their middle level of heat, apparently, and was probably about as hot as I would ever ask for).

We all really liked the food. And, as lucky as you can imagine, I got to take home most of the leftovers. So, for lunch today I had a mixture of Drunken noodles and Basil fried rice. For dinner tonight it was the leftover Massaman Curry (which had no beef left in it - although it still had a lot of spice).

Overall, it was a really good meal.

Christopher and I both agreed that we might not go out of our way to drive there for dinner, but that we would definitely go back if the opportunity presented itself. And, well, that says something in a town that is as full of restaurants as Minneapolis is.

Running on Empty

While that could be a metaphorical statement this time of year - or any time of year on a Thursday, for that matter - this time I mean it literally.

Or... well... I almost mean it, but it is in the literal sense.

You see, I'm one of those people who pretty much never lets his car's gas gauge get below the 1/4 mark. Once it drops below that and starts edging toward the "E" I start to get kind of nervous.

Even though my car gets 20+ miles to the gallon most of the time (in bad traffic when it's 5 degrees out, I don't expect to get great mileage), I still start to get nervous when the gas drops below a half tank. That may have something to do with the fact that I know my tank only holds about 13 gallons - and 8 of those are in the top half of the gas gauge. Yeah. No. I'm not sure how that works, either.

Since it's been so cold the past couple of mornings - and since I've had things going on in the evenings - I haven't made it to the gas station to fill up. Which means that, as we were driving home from dinner tonight (you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about dinner), my gauge was coming close to the "E."

Here's what could be the weirdest part of all of this, though: I didn't fill the car on the way home. I'll be leaving home a few minutes early tomorrow to do that. At that point, we're supposed to actually be up to about 20 degrees. I can deal with that for filling the car.

Speaking Too Soon

Remember how I mentioned, earlier, that our phone service had been restored and life was moving on a-pace?

Remember that we had come to that conclusion because the person at Bombast who had called said that they had figured out the problem and had solved it on their end?

Remember how I was all excited that we wouldn't have to deal with them any time again in the immediate future?

Yeah. All wrong.

When Christopher got home tonight, the phone was out. Sometime in the next hour or so it came back on - and we had a message in our voice mail. That would be okay if we USED our voice mail. But we don't. We have an answering machine. The only way anything goes to our voice mail is - you guessed it - if the phone is out.

So, after dinner, I called the folks at Bombast. I got a really nice guy on the phone who was quick to understand the situation, to apologize, and to say that we needed to have a tech come out. Of course, you know that what he offered were times during the workday tomorrow or Friday. Or a block of time on Saturday. Because as much as they tout being open 24 hours per day, they really only seem to do things between 8 and 6 Monday through Friday. He said he'd have a supervisor call me within the hour to explain why we got "cancelled" on Saturday.

The phone rang after about 25 minutes. It wasn't a supervisor, it was the same guy - because apparently a supervisor can't call for at least 24 hours. The very kind rep once again apologized for the issue last week, and explained that it was cancelled in error after we hadn't answered the phone when they called to confirm on Saturday morning. When I explained that they had actually called us to cancel and the person who called had said that the problem was already solved, he got a little flustered. Obviously he had also spoken too soon.

So, yep, we're without our phone - sporadically - again. And I'll be getting up early on Saturday to sit around and wait for a tech to come out. And I don't expect to be satisfied.

Hopefully, that's also speaking too soon.