my brother and I talk about asperger's

by email, of course...

Bob: What test did you take, and is it available online?  Is there a treatment or just a 'haha, you have aspergers...' Listening to the NPR piece now...

Me: I'll send you the test link tomorrow (downloading a vm ware image which has brought my fuckwit laptop to a screaming halt). 

My ex used to move things on my shelves while I was at work, and we'd get into a huge fight about it when I got home. I realized listening to the npr story that my need for perfectly arranged objects might not be normal but it's not because I'm a bitch. BTW. I am obsessed with license plates and need to come up with some numeric resolution of the plates when I'm driving. It's horrible. Plate ACE 246 is easy. The rest are hard. I do the same with my hotel room numbers.

Also, as I'm getting older my facial recognition skills are getting A LOT worse. Stresses me out at work. I'll spend 10 hours with a customer, show up in the lobby the next day, and NOT recognize the person AT ALL. 

Bob: I like to think that I can't wear my glasses on the beach, and that's why I can't tell anyone from anyone else on the beach.  The reality is that I was in a training session (week long) including an earthquake that disrupted the event, then met a person that was at the training a month later.  He immediately recognized me, I had no recollection of ever meeting him.

I'm starting to think everyone I work with has asperger's...

incompetence, part II

I got an email at 630 this morning from IT saying they set up a training environment for my class. The sales woman on the thread said "you are my hero!" to the IT guy. Like, why, because he did his fucking job?

So I logged on to the training environment and discovered the image the IT guy uploaded had
1. exercise files for EVERY class but the one I was teaching
2. an expired license (meaning, no one could use the software)

I was like are you GODDAMN KIDDING ME???????

So I sent the files that needed to be added to the IT guy. How FUCKING long does it take to drop them in the training environment? About 6 seconds. Instead, he didn't do it until 11 am (he received the files at 7 am). And he only did it because I called so many times and screamed at his manager (who told me "he's in a meeting right now" when I asked, at 10 am, why the files hadn't been uploaded). How long did it take him to upload them? If you guessed "around 6 seconds" you're right.

So, for a two day class, the students weren't able to get into the software tool until 4 hours before the class ended. I put them through the paces and we made a lot of progress.

That is, until the session ended because the fuckwit IT guy had the class end at 6 PM EST, not 6 PM MST. I started a web conference and finished the class.

Someone should be fired. But the idiot way my company works, it would probably be me.

rain man?

I've often suspected certain members of my family, who shall not be named here, are autistic. Like, is it normal for a 28 year old to have 6 software patents? Didn't think so.

But this past summer while I was on my lighthouse retreat I met a woman who has a son with asperger's who is also a therapist. She said I had it.

And they just did this cool story on NPR about people with autism that try to have romantic relationships. I was listening to some of the comments thinking "hm, sounds familiar".

So I took an asperger's test a few minutes ago (long day, training problem still not solved, no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow). The score for a normal person is 16. Asperger's score is 32. I scored....

45.

Ech. Seriously? Maybe that's what's wrong with me. The weird thing is a component of asperger's is to have a child like imagination. So, maybe my kid's book will suck less than my other book. Got another rejection today...

incompetence

Wait until I tell my uncle about this one...

Today I was supposed to be teaching an online training class for students spread out across the US and in India. It's the first time I've taught a class like this.

Half the students never read the email with instructions on how to log onto the course so we were delayed 10 minutes because of that. Then half the students have audio problems because they never tested their equipment so they can't participate. None of the students have taken the pre-req. The software being used to serve the class is erratic and half the time the students can't see my screen. When I'm doing a demo I can't see the portal and have no idea if the students are trying to contact me because they can't see my screen (and since some can't talk...well, you get the picture).

Through all these problems I kept contacting the training coordinator, who is supposed to help. She told me to call tech support, which is difficult since I'm the instructor. Normally I would give the students an exercise to do while I did the training coordinator's job but...

...the best part...80% of the class is doing exercises in a software tool that is supposed to be available through a citrix lab. But, the class status in the system was shown as "unbooked" so the IDs and passwords to get into the citrix lab were never generated. And apparently there's no room on the servers to put my class up and I was told to reschedule it.

None of the training people are responding to my emails.

keyword searches that found my blog

These are the keyword searches people have done in the past week that brought them to my blog.

My favorite is "getting fucked by a subject". No, it's "banjo boobs". No, it's "penis eating fish". That entry still gets hits each week.

