Pathetic

It's the start of a long weekend, my roommate is away until next week, the VCR doesn't work with the satellite system, I have exhausted my supply of books, and now I have no television.

Well, actually, there are two TV's in my apartment, but right now neither of them works. The satellite system for our building - mandated by the landlord, who wouldn't let the cable company drill holes in his walls - is down, knocked out by the hurricane force storms of the past week. And it can't be fixed until Monday.

What am I going to do, alone, in my apartment for THREE DAYS in a series of rainstorms promising thunder, floods, and winds so fierce it's dangerous to go outside. Please, somebody call me to say hi. I just hope the phones still work.

Tribute to the firm

It's December 30 and my office is about to close early for New Year's. Happily, they signed our timecards for a full day, so I get paid for an afternoon that's about to be spent drinking margaritas at Chevy's. Wahoo!

Also happily, they've asked me to stay a few more weeks to complete an assignment that we've been working on for about a month. We're not quite finished, and with most of the staff and some of the temps departing today, they needed somebody to do this work. I'm glad they asked me to stay. I need the money, but I've also grown oddly fond of the place. And they gave me a hefty Christmas bonus, which is unheard of for a temporary employee, but was a much appreciated end-of-year surprise.

I've spent these past months getting to know some pretty cool co-workers, taking the occasional online quiz, catching up on my email, applying to jobs, and blogging. I couldn't have asked for more.

When I come back on Tuesday, most desks will be empty, and the office will really be a shell of its former self. But some cool people will be staying on, the mean lunch bunch will have disbanded, and I will have inherited a dying tree from a woman who's leaving and doesn't want to take it home with her.

Life is strange.

Resolutions for a Taurus

I'm not quite sure that I buy into the whole idea of New Year's resolutions; I mean, everyone makes them, but who really sticks to them? Why do we need to start the year with all that pressure? What's wrong with trying to better ourselves (or keep to a budget, or eat healthier, or whatever) in February, or May, or how about August?

That said, I found this in an MSN article about the best New Year's resolutions to make according to your birth sign: You are an extremely creative person but you don't always show it. You let duties toward home, work, and children carry you away from your artistic abilities. This year, make a conscious resolution to spend time indulging your creative spirit. Perhaps you need to start a weekly arts and crafts night with a group of friends. Do what it takes to get inspired and stay motivated, Taurus.

I'm skeptical about the arts and crafts group, but this seems a bit prophetic given my current desire to resume playing the violin. I've been thinking about lessons for months now, and perhaps this is the final push I need to call the music school I've been researching to see about registering for lessons in their spring quarter. I think this is better than a resolution, though I may make one or two of those as well. After all, what would I talk about for the first few weeks of January otherwise?

Welcome aboard, and thanks for riding

The finer points of public transit in San Francisco include occasionally clothes-less passengers, often rude drivers, and sometimes missing your stop, perhaps by several blocks, when it's raining too hard to see the street signs in the dark. Last night, however, was a first: I got on the bus downtown, and intended to take it to its terminus in the Sunset, just a few blocks from the grocery store. In the Haight, a few odd souls boarded. As the last walked up the steps and onto the bus, the automated voice - the one that points out when a stop's been requested and occasionally blurts out the intersection we're approaching - uttered something I'd never heard before: Welcome aboard, and thank you for riding MUNI.

Judging from the reactions of my fellow passengers, nobody had ever heard that greeting before. Some smiled, a few chuckled, and one woman, amid comments about "momentary mass hysteria" proceeded to laugh for blocks. But I'm pretty sure she was on drugs.

All in all, it was a nice respite from the cursing, swearing, and public intoxication that usually accompanies my bus rides through the Haight. I need to ride the 6 Parnassus bus more often.

The demise of the suitcase zippers

Why is it that each time I travel, I arrive at my destination minus some of the zippers on my suitcase? This has been an ongoing problem since the founding of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) a few years ago, and it's now out of control.

