Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

Worked my normal day.

About halfway through the day, I started developing a slight cough, that rapidly turned into an annoying chest wracking cough. I’m apparently not alone, everyone in the office is coughing so something is going around.

Merry Christmas!

The incoming phone calls and emails, were of the wacko variety. I’m not talking about minimal crazy… I’m talking WACKO!

The thing is that Holidays bring out the loneliest folks in the society. These are people that need to talk to anyone! They’ll gin up any excuse to talk to anyone about anything. AND They Do!

8 Solid hours of CRAZY it very draining and toward the end of the day tests, My Patience!

Merry Christmas!

I can’t blame lonely people for wanting to talk, but they shouldn’t be calling medical companies with fictional issues. Medical companies have to document everything they’re told no matter how crazy or strange. Each issue has to be documented throughly and submitted to the FDA.

So after 15 or 20 fake issues you spew at tech support… We’re not amused! But Thank you SOOO Much for making us work late and keeping us from our families!

Merry Christmas!

However, once home, I made dinner for myself, and started Die Hard it’s a Christmas tradition for me.

Yippie Kai Yay!

Now I’m actually having a Merry Christmas! The cough is still getting worse and I’m running a slight fever. But I’m drinking a cup of green tea mixed with a bit of whiskey. It may not cure me… But I’m not sure that I much care.

Merry Christmas!

Well Merry almost Christmas…

It’s not yet “The Day” but it is the beginning of the long holiday weekend.

If I were working for a better employer, I’d have the weekend off and wouldn’t have to worry about driving anywhere. But that’s not reality.

As one of my grandmothers used to say, “Shit in one hand, wish in the other, tell me which one fills up first.

She could be a very salty lady…

This is the second year that I’ve ending up working through the holiday. It’s weird, I’m not at all in a Christmas spirit. I see all the ads, and the decorations and it has absolutely no effect on me. It’s surreal, I’ve done no shopping, and sent none of my usual cards, ( I should be working on it now), but I’m simply not motivated.

Part of it, is that its been way too warm. Part of it is that most of the people I deal with through work are not in the holiday mood, many of them are as selfish as normal and to be honest, depressingly stupid. Some of the people I deal with, are so massively stupid, I wonder how they’ve survived at all.

I’m going to try to watch some of my favorite holiday movies today to see if I can get a bit more into the holiday mood.

While I’m working on Christmas Day… I’m watching the Die Hard series, even if I’m not paying full attention to it. Hey! Don’t judge, the first two movies happen at Christmas.

I blew off the company Christmas party. Actually the one for our branch of the company. There were several parties, the nicer ones, we weren’t invited to.

It’s demonstrative of the implicit class boundaries that exist where I work. My department is considered the dregs of the company and are therefore not welcome at many events… But a party held at a Zoo?

On the other hand, I can see the higher-ups not wanting to hang with the vast majority of the people that I work with. That’s why I didn’t go to our party.

Even if I’d been invited to the better class parties, I wouldn’t have gone. With maybe 3 exceptions, I don’t consider my co-workers as people that I’d like to hang out with at any time.

Company parties are in general, dangerous.

Offend the wrong person or be perceived in the wrong way due to an offhand remark (or as so often happens these days, an out of context remark… Whether TRUE or not,) and you’re done. No promotions for you, and you’re at the top of the layoff list.

In my particular case, after almost 2 years, I’m still confused with another guy all the time. Since I can prove that I didn’t go, even if he did… I have absolute deniability.

There is clear evidence that he’s been given credit for multiple compliments and some awards that were supposed to go to me. There is also clear evidence that I’ve been blamed for mistakes that he made. Including absences, and that is taking a lot of fighting on my part to correct.

Thank goodness for my mistrust of the company.

I’ve been keeping records since the first or second week of my employment. When my Supervisor talked to me about attendance, I pulled out my records and suddenly, my Supervisor was very interested in making sure that the company records were accurate. I had his full and complete attention when I mentioned that location data was also recorded when I made a time entry, in my phone. Uh huh… yeah you might want to pull the biometric scans of my attendance before making accusations.

I’ll admit that was kind of a nice Christmas present. I truly enjoyed watching him start to sweat. It really made me smile.

I’m not that supervisor’s employee anymore, so hopefully my new supervisor will be a bit better.

But enough about work. It’s still my day off and I choose not to think about it.

Perhaps I’ll sit down at the computer and work out a digital holiday card. Perhaps not…

It’s not that I don’t care about my friends it’s just a matter of energy, this year has been exhausting!

No Matter how many times I say it…

I’m ignored.

