Mr. Complainy Pants

I hate urinals. I love the IDEA of urinals but in practice I cannot stand them. The reason? Most guys don't use them correctly and end up splashing all over the goddamn place, so in order to use the thing I have to stand in someone else's piss. It seems to me that this can't just be due to dudes being revolting (ok, maybe it's 90% due to that factor) but perhaps it's a design flaw with the urinal itself. The ones here at work are of a design that seems to favor piss spray. I have abandoned them altogether have and started using the toilets instead (lifting the seat with my foot of course...I'm not an animal).

I don't know what the solution to this vexing problem (that's right: VEXING) might be. Is it a complete redesign of the urinal? Fuck yea it is! Check it:

Look at this thing! Do I pee in it or ask it to marry me? I guess the idea is that if you can increase the surface area the principles of fluid dynamics will ... oh fuck it. It looks like a giant ladies, uh...area! Wheeeeeee! This is leaps and bounds beyond the urinals I am used to and light years past the dreaded piss-trough that you can still find at some of the shittier sporting venues around the country (another reason to shun sports IMHO). Look people: we need new urinals. Get on it. I'm tired of standing in your dirty dirty pee leftovers.

I don't even want to get into the whole flushing issue. Why are people not flushing? There are those waterless/flushless units (hee. units) that look good on paper but in practice just end up smelling like a subway station. They had those installed at my last office and while I understand the environmental concern of having all that water dedicated to just rinsing a load of someone's pee down the drain, but at least the pee wasn't allowed to just hang out in the thing and dry up. God, I'm gonna retch just thinking about it. The next best thing would be the motion sensor flushing ones, but until those are improved so that they don't flush while you're using the damn thing, then I'm going to have to dismiss the technology.

I dunno what the answer is but basically, guys are gross and therefore so are our bathrooms.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter This Cube

I am starting to get used to my new surroundings here at the shiny new gig and so things are better. I still get disoriented when trying to navigate my way to conference rooms (the company occupies space in several different buildings all within a few blocks of each other. This is ok for now but once the cold and/or snowy weather gets here I may be declining meeting requests left and right).

This got me thinking it might be time for another installment of "Vocational Errors by Your Host Mark". Today's story is from 1999-2000. I had been working at ZDNet, happily plugging away at making little HTML files for the website when I realized that my boss at the time (a.k.a the mini tyrant) was not going to go to bat for me and get me the raise that I thought I deserved. I decided that I'd look for another position within the company and that's when I found out about a gig in the department some of my friends worked in. Schweeeeeet. I interviewed (like a champ) with the manager guy and after much inter-departmental red tape and ass kissing I got the gig (I had to straddle both positions for a bit too..I was doing two jobs for the price of one for about a month).

The position as it had been described to me by the manager guy I had interviewed with was right up my alley. It was sort of pseudo-technical with some support work and a dash of creative influence thrown in so that I didn't lose my will to live. Everything was hunky-dory for the first few weeks and then the he called me into his office to ask me if I was interested in going to San Francisco to meet with his boss and get a better understanding of what the peeps out there need from me. Say what now? Free trip to a super-awesome city where my ex-roomie lives? Fuck yea I'll go! I thought that I had finally "arrived". I felt all fancy.

Y'know what's not fancy? Business travel and then meetings with people who clearly suspect that you might be retarded (whoops! I meant "challenged"). The first night in town was kinda exciting if tiring. I got in around 7pm local time and after dumping my stuff off at the hotel I went downstairs to meet the grand-boss guy and his local flunkies. They were going to take some clients out to dinner and had invited me along. At the restaurant we all sat at this big-ass table (there was 8 of us I think) and everyone started chatting. Well, everyone except me. It was becoming clear to me that these people had waaaay more experience in business than I and, at this point, probably assumed I was just as successful as they. Best to keep my yap shut.

The grand-boss dude ordered up this stupidly expensive bottle of wine and talked about the giant house that he was renovating. I had just the year before purchased my house and I thought that this would be a good place to "connect" with him. Yea, turns out he was spending more than double what my house had sold for just on his restoration. I think I might not be able to relate to his "not being able to find a really good banister guy". Oh, plus keep in mind that to me it was the middle of the night since I was still on east coast time.

The next day I went into the office to meet with him and his pit bull in the form of this woman who right from the word "GO!" hated my guts (I was sitting here now trying to recall her name and I can't do it. I must have purged it from my memory...oh crap, I hope I didn't purge some stuff I need too). They proceeded to explain what my job would actually entail and it was light years away from what I had signed on to do. Basically it was all about running reports and meeting with clients and generating revenue streams and... HOLY FUCK!! I didn't even comprehend what the frick they were talking about. I just wanted to crawl under the desk and hope for them to go away. They wanted to know how many people were going to the website and what they were clicking on and if they downloaded and fuck me...it was awful.

