It’s been crazy busy at work today, but not the kind of crazy busy that has me whetting my blade for a stabbing fest, which is good.

OK, there was one moment of doubt, in which my hand slowly began to reach for my shiv, so the cutting could begin… You see, for the DEMONware joy to commence, they must shut down all financial operations for two weeks (at least). Yeah, ’cause, you know, in any institution, it’s not like you need money to buy stuff or to do stuff. Anyway, there can be no purchasing through the Purchasing arm of Materials Management while the conversion converts stuff. Of course, in the moments before the shopping blackout is announced, not one but three people must immediately prepare for immense surveying of the U.S. population. Therefore, I must acquire 3,000 envelopes with our company logo.

I am a good administrator. I am a soldier in the force. I am the cog that helps the machine to help mankind. I order 3,000 10×13 logo envelopes, and, LaFayette, they have arrived.

So, I get a whiny email from a project manager, who regardless of the task seems predisposed to believe, I, the clever auteur herself, and our office administrator will not have the collective brain power to muddle through and get her what she needs. I will forego commenting on what I think of her collective brain power.

So, this paragon of research excellence, this anointed woman and possessor of the omnipotent “Master’s” degree, since she is surely the master of me and the other administrator staff, writes an email to whit, she is down to her last envelope. Egads, whatever will she do, and with the office administrator out sick, it is a crisis. A crisis, I say.

Yeah, except for one thing, did you see that huge fucking pile of boxes at the administrator’s desk by any chance? Do you think it’s a wild coincidence that we told everyone we would order all supplies for the next month NOW, before the blackout occurs. I’m sure, given the proximity of the pile of boxes to the door, that they could not have escaped your keen eye. The eye of an eagle, the eye of a Master’s degree holder. Further, did you notice one of the largest boxes was marked — “Look HERE. HERE LIE A SHITLOAD OF ENVELOPES” or something to that effect? Did you see that?

Yeah, I got your envelopes right here, bitch.

I’ll leave out the ensuing Abbott and Costello routine when I told her to “help herself” and explained “I allotted 1,000 to her project,” and she told me she was “taking 200,” and I said “you have 1,000″ and she said, w”hat do you want me to not take these 200?” and I said “no, you have 1,000” and she said, “should I take them all?” and I focused on that place below the curve of her ribcage where the stabbing would reach the soft organ tissue.

Politely I ended it with please, just let us know what you take, since when the other administrator is in, we are going to doublecheck whether we got everything, for fuck’s sake.

Today was one of those days at work that would be better if you were unemployed. It was a day where I think my bumper sticker should read “A bad day getting punched in the face repeatedly is better than a good day working.”

Unfortunately, I’m theoretically promoted. I say unfortunately, because so far it has meant that my responsibilities are less clear, what little sense of power and ownership I had has been diminished, and I’m fucking frustrated as all get out. The intrinsic issue with my job, which is unsolvable despite being able to pinpoit it, is the person above me. He means well, I think he truly doesn’t want to hurt me, but he is often myopic. His view is his view, and any stretching to understand our very different points of view has to be initiated by me. In the first couple of years I worked with him, he made it pretty clear that he was a lifer, not looking to make waves, just relaxing to retirement. But, in the past year or so, he’s had a lot of personal issues that have changed his point of view. In addition, he has developed a relationship with someone who is a political activist, so he has become more forceful, more assertive, less apt to live with the status quo.

His changes have made him my own personal glass ceiling. He wants to stay, and he wants to develop his position in a way he had not previously.

All of the dynamics forceably remind me, when he and I have to go against each other, that I have choices. I am not captive. I can leave.

And, now, M. is far away. It seems we both miss each other, and whether we are together or apart, we talk in a warm, comforting way.

Do I turn my back on a job that has in many ways developed more than I expected? Do I walk away from the person with whom I mostly work, who encourages me that the glass ceiling is crackable, that if I trust her, she will ensure that my skills are used, my job satisfactory?

Do I move West, and try something new, simultaneously safe with M. and also taking a chance on the unknown?

Help me out, see my poll on the right.

I’m sitting here toiling away, and I emailed a friend. While emailing, I realized how much I hate the endless minuet of office bullshit and politics.

