'Sup? I haven't fucked anything up in the last week or so which on the one hand is good from a life-management aspect but on the other hand from a "I have a blog that chronicles my blunders on a semi-weekly basis" perspective it doesn't exactly make for good reading. So I figured I'd address some of the open issues I have at the moment. In no particular order, other than as they came to my mind, here goes:
The Sour Kraut: ah yes. Not much going on there. This weekend Andy and I plan on taking another look-see under the hood to see if we can trace down where the major problems are. My prediction is that the major problems will be that it's a fucking pile of shit and we don't have the money/interest to fix it. Yep. That sums that up quite nicely. Lesson learned for this project is to not take on a car project that needs waaaaaaay more work than you are willing to do and/or capable of doing. Also, have a garage to work in. A lawn doesn't quite work.
Giving Trainings at Work: I'm still terrible at it but improving. I gave another training today via a web conference and it went much better. I think it was because of the fact that it was a web conference and not a face to face deal. All I had to do was talk to a telephone and use my computer. Not so bad but still not up to snuff. I would say it was less like a train wreck and more like a 4-5 car pile-up on a highway. There was still carnage (flop sweat and um-ing) but less than previously experienced.
The Great Purge of '09: The Wiff and I have been really going through all the stuff we have in the house and purging it. Most of the stuff has been or will be donated to Big Brother/Big Sister but there are some things that simply have no real value anymore (old mixed CDs, VHS tapes, shit like that) that just get the unceremonious heave-ho. It is quite satisfying to really go through this stuff. As I have mentioned before, we've just accumulated so much stuff over the past 11 years and since we had the space to store it, we did. Not anymore. There is no room at the inn.
The Cats: Morticia has arthritis. Molly has glaucoma and Oliver has asthma. I've never been a dog person but I did find the one breed of dog that I would like to have one day. The English Bulldog. It's me in dog form. Awesome.
What else? Not much I guess. I'm still the FNG at work so I'm trying not to fuck up there. I'm still seated in the back room but I'm used to it now. That sounded worse than I had intended. What I meant to say is that I don't mind sitting where I sit. It doesn't really matter as much as I thought it would. So even though my boss tells me he's working on getting me a different space, either way is fine by me honestly. I would like some drawers though. All my shit is spread out on my work surface (and by work surface I mean Formica counter top) and it looks all messy. Oh, did I mention that there are fucking house centipedes in here? Yep. Luckily we've only seen one which Chris (the guy who I share the room with) killed. But if there's one, there's bound to be more. Shudder. They are pure, unadulterated evil. Plain and simple. Hmm, maybe I will hope my boss gets me my own space after all...
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
World's Best Presenter/Hair Stylist
Last week I mentioned that I freaked out while giving a training. It was pretty bad. I had to give a training on this application that we use here at work. Simple enough, one would think right? However, when I got up there in front of the group (oh, and when I mentioned "the group" did you picture a large group of people? You probably did. However, this was NOT a large group. It was 4 people) at the podium I just locked up. Suddenly I forgot everything that I knew about the application and how to use it. I stammered, went on tangents and sweated. Did I mention the sweating? Holy hell. I dunno why I freaked out so hard but the flop sweat was in full effect. I wonder if the freak out was due in part to my past experience in front of an audience...a little flashback maybe? I dunno.
At one point I looked down at my notes (and while I'm on the subject of notes, I may very well be the world's worst note taker. Any notes that I take during meetings usually contain several asterisks and arrows with "important!" or something equally as helpful written next to them. Never any explanation as to why this part of the note is more important than others. I wonder if this is part of the reason why I was such a terrible student...hmmmm) and a drop of sweat landed on the inside of my glasses. Nice. I'm sure that absolutely no one noticed that. Do I take off the glasses, mop the brow and try to clean the lens or do just soldier on and pretend none of that happened. Let's go with pretending there isn't a problem since it has served me so well in the past (right gall bladder? Oh right, you're not here anymore).
I blazed through the rest of the training, not really caring if anyone was understanding what was being said and wrapped everything up with too much time remaining in the session. I believe the term is "train wreck". Not at all what I had hoped would happen. So after the people left I talked to the guy who used to do these trainings (Andy, who had agreed to sit in on the session) about what he thought and what I should do to fix the presentation. He gave me some pointers and I got ready for the training session coming up the very next day. And by "got ready" I mean I had a nice glass of scotch when I got home.