Virginia Woolf I am not.

my Uncle Joe's interesting lawsuit

Tonight I had dinner with my dad's brother, my Uncle Joe. He's in town for a court case. He let me read the case. It's hilarious. This guy is suing a company because he thinks they owe him money. That's because, when he entered into an employment agreement with them, he sent them an email asking to be paid X amount of money plus to be given a share of the company. This after he had agreed to different terms of employment. He thinks, based on the email (which was never replied to) that the company should pony up $250,000 (arbitrary number that he can't justify). Also, he says he was wrongfully terminated.

So my Uncle Joe did some investigation. He has an email from the guy saying he quit his job (makes the argument that he was fired moot). The guy was so incompetent that the company moved him into three different positions to see if they could find something he could do right (my uncle thinks he was incompetent on purpose, planning to learn the business and then start a rival company - he said "no one could be that incompetent" - he's obviously never worked with my company). My uncle has numerous testimonies from clients and suppliers saying the guy was a moron.

He also got copies of the guy's phone records since the company paid his phone bill. Not only was he making tons of calls to a competitor, he also was hiring prostitutes when he was on travel (he's married). My uncle is saving that little fact for last in the case.

And, it turns out, if you do a bad job at a company, intentionally or not, there's something called being a "harmful agent", which means you're harming the company. That means if you've totally fucked up something for a company (business deal, customer relationship) the company can sue you for damages. It's not done often and the labor lawyer my uncle is working with didn't even know about the case law (my uncle knows a ton about case law through the whole spectrum of the legal system). So not only will the guy lose his case, but he may also end up owing the company money. My uncle initially offered him $25K to end the lawsuit just because it's annoying. The guy refused to take it. Now he's screwed.

Needless to say, when I get a book or screen play deal, he's going to be my lawyer. He's also very physically intimidating (imagine a mafia guy who's also a lawyer) so he's kind of like a built in body guard as well. He did some research for me on good places with reasonable contracts if I decide to self publish. Nice of him since he's busy...

Though, he plans on buying a plantation in Indonesia when he retires which will make him less geographically accessible. I better get a deal soon.

Return to the Light

Here's the summary of the movie I'm going to write for my script class. Name sucks. I'll fix it later. The movie is a comedy.

Return to the Light Summary

I  

Three yoga class friends, Jessica, Haley, and Kate, wait at the airport for their yoga instructor Monica, who is taking them on a spiritual journey to Peru. When Monica shows up they are surprised to find that she’s bringing her 8 year old daughter, Pacha Ray, on the trip.

They arrive in Cusco and meet John and Helen, a couple who will be joining them on a trip to the Sacred Terraces of Moray. Haley and Pacha Ray are badly behaved on the bus, with Pacha Ray throwing up on Kate. Monica attempts to do a purification ceremony using an app on her iPhone while Kate cleans up the vomit, Pacha Ray screams, Haley gets drunk, and John is attacked by a rabid dog. Jessica saves John. Then the group rushs to the bus to get John to the hospital but the bus breaks down.

II  

Everyone is on a train to Aguas Calientes. Monica is oblivious to Pacha Ray’s bad behavior. Haley is scoring drugs, Kate is being annoying, and John and Helen are being robbed by a local. Jessica finally takes charge of Pacha Ray. Kate gets jealous.

Arriving in Aguas Calientes in the evening, everyone goes to dinner. Monica and Kate have to run back to the hotel because they have stomach problems. Haley leaves with some locals. John catches on fire when a firework lands on his head. He and Helen head to the hospital. Jessica and Pacha Ray are left alone and a friendship starts to develop between them after a rocky start.

The next morning Kate and Monica are too sick to go to Macchu Picchu. Jessica takes Pacha Ray which upsets Monica because she doesn’t want her daughter to get to go there before she does.

Jessica and Pacha Ray return to the hotel later that day, having obviously had fun. The other women are in the lobby. Monica is furious. Haley is passed out and Kate is upset. Jessica tries to talk to Monica but it doesn’t help. At dinner that night Jessica is shunned. Then Monica says Jessica must help them pay for a spiritual guide Herbert to do a bunch of ridiculous ceremonies the next day at Macchu Picchu. Jessica is reluctant but agrees to keep the peace. Pacha Ray has reverted to her bad behavior again and is being mean to Jessica.

Jessica leaves the hotel, eats some vendor food, and gets sick.

III 

Jessica goes to the first ceremony at Macchu Picchu even though she’s sick; Pacha Ray is throwing rocks at her during the ceremony. Then Jessica decides to climb Huayna Picchu alone. On the top of the mountain she has a spiritual experience, but returns to find the other women almost left her behind and that Monica has told Pacha Ray that Jessica is dead. Pacha Ray and Jessica are friends again. Back home the women sit in a circle with their yoga class to talk about their spiritual enlightenment.