I’ve been maintaining a few Web sites for folks. It’s not a big deal, I have the tools necessary to do it. But it takes time…

Generally not a lot of time, and often I can tweak things on the fly from my iPad or even my phone. But I kinda need the data that folks want me to put into their website. I’m after all not a mind reader and with my work schedule, the people I deal with every day, and being pretty much exhausted all the time I have little patience for uncooperative people.

One of the folks whose site I maintain, has been planning a move, from one location to another. They sent out a notification to everyone on their mailing list in late September or early October. 

Fortunately, I was on their mailing list.

When I read the notice from them, I sent an email and said “You’re going to need to update the web site, send me all the information as soon as you can so that I can get ahead of your move and the website is up-to date”

I got a reply, “Yep, we’ll send you the info.” 

Then nothing…

UNTIL an email the day before Thanksgiving, again to the general mailing list that their shop would be closed Thanksgiving through Dec 1.

I sent another message, “OK I’ve got the new address from your email notification. I’ll update the basics Over the Thanksgiving holiday.” Silence…

I updated the website based on the information I had. I sent a link to my sandbox so they could verify the information is good. Still silence.

4PM on Black Friday, OH we want to add a whole new page can we do that?

I sent back a message, yes we can do that, what do you want the page to contain?

Silence.

Then, early in the week I get an email that has two JPEG images of their brochure. No other explanation, just a typing chore for me to transcribe the text from a photograph into something that I can even begin to incorporate into a web page.

Gee… THANKS!

It’s not like there’s only a small amount of text this brochure is so text dense that I was reminded of war & peace, or The Dead Sea Scrolls!

It would be nice to know what it most important and what could be left out. 

I’d haCbe68874ve run OCR on the photo, except that the copy they sent me had a bunch of marks on it making it look like a “Captcha”. This rendered OCR almost completely useless.

Again… THANKS!

I’ve finally got most everything into a usable format and now it’s about wrangling the text into some kind of organization and onto a page. Given that today is my one day off this week… I’m not a happy camper because this is not what I’d like to be doing today.

I’d like to be writing, and napping, having sex… Instead of sitting in front of a fucking computer doing someone else’s shit which is what I do all day long, every day at work.

This probably wouldn’t annoy me all that much except that these are “Friends” (Apparently I’m not on their Christmas list) and by the way THEY DON’T PAY ME. Taking advantage of your friends is the surest way to not have friends anymore.

Yep, This started out as a One-off to help them get their business running and now 3 – 4 years down the road I’m still doing it for nothing.

Grrrrr.

I guarantee that if they were paying me even 25 an hour, I’d have all sorts of pictures, and word files to put in their site. I also know exactly what they wanted and how they wanted it. Instead of working from something that is almost completely useless. 6 to 8 hours paid time would be “Too Expensive” I can hear the whining about the cost now.

Oh and I’d probably have had the time to do it in an organized way, instead of their usual method… PANIC MODE!

I’m thinking it’s time for me to put all their files on a thumb drive and mail it to them with a nice letter explaining how to transfer their domain to another location. Reminding them that failure to pay for their domain renewal will result in the loss of their website and rights to their domain.

Yeah, I’ve been handling the backend stuff for them too.

I think the time has come to cut my losses. Whatever happens after that it would be on them.

Happy Turkey Day

Ok so this one is a bit late.

Happy Thanksgiving anyway. I hope that you and your family had a lovely dinner.

Happy Black Friday then!

For those of you heading out to begin your Christmas Shopping…

Walmart black friday store shoot abdccf1c9cbc2f30

May God have mercy on your soul!

I used to enjoy going to Malls on Black Friday. I’d go with friends and we’d shop the day away, it was a good time and while crowded, it was just the right amount of crowding.

Then about a decade or so ago, Black Friday shopping crossed a threshold where it simply wasn’t any fun anymore. People aren’t into the holiday spirit, they’re into finding the deals FOR THEM. No-one says Merry Christmas anymore, they say Happy Holidays or Thank you and that’s it.

Christmas decorations have become more and more “Politically Correct” and protesters of various stripes are to be seen at shopping centers. The combination has bled all the fun right out of the season.

I used to like going to malls during this season to see how each mall decorated. Their creativity or whimsy was a joy to see, and much like the old Macy’s / Gimbels rivalry, attracted people to the malls to shop and enjoy the decorations.

Now, it’s all homogenous. Everything looks the same, one mall is like another so what’s the point of making a trek to a mall that’s 20 miles away when the one that’s 5 miles away is exactly the same. It probably doesn’t help that many of the malls are owned by the same consortium. 

