Archive for 'work' Category

2008.08.12

Welcome to the Help Desk

Life at work has been busy. A little too busy. Which is why this picture that NHK sent me seems just far too appropriate… :-)

2008.07.31

Sequence of Vengence

Or, How to Play a Prank and Get Punked

It all started innocently enough with a couple of my friends at work playing a prank on the new girl concerning a Pocky Incident. Jenner, however, isn’t one to take it sitting down and plotted a path to revenge. One car covered in saran wrap and toilet paper, the truck covered in 1600 yellow post-it notes. The thing was covered.

Unfortunately, the victims found out (partly because Jenner had done something like this before) and turned the tables, taking all of it and covering her car. I guess that happens when everyone parks in the same garage and knows what you drive. From Jenner:

I should have moved my effing car though, they promptly dumped all this crap onto my car when they discovered my handiwork. Buts that’s OK. For the next phase (or is it phases?) that isn’t an option.

So who is the next target? What will the payback be? When will I strike? Only I know………

All I know is they’d best leave me out of it because if I get served, well, let’s just say revenge is a dish best served cold. Meanwhile you can watch events unfold at Operation Pocky Payback.

2008.07.23

Karoshi… Do Not Want

Work has been crackers. I mean, it gets busy sometimes but lately it’s been nothing but frantic and I can feel it. Partly it’s the season, partly it’s my own fault, but mostly I attribute much to Murphy.

Which is why when I saw this article about Japanese salary men working so much they keel over dead I thought, Do not want. It happens often enough that they even have a word for it: Karoshi.

Absolutely. Positively. Do. Not. Want.

2008.05.08

Special Lazy Time

It’s been special lazy time for my and the blog for the past week. I would apologize, but I’m just not sorry. :)

Work has been busy. Since becoming a manager I’ve gotten to do things I’ve never done before… like spend $200,000 on equipment that will depreciate in value faster than a cheap American car.

The big distraction, however, has been my Mom’s cancer situation that I alluded to here. Although the most recent prognosis is better than the original, I still don’t know enough to feel comfortable about the whole thing. I’m not stressed or anxious yet. I suppose that will happen when I fly out tomorrow and get a chance to talk to my family in person.

Meanwhile I’ve found and not posted tons of things I thought would be interesting, like President Bush trying to blame Democrats for the housing crisis and rising cost of gasoline, a site with tons of pithy rules of thumb and, of course, the uno. At least 10 people have sent me that link now… I will post a few more, including a relative large “Who Is the Final Cylon” entry, sometime soon!

2008.04.30

Anime On The Web

(Disclosure: I work for VIZ Media, a partner in this venture).

Almost a year ago Cartoon Network launched Toonami Jetstream, a website where you could watch certain anime titles for free. The problem was that you could only view them using a Windows computer.

Starting today, though, Cartoon Network has changed the format and now viewers from all platforms and watch anime on the web. Awesome! Current titles include Naruto and Hikaru No Go, both of which I recommend.

Congrats Cartoon Network, on being inclusive rather than exclusive. You’ve even added the ability to embed video from your site to ours. Awesome.

2008.04.26

Exhausted Whinging

Lately I’ve been super stressed with work. There is far too much going on and it’s affecting my sleep. This isn’t too unusual and once the projects are over I’ll get back to my normally scheduled patterns. A monkey wrench was thrown into all of this with the bad news that my Mom has some form of cancer. She just found out so the test results aren’t back. Until then we don’t know much more than what I just told you.

Normally I try not to let unknowns affect me too terribly much. After all getting stressed about the unknown causes anxiety that no one needs or wants. I wasn’t always one to push aside worries about things I had no control over or that were simply made up possibilities. At some point in my life I discovered I felt a lot better and relaxed if I just dealt with the facts instead of speculation. No matter the perspective, though, my Mom’s situation is bothering me.

When I was four or five we lived in the Boston area. One day I was near hysterics, running around the house and crying inconsolably. Finally my Mom caught me, pulled me on the couch and held me in one of her precious hugs. “What is it?” she asked, to which I balled even more. Somehow at such a young age I learned that everyone dies. “I don’t want you to die!”

