Category Archives: Work

NaBloPoMo Day 26: random stuff

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1. My mom is having her lumpectomy a week from tomorrow (December 4th).

2. I think I’ve been more worried about my mom than I’ve been letting on, because I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep. As a result, my jaw is killing me, and ibuprofen isn’t touching it. I’m not sure what to do about that, short of sleeping with a bite guard in my mouth (sex-ay!).

3. Work is slowing down. I’ve finished all of my projects, so I’m just working on edits right now. Which is kind of nice, since the in-laws arrive next week and I don’t want to be frazzled with work stuff while they’re here.

4. Cate has been doing all kinds of new, groovy tricks lately, but I’m saving them for her 10-month birthday tomorrow. Finally you’ll have a blog post worth reading.

NaBloPoMo Day 14: work stuff

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Ok, I know I just wrote that thing about not complaining about your job on your blog, but I’m running out of NaBloPoMo topics, so here’s some work stuff, which will hopefully not be controversial enough to get me fired.

* I’ve just finished my 2nd project, and I already have a third lined up that I’m starting on now. W00t! Money! And just in time for Christmas shopping.

* I don’t know if I mentioned that I’m working for this company through an agency? It’s sort of a temp-to-perm situation – I work through the agency for six months, and at the end of that, if the company likes what I’m doing, they can hire me as one of their employees, or we can call it quits. It’s nice because it also gives me an easy out if I decide that I don’t like the job (which I do, so far).

Anyway, have you ever had those conversations with your boss where you think you’re about to get in major trouble and then you realize that it has absolutely nothing to do with you at all? My manager called me and said he was a little concerned, because they had gotten their first bill from the agency, and apparently I was billing way more hours than they had allotted for these projects. I was kind of confused because he had given me an estimate of how much time I had for each one, and I knew that I was keeping it within that range.

Turns out? My hours were totally fine, but the agency was billing the company for a full 40-hour workweek every week, even though I’ve never once put in more than 30 hours. Heck, one week when I was between projects, I only billed thirteen hours. And yet they still got a bill for forty hours. The hell? So the problem was with the agency’s accounting department, it had nothing to do with me. It was a big relief, but it also made me wonder if the agency did that on purpose. You know, overbill the company and see if they notice or if they just pay it and move on. I’ve never worked with this agency before, and I don’t really know any of the people there, so I have no idea if they’re a shifty bunch or not. I’d like to think it was just an honest mistake, but it seems really odd since they did it for several weeks in a row. They had my timesheets that clearly stated how many hours I had put in. How hard is to read the number off the timesheet and enter that into their little billing column? What do you think, incompetence or fraud?

* My first project came back from the copy editor, and y’all, she is killing me. I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but I am obsessive about grammar and punctuation, and some of my stuff that she’s correcting is just flat-out wrong. For example, say you have a series of three things. I’d write it like this:

thing1, thing2 and thing3.

She turns it into: thing1, thing2, and thing3.

That 2nd comma before the “and” just eats at my soul because it is wrong, wrong, WRONG. But she’s the editor, so I have to make the corrections the way that she wants them, and oh, I just can’t even begin to tell you how much it bothers me. I know my spelling and punctuation isn’t always perfect, and a few of the things that she spotted were genuine goofs on my part, but some of the stuff that she’s changing makes me want to claw my eyeballs out.

And now, I’m going to go back to work and meditate to the glorious sounds of the cement truck in my driveway pouring the asphalt for my new driveway. Oohhhmmm…

NaBloPoMo Day 12: work etiquette for bloggers

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I got this email from one of the high-ups at my employer today, and it blows my mind. (Stuff I’ve edited is in brackets, to keep it generic and also to explain weird industry acronyms that we use.) Check it out:

“We have just come across an instance where [an employee] has put a range of comments on his personal blog site critical of [our main client], individuals at [our main client] and [us]. Even worse he has referred to projects under [non-disclosure agreements] in contravention of his confidentiality agreements.”