It started out simply enough: I arrived at my destination and noticed that one of the zipper pulls had fallen off of the zipper on the main part of my suitcase. No worries, the main compartment has two zippers. Or it did, until a trip to Washington, D.C. vanquished the other zipper pull and the whole zipper mechanism on the smallest pocket. I was forced to attach an old luggage lock to one of the zippers in order to get into my suitcase to get my clothes. Each of the disappearing zippers was accompanied by a love note from the TSA informing me that they'd inspected my luggage. Really, did they have to be so harsh? Or couldn't they have reattached the zipper pulls once they realized they'd taken them off?

Happily, the luggage lock has remained in tact (but it's pretty strong). However, I lost a whole zipper mechanism on my flight home last night. Now I have a very large, green suitcase with one zipper, pulled by a large, multicolored, combination Master lock. Anybody know where to get zipperless luggage?

Too much Christmas cheer

Ah, overcelebration. It's that wonderful feeling on Sunday afternoon of needing a cup of soup and a nap. Or that lousy middle-of-the-day slump that lets you know you've been celebrating too much and sleeping too little.

It all started with the parish Christmas party and caroling festivities on Thursday, followed on Friday evening by the annual office holiday bash. The evening started out harmlessly - tropical drinks at this bar called the Tonga Room, which features a Polynesian theme and half-hourly thunder and rainstorms. Then it was down the hill (quite literally, and the Tonga Room is atop California Street) to an Italian restaurant and the office party. Have I mentioned the bottomless glasses of wine? It was dangerous, but ended without incident, I think. Then, some of us more enterprising (read: already really drunk) souls ventured to the Irish Bank, a great bar in the financial district with an old church confessional that's been made into a booth, where we drank a little more before having to escort one of us to the bus. She got home safely - after a little confusion about where she lived - and it seems the rest of us did too.

Saturday brought another party, hosted by m ex-boyfriend's brother. Why did I go? Well, I was invited, and the Ex was not. And I was curious. The brother's moved into a new house, and he's a good cook, so I figured it would be fun. And it was, but I had to leave early - in the pouring rain - to meet a friend to have a drink to celebrate the holidays before I head to NY this week.

Sunday brought our last Mass of the year, followed by caroling along Fillmore Street. By the end of the night, I was hoarse, tired, and just wanted to go to sleep.

It's now Tuesday, I'm still tired, half the office has a cold, and I'm getting on a plane tomorrow to repeat the holiday cheer process in New York. But I'm really not feeling holiday-cheery right now. And I don't really think my trip to the airport tomorrow morning will help. Maybe I should put on my Santa hat. Maybe that will reinforce my lagging holiday spirit.

When work really does drive you to drink

So the guy who was missing last week, who looked like he'd met the bad end of somebody's fist, but claimed to be in a car accident, quit today. He came in a few days last week and then showed up today around 3:00 stumbling drunk and resigned. Speculation is that the car accident really was a bar fight, and that he fell off the wagon last weekend - in a big way - after more than two years of sobriety.

Now, some people here are pretty unpleasant to work with, and everyone gripes about cranky co-workers, but what if this crazy job situation forced him back to the bottle? Wow! I hope he can get some help and get his act together, and move on to better and more pleasant things. And maybe, on a purely selfish level, I should be thankful that I'll only be here another five days.

Be careful with that scissors!

My dear friend Angel (see her link to the left) is concerned for my safety in light of recent incidents involving people in my workplace. I appreciate her concern, but I think her worries are unfounded. Unless the perpetually-drunk lawyer goes nuts, or one of the disgruntled, soon-to-be-unemployed folks gets hostile, or the often broken elevator snaps as I'm on my way to the lobby.

Hmm. Maybe her concerns are legitimate. Perhaps I should wear my bike helmet to the office. I'd look a little odd, but I'm sure I could figure out how to accessorize with it.

In the continuing saga that is my job, it turns out the guy who had been missing for two days wasn't dead, or drunk, or even sick. He was actually in a pretty severe car accident, and though he has returned to work, I'd almost rather he stay home. He looks miserable and probably feels pretty lousy too. And instead of his supervisor being sympathetic (hi - head injury anyone??) she yelled at him for being irresponsible and flaky. He was in the HOSPITAL for goodness sake. Leave the guy alone until his head stops aching.