Mom, even if we lived forever, that sentiment is still true.

2008.04.13

Heat Wave in San Francisco

I am generally not one that enjoys the heat. It’s humid often, you sweat, there’s little escape. I prefer cooler climates. It’s easier to put on layers; at some point you can’t take off any more clothing. This is at times it’s own benefit but not when you have to goto work.

Contrary to my predilection, however, we’ve been going through a little heat wave here in San Francisco and topped 80ºF (27ºC) and it’s been great. Especially at night. Normally once the sun goes down here you’re wearing at a minimum a thin jacket. Friday and Saturday nights were t-shirts only.

Friday my company celebrated an anniversary with a mini-offsite meeting and bowling party. When that ended a group of about 30 of us went to a bar and played pool, threw darts, talked, drank and had a lovely time. When I got home at 11PM (keeping in mind we’d all been drinking since 2PM) it was cooler but quite comfortable.

Last night was amazing, though. A group of us went to my neighbor’s birthday gathering at Zeitgeist and spent hours on the patio in the shockingly warm night air. I’ve never seen the place so crowded. Sadly I’d also never seen so many huppies (hip young professionals) there, either. Poor Zeitgeist, you were discovered and made popular and you’ll probably never be a proper motorcycle bar again.

Today is looking to be just as amazing as the past several. Sadly this scuttles my plans to go for a ride on my motorcycle as far too many people will be out in droves on the roads today. Still, I think I might go find an outdoor cafe somewhere, read a good book and enjoy the day. Temperatures that hold to warm into the late evening generally only happen a few times a year here. I’m planning on taking advantage of it.

2008.02.24

Slow Week Fast Week

It’s obviously been a slow week for posting here. I do apologize for that. Mostly I’ve been trying to prevent my brain from exploding from the insanity that was work. We’re doing a company reorganization and it’s needed to happen and what is happening is, overall, a good thing. Yet while the macrovision of what the reorg will look like is done, the specific detail are not. I have several projects to deliver, most of them soon and most of them contingent on each other, and I’ve learned that the people I would have worked with previously are no longer the people I will work with going forward. It’s just that no one seems to know who I will be working with going forward so I’m kind of screwed in the meantime. May, when one of the HUGE and detailed projects is due, is much sooner than these people think. So I’ve been struggling to find out who to work with and I finally managed to arrange some time to talk to the people who matter.

And this was only about a quarter of the work stress last week.

Anyways, it’s not the best excuse, but it’s what I have and I’m sticking with it. Next weekend is our big ski weekend in Tahoe and I have a few days off. I can’t wait; I need to decompress big time.

2008.02.11

Consumer Darwinism

Working in IT I get to see a lot of strange things on and around peoples desks when I go to help them. What follows isn’t the strangest or funniest thing (by a long shot!) but it did make me roll my eyes just a little bit. See if you can guess why.

What you’re seeing is a bottle of Trader Joe’s vitamins. It’s cranberry concentrate, which I’ve been assured contains tons of vitamin C. What gets me is the brand tag line, “For the Survival of the Fittest.” This is the most ironic thing I’ve seen in quite a while. If you were -evolutionarily speaking, of course- “the fittest” person and most worthy of passing your genes on to improve the species then you wouldn’t need vitamins. You would need vitamins if you were not genetically superior, though. The fittest don’t need help (unless they want it). The less fittest need help (unless they want to die out).

This is yet another fine example of marketers doing what they do best… Creating an image that distorts reality. For truth in advertising the tag line should read, “For the Survival of the Not-Quite-Fittest.”

2008.01.23

Where the Hell are the Forks?!?

Forks seem to be disappearing at an inordinate rate. At my house we used to have tons. Somehow we got down to four. Weirdly the number of spoons we have seems to be growing. Is there any way the forks could be evolving into spoons? Meanwhile all the forks at work seem to be gone. Even the plastic ones that seemed so bountiful and were saved from people’s take out for future use.

WTF is up with all the disappearing forks?