Category Archives: Whining

conflict of interest, anyone?

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Around this time tomorrow, I will be in Seattle. This makes me very happy. Originally my flight got bumped from Friday afternoon to Thursday night, but I wasn’t going to get home until almost midnight. Then it got bumped AGAIN, so now I’m leaving around lunchtime, and I’ll be home by 3:30 p.m. Hee!

This morning was strange. The project manager, who is kind of my boss for the next couple of months, asked if he could speak to me privately. This is one of my worst fears. My stomach clenched up and I was positive that I was about to be reprimanded or fired or something of that nature. Because after all, since I’ve been here, I haven’t done any work. Honestly, all I’ve done so far is create a SharePoint site (for all you non-techies: that’s an internal website where we geeks post all of our documentation in one central location so we can keep up with what each other is doing), and I’ve edited a bunch of documents. Apparently word has gotten out that I have a degree in journalism, so everyone is sending me their stuff to proofread. But that’s kind of fun for me, it’s not like real work.

So I go to the little cafeteria area with him, stomach totally knotted up in anxiety/terror, and he tells me that he just wants to let me know that he thinks I’m doing a fantastic job, and he’s going to make sure that both my career lead (the aforementioned Maurice/Mo), and the practice director who’s over all of the systems engineers in the region (!!) know that there is no way that I should be a level 1 systems engineer, I should be at least a level 2. Again, this is startling since I HAVEN’T DONE ANY WORK!!!

Then, he emails me a copy of his resume and wants to know if I’ll revise/format it for him. Supposedly this is a resume that he’ll submit to customers for potential future assignments. One problem with this logic is that our company has its own resume format that they want us to use, and we post them on the company intranet, and this resume definitely doesn’t follow that format. So I’m sort of wondering if all this praise is just his way of kissing my ass so I’ll help him land a new job. I suppose it doesn’t matter – if my higher-ups hear good things about me, or if (fingers crossed) I end up getting a promotion or a raise out of the deal, I’m certainly not going to complain. It’s just strange.

Meanwhile, I’m counting the hours until I board that plane tomorrow…

greetings from foggy southern California

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So, how much work have I done since my arrival in Santa Ana a little over 24 hours ago?

Zero.

As in, nada, nothing, zilch. I cannot believe that my company paid to fly me over 900 miles so I could sit on my ass in a conference room with a bunch of other guys who are also doing nothing. I understand that a lot of consulting is “hurry up and wait,” but this is insane. There was absolutely no reason that I needed to be here this week, except that it makes the project leader feel reassured to know that we’re all here & ready to work. Even though there’s nothing to do yet. Bah, this sucks.

On the upside, the hotel is really nice. Free breakfast, and free happy hour in the evenings. Good way to save up that per diem that I’m getting for meals every day – screw dinner, I can just have a couple of drinks on an empty stomach and fall asleep. Call it the liquid diet plan. I’ll have enough extra cash saved up for my tattoo in no time.

There’s a Pearl Jam song that I can’t seem to stop listening to lately. It’s an old one, I think it’s called “Indifference,” it was either on Vs. or Vitalogy. I put the CD in yesterday when I was driving to the airport, and again when I got in the rental car at LAX. (I felt very rebellious, listening to my Seattle music in L.A.) There’s this one line at the beginning of the song that really gets me:

“I will stand, arms outstretched,
pretend I’m free to roam.
I will make my way
through one more day in hell.”

I’m pretty sure it’s a reference to a relationship, but it sums up fairly accurately how I feel about this whole California project.

I miss my cat. Prepare yourselves for more whining as time goes on.

frequent flyer miles, here I come

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Last week at work was pretty interesting, it’s just taken me this long to try to wrap my head around what’s going on so that I can write about it coherently, and I’m still not sure that I can. Basically, even though I’ve been in Seattle for the last couple of months, my job is to be a consultant for anywhere on the west coast that I may be needed. So as of this Wednesday, I’m going to be flying to Santa Ana, CA every week from now until Labor Day. (They said something about 8 weeks, but I looked at the calendar & counted – it’s actually 11 weeks – so I’m not sure which number is accurate.) But in a nutshell, for the next 2 months, I’m going to be flying out every Monday morning & flying back every Friday afternoon. So I’ll still get my weekends in Seattle, but I’ll be gone most of the time.

