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 13: feel the pain

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I took Cate to the doctor yesterday, since her cold is still not gone and the kiddo has been sick for nearly two weeks now. Her pediatrician has given her another round of antibiotics, this time a stronger one than amoxicillin (Omnicef, I think? I’m not sure since we got the generic). I’m a little afraid of what this is going to do to her stomach, since the amoxicillin gives her such horrible diarrhea. Her doctor said that in addition to the BRAT diet, we can also break an acidophilus capsule and mix the powder in with her food once a day, to try to help maintain the good bacteria in her gut. So we’re working on that, and keeping our fingers crossed. Hopefully this will kill off the cold once and for all, and not send her into Poop Overload in the process.

Meanwhile, last night I went to wipe Cate’s nose, which always results in her doing these hugely dramatic head thrashes to try to escape me and my Evil Kleenex. (Seriously, I can’t wait until she’s old enough to blow her own nose, although just being old enough to understand that I’m trying to help her would be good enough.) Somehow in the middle of it, I missed and accidentally stuck my finger in her mouth, and I noticed that something scratched me. After I took care of her nose, I went back to investigate, and sure enough, she has another little tooth nubby poking out on top.

So besides the horrible snotty cold that won’t die, she’s also been busily cutting a new tooth and I had no idea. I gotta say, my own cold is pretty bad, but I really don’t envy her right now. Poor little munchkin.

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.

NaBloPoMo Day 11: errr…

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This is when the whole NaBloPoMo thing gets dull, because Sundays are our lazy day, so I have basically nothing to write about. A few highlights:

* Cate’s ear infection seems to be better, but she keeps doing this weird gesture where she sort of rubs her ear against her upper arm, and I wonder if it’s still bothering her. Her antibiotics run out tomorrow, so I may take her back to the pediatrician for a quick check to see if she’s all better. Meanwhile, her nose is still a little faucet. And man, she hates it when I try to wipe her boogers away. She’ll squirm and try to hide her face anywhere so I can’t reach her. Nice try, kid. Here’s a tip: mama is bigger than you and she can always get to your nose if she tries hard enough.

* My cold is still going strong. I almost lost my voice entirely for a couple of days there. It seems a little better today, but instead I have a really horrible cough. I’m not sure which is worse. (Dave, for the record, seems to be fine, although he keeps talking about his “head cold.” Whatever, dude. I’ve heard nary a sniffle from the man, I think he’s just playing for sympathy.)

* This weekend I’ve watched both “The Good German” and “The Good Shepherd.” I liked them both – or rather, I liked what I saw of them. It’s kind of hard to focus on a movie when you’re also playing with a 9 month-old on the living room floor at the same time. I suppose that’s why I’ve only seen a handful of movies since Cate was born. My concentration is shot. The massive doses of Sudafed probably don’t help, either.

NaBloPoMo Day 10: boring stuff about my house

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I don’t know if I’ve written about the saga of our driveway and how much it torments my very soul. A couple of years ago, Dave and his brother (well, mostly his brother) tore up our existing driveway because they had some grand design scheme in mind, which, sadly, never happened. This seems to be the story of a lot of home improvement projects around here: a great idea is born, the project begins, and then it sits in a half-finished state for the rest of our lives.

So, thanks to Dave and my brother-in-law, a mere few days before our wedding, our driveway became a giant gravel pit. I was very upset about it since we were having our rehearsal dinner at our house, and it didn’t exactly make a grand first impression on our friends and family, most of whom were seeing our house for the first time.

And, that’s how our driveway has been ever since. Only worse, because Dave and I haven’t exactly done a bang-up job of maintaining the gravel, so it has a lot of weeds growing up through it, and it’s become increasingly difficult to determine exactly where the driveway ends and the yard begins. It just looks, well, white trash. (My grandmother would be appalled that I used that expression, since you’re never supposed to refer to people as trash, but I think in this case, since I’m referring to myself, it’s probably ok.)