A few days ago I posted about the drunk lawyer. Well, he seems to have put a rush on happy hour again yesterday, and left slurring his words at the end of the day. And trying to pick up some of the office staff. I'm really hoping the people at my next job are sober. Is that too much to ask?

The mystery deepens

The formerly-missing guy showed up to the office this afternoon, obviously not sick, but looking like he got the s**t kicked out of him in a bar fight. Swollen face, black eye, the tender, careful walk of somebody aching from every muscle. Hmmm... Maybe it all happened during his move.

He's now being reamed out by his supervisor in the room across the hall. Lucky for me she didn't close the door.

Just a followup

This is an excerpt of a comment to my post about the missing officemate, courtesy of my most loyal reader, Meg:

Oh, and at this point, a police report might be prudent. Missing persons and all. Has no one in that office ever seen Without A Trace?

Having seen many episodes of Without A Trace, and fessing up to my unnatural obsession with anything Law and Order related, I would almost agree with you. I want also to clarify that I did not take this lightly. This guy was MIA for two days, which was pretty scary. However, until the people here exhausted all their ideas of how to find him (in case he'd just forgotten to tell anyone he was going on vacation, perhaps?) they didn't want to call the police. We were also without his address, which apparently would have complicated the missing persons report. Added to that, the San Francisco PD has had some of its own problems lately, and probably couldn't rescue a cat in a tree this week, nevermind track down the missing.

Check out this link from the Chronicle on San Francisco's tarnished finest: I'll happily take your input. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/08/MNGQIG4PLD1.DTL

Found!

Thankfully that missing co-worker has been found, at home, sick. Between the flu and his recent move, and perhaps the fact that he either hasn't had the phone hooked up yet or couldn't get through to the office, he was unable to notify people of his illness.

Have you seen my co-worker?

How's this for seriously scary: a guy in my office hasn't come to work this week. He isn't on vacation, and since the phones haven't been working nobody's sure if maybe he called in sick. People have gone to his home, contacted old roommates, called local hospitals, and considered phoning the police, which sounds like the next step if he's not home. He moved recently, nobody has his current contact info, and they only tracked down his address by calling a friend who put them in touch with the former roommate who helped him move. Needless to say, the whole place is a little weirded out by this. I really hope he just has the flu!

Let the interviews begin!

After months of no job possibilities, I applied for three positions in the past two weeks, and it looks like all that resume writing may be paying off. I have a preliminary phone interview tomorrow. Yay! I know it's nothing to get my hopes up about, but I'm so happy that someone read my resume, and the cover letter I worked so hard on, and likes me enough to want to talk. Hopefully this is the first in a long line of interviews!

Time to make the donuts

The lack of Dunkin’ Donuts franchises on the West Coast has been my biggest disappointment about living here – bigger than sub-par pizza and questionable bagels. However, my favorite donuts may soon be arriving to a street-corner shop near me. Apparently, the company that owns Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins, and Togo’s (a sandwich shop) was just purchased by a company that plans to expand westward, apparently hoping to take on Starbucks with its fancy coffee drinks and spectacular donuts. I'm so excited!! 2006 is starting to look promising.

Monday morning booze

This was in my horoscope today: Use the power of the word as an artistic medium to express yourself, dear Taurus. You have a magic with words that often goes unrecognized.

I'm not sure if this is about to make magic, but I'm hoping to at least make somebody laugh.

The guy in the office who often comes into work drunk - usually on Fridays - showed up on this fine Monday morning reeking of alcohol and "too sick" to stay at work. Sick, or still drunk and hungover? It's a pretty amazing feat to wake up Monday morning still drunk from Sunday night and to also be hungover. I'm torn between wanting to give the guy credit for an apparently amazing ability to party, and wanting to rap him over the head for being an idiot. He's part of the Friday 4 pm happy hour crew - the group who goes for two hour lunches and then leaves at 4 to drink away their dinner hour. Yet the rest of them manage to stay sober the rest of the week.

