Traveller's Tales

Also, I know about the pop-up.

I’ve got a post up on the LibraryThing message boards to suss it, as I already use their service and would like to use their widget, given I’ve already done the hard work of cataloging a tiny fraction of my library there.

In the meantime, click OK and ignore the second Sherlock Holmes.  We all know there’s only one.

This life thing we all do sure has some weird side trips.  Keeps things interesting, but I’m not sure I’d recommend some of them.

The one I was just on, for instance — the ‘go to the doctor for chest pains and let him tell you that your blood pressure is so high your head is about to explode’ adventure really isn’t all it’s hyped up to be.  Sure, you get some time away from work, that’s nice in theory, but it’s hardly quality vacation time.  I mean, you can’t enjoy it because you’re constantly going to some doctor or other to get poked and prodded, to get your blood sucked and your chest x-rayed and your heart stress-tested and electronically scrutinized and to get a wide variety of drug cocktails introduced to your system (“Hello, system, we’re Hydrochlorothorazide and Irbesartan, and we’re about to spend a lot of time together.”), and all the while the tour guides don’t tell you whether this is the end of the ride or just another turn.  Really dodgy design for a ride if you ask me.

Anyway, in my case it wound up being just another turn and I’m back from the trip, rowing along with the current with everyone else again, but wow does shit like that change things.  Like what you eat, how much you drink, how often and how hard you exercise, how long you sleep, how hard you can work — you know, pretty much every aspect of the crap you do every day goes through a big ol’ WTF loop and comes out the other end looking like, well, the opposite of what it did going in.  Overall, I find myself enjoying the changes I’m having to make quite a bit — almost as though I needed some sort of excuse, which is dumb, but which would not be the first time I was accused of that fault.  But those old bad habits sure do lurk.

Still no idea how this will affect my working life over the long haul, but at least there’s still a working life for me to consider and no immediate plans for doom and/or gloom.  Certainly doesn’t affect the writing, but I’ll save the updates on that for next time.

Good to be back.  Now pass the tomato slices.

The first person to deduce the identity of the Word of the Day from the complex visual clue gets a cookie.

Huge, catastrophic change tends to disrupt habits, whether they’re long-established, like finding a way to always slack at work, or whether they’re developing, like attempting to make a regular go at blogging.

As it happens, huge, catastrophic change has been going on at work for me.  Mainly good things — you’ll notice that my last blog entry had to do with intense dissatisfaction as regards the workplace, so in theory we’re going to stop making muffins soon and start supporting the business in meaningful ways.  I’ve learned so much in the last six months that the proper term to describe my progression is more “evolved” than”graduated,” and I’m not entirely sure I’m happy about all of it, but by and large I’m now being asked to help fix everything that’s broken, and on the whole this is a far better situation than smugly watching it devolve into chaos from my hidey-hole in the corner of the building.

There are writing things afoot, now, as I begin to adjust to both the new work environment and the new house, which I’ve written pathetically little about but love dearly, despite the unmeasurable multitude of Things That Must Be Done to the place.  I’ll mumble more about those writing things later, but for now suffice it to say that I’ve been taken by creative development fits twice now, both as regards the first book, and I’m pleased with the direction they’ve gone — pleased enough that I’m writing them in now.  I’m also seriously stinking tired of the lack of forward momentum, and something is going to happen, soon, to rectify that situation.  I don’t know what, yet, but I know what my options are, and I’m getting ready to exercise them.

It’s been one seriously strange year so far, but I think the fodder I’ve waded through in the first half is going to make for a very interesting second half.

By the way.  Art, if you’re out there, when the hell is the next game and why the hell haven’t you told me about it?

I’m not sure who the hell fired all the competent HR people I used to work with back in the day and hired smarmy buffoons in their place, but I want to find that person and turn him into a teambuilding exercise by placing him in front of a large bullseye and letting people throw things at him.

Apparently, we have somehow gone from the logical approach of ‘hey, people aren’t happy, let’s tie performance to pay so they’re motivated to excel’ to ‘hey, nobody’s happy, let’s make muffins!’ while I wasn’t looking. By which I don’t mean actual, literal muffins (though I’m sure, in some sad circumstances, this does actually happen), but figurative muffins, bizarre little activities or items intended to distract one from one’s actual work issues by creating and promoting a false sense of misdirected satisfaction via chotchkies, stupid games, and, occasionally, free booze. I don’t mind the free booze, but don’t for a second expect that it’s working as a distraction.

I’ll give you an example. The place I work just had a celebration of their re-branding. Never mind that they originally promised that everyone would have off to reflect on the brand and their business (a lovely idea that lasted an entire year before someone cut it off at the knees — naturally, because it had a chance of promoting actual good will towards the brand) and instead now we’re in for a day of business as usual. Never mind that nobody’s had a raise in as many years as I’ve worked here, and the word ‘bonus’ is used to describe hitting the urinal instead of extra money at the end of the year. Never mind all that: they gave us heavy metal cubes with clever sayings, attached to roach clips on springs. Three of them. Because suddenly management is terribly concerned about the quality of life of their employees, and motivational sayings on roach clips will surely do a better job of that than oh, I don’t know, letting people leave at a reasonable hour.

