Recently in Work Category

Just checking in.This morning I awoke at 7:21am (that'd be Pacific, if anyone's wondering).  This is exactly 21 minutes later than I need to leave my apartment.I was out the door at 7:27 and pulling out and into traffic at 7:31.  My ass was at my desk exactly at 8:00, so I was not late.Of course, it would be a day when I will not be leaving the office to go home until 9:00pm that I have to skip a shower to make it in on time.  it will be 9:30 before I can take one.  I can already feel grossness growing upon me and may need to burn the clothes I'm wearing in an attempt to erase this sin from my permanent record.I know there are some people who can go a day or more (gasp!) without a shower.  I am not one of those people.  I can't even shower the night before and maintain a feeling of clean the next day.  Maybe there's something wrong with me.Right now what's wrong with me is that I haven't had a shower today.

People in the office are being let go left as well as right.  People in the middle are probably just a susceptible to shit-canning too. The reasons people are being let go are understandable; rude to a customer, constant sick calls, etc. It still sucks.  I mean, I'm not particularly worried about my job.  I'm rarely not here, keep my off-color comments to myself (or at least mute the headset when I can't) and I know more about our product than most. Still, it just puts this very palpable feeling of unease in the air when this shit starts happening.  "Will I be next?" "What am I gonna do if I'm next?" "Are the laying off the entire department?" It's a shitty-ass feeling to walk into every morning.  Coming in and wondering if your shit's going to be in a tidy little pile waiting to be taken home.  Wondering what the fuck you're gonna do when it's time to pay rent or put gas in your car.  I have never (Ok, maybe not "never") been less excited to come into work in the morning. Hopefully my fears are unfounded and everything will be ok. Anyone having similar workplace angst going on?  Why don't you leave a comment and tell me about it?

Finally finishing up the rather massive project I've been working on for the past two weeks, it should be interesting to see the result, at which point I can talk about it. Starting my next project is turning out to be easier than I thought.

So, this past summer construction started in the building I work at. Of course, this requires the installation of drywall. Now, I am sure the building owners chose the best contractor for the job. I don't care who puts up the wall, so long as it isn't a cube and doesn't crush me in a horrific building collapse like that episode of House where they spent the entire hour treating the wrong patient and at the end you realized that the woman they thought they were treating was dead and her husband had been holding the hand of a coworker the entire time.

Andrew...you're rambling...

Ok, ok. Back to the drywall. So, in the DC Metro Area there is a union, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters. They're none too pleased that we may or may not have hired a non-union contractor to put up drywall. These guys are so Tom Cruise Batshit Crazy(tm) that they want to unionize the entire drywall industry in DC. They actually broke off from the AFL-CIO because they didn't think the AFL-CIO was aggressive enough. Yes, you read that right. This union is a splinter group from the AFL-CIO, which they believe is not liberal enough for their interests. Plus, they're pissed that their union members are losing work to non-union contractors, so I have a picket line of unemployed drywall workers outside banging on drums, chanting incoherently, and walking in a circle...

...or do I?

I knew something was off. These aren't union members, they're homeless people hired by the union to work the picket line.

They've OUTSOURCED THEIR PICKET LINES!!!

So, where are all the union members?

They're working.

On the other hand, the homeless protester rythym section gets better every day. They even have a bucket drum kit now. I guess that's how you get to protest at Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.

Work just totally frustrated me - this dude's [product name omitted for job want-to-keeping] wouldn't work properly.  It was completely retarded, took forever, and couldn't be solved.  The worst part is that it was totally out of my hands.  Things like that (the out-of-hands kind) should bother me the least - hey, it wasn't my fault - but they bug me the most.  I'm not saying that I'm the best at my job (I feel I'm usually pretty good at it, though) but I'm here to fix this stuff.  When I can't it makes me feel like I'm here just to take up space, which I'm generally not.