torsdag

Today we had our trimesterly (every four months) all-staff meeting where we sit around and discuss big topics. This trimester it was about growing our membership and if it would help us achieve our goals. It was not highly interesting to me and I was resistant to going at all as they usually end up being a waste of my time. It certainly didn't help that I didn't arrive early and, even though my comfy office chair was open, I had to sit beside someone I don't particularly like or like working with. Unfortunately, he was on the agenda to give a presentation and did it from his seat so I had to hear him yelling in my ear for over half an hour.

I was also assigned to the same small group he was in and I knew I just couldn't take it (I'm officially blaming it on cramps) so when we broke into small groups, I bolted for my desk and spent a blissful half an hour doing research into the new bicycle transit benefit.

It was just my luck when everyone had reconvened he had been designated as the reporter for the small group. Before he gave his report he made a snide comment to the entire group about how they couldn't really get anything done because they had been waiting for me. Then he guffawed and said "just kidding" and shoved me in the arm.

His attempt to publicly shame me didn't work. And may just backfire in his face next time he asks me to do something for him. I normally try not to carry grudges but this one I may hold onto just awhile longer.

Segunda-feira

Rein Supreme?

I read fan fiction online which is not subject to editing by publishers who hopefully know what they're doing when it comes to correct punctuation and word usage. Some common mistakes by fan fic authors are in confusing "your" and "you're" and putting in apostrophes in plurals where they're not needed (the pack of Slytherin's entered their common room). Another common misuse is "reign" for "rein" when using the phrase "have free rein". I'm sadly getting quite desensitized to these mistakes which does not bode well for my proofreading career. They still bother me but I've kind of given up getting upset by incorrect usage when reading works by amateur writers.

Not so when it comes to books printed by actual publishing companies like the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I read books one through three this weekend on my computer (hooray for electronic libraries!) and to my dismay I saw the phrase "free reign". I nearly had a conniption fit. How did that make it past the editors and proofreaders? Was I reading fan fiction by mistake? Has the phrase "free reign" become acceptable usage now? I mean, it makes some sense: To reign freely, with no constraints in ruling over others. But, come on. That's just not right.

Regarding the books, I wasn't too excited by them. They were okay. I think knowing they were so popular made my expectations too high and I didn't enjoy them as much as if I'd never heard of them before. To me they were a bit too melodramatic and too much about how beautiful Edward is. We get the idea, Bella. Okay, already. I really didn't find Bella all that interesting anyway. Maybe she gets better once she's turned. Oops, did I spoil that for anyone?

mercredi

In the line at Starbucks this morning I was behind a guy who was getting a couple drinks. He was new to the "tall, grande, venti" terminology so was taking a bit more time than a regular customer. Then he wanted an extra shot in one of his venti coffees and the staff didn't write on the cups which one was which so he had them do that so he could tell them apart. All reasonable activities and requests. The guy behind me didn't think so.

"Can someone ring up this damn water for me?"

"All I want to to get this damn water!"

"High maintenance...woman..." mutter, mutter, mutter.

Well, for one, if I was buying water I certainly wouldn't be getting it at Starbucks. Two, everyone has a right to order whatever they want as specifically as they want it. And three, it's not a female trait so you can keep your comments to yourself. If you're running late, you don't have to take it out on some poor soul who's getting his friend a coffee.

Then to top off my commute: as I was walking up the street to the office, a guy was across the street outside Baby Gap with his boombox on the loudest possible volume setting blaring "Shake Your Ass at Me" or some such annoying song. I'm sure the people in the cable car line were thanking him as much as I was.

viernes

We set up a new account with Calvert a couple months ago because one of our board members works there and they give us donations sometimes. I asked when I was getting information about it if we would be able to access the account online to transfer funds via ACH and all that. They said of course we would. Well, turns out that their online system only allows accounts set up with social security numbers and not tax-payer ID numbers which means I have no access to our account online.

Well, today I get an email from them basically saying "Here's the link to your electronic quarterly statement. If you want to change how you receive the statements log in to your account." Duh! Now I have no statement and no access to change it! I guess I'll be calling them next week, the dummies. I really want to take our $25k back and give it to someone else who has their act together. How they have any businesses or non-profits give them business, I don't know.

For being a Friday, I was awfully busy with meetings today. First I had a meeting with other admin and development people about the new positions. Then we interviewed our old receptionist from two years ago. She was looking for a part-time job so Leti called her right up yesterday. Re-hiring her will really reduce the amount of training we'll have to do.