And even though I knew this was going to be a big part of my job when I took it, I’m really not happy about it at all. I feel like I was just starting to really enjoy my life here in Seattle – I have the new apartment in the city, I’ve been much more active socially, I found a really great guy (awwww…), I’m getting more exercise, etc. And now I feel like that’s all getting yanked away from me. Plus, I love the mild summers in Seattle, so why the hell would I want to go to southern California? (Granted it’s been brutally hot here for the last few days, but that’ll pass soon – it always does.) It just sucks, I’ve been crying a lot lately. Plus I hate flying, I have anxiety attacks every time there’s the slightest bit of turbulence, so the thought of doing it 16-22 times over the next couple of months does not sound like fun at all. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon, I plan on asking her for some kind of mild tranquilizer to help chill me out. I usually just drink before I get on the plane, but I think a prescription would probably be safer (and cheaper).

On the other hand, it sounds like the work I’m going to be doing is really good – it’s all interesting stuff that I haven’t done before – I just wish I could do it locally.

Meanwhile, Dave, who is rapidly on his way to earning the title of the Best Boyfriend In The Entire History Of The Universe (or, BBITEHOTU), has offered to take care of Teenie while I’m gone. How sweet is that? We’ll give it a trial run this week to see how she gets along with his kitties (I’m expecting lots of fur to fly). If that doesn’t work out, then I guess I’ll have to figure out what to do with her, whether that’s a pet-sitter or maybe I’ll fly her down with me sometimes. We’ll see. But that’s the update of all the goings-on in my life right now.

I am sad

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Dave the Brit is sick, so our date has been postponed. We’re probably going to go out either tomorrow or Sunday (depending on if he’s feeling better), so it’s not like it’s been postponed indefinitely, but for some reason I am irrationally bummed about this. I played the good sport when I talked about it with him, but… damn. I was just looking forward to it so much. It can’t possibly a good sign that I’m so disappointed at the thought of waiting another 24 hours until I see him again. This just has me getting hurt written all over it.

Anyway, I was trying to think of something to do tonight to distract myself from thinking about the Date That Is Not Going To Happen. I was cleaning out my wallet & I found a Best Buy gift card. I have no idea how much is left on it, but I think I may go buy a cheap DVD player tonight. The Blockbuster in my neighborhood is phasing out VHS, so I’ve come to the conclusion that I really have to get a DVD player. So maybe I’ll do that, rent a movie or two, and order a pizza. That could be nice. And a bubble bath. That’s mandatory.

above or below the Mason Dixon line?

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Here’s a fun little quiz — Are you Yankee or Dixie?

Apparently I’m 79% Dixie, which is pretty shocking, since it was actually one point higher than my dad’s score! (For those who don’t know, my dad’s voice can best be described as a fairly dead-on impression of Foghorn Leghorn, the rooster from “Looney Tunes”.) I guess the years I’ve spent outside of the south have yet to really rub off on me. Who knew? I’m slightly comforted by the fact that my brother is more Dixie than me, at 82%. But that makes sense, as he has the thickest southern accent of anyone in our family.

In other news, the cold is now bronchitis. I went to the doctor yesterday & got some antibiotics. Fun stuff. I’m feeling a little better — the congestion has mostly moved out of my nose and further into my head, so I have a horrible headache, but I can breathe. I consider this to be a slight improvement. Still, it’s amazing how much this has killed my energy level in such a short time. I was in bed last night at 8:45. Now it’s Friday night & my only plans are to watch last night’s episode of “ER” (which I taped, because I was asleep) and then go back to bed. How sad is that?

just kill me

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The cold is full throttle now. I’m dying. I swear, if I have to blow my nose one more time, it’s going to fall off of my face, and I will forever be known as the Noseless Computer Girl of Seattle. I actually left work this morning around 10:00, and I never take sick days. This is only the 2nd time I’ve gone home sick & I’ve been working there for a year & a half — the other time was for a migraine that was so bad I was practically in tears. I took a lot more sick days at my last job, probably because I was living in Massachusetts at the time and I was sick constantly. That state & my immune system just don’t jive, which is one of the thousands of reasons I have no desire to ever set foot there again.

Anyway, I came home & took a 4-hour nap. Woke up, ate dinner, watched the new “Queer Eye” episode that I taped last night, and now it’s 7:00 and I’m about to hit the NyQuil and crawl back into bed. Ick.

sniffles

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I’m sick. I don’t know how I caught this cold, or if it’s just an allergic reaction to something, but I feel like hell. I woke up at 3 a.m. last night with my throat hurting, & I’ve felt lousy all day. It feels like there’s a fog in my head or something, everything feels fuzzy. And my nose won’t stop running, which is driving me nuts. Bah.

Oh, unrelated: last night I picked out my glasses. They’ll be ready in about a week. They’re pretty cute, actually, I don’t think they’re going to bother me too much.

Now if only this tylenol pm would hurry up & kick in….