On the agenda for today is a little team meeting with our new Chief Administrator. I, and just about every other administrator in the room, have more experience than this woman. The office gossip in the circles affected are pretty much focused on why was she hired, what will she do and how can we avoid her like the plague of locusts (at best) she represents. She’s a particular kind of fun stupid (and by “fun” I mean excruciating pain). Unflappable and uber-confident while sallying forth into the realm of un-fucking-believably stupid. Drooling on yourself eating with a spoon stupid. So stupid you don’t even realize that what you just say has no bearing in the world that you are alledgedly managing. The confidence is amazing, though. I once saw her give a presentation on how faculty are appointed to the department (you know, professors and stuff and how they get their titles). There are a wide variety of people who can become faculty, some are physicians who exclusively work in the clinic, others are laboratory scientists, who have never seen a patient but know a lot about animals, some straddle both worlds, and other themes and variations. So this chick, uber-admin is talking about how it’s supposed to work, and everything she says is about what physicians do and their credentialling and patient loads and what not. A hand raises in the crowd — “Ahh, what about Ph.D.s?”

The quick, confident, self-assured, unflapped answer, “We don’t have any in the department.”

BUZZ, wrong answer, but I guess I applaud your moxie.

Also on the agenda for today is interviewing a job candidate who had the following phrase as a bullet item in her “Profile” –

“Bottom line conscious with attention to detail and deadlines”

Where do I begin?

The title says it all: “Monday.” I’m not a big fan of starting the work week anew.

I’m also far too busy with that which pays me to be writing this now. But, imagine my little fist of rage, the man can’t keep me down. You can make me work, but you can’t stop me from thinking. Little fist shake, little fist shake.

Here are a few jokes I tried last night, which I can’t decide if I like. For a first outing, they essentially worked, but I don’t know.

1 – For the past year I’ve been dating a Chinese man, and you know what people say about Asians, well his pussy isn’t tight at all. [The problem with this joke, is I said it spur of the moment, after a Korean woman comedian talked about Asian fetishists and sexual stereotypes, thus mentioning her “tight pussy” repeatedly. I don’t know if email spams regarding Asian porn are prevalent enough that this joke is actually funny, or whether I’m just riding on stupid shock value. Maybe if I had a point other than dating an Asian.]

2 – M. took me to an Asian market and showed me black chicken. It looks just like any other chicken, like Perdue parts, whatever, but it’s black. I’m not saying that I won’t eat black meat, I’m just saying I won’t pay for it. [I think this might work, if I do two things, not stumble or rush through it, and somehow make it clear it’s a double entendre. Of course, the real question is why I find it necessary to be both sexual and racist.]

3 – I got a comment on my website that just made me feel good. All it said was “Joy.” I think I should email my thanks back to “fistinghard.com.” [You bet I’m proud of that comment, and that I have no shame and will gratuitously mention fisting.]

More training at work today. Yup, this one was great, really learned something. You know how it is, sitting in an auditorium watching someone pretend to purchase something on a test version of a computer system. Yeah, I always just soak up the learning like a sponge when I’m watching someone else click click clickety away with their mouse. Really the best way to learn any new computer application is to watch from the back of the room at a slightly too small LCD projection. Hands on learning is for pussies.

I wonder if there is a connection between mind-numbing training for days at work and my fucked up sleep patterns. I suppose it could also be the vacation on another coast, but I’m going with the training.

Lately, I’ve been unable to fall asleep when I want to and consequently struggle to get up, even though the last few days I’ve had to force myself to be up about an hour earlier than usual. The worst is I started to drift whilst talking on the telephone last night with M. That’s never happened, and I’ve listened to the man talking for marathon sessions hours at a time. I felt bad in a very hanging in Gethsemane kind of way. I wanted to be alert, but I couldn’t physically do it. I’ll feel really, really bad if it turns out some guards came and arrested him after I went to sleep.

My big plan was to catch up on some sleep and relaxation this weekend, along with getting some chores and whatnot done. But, that is not meant to be. Sadly, my friend’s brother died. They were pretty close, and I’m pretty close to her, so I’ll be hanging out in Southern, ME this weekend. It’s probably going to be slightly weird for me, since they are off the same kind of weird, stoic, martyred stock that I hail from (and deliberately try not to be like). It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, the weirdness I feel is absolutely nothing next to the sadness and loss their family is experiencing. He was 60 years old and leaves his wife and two daughters. It’s times like these, that a tiny bit of me wishes I believed in prayer.