The next day came and we headed over to the meeting. I was a little less nervous than I had been because I had gone over the application several times just prior to this session in hopes that I could remain focused on what I needed to convey to these people. I was expecting about 7-8 people (again, not a large group) and we arrived about 5 minutes before the meeting started to set up. When the time came that the meeting was scheduled to start only one of the people who had accepted the invite had even bothered to show up. I opted to wait for a bit to see if we would have any stragglers wandering in late. After about 10 minutes of waiting it became obvious that no one else was going to show (this isn't a required training for the employees but it does help). So now it was me and this one woman. I said, "Well, I can show you how to use the system and it won't take as long." To which she replied, "I'd rather not if that's ok. If no one else is here I have work I can do." and she got the heck outta the room. Well, fuck you very much indeed.
But I was relieved. I know that the best thing for me to improve my pathetic presentation skills would have been to have had everyone show up and go through the whole damn hour of the training. But I was already overheated and nervous so having that lady bail was fine by me. The main problem then was that I then had to tell my boss that no one showed up and I'm pretty sure he's going to make those people get trained at some point. Basically I've only dodged this temporarily.
Moving on. On Saturday the Wiff and I had been invited to a birthday party for our friend's kid. She was turning 6 and good lord I have no idea what a 6-year-old girl might like. I left all of that in the capable hands of la Wiff and moved on to matters that I can handle. One such matter was to give myself a lil' haircut. The ol' mop had become a tad unruly and rather than go get it cut by, oh I dunno, a PROFESSIONAL (and a professional in the form of my good friend Kerry too. She rules), I went into the bathroom and got out the handy-dandy clippers. I surveyed the 'do and decided that a #7 would do the trick. I brushed out my hair (noting just how much goddamn silver and white there was and wondered briefly if Just For Men looks as shitty as I suspect it does) and started giving myself a trim.
I was making fantastic progress when my thumb popped the guide off of the head of the clipper just as I was making another pass and BZZZZZZZZZKKKKT! Ah, yes. A nice 2.5 inch wide swath. Hello scalp. How are you? Let's just take a look at this and see just how bad this is. Is it salvageable? Oh, no. No, it is not. Ok then. A wiffle it will be. God, whatta dope. Now to offset the lack of hair on the noggin I have decided to bring back the goatee. Actually, it's not really a goatee is it? Why am I asking you? It's just a beard thing that resides on my chin. It helps cover the second chin. There's no mustache and no "soul patch" either. Just the beardy thing. And all the little hairs that used to come in a bright red are now completely white. Wow. that's officially the worst paragraph ever. You're welcome.
At one point I looked down at my notes (and while I'm on the subject of notes, I may very well be the world's worst note taker. Any notes that I take during meetings usually contain several asterisks and arrows with "important!" or something equally as helpful written next to them. Never any explanation as to why this part of the note is more important than others. I wonder if this is part of the reason why I was such a terrible student...hmmmm) and a drop of sweat landed on the inside of my glasses. Nice. I'm sure that absolutely no one noticed that. Do I take off the glasses, mop the brow and try to clean the lens or do just soldier on and pretend none of that happened. Let's go with pretending there isn't a problem since it has served me so well in the past (right gall bladder? Oh right, you're not here anymore).
I blazed through the rest of the training, not really caring if anyone was understanding what was being said and wrapped everything up with too much time remaining in the session. I believe the term is "train wreck". Not at all what I had hoped would happen. So after the people left I talked to the guy who used to do these trainings (Andy, who had agreed to sit in on the session) about what he thought and what I should do to fix the presentation. He gave me some pointers and I got ready for the training session coming up the very next day. And by "got ready" I mean I had a nice glass of scotch when I got home.
The next day came and we headed over to the meeting. I was a little less nervous than I had been because I had gone over the application several times just prior to this session in hopes that I could remain focused on what I needed to convey to these people. I was expecting about 7-8 people (again, not a large group) and we arrived about 5 minutes before the meeting started to set up. When the time came that the meeting was scheduled to start only one of the people who had accepted the invite had even bothered to show up. I opted to wait for a bit to see if we would have any stragglers wandering in late. After about 10 minutes of waiting it became obvious that no one else was going to show (this isn't a required training for the employees but it does help). So now it was me and this one woman. I said, "Well, I can show you how to use the system and it won't take as long." To which she replied, "I'd rather not if that's ok. If no one else is here I have work I can do." and she got the heck outta the room. Well, fuck you very much indeed.
But I was relieved. I know that the best thing for me to improve my pathetic presentation skills would have been to have had everyone show up and go through the whole damn hour of the training. But I was already overheated and nervous so having that lady bail was fine by me. The main problem then was that I then had to tell my boss that no one showed up and I'm pretty sure he's going to make those people get trained at some point. Basically I've only dodged this temporarily.