I flew back to Boston and tried desperately to be the guy they wanted me to be but I'm just NOT that guy. I don't do marketing and strategy. I can't even plan a vacation for fuck's sake. It got so bad that I would dread seeing the little red light on my phone all lit up when I got into work in the morning. My heart would just sink when I saw that light. Plus, they were calling me with all these emergencies at 5PM California time. Hi guys? Yea, that's fucking 8PM here in Cambridge...I'm not in the goddamn office. There was talk of giving me a beeper but I was able to resist that idea luckily. I can't imagine being at the Pit Bull's beck and call 24/7. Every day I would go home and tell the Wiff that I'm going to be fired. And I wasn't kidding. I really thought that at any moment they would just throw up their hands in frustration and kick me out the door. It was one of the most stressful times in my life so far.

I just did not understand what it was that they wanted me to produce for them. They needed someone who could work closely with the clients that existed and then try to get new clients and drive traffic to the site and get the revenue to show growth and bloody hell I'm an introvert over here people. I went to the guy that I had actually interviewed with and basically asked him what the fuck happened to the job that I had applied for. He was so completely unhelpful in getting anything resolved with the California office. He essentially admitted that he had misinterpreted what it was his boss wanted and yet he either wasn't willing or able to fucking fix it. He still stands out as the worst manager I have ever worked under. So I went to HR to tell them that shit was all fucked up and I had made a huge mistake in taking this job. To their credit they didn't just kick me in the balls and tell me to "buck up, fattie". They actually worked with me to resolve the problem.

Cut to 3 months of hell later and, as luck would have it, there had been a re-organization within the old group that I had worked in. Out had gone the mini-tyrant who ran my little group as well as the perpetually bored, ineffective, Jane-Austin-loving woman that she reported into. In came this woman who had run the department when I first joined the team who was/is awesome, awesome, awesome (hooray for Laura Sweet!!). I found out that the manager position previously held by the mini tyrant was now open and I jumped on that mofo. I begged and cajoled HR and got an interview with my old manager. She asked me if I could do the job without fucking up too much and I said that I'd try (I'm paraphrasing of course). She took pity on me and hired me back. I am still so very grateful for that. She saved me and my sanity.

As a little post-script to this story, after I left that other evil position, they had a really hard time filling it. They eventually hired a few people to do the work that actually needed to be done. The description of that job was so poorly conceptualized that it took a review and rewrite to realize that there was enough work there for 3 separate people. And they had tried to get one big dummy to do all of it. Oh, and we were all laid off eventually. G'night!

Wow, That Sure is a Big Bite You Took

Hi. Um...yeah.



The good news is that we do in fact have proper vacuum pressure. The bad news is everything else is pretty well fucked. We're going to attempt to repair the head gasket issue and see if that stops the oil from spewing out of the engine. All other dreams, however fleeting they may have been, of one day restoring this heap have pretty much been dealt a death blow. While jacking up the car we discovered that not only is the "official" jack point on the passenger side made up of bondo and scrap sheet metal (which don't so much help to hold the car together when lifting it but do more of a very unnerving crunching and splintering thing) but that there is a very large patch near the rear of the passenger compartment of undetermined strength and/or quality. Neither one of us felt confident enough in the jack stands ability to keep the car from falling on top of us to get a better look at it. We really need a proper lift to get in there and I can tell you now that this will most likely not happen.

So it will be the dissected frog route after all. It would take quite a bit more money and time to get this thing to where it was safe enough to think about driving. Of course I have already driven it but that's just because, I will remind you, I am a moron.

Elbows Akimbo

Work stuff is still the dominant activity lately so I won't bore you fine people (all 3 of you) with the details. Let's just say I'm in the middle of week #2 and there's a lot to learn. But that's the main reason I made this change in the first place: to challenge myself and get some new experience. So far, so good.

Moving on:

I was listening to the radio on my way into work the other day and a commercial came on for a local business. I won't say what the business is or does (mainly because I wasn't paying close enough attention and I forget what it was but also 'cuz it doesn't really matter) but it was clear that the guy who runs the business was doing the speaking (read: thick Boston-area accent). This is fine and dandy if that's what you're going for but right at the last minute when it was time to wrap up the spot and give out the phone number and address the voice switched to a professional announcer. I mention this only because a) if you hired the professional to do the last bit of the commercial, why not have him do the whole spot? b) ok, so maybe the guy charges per word or something which is why you had Billy the owner do the bulk of the ad, so why not have Billy the owner do the whole commercial? c) if you think that it's REALLY important to have the professional dude as the closer, maybe you should tell him how to properly pronounce your city's name. Or, at the very least, after realizing that he pronounced it wrong you could, I dunno, maybe re-record that bit?

The city in question? Peabody. Now, depending on where you are and whether or not you have heard someone from this part of Massachusetts pronounce this city, you may have read that as "Pee-bod-ee". That's a perfectly-understandable-3-syllable-having pronunciation but it is also fucking wrong. We will correct you once and only once and from then on we will expect you to pronounce it correctly. The correct pronunciation is "Pee-biddy". Notice that I lopped off one of the syllables. This is because it is extraneous. There is no reason that we cannot consolidate the last 2 into one singular robust "biddy" syllable (I have heard others say "Pee-buddy" but I refuse to acknowledge this version. I am a purist). Also, please note that some people actually say "Peebiddy" as one very sharp, fast syllable. This is also acceptable but I prefer the more accessible "Pee-biddy" version.