I’m in an all day training for a Peoplecrap financial system. It’s web browsing in the 19th century. Lots of backing up and clunky navigation menus laden with far too much non-intuitive information. I particularly like the feature where you order your “Favorites” menus by typing in sequence numbers. I don’t think drag and drop has been invented yet in the DEMONware world.

That might be reason enough to kill myself by smashing my forehead on the keyboard until blood pools around my training workstation. But the capper is really the boring minutia the presenter keeps introducing in speech filled with initials, codes and jargon I don’t even want to understand.

Right now, she’s using a whiteboard that says:
RES 1000.00
RRV (1000.00)
COM 1200.00
CRV 1000.00)
ACT 1301.45

Oh, OK, now I get it. Thank you helpful whiteboard-drawing lady.

I like just hanging around, it’s much better than working.

Spent the day today at the Winchester Mystery House. This is why I want to be rich, so I can fuck around with a perfectly good house and it will become “mysterious.” What’s the mystery? How much money can a lonely, old chick spend on construction?

Anywho, maybe tomorrow I’ll right about Tabitha the tour guide. Man, she sure did work the corny pre-scripted jokes without an ounce of comic timing or playful fun. It was like listening to a great many Cambridge comics. Yeah, you know who you are.

Here’s some of my own photos, since I love to play tourist.

So, this is 40, and as much as aging is not what anyone really strives for, even as it inevitably happens, it ain’t bad.

M. managed to completely convince me that between cultural differences and the developing state of his personal economy, I should not expect much by way of birthday gifting. He left for work this morning smilingly staying true to that conviction.

Ahhh, well, philosophically, I was just glad to be on vacation and hanging out with him in California. No big deal, right?

Then, this afternoon, he presented not one, but three gifts, which each were actually multiple. If it were a 12 items or less line, I would have only just made it through. In his words, one gift was a joke, the second was for originality and the third was what I like. The joke was figurines of old people called “Coots,” “youth is wasted on the young,” etc., the originality were two shirts/blouses I could wear on stage and elsewhere that were unique and in my favorite color, black, and what I like was French soap and sachets and all, which I like very much.

Damn, the man sure has been paying attention.

Then, we had dinner at a Singapore restaurant with his company’s founder, who is from India. As they discussed the authenticity of the food and what not, I basked in my own white, American ignorance (by the way, white American makes me think of cheese). It was a great meal, which I enjoyed despite my ignorance.

Back at his place, his landlady opened some champagne. And, since she and I, unlike he and his housemates, have no enzyme deficiency affecting alcohol absorption, we absorbed the bottle.

So, truly, I have no reason to complain and a lot of reasons to be thankful. And, for M.’s attention, I have to admit, I’m baffled by the idea of someone wanting to make me happy. Baffled or not, I like it.

I do feel like a dick that I haven’t been able to think of or find a great gift for him, and actually only have with me something small. But, hell, I’m 40. I’ll make it up to him next decade, right?

Someone scheduled me to interview a prospective employee at 8:30 a.m. I don’t usually show up for work at 10 a.m. So far, that extra 1.5 hours means a geometric progression of suckiness to the day.

The guy was pretty smarmy. He interrupted me a few times to tell me I should be perfectly frank with him. Yeah, of course, because everything fucking about me shouts that I am timidly holding back. Let me see, do I know how to be fucking frank? You mean, like, I should speak freely and not edit myself and shit and perhaps be direct. OH, Mr. Man, I’m not sure little old me can do that, sir, because, you see, sir, I might say something wrong, and, you know, I don’t want to offend a big important man like yourself, sir. But thank you for telling me it’s OK and that I can trust you, because I worries so much about the men folk and whether I can trusts them. (Ironically, given that last line, I do have a few trust “issues,” but we’re not talking about me right now.)

So, sure, dickhead, thanks for the permission. Now, wait a minute, I’m the one interviewing you, so, yeah, thanks for the fucking permission. I was so worried what I should say to a guy I may never see again, thank you for putting me at ease.

All people in this organization on this day, regardless of how much more caffeine I try to pump into the fragile and aging ecosystem of my body, can just bite me!