Moving on. On Saturday the Wiff and I had been invited to a birthday party for our friend's kid. She was turning 6 and good lord I have no idea what a 6-year-old girl might like. I left all of that in the capable hands of la Wiff and moved on to matters that I can handle. One such matter was to give myself a lil' haircut. The ol' mop had become a tad unruly and rather than go get it cut by, oh I dunno, a PROFESSIONAL (and a professional in the form of my good friend Kerry too. She rules), I went into the bathroom and got out the handy-dandy clippers. I surveyed the 'do and decided that a #7 would do the trick. I brushed out my hair (noting just how much goddamn silver and white there was and wondered briefly if Just For Men looks as shitty as I suspect it does) and started giving myself a trim.
I was making fantastic progress when my thumb popped the guide off of the head of the clipper just as I was making another pass and BZZZZZZZZZKKKKT! Ah, yes. A nice 2.5 inch wide swath. Hello scalp. How are you? Let's just take a look at this and see just how bad this is. Is it salvageable? Oh, no. No, it is not. Ok then. A wiffle it will be. God, whatta dope. Now to offset the lack of hair on the noggin I have decided to bring back the goatee. Actually, it's not really a goatee is it? Why am I asking you? It's just a beard thing that resides on my chin. It helps cover the second chin. There's no mustache and no "soul patch" either. Just the beardy thing. And all the little hairs that used to come in a bright red are now completely white. Wow. that's officially the worst paragraph ever. You're welcome.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Speaking In Front of People is so NOT My Strong Suit
This morning I had to run a training here at work and it was awful. What I mean by that is I was awful. I stumbled, stammered, forgot what I was talking about and sweated. A lot. Like, I sweated way too much for a normal person. "Flop sweat" I believe it is called. I could hear myself saying "Um, like...uh" and I was powerless to stop it. I started to go off on tangents and I'm not sure if I even got the point of the training across. I'm still processing the experience and I'll have an update on this whole thing at a future date. The worst part? I get to do it all over again tomorrow morning. Fuck me.
Meanwhile, here's a 5 Song Shuffle to look at while I go get a towel. God, I'm gross.
Meanwhile, here's a 5 Song Shuffle to look at while I go get a towel. God, I'm gross.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Purge, Purge and More Purge
The Great Purge of 2009 has begun. The Wiff and I had a smallish start a couple of weeks ago when we cleared out most of the cabinets in the pantry but this past weekend we tackled the back room of the basement. Here, lurking in boxes and Rubbermaid bins was an assload of stuff that we simply do not need. We cleared out enough things to fill about 12 boxes. And these are pretty decent sized boxes too. Next stop: The Attic.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Open Letter to Everyone Else on the Road
Hi it's me, Mark. Yea, I'm either the guy right behind you or the guy right in front of you. If you're the person in front of me, please get outta my way. If you're the person behind me, get offa my ass you clown. And thus I sum up my driving style. I used to drive really fast and aggressively, especially when I had that dumb job where I had to go to 4-5 different appointments everyday. Now-a-days I don't drive as fast or as aggressively but I'm still a jackass from Boston so, you know how much weight you can put behind that statement.
Most of the time when I'm on the road now I don't really have to be in a rush to get where I'm going. Usually I'm going either to work or back home so I don't have to be at either place at a specific time (for the most part). However, I do have to work a clutch, so I'm all about efficiency. I don't want to have slow down and I abhor stopping. Let's just keep this shit moving people.
Look, I understand that you have to get to wherever it is you people go but seriously? Just get you and your vehicle out of my way. Oh, and all you people who are retired? Yea, you are banned from the roads during my commute. You will only be allowed to drive your Buick LeSabres from 11am until 2:30pm. I'll give you until 3pm if you promise that you'll stay home on the weekends. I have noticed in my daily commute a few things that I think will help all of you to get out of my way faster:
I tend to give people names while I'm driving. Apart from the obvious ones (Fucking asshole, Asshole, Motherfucking asshole, Motherfucker, etc.), I tend to call people "Billy" a lot, as in: "C'mon Billy, let's go". I also use "Joey" or "Jimmy", such as: "Jimmy, it's the pedal on the right.." The name assigned to the person doesn't take into consideration if the driver is female or male. I am not that interested in the gender of the person. I just want them to move. The name will usually be assigned if said driver has done something that I have determined to be detrimental to my getting to where I want to go.
Offenses include but are not limited to:
Most of the time when I'm on the road now I don't really have to be in a rush to get where I'm going. Usually I'm going either to work or back home so I don't have to be at either place at a specific time (for the most part). However, I do have to work a clutch, so I'm all about efficiency. I don't want to have slow down and I abhor stopping. Let's just keep this shit moving people.