These cubes are muffins. Not as tasty or good-smelling, but with the same desired effect: they attempt to generate good-will with a minimum of financial outlay, while avoiding the core issues of employee dissatisfaction (and they wonder why places like despair.com make so much money). Sadly, their effect is similarly transient: even the most credulous consumer of these goods will find themselves over the experience in eight hours or thereabouts, and those of us who are more cynical bastards won’t even bother partaking.

Naturally, I fall into neither the group of poor credulous innocents nor into the cult of cynical bastards, but actually into an elite force of ultra-cynical subversionaries; not only do I not fall for this shit, but in fact I quite enjoy figuring out how to use these wretchedly conceived toys contrary to their intended use. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I do carry a hope that someday, someone else may also realize how utterly full of horseshit this crap is, and wonder aloud, “Why are the people nominally in charge wasting money on crap like this when they could be giving people things they actually want, like, you know, raises, promotions, bonuses and days off.”

I know, I’m really hoping way too much, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Anyway, while I do have plans for these specific muffins, the point of this rant isn’t to share those plans, but to remind anyone who might be reading this that no: muffin-making as a HR policy is not, in fact, an HR policy. There are real ways to motivate people and retain talent, and they have nothing to do with muffins. And, if you find yourself eating a muffin today, for crying out loud make sure it’s a chocolate one.

Damn, now I’m hungry.

So I decided to print the manuscript for TGL early today, so I could miss the rush and all the people trying to use the printers, right? I load up the document, hit print, go to the printer.

And do a double-take: it’s missing. Not the printout, the actual printer, replaced utterly by a shiny new printer where the old one should have been. Reasonably, my printout should be here, though, yes? Reasonably, yes, but in this version of the real world, no. No printout to be seen. I suddenly realize that they’ve changed out the printers like they were threatening to do for all those months, but they never set up my PC with the new local printer. I apparently printed to the old printer address, to which a nearby printer no longer answers.

No big deal, though, right? I go back to my desk, expecting to find the print manager showing me an error, that the old address is no longer valid and would I like to cancel please? Instead, the print manager has already closed, which means that the job has printed.

Somewhere.

Just not here.

Getting slightly desperate, I call the help desk and ask them to locate where printouts to the old printer address would go, and, in typically efficient, forward-thinking and informative fashion, they have absolutely no clue where the old address now goes to, because naturally their operation is so thorough and efficient that a problem of the sort I’m describing could never have happened without it somehow being my fault. After considerable muttering they set up a ticket for me to talk to network operations so I can try to track down the printer.

I wait, and I wait, and I wait some more, and while I’m waiting I get a call from an extension I don’t recognize. Hoping it’s the aforementioned network operations group, I pick up to discover that I’ve answered an irate woman from the 5th floor (I work on the 3rd), wondering if I’m the idiot that printed out a 110 page novel on her printer. Aware that this has suddenly become absurd, I (perhaps inappropriately, but hey I’m ad libbing here) correct her, saying that the document is actually a partial novel rather than a full novel. Belatedly realizing I’m probably pissing her off by playing semantics so early in the morning, I elaborate that yes, it was printed erroneously, and yes, I’m terribly sorry, and yes, I’ll say five Hail Mary’s and go to Confession after I remove the offending document from her printer.

So I march up to the 5th floor to retrieve the aforementioned ream of paper in my best hangdog fashion. She’s not there, but in the interim she has kindly binder-clipped the printout for me, so I feel even more like a stupid oaf as I pick up the parcel, and slink back to my desk as obscurely and quickly as possible.

Upon my return, I see that network operations has finally replied to my request via email: they have courteously sent me the entire network printer map for the 3rd floor, thus managing to provide encyclopedic information for a question I hadn’t asked, while simultaneously failing utterly to provide any information actually pertaining to the original problem (which, in any case, is now solved anyway). A comedy of errors from beginning to end; I can honestly see Palin and Cleese adding just a touch of their own personal styling to the tale and turning it into a saga that would rival their infamous Book Shop skit.

Only two positive results came of this bizarre little episode. One, I have my printout. Two, I now know how to print prank messages on everyone else’s printer on my floor.

I expect both will come in handy.

The good thing: the synopsis is basically done, awaiting a pair of important readthroughs to help me with my last few changes. I’m a little late, but I think the result will be worth it.

The goofy thing:

Yeah. Me. And Shalila. Only cartoony.

…read this.

Makes everything else seem kinda… I dunno… trivial?

I did not write a thing today

except this stupid poem.

I’m really not the rhyming sort

and meters? I don’t know ‘em.

But since I promised to myself

I’d write now, every day,

This lame-assed verse will have to do –

and yes, I know it’s gay.

‘Nuff said. Go here to do your own.