Whoa. How stupid can you possibly be? I understand the need to occasionally gripe about your job, and a blog is basically your personal space to vent about whatever is bothering you, but still. It’s a public forum that anyone can read. I’ve tried to never mention any company that I’ve worked for by name, although I’m sure there have been times when I haven’t done a great job of hiding it. But to mention people by name at a client’s location that you don’t like? And to blog about projects after you’ve signed a confidentiality agreement to not talk about them? Wow.

I try to live under the assumption that everyone else in the world knows how to use Google, and if they really want to find me or this site, they certainly can. That’s the thing that totally confuses me about this situation: we work for a technology company. If you worked for some little mom & pop hick business that owned one computer on a dial-up connection, then I can see how you might have a bit more leeway to complain about your job and co-workers. But online technology is our bread and butter. Did this guy really think they wouldn’t find him? Has he never heard of Dooce or the dozens of other bloggers who’ve gotten fired for writing about their jobs?

In case you were wondering, yes he was fired. And they’re “considering what further action to take.” I have no idea who it is, either. But then, I only know like three people at the whole company – one of the perks of working from home, I guess.

Lesson learned, boys & girls: if you want to keep your job, don’t bitch about it on your blog. I thought everybody already knew that, but just in case, there’s a helpful little reminder from me.

ho hummity hum

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I feel like I need to blog about something, but not that much is going on right now. I’m getting a new project at work – yay, money! Dave is over his cold, but he’s still a bit of a grump. The cats are driving me bonkers (nothing new there). I cleaned the house yesterday. Hmmm, what else?

Cate seems to be over both her ear infection and teething, and she’s even back to sleeping through the night. The last two mornings, she woke up around 7:30 a.m. I’ll take that over 4 in the morning any day. Other than that, you know, she’s completely adorable and funny, crawling everywhere, climbing on everything, and generally cracking us up on a regular basis. Her 9-month pediatrician appointment is on Friday, so I’ll have an update then of all her latest tricks and statistics.

Meanwhile: hey look! Diaper butt!

wednesday woes

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Ok, so it’s Day 3 of this whole working-from-home gig, and I have to say that so far? I am not a huge fan of it.

Monday was the day that we kept Cate at home with us, and Dave and I tried to take shifts so that we could each get our work done. I would now like to laugh at myself for ever thinking that could work. Basically, when it’s Dave’s shift with the baby, I have to hide in my office, because if she so much as catches a glimpse of me, she will scream her ever-loving head off until I pick her up. And have I mentioned how it’s impossible for me to concentrate on anything if I can hear her crying? I know God gave us that Protective Mama Bear instinct for a reason, but man, sometimes I wish it had an off switch and I could just tune it out.

Tuesday and today, Cate’s been at daycare, which is good as far as my work productivity, but man, I hate leaving her there when she’s crying. It just rips my heart out. I know she’ll get over it as time goes on, but I’m not sure I will.

I just keep reminding myself of how much we really need this money – especially since our stupid adjustable-rate mortgage is about to go up again next month, and oh my god, I just want to finish getting this house fixed up (which, again, requires money) so we can get the hell out of here. And you better believe we will read every single word of every document before we sign another mortgage. Stupid AmeriQuest bastards.

Totally unrelated: I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but my dad is not a big animal lover. When I was pregnant, I lost count of how many times he told me that we should get rid of all four cats before the baby was born. I told him that was ridiculous, because it’s not like we’re raising pit bulls here. When was the last time you read a story in the paper about a small child who was mauled by a housecat? It just doesn’t happen.

“What if one of them scratches her in the eye?” he said.

“Oh please, what are the odds of that?” I replied.

You see where this is going, right? This morning, Cate was playing happily in the bathroom with me while I was getting dressed. Teenie was lying on her side on the bathmat – because, you know, when Mama goes to the bathroom, everybody has to join the party. Cate crawled over to Teenie and tried to rub her face on the cat, like she always does. Teenie got up really quickly, and in the process of doing so, she scratched Cate across the cheek with one of her hind legs. It was a total accident, not malicious in any way on Teenie’s part, and in fact she ran and hid when Cate started to scream.

Luckily the scratch didn’t get her eye, it was just a couple of inches off. It was pretty minor, didn’t even break the skin. But just so I never have to hear “I told you so” from my dad, I’m going to avoid taking any pictures for the next couple of days until it heals completely. And hopefully he’ll never read this blog entry. (Not a big stretch, since I don’t think he ever reads this site anyway.)