At 1pm we had our audit meeting where the auditors went over the financial reports with the committee. I got some nice compliments. It feels good that's it's over. I hope I took good enough notes to help out next year. Now it's on to the 990 form for the IRS.

This afternoon I did a bit of training with Shana for reading financial statements, working in our database and iCal. I don't mind the one-on-one trainings, especially if the person I'm training is as quick to pick up computery stuff as Shana is.

Now it's back to the budget. Joy!

Fijamos una nueva cuenta con Calvert un par hace meses porque uno de nuestros miembros del Consejo trabaja allí y nos dan donaciones a veces. Pregunté cuándo conseguía la información sobre ella si podríamos tener acceso a la cuenta en línea a los fondos de la transferencia vía ACH y todo el eso. Dijeron que por supuesto. Bien, resulta que su sistema en línea permite solamente que las cuentas fijen con los números de la Seguridad Sociales y no los números de identificación del pagador de impuestos que los medios yo no tienen ninguÌ�n acceso a nuestra cuenta en línea.

Bien, consigo hoy un email de ellos que dicen básicamente el " Here' s el acoplamiento a su declaración trimestral electrónica. Si usted quiere cambiar cómo usted recibe las declaraciones abre una sesión a su account." ¡Duh! Ahora no tengo ninguna declaración y ningún acceso para cambiarlo! Conjeturo I' el ll los esté llamando la semana próxima, los maniquíes. Quiero realmente retirar nuestro $25k y darlo algún otro que tiene su acto junto. Cómo tienen cualquier negocio o no-se benefician le dan negocio, I don' t sabe.

Para ser un viernes, estaba terriblemente ocupado con reuniones hoy. Primero tenía una reunión con el otro admin y gente del desarrollo sobre las nuevas posiciones. Entonces, nos entrevistamos con a nuestro viejo recepcionista a partir hace de dos años. Ella buscaba un trabajo por horas así que Leti llamó la su derecha ayer. La recontratación ella reducirá realmente la cantidad del entrenamiento we' el ll tiene que hacer.

En 1pm teníamos nuestra reunión de la intervención adonde los interventores pasaron los informes financieros con el comité. Conseguí algunos elogios agradables. Se siente bien that' s it' s encima. Espero que tomara bastante buenas notas para ayudar hacia fuera el próximo año. Ahora it' s encendido a la forma 990 para el IRS.

Esta tarde hice un pedacito del entrenamiento con Shana para los estados financieros de la lectura, el funcionamiento en nuestra base de datos e iCal. I don' mente de t los entrenamientos unívocos, especialmente si la persona I' el entrenamiento de m es tan rápido coger la materia del computery como es Shana. Ahora it' s de nuevo al presupuesto. ¡Alegría!

Can You Speak Up?

Ah, Fleet Week. Who doesn't like screaming engines and screaming to be heard over them? I'm surprised we got any meetings accomplished today with the Blue Angels and their jets flying over downtown all day. I'm sure glad our big anniversary party isn't this week. I may have to wear ear plugs tomorrow.

Squawk!

That's just stupid of them to vote off Chicken. That Ashley is worthless. She and her huge breasts and ugly lip piercings should've been outta there. Or the most-annoying-so-far Peih-Gee (or PG). I thought for sure she'd be first one out. You know how the tribes love to get rid of those early in-your-face, let-me-tell-you-what-to-do "leaders", especially those with a high, whiny voice.

I was disapointed in Frosti's performance in the challenge. I expected him to fly over those walls seeing as how he's a practitioner of Parkour. (btw, he's orginally from Traverse City and is, interestingly, half Russian/half Japanese)

I just love Courtney, the ultra-skinny, platinum blonde New York City waitress. Her interviews are hilarious.

TP to the HC

Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there something seriously and inherently wrong with using Handel's Hallelujah Chorus to sell toilet paper?

Bad Luck in the Bathroom

Too many women work on this floor.
One stall in the bathroom isn't enough.
Whenever I checked someone was in there.
My bladder is complaining.
So am I.

Going Up?

The elevator here at the office has been out for repairs since Wednesday. We've all had to climb the four or five flights of stairs to get to work. I was happy I planned ahead and brought lunch so I didn't have to go out in search of food.

The stairs are pretty awful though. The treads are made of concrete which is broken in a lot of places. So you're walking along and it feels like you might fall through at any moment. I know it's just lying on top of metal but still.

And the lighting in the stairs is haphazard. Some fixtures are really bright and others are non-existent. One morning I forgot to exchange my sunglasses for my regular ones and I was stumbling around in the dark. You'd think if the building managers force us to take the stairs, they would at least put in light bulbs!