My point is, politics, special interests, and “Political Correctness” has taken what used to be a fun season and turned it into a hollow, insincere, boring, and in some cases tasteless, version of itself. I am less and less interested in the season and even now one day one, I look forward to it being over.

Last year, most of what little Holiday Shopping I did was done online. I tried shopping once at a mall, not on Black Friday and it was so awful with parking, crowds, and bad tempered people that I simply left the place empty handed. Spending money shouldn’t be a scrimmage line activity, it should be a pleasurable experience.

WMacys herald square black friday opening eb732ec2430ce78chen you give a gift you should be thinking about the joy it will give someone, not the nasty people you had to endure to obtain the gift.

I think that’s why so much commerce is being done onlline. It may not be about the deals, it’s about not having to interact with assholes. 

Shopping in front of my computer is a hell of a lot easier than fighting for parking. (I also don’t have to get up early, get dressed, or deal with traffic.)

Which brings me to my second point. In a season that’s supposed to be about peace on earth and good will towards men (generically meaning mankind, everyone, all homo sapiens) we’re separated by commerce and our technology instead of being happy and uniting.

I suspect this means in the future we’ll see much more bad behavior, simply because we’re all forgetting how to interact in a reasonable way with each other. 

I honestly don’t know what the solution is. If you stopped e-commerce there would surely be riots at malls across the country. However, it appears that as I’m writing this mini-riots are breaking out over children’s toys.

Post Apocalypse Christmas

I know it’s a kinda of a dystopian view but I’m calling it as I see it.

So if you’re out shopping, try to enjoy yourself. Remember that you’ve got about a month to find that perfect gift in the store, and failing that, you can sit naked in front of your computer and have that perfect gift drop shipped from China directly to the recipients door.

Try to enjoy the people you’ve chosen to be with this holiday weekend.

Remember, This season is supposed to be about kindness, and family.

Just my two cents…

Doc says I’ll live a while longer…

Doctor cigarette header3459162096

Results of my annual physical are in.

By all the usual standards, I’m alive!

Nice to know that.

I like my doctor, I hate going to the doctor. I dread the day he comes back with the result of some test or other and tells me really bad news. I have no ideal how I’ll respond to it.

Oh sure… the 7 stages and all that; but what does it really mean to me as a person? Will I embrace the reality and fight? Or will I choose to live in blissful ignorance and simply forget to wake up one day?

Burning man.jpeg

There are pluses and minuses to each course of action.

If it’s serious and you fight, you could easily find yourself living in a tight little circle running from appointment to appointment at medical facilities for the rest of your days. I hate the smell of antiseptic in the morning!

On the other hand, if you choose to live in ignorant bliss you could simply live a happy if short span. If you go that route, you have to opportunity to do all the things you might have been afraid to do. Imagine the freedom of being able to do any drugs, have any kind of crazy ass sexual escapades, jump out of planes, climb mountains, live life homeless wandering the world. 

173669 peyote8

Suddenly, albeit perhaps briefly the world really is your oyster. What penalty could conventional law place on you? Arrest? If you’re imprisoned, they provide you free health care. If the law allows you to go you simply go back to doing what you want.

When I’m confronted with my mortality I find myself thinking like this. The concept of no boundaries appeals to me in a very fundamental way.

The idea that nothing, no matter how dangerous really matters is alluring. I suspect the very first thing I’d try is something like peyote or the drug from that tribe in South America that’s been called the “god” drug. Supposedly, this stuff allows you to take a journey to the center of your being and commune with the universe. 

Why haven’t I done these things? Laws, Conventions, Rules, Expectations.  

In other words… FEAR.

Fear of consequences, punishment, loss of freedom, or simply people not liking me.

Consumer Society

It’s ironic because in a very real way I gave up absolute freedom to live in and be a part of a society that I no longer recognize. I guess I’m at that age now where I wonder; What If?

Down that road lies the potential for despair. Not bad to occasionally think about it… Very bad to dwell there.

So what’s the alternative?

Look forward. Remember that all it takes to change the future is to choose the future you want. 

That’s where I’m at. Yep I’ll live another few days, months, years, decades, whatever, but the future is as yet unwritten. Since I’m the one doing the writing I have to remember not to let the past have too much control over what I write next.

I think I’m at a place where I want to experience some of the things I’ve denied myself for no other reason than I wanted to fit in, to be accepted, liked, and thought of as doing what was expected.

I supposed I should say, “Thanks Doc, see ya next year.” maybe I will the next time I talk to him.

Until then… I’m setting a blank piece of paper and a fresh new pen on that desk in my head. I’ll start writing something new.