when not fighting dark forces I fight myself

My friend Arthur sent me this email:

Franki,

This made me think of you.  Remember the time when you went from blond to black and did not recognize yourself in the mirror …

 

 

All because one night in Las Cruces, NM, we were getting drunk at a bar called the double eagle. I was drinking top shelf margaritas. I think it was my going away party.

 

Anyway, I had just dyed my hair black and in the course of getting drunk forgot. At some point in the evening I had to walk across a dance floor to get to the ladies. One wall of the dance floor was a mirror. I saw the reflection of the hallway to the bathroom in the mirror and tried to walk down it. When I bumped into the mirror I looked up and thought I had bumped into this bitch with black hair.

 

I said "You go that way and I'll go this way."

 

Bitch bumped into me again. I said "Stop bumping into me" and tried to walk down the hallway. 

 

Finally I started screaming and threatening to hit her. The bouncer came over and pointed out I was walking into a mirror.

 

Tres embarrassing.

 

Same night, I got up on the table and gave a speech about something.

 

Next day at work I was massively hung over and Arthur tried to get me to eat a piece of key lime pie.

 

Ick.

 

I still love key lime pie but haven't had a margarita since.

 

 

there's a first time for everything

I have a nemesis at work...another consultant who is always fucking up stuff at client sites because he comes up with the stupidest, most complex solutions to problems. Then I have to go in and clean up the mess. But, because he has seniority over me (he's worked at the company for 20 years) we end up in scenarios where he gets a 6 month engagement and I only get 2 weeks to fix all the problems after his 6 month engagement fails.

Which is insane. But, that's the way my company works.

So he's currently trying to pawn off a total disaster client on me and is only giving me 48 hours to fix a huge problem. I told him no. So he back channeled my manager and said I was refusing work even though I have nothing on my schedule. My manager (surprisingly) forwarded me the email and asked what was up.

I explained to him my take on the "assignment" and said I didn't want to get involved.

My manager called me this morning and said he wanted more details from me. I gave them to him and he said he's going to have a meeting with my upper management to call the asshole consultant on his bullshit. And then he said to me "This question is probably going to make you think I'm even stupider than you already think I am" (the question was about what one of the software tools that he sells is supposed to do). I was like whoa. Is it that obvious? Then I felt bad, even though he has, in the past, been pretty much a jerk to me.

Maybe someone told him I'm looking for a new job. But it was nice of him to call and to back me up. I resolve to try to be nicer to him.

ever wonder what a stuffed animal would look like inside out?

Wonder no more. This is a great article on NPR about creative thinking.

coincidence, chaos, and all that math jazz

I've been reading this great math book called Coincidence, Chaos, and all that Math Jazz. I just read a chapter about the golden rectangle.

But it's making me feel bad. I keep looking at examples of rectangles and can never pick the golden rectangle. I always pick the fucked up rectangle. I'm so annoyed. Like, 99% of the population can pick out the golden rectangle.

What's wrong with me?

the resolution of the class

Finally, Wednesday afternoon, I got an email from the help desk that the issue with the license and the elab availability had been resolved. I spent two hours updating license files for the 15 elab instances.

So what do you think happened on Thursday?

15 minutes before the class was supposed to start I get a phone call from the class coordinator saying the customer canceled Thursday's class because not enough people were available. FIFTEEN FUCKING MINUTES before class.

What do you think happened on Friday?

I got a call at 6 am asking why I hadn't logged on to the class yet. Turns out the training coordinator gave the people who moderate the class a different start time than the people who were taking the class (class was scheduled with the students to start at 8 am MST, moderator was told 8 am EST). Luckily I was awake.

And then the customer brought 15 new students (i.e. not in the original class) in 4 hours before the class was supposed to end. He asked me to train these 15 new students on what is essentially 24 hours of class material. Compress 24 hours into 4 hours? Nightmare.

I did my best.

And luckily have a job interview this week to work somewhere else.

Ech.