And another random topic jump: it’s national delurking day, so say hi.

The Great Mofo Delurk 2007

soon-to-be working mom

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Ok, this is going to be quick because Cate is finally asleep and I need to get to bed myself. So I’m going to be lazy and number things. Sorry, it’s just easier for my frazzled brain.

1. I guess I kinda-sorta started my job on Friday, but all I did was find out the details about the project I’m going to be working on, signed human resources paperwork, etc. My official start date is tomorrow. AHH!

2. Dave is currently setting up a big fancy desktop PC (actually his old one, plus a few new bits of hardware) in my office for me. Because he’s a sweetie. And probably also because I’ve been kind of freaking out about this job – nothing major, I’m just nervous because it’s a bit out of the realm of anything I’ve ever done before. So Dave wants to do whatever he can to help me chill out. So I’ll shut up. I’m guessing.

3. We’re going to do a little experiment over the next couple of weeks to see if we can get away with sending Cate to daycare only three days a week. Since Dave and I both work from home, the hope is that we’ll be able to take shifts with the baby so we can each get our work done. I’m not sure how that’ll work, or how I’ll be able to concentrate if I hear her crying while Dave’s doing his shift, but that’s why one of the new hardware bits that we bought is a set of speakers. Hopefully I’ll be able to crank up some music and drown out whatever else is going on in the house.

4. Totally unrelated to the previous 3 points: today we got a visit from Liz, aka Lizardbreath, and her own little baby Catherine. That was a lot of fun.


She is such a cutie-patootie, blowing raspberries and smiling and everything. And she seemed to weigh nothing when I picked her up – which I know isn’t true, it’s just weird how you get accustomed to your own heavy load so any baby that’s slightly smaller is like, “woo! She’s a baby feather!”

It’s funny because we both named our babies for the same person (although, honestly Cat, as much as I love you, if your parents had named you Mildred or Bertha or something… um, yeah. That whole namesake thing probably wouldn’t have happened). And also funny because it occurred to me that I always write Cate’s name as – well, Cate – but when I’m talking to her or about her, I always call her Catie. Which is what Liz calls her baby as well. I imagine that it would’ve been really confusing for them if they’d been older. As it was, eh, neither one pays much attention to their name yet. Lucky for us.

Ok, bedtime. Work tomorrow. Woo-hoo, paycheck!

got stress?

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I’m not sure what’s going on with me lately, I just have this general feeling of anxiety that I can’t seem to shake. I think it’s because there’s a lot of stuff happening that’s in a weird transition phase, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. For example:

* My job will be starting sometime in the near future. I’m still not sure of my exact start date, which is annoying, but I’m more worried about the fact that I’ve been out of the work force for almost a year(!), and oh man, what if I’ve forgotten every blessed thing I ever knew about technology in the meantime?

* Cate will be starting daycare when I start working again. I found a wonderful woman who has an in-home daycare just a couple of miles from my house. I instantly clicked with her and just felt very comfortable with the idea of Cate staying with her, and her references were outstanding. But I also worry because Cate is at the peak of this separation anxiety phase, and I’m concerned about how hard it’s going to be when I have to leave her there. (And I mean that for all 3 of us – Cate, me and Patsy the daycare lady.)

* We’re actively working on getting our house ready to sell next year, with no real idea of where we’re going after that. I like to plan things in advance (Dave would say that I plan compulsively), so the fact that we have no Step B to follow our Step A is really stressing me out. We most likely won’t be staying in Washington, which makes me sad because I’m going to really miss my friends here, and I’m worried about how hard it’ll be to find a new group of friends wherever we go. Obviously, if we end up in North Carolina, I have a built-in support system already there, but it’s not the only possibility on the roster, and I’m a little unsure of how I feel about the other options.

So. There’s that. If you’re wondering why I’m not blogging as much lately, it’s because it takes away from my precious hand-wringing time. I’d like to start drinking again, but then I get all jittery about carrying Cate (especially up and down the stairs), so I don’t think that’s a very good solution. Rats.