Not to be confused with P-Diddy
(or whatever the frick he's calling
himself these days).

When I watch TV I tend to mute the commercials (in real time as opposed to on the DVR...I just fast forward through 'em then. I know! So rebellious, I) 'cuz they give me a headache. There is an ad campaign for a NH store that I love, love, love. And not for the reason that I believe the geniuses who dreamed up these ads thought I would (nice sentence structure jerk-o). Well, technically it IS for the reason they thought but...oh never mind. It's for the chick in the commercial. I just did a Google search for her and I have unconfirmed info about her name but I could not find a video clip of the commercials in question. What is my fascination with her? In every commercial she does this thing that I can only describe as a variation of the Chicken Dance. I call her "Elbows" because of this. I'm pretty sure she's not aware that she's doing it but whoo-boy did I notice. I think I'm supposed to think: "She's pretty. Me want to buy things at that store now." But the only message that I get is the Chicken Dance song in my head every time her commercials come on. The Wiff and I sit there in front of our TV "doing the elbows" (as I call it). I really wish I could find a clip to put up here. I'll see what I can do about that. You HAVE to see it.

I got pulled over this week by a state trooper. My inspection sticker on the Jetta had expired (July 2009) and he got me just as I was pulling through the fast lane toll booth at the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel. Luckily he just gave me a warning but sitting there as the whole rest of humanity streams by and stares at you sucks. The Wiff, who had taken The Old Girl in that day was somewhere behind me and after a few minutes I saw her drive right on by me. She claims that she didn't see me but I don't see how that's possible. Whatever. The main problem with getting pulled over is not at all what I just described above, oh no. The problem is that the Wiff had just this past Saturday gone out of her way to remind me that the sticker was expired. She even pointed out that she was leaving the cash to get the inspection done right on our side table. I chose to ignore all of this and played video games and napped instead. The "I told you so" express has left the station, a non-stop ride to God-You're-A-Schmuckville. Population: me.

So Very Busy

I've started the new job and I am on brain overload at the moment. I've been going to trainings and reading procedures and SOPs all week. My head is already stuffed full of movie quotes and lists of people who have wronged me so I'm a bit tight on space as it stands anyway. So how is the job going? Ok I'd say. I mean, this is only day 4 but I think it will be ok. Right now I'm in a temporary spot (or so they tell me...I hope to jeebus christmas this is only temporary) as far as my seating arrangement goes. I'm sharing a room (can't really call it an office although it does have a door. It's just a back room near the central files area) with another dude who sits directly behind me. He's a nice guy and all but I gotta say, I find it ... let's say distracting ... to have someone RIGHT BEHIND me all day. Here's hoping I get my own space sooner rather than later.

The Mercedes Project (a.k.a. "The Sour Kraut") hasn't really kicked off yet. We just got the car last weekend and I drove it to Andy's place. The poor old girl really needs some help. It tried to kill me a few times on the drive over as the steering is a tad on the vague side. The brakes work ok (but it does tend to nose dive quite a bit even when being gentle on the pedal. Gotta check the suspension bits) but the major issue is the transmission. More to the point, it doesn't like to shift especially from 1st to 2nd. There are a number of vacuum leaks in the engine so I'm hopeful that if we can sort out the vacuum stuff we may be able to help quite a few other issues at the same time. Also, I think the turbo is toast. This may all sound like a horror show but honestly we're looking at this thing like a frog in biology class. We're going to dissect it and see if we can figure out what goes where and why. We may even attempt trying to get it back into good enough shape to pass inspection some day but if we can't, that's ok.

Oh, did I mention that the driver's side foot well was soaked in oil and there's a hole in the floor pan under the accelerator pedal (which is missing by the way..no gas [ok, diesel] pedal)? Yea, I didn't think I had. I have to admit that this really bummed me out. I hope we can trace that leak down and fix it. Thus the name The Sour Kraut. It has been abused for a loooong time. We did give it a hose down and scrub (Andy even went to town on the interior, scraping off years of cigarette tar and sopping up most of the oil) but all the floor mats had to be tossed out. They were totally nasty, especially the driver's side.

We have a repair manual winging it's way to us at this very moment so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get moving on some of the repairs fairly soon. Updates as events warrant.

What else? Hmm. Oh, yes, I've picked the bass up again. I haven't attempted to play since...holy crap...like 1991 maybe? Wow. I'm frickin' old. I have an old Crate amp that was sitting in a closet forever and my friend Gary loaned me a bass guitar so that I can practice. Right now all I can do is make noises but hopefully I'll eventually be able to make those noises sound good. Why am I doing this? Why not?