1999 march 12

office angst

the penalty for a clear beautiful late winter day is a clear beautiful bloody cold night.

our schedules are out of sync again so i couldn't steal any extra heat from gene, as he was in his office working all night, and peter parker, while indeed warm and fuzzy, is entirely too small to be of much use in the body heat department. ergo, last night i froze.

okay, not really, but i felt freezing was imminent. i had already taken the extra heavy blanket off the bed [ those delusions of spring will get you every time, damn the daffodils! ] and once i realized i was almost too cold to sleep i was also too cold to contemplate exiting the just about warmed up sheets to head out on a blanket search. didn't i tell you my laziness would do me in some day? that and my general untidiness which left me without the tiniest clue as to where i might have stored the extra heavy blanket. seems a major housecleaning is in order this weekend. i hope it rains.

i haven't talked about work much, mostly because

IT IS DRIVING ME UP THE FUCKING WALL!

okay, i feel much better now. the absolute lack of process in our office is amusing in an anarchistic sort of way, but more often frustrating for those of us trying to get something done. even if we do manage to get the something done, there is no guarantee the something will be disseminated to clients in a timely manner, meaning they don't have the required upgrades needed to run the new product pieces other departments send them and this of course leads to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the clients, from client services, from tech support, and ultimately from poor little claire.

on the other hand, they are paying me a nice salary and as i do my job very quickly and accurately, i am left with quite a bit of time to screw off. i probably spend at least two hours a day surfing the net, writing letters to friends, designing new webpages, and creating elaborate doodles with pencil and highlighters. the secret is of course that of the great scot: when giving an estimate, always double what it will actually take you and you will become known as a miracle worker. well, i really am a miracle worker as no one in the office could do what i do even within the padded time frame, but it never hurts to enhance one's reputation. today, one of our implementation managers handed off a customization project she couldn't quite handle. she had already spent three hours and had nothing to show for it.

i completed the work in thirty minutes, but didn't send mail telling her where it could be found for another 90 minutes.

faster than the average bear, claire