Look, I understand that you have to get to wherever it is you people go but seriously? Just get you and your vehicle out of my way. Oh, and all you people who are retired? Yea, you are banned from the roads during my commute. You will only be allowed to drive your Buick LeSabres from 11am until 2:30pm. I'll give you until 3pm if you promise that you'll stay home on the weekends. I have noticed in my daily commute a few things that I think will help all of you to get out of my way faster:
- When the light turns green, that means it's time for you to go. Preferably immediately. There's no reason to look in your rear view mirror at me to see what I'm doing. I can tell you if you want to know: I'm waiting for you to go. Simple as that. See, if you don't go, then I can't go and then in turn jackass behind me will also not be able to go (which may make him lean on his horn and irritate me).
- If you happen to think it would be a good idea to cut in front of me (the Jetta gets zero respect) I ask only that you do so quickly. I don't condone your action (and I'm probably calling you an asshole and/or making gestures), but if you do it swiftly and do not impede my own forward progress; then I'll get over it quicker than if you were to poke along and make me downshift.
- And while if you are behind me you are technically not in my way, you can distract me and get on my nerves. I don't drive fast anymore (it's the cheap Mic in me...I'm no hyper-miler but I am trying to squeeze as much out of a tank as I can get) so if you come flying up behind me and start tailgating me, that's going to cause me to go slower. I won't slam on the brakes (anymore) but I might make it my goal in life to make your commute that much shittier. I will at the very least downshift and then floor the accelerator thus dumping a big cloud of diesel smoke in your face.
- If you are a pedestrian and you want to cross the street, please understand that I don't want to stop for you. This is mainly for those people in and around M.I.T. They don't even bother to look most of the time. They just saunter across not even thinking that someone in a car might not be paying attention at that very moment and will take their sorry asses out. I'm not that guy but I do have a green light here so stay on the sidewalk for a couple of seconds while I zip on by.
I tend to give people names while I'm driving. Apart from the obvious ones (Fucking asshole, Asshole, Motherfucking asshole, Motherfucker, etc.), I tend to call people "Billy" a lot, as in: "C'mon Billy, let's go". I also use "Joey" or "Jimmy", such as: "Jimmy, it's the pedal on the right.." The name assigned to the person doesn't take into consideration if the driver is female or male. I am not that interested in the gender of the person. I just want them to move. The name will usually be assigned if said driver has done something that I have determined to be detrimental to my getting to where I want to go.
Offenses include but are not limited to:
- Looking for something on the floor of your car when I'm behind you at a stop light. Look for it later and pay attention to the goddamn traffic light. When it turns green, I'm going to require you to move yer ass.
- "Look talking". I define this as someone who has to look over at their passenger when they are talking to them. I'm behind this person and I cannot help but notice that their head is swiveling back and forth from looking at the road and then their passenger. This will annoy me to no end. Cut it out. It's perfectly acceptable in this situation to keep your goddamn eyes on the road in front of you and still be able to carry on a conversation with the person seated RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. Eye contact at 50mph is not necessary. I'm sure Ms. Manners would agree.
- Dealing with whatever your children are doing in the backseat. If the little shits cannot behave while you are driving, then leave them at home. Ok, so that may not be practical but perhaps you could at the very least, pull over and let me pass you. And if you could allow one or more cars to pass you so that I have a little bit of a buffer between you and whatever vehicle you will eventually plow into that would be fantastic.
- Really loud music rattling my fillings. Mira, I get it. You REALLY like this song, more than you probably should I'm guessing. But I'm trying to listen to my own stuff in here you see and I don't like how your jam is making my rear view mirror vibrate. Turn it down Joey.
- Merging. There are a few places in my commute where two or more lanes have to merge together into one lane. I'm guessing that most of the people that are on these roads at the same time I am have gone this way before and therefore know that this merge is coming. So what do they do? Yep. They all jam themselves up at the entrance trying to get that one car length ahead of the next retard. "No way you're getting ahead ME, pal!!" Listen Billy, just think of this as a big zipper ok? We all need to get into this fucking tunnel at some point so if you imagine that your car and all the other cars around you are teeth on a giant zipper then we can get where we want to go a little quicker. If you continue to be a dick and try to force the other guy (who's also a dick by the way) to get behind you then the zipper thing goes out the window and we end up with a clusterfuck. No one likes a clusterfuck Billy, so fucking chill out on the testosterone and let the mini van go. Jeez.
- Line cutters. No one likes a line cutter. You can trace this all the way back to elementary school. "Hey, no cutsies!!" I will admit that I have on occasion been one of those guys who bomb up the opposite lane of traffic and then cut in at the last minute to take the off-ramp or exit or whatever that everyone else is queuing up for but see, it's ok when I do it. It's NOT ok when others do it. Plus, it's bad driving karma anyway and you'll end up pissing off some lunatic one day who will take out all his frustrations on you. No one wants that, so to the back of the line there Jimmy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)