Trash Car

Yes, that's right. Not trash can, trash car.

I was filling up my tank (10 gallons for $31) at the ARCO after work this evening when I noticed something sticking out of the driver's side back door. I tugged it out and it was a candy wrapper! Of a sort I would never eat. (soft centers? yuck) There was something else stuck further in so I unlocked the door, opened it, and another wrapper fell out.

Someone has been using my car as a trash receptacle and I don't like it. I guess it could be worse. At least it wasn't gum.

Again with The Interruptor

I once again had to have a little meeting today with The Interruptor. We were meeting with my boss this time (thank god) and while we were waiting for him to show up she had a couple questions for me.

What? Seeking knowledge? You're kidding? Well, she obviously wasn't paying attention in our last meeting (she must've been talking over me) because her "questions" were: Was I supposed to do that? Am I supposed to be doing that? Ummm...yeah, cuz that what we were meeting about last time and I was handing stuff over to you TO DO!!

In today's meeting she was so wanting to refuse to do some of her tasks. Hello?! That's what we hired you for. I was only filling in cuz no one else was doing it. It's. Not. My. Job. If my boss hadn't have been there I bet she would've be saying to me, "No, I think you should still be doing that." Too bad, bitch.

Stop Interrupting!!

Maybe it's because it's almost 3pm and I haven't eaten lunch but the woman I just met with was making me crazy! I was trying to teach her how to do something and she would not stop interrupting me. I would just keep talking (maybe even a little louder) to get her to be quiet but she would not shut up.

This morning she invited herself (without asking me) to a training I had set up with another person and basically took over the meeting constantly interrupting and talking over me.

If you want to learn, why are you talking over me?!!!

The Lonely Load

TagFest: At Home

I can imagine you at one time or another have purchased hot dogs and hot dog buns and encountered the traditional mismatch of quantities in each package: 8 dogs, 6 buns. Oh, those two poor dogs, left without buns.

I run into this same conundrum whenever I do laundry. There are two washers and three dryers in my apartment complex's utility room. Now I could understand there being only two dryers. You'd have to wait for each set of two loads to dry before drying the next set—a nice 1:1 ratio.

But why—if you're going to have more dryers than washers—would you get three? Wouldn't it make much more sense to get four? Drying almost always takes twice as long as washing. Why does the fourth load have to sit around getting ever more lonely and wrinkled by the minute?

Things People Should and Shouldn't Do

1. People should have their headlights on when it's raining.
2. People who have the right-of-way at a four-way stop shouldn't wait until my car has come to a complete stop before they lazily move out into the intersection.
3. People should go the speed limit unless they have a really good reason not to.
4. People should have their left-turn-signal on while waiting at a red light when I'm turning left across from them.
5. People shouldn't smoke and walk slowly in front of me down a busy sidewalk.
6. People shouldn't abruptly stop walking forcing me to run into them or others.
7. People shouldn't come out of a shop door at full-speed without checking if there is traffic on the sidewalk.
8. People should play their music quietly on BART.
9. People should save their loud, boring phone converations for when I'm not sitting directly in front of them trying to read quietly.
10. People shouldn't walk into the restaurant where I'm eating lunch and loudly harrass the staff with colorful epithets.
11. People should learn more than one song before spending all afternoon singing outside my office window.
12. People should learn not to slam their apartment doors.
13. People should leave me comments about other things people should or shouldn't do.

Talking Nonsense

TagFest: Rants

Rant: to speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way.

The word "rant" is from the Dutch word "ranten" which means "to talk nonsense". I think that's highly appropriate for most rants I make, and have to listen to. It's not the words that are spoken but the fire behind them that is important. You just need to get something off your chest. You might not have the perfect argument backed up with icy facts and stony figures but you have an opinion and someone needs to hear it, dammit! (Ah, there's the shouting.) Powerful gestures from the arms and hands often help.

My obligatory rant for this TagFest post is:

Some people think they can just criticize someone's spelling when they really should be offering their congratulations on an important anniversary in their friend's life. I don't need to hear about where the parentheses should be. I want to hear, "Hey, great job sticking with your stupid blog for a year. I never thought you'd do it."

Oh, sorry, 'geek. Just talking some nonsense.

Gauchos Forever

What is with the return of the gauchos? Now I love boots and I don't mind if you want to show them off, but geez...gauchos? I thought those went out when I was twelve.

Please, don't wear them. You look ridiculous.