I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate our driveway. It bothers me every time I turn in and drive over those stupid gravel potholes, and then I have to step over all the weeds… ugh. It hurts me just a tiny bit every time. I’m not sure if Dave is as bothered by it as I am, but it’s been driving me insane for the past 2 1/2 years.

However. Today is the glorious day that my being re-employed has paid off, because our driveway is getting paved! I didn’t even mind that the guys showed up at 7:30 in the morning and woke us all up. Who cares? This is like Christmas in November for me. So far all they’ve done is re-gravel and grade it out so that it’s all flat, and I’m already in love with it. I can’t wait to see how it’ll look when it’s finished. We’re even going to have a sidewalk that goes around the side of the house to our deck. Huzzah!

I know this is probably not interesting to anyone except me, but it’s totally made my weekend. And maybe now I won’t be embarassed to invite people over to our house anymore.

NaBloPoMo Day 9: back to the cute baby pictures

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Thanks, everybody, for your comments and emails. I really appreciate all of the support, and I know that with all of the prayers and good vibes and everything that she has going for her, my mom is going to be in tip-top shape in no time.

And now, to get the mood back on track: who needs a dinky pink breast cancer ribbon when you have a baby in a pink velour track suit?

Eat your heart out, Yoplait!

the big C

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My goal with this whole NaBloPoMo thing was to write some random funny anecdote for each day. For that reason, this post doesn’t really fit in with the rest of them at all.

My mom has breast cancer.

That’s what yesterday’s post was all about, and thanks to the people who emailed me to check on me and make sure I was ok. I wasn’t trying to be cryptic, but the news sort of stunned me and I couldn’t figure out how to put everything I was feeling into words.

Here’s what I know:
Sometime last month, my mom found a weird bump on her nipple. She went to her general practitioner about it, who gave her a round of antibiotics, and told her that if it didn’t go away completely by the time she finished them, she should come back in for a mammogram. It didn’t, and so she did. Her doctor looked at the mammogram results and said she was pretty sure it was nothing – a cyst, maybe, nothing to be concerned about. But just to be safe, she referred my mom to a breast surgeon.

The surgeon took one look at my mom’s mammogram and said she was 95% sure that she has Paget’s disease, a very rare form of breast cancer. They took a biopsy, and we’ll find out the results either tomorrow or Monday.

I knew about all of this as it was happening, but I have to admit that the news really shocked me. My mom has had some weird skin things in the past, so I figured this was along those lines. Some minor skin problem that she’d need an ointment for, but otherwise nothing. When she called me yesterday to say that it’s cancer, I almost dropped the phone. I was absolutely gobsmacked.

Her prognosis is excellent. We have every reason to believe that it was caught early, so she should be fine. However, because this type of cancer is in the ducts of the breast, it means she’s looking at a full mastectomy, and possibly a preventative mastectomy of the other breast as well. Again, this is all stuff that we’ll know more about after the biopsy results come back.

My mom is staying pretty positive about it so far. She said that when she was my age, the thought of losing her breasts would’ve been the end of the world, but now it doesn’t seem like such a horrible thing. She’s mostly dreading the surgery, because the anaesthesia always makes her ill, and then there’s the pain afterward, etc. My sister is planning to fly down to help out when she has the surgery – I really want to go, but I think that with Cate there, I wouldn’t be a very good nurse, and I certainly don’t want to add to my mom’s stress level.

Mostly, I’m worried about my dad. He is such a worrywart, and he’s so dependent on my mom. He’s trying really hard to be stoic for her sake, and I’m afraid that with something this big, he’s going to silently fret himself a stomach ulcer or worse.

So that’s what’s going on. If any of you guys are into praying or sending positive thoughts or whatever, they’d really be appreciated right now. I’ll update with more information as I know it.

P.S. I’m definitely not pregnant. But y’all are funny for thinking that’s what I was freaking out about.