Fortune Cookie Update

Over a year ago, I posted this which was a fortune cookie saying that I'd be crossing ocean waters.  In case you were wondering, that fortune did not come true.  Now, I will be going to another country soon (for vacation), but no ocean waters will be crossed.  (My destination is even in the same time zone.)

I'm kind of disappointed because other coworkers have had reasons to go to China where we have some manufacturing.  Not that I would have anything to do over there, but it'd definitely be an experience.  And my boss asked me early on if I had a passport, so I had been hopeful. 

Oh well.  It might be a good thing anyway.  If I spend too much time with my coworkers, I might let slip how ridiculous I find my job and my company. 

Anyway, probably not going to post here for a while since I'll be gone for a little while. 

SOTD - Mr. Cellophane

I received this e-mail today (a little doctored up to make everything anonymous).

I noticed that you have [meeting room] booked in the afternoon on [date].  Unfortunately, the group that is in there before you, won’t be done until 5pm.  Sorry to inconvenience you, but this group will be in here until 5pm as mentioned.

Thank you and once again I am sorry for the inconvenience this causes you.

Warmly,
--------------

First, the extra comma between "before you" and "won't be" is the sender's and not mine.

Second.  Warmly?  Are you kidding me? 

Anyway, the second thing I did (after first sending a snarky response) was forward it to my wife with the comment that this is another sign that I don't matter around here.

So Mr. Cellophane from Chicago popped into my head.  (Obviously, I'm referring to the movie and not the band.)




People sometimes ask me why I don't like my job.  And it's things like this.  I feel like other groups have a complete lack of respect for what I do here.  Sigh.  I'm still disappointed about not getting the other job.  Maybe this was a good salesjob by them, but in the interview, I felt like I would matter there.  And I'm not sure that I would ever matter here.

E-mail Account Hacked

So my Gmail account was hacked (my real one, not the e-mail address you see on this site).  As I've received e-mails from random people saying they got this random iPad spam from me, it dawned on me that all sorts of prospective employers from over the last five years received this e-mail from me.  Kind of weird.  Well, it's not like any of them were planning on sending me a job offer anyway.

But it's weird who decides to tell you that your e-mail has been hacked.  I just heard from two people I haven't talked to in roughly six months.  And these are people I actually want to keep up my networking with so it was nice to hear from them. 

So to all you unemployed people and/or job searchers, keep up with your networking.  If you can't come up with anything to say to the person you haven't talked to in a while, send a random spam mail and maybe they'll just get back to you.

And I guess I should recommend that you update your password and all that to stay ahead of the spoofing and stuff like that.

SOTD - Morrissey - Such a Little Thing Makes Such a Big Difference

So I didn't get the job. And at times when I'm feeling sorry for myself, I turn to Morrissey.



Apparently, the funding that would have made hiring me possible wasn't there. So of course that trickles down to my not getting hired and still having to be at this job. Apparently, they're still going to keep me in mind if anything comes up in the future, but I've heard that before. Sigh.

Not really sure why this was the song that popped into my head after hearing the news. After thinking about it, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now would have also been an appropriate choice.

Pretty soon, I'll have been at this job for a year. Geez. I hope it's not that much longer.

SOTD - Billy Joel - Keeping the Faith

Keeping with the current optimistic faith theme (weird for an atheist), today's song of the day is Billy Joel's Keeping the Faith.  I haven't heard back about my job interview yet, so I'll be waiting I guess.



But really, this song is about getting old and memories.  I had a recent moment where I felt kind of old.  A friend of mine is a musician and was recently in town for a show.  He got tickets and backstage passes for my wife and I and left them at will call.  The young girl at will call was a little a surprised (as was I) that there were backstage passes in there and as she gave them to me, I said, "It'll be like Wayne's World".  And I kinda held up the pass as Wayne does in this scene. 



But no look of recognition on her face.  And then I realized that movie was from like 20 years ago (1992).  I guess that was a really dated reference.  Oh well.  I guess I'm getting old.

Pooping at Work and Sensitive Toilets

Side note: the other day,  I pooped twice, but neither was at work.  I was very disappointed. 

But at work though, I never use the third toilet out of the set of four unless it's the only one left.  Everything in the bathroom works automatically and has a sensor to sense the presence of your hands or in the case of the toilets, your ass.  But the third toilet, at least in my experience, is the most sensitive.  Whenever I use it, I try to stay pretty still or else there's a flush.  And that just doesn't feel right.  You try to stand up a little, but really you can't.  And then you can feel some of the water splashing up.  Not a good feeling.

Having worked with these kinds of sensors before, I know there are fairly simple ways of changing their range and tuning their sensitivity.  I think it'd be nice if these things could be tuned for this when installed.

Anyway, most of the time, I pick the last (fourth) toilet and when I notice someone in the stall next to me get an extra flush, I point to them and in my mind, I have a silent Nelson Muntz "Haw Haw".  That makes for a nice happening during my day. 

SOTD - George Michael - Faith

Today's song of the day is George Michael's Faith (not the Limp Bizkit version, though that version's not terrible.)



I'm choosing this song because very soon, I'll be going on the interview that I talked about earlier. Back in my unemployed days, I had identified this company pretty early with salesman friend and I kind of interviewed with them, but I guess they didn't have anything at that time, but I guess now they do.  Let's hope all goes well.

It was only recently that I figured out that the organ beginning to the song is Wham's Freedom.  I thought that was interesting trivia. 

Anyway, time to get in a suit again.