This guy, however, was completely trashed on Friday too. I can tell for a few reasons: he's got bloodshot eyes and smells like a the rear of a bar on New Year's Day; he's uncharacteristically nice to people; and he's alternately belligerent and very subdued (the hangover stupor - almost comatose, but not quite). Usually, though, he fakes his way through the day. Today must have been pretty bad, since he left at about 11 am. Apparently, the only reason he came in at all was his inability to call in sick. The phones still aren't working quite right, and he couldn't reach anyone. And nobody's quite sure where the voicemail messages are going.

Bubbles, and suds, and a washer, oh my!

So, about six weeks ago, the washing machine in my apartment complex met a sad end, unfortunately at the hands of a delicate load of my wash. I put some pajamas, my favorite green sweater, a pair of pants, and a new cashmere sweater ($18 on sale at Eddie Bauer) in the wash, added the soap and put in my quarters. I returned to the laundry room - really a shack in the backyard - after 25 minutes to discover the cycle wasn't finished. In fact, I could see bluish smoke billowing up the stairs towards my unit, and I could smell the foul odor of burning rubber. Thankfully, the machine didn't catch on fire. However, its days were over. It was, after all, almost 35 years old. The motor went mid-cycle, leaving my delicates immersed in warmish, sudsy water. My favorite green sweater was a complete loss.

I recovered from my loss, made a trip to the Laundromat to continue washing my clothes, and called my landlord. He didn't return my call - which was odd as he's a bit of a control freak - but the building manager called a few days later to say the landlord was away, but she'd let him to know the problem when he returned.

This was before Halloween. On Nov. 2, at 6:30 pm, in the dark, who should I discover in the backyard of my complex but the landord. With a flashlight. And his toolbox. Dismantling the washer in an attempt to fix it. Apparently, unfamiliar with the death knell signaled by blue smoke and burning rubber, he thought his screwdriver and a wrench could do the job.

He quickly discovered his mistake, and sent around a memo informing the tenants that we'd have to wait months for a new washer. Months! My roommate and I were irate. Why should this take months? Go to Sears, buy a washer, and hook it up to the water lines.

But no. The landlord claimed the shack was too small for a regular-sized washer, and he needed to get a customized one. Apparently, he also considered replacing the dryer, and told my roommate this would all have to wait until he repaired a gas leak in the laundry shack.

Well, it's now December, and I'm happy to say the washer and dryer arrived in front of the complex today. When and how they will be installed is still a mystery, but they're there. Waiting. I hope my laundry can be first!

Widening the circle

Check out the new links to the left!

A car tribute

As I make plans to sell my car in the next few weeks, I have taken to pondering both the time I have spent with this car, as well as my soon to be car-less existence.

I will miss Pigpen - so named because in our first week together, he was seen in a parking lot in a windy New Mexico town surrounded by a swirling cloud of dust, just like Charles Schultz's Pigpen of the Peanuts comics. From the time I found out about the car damage that would eventually make driving on the freeway a hazard (think engine stalling and a huge fireball), I have been thinking about the places that car and I have gone. It's odd to be sentimental about a vehicle, yes, but in the five years I've owned Pigpen, despite all sorts of turmoil and transition, he's stood by me - except for that period where the starter was dying and I often couldn't leave parking lots, but that's another story entirely.

Pigpen and I have traveled the wilds of New Mexico together, made the last leg of my long-anticipated cross-country journey together, and traversed the state of California from Ventura to Ft. Bragg. We've traveled alone and with a motley crew of people, and our favorite passenger, Charlie the Sharpei, the best traveling companion ever and an all-around great dog. We've traveled backroads and freeways and roads without pavement, always with the music blaring. I think my favorite trip was from Monterey through Carmel to the Redwoods of Big Sur. We did the last leg - just a day trip - in an amazing rainstorm.

Now, though, he's relegated to city driving only, and spends most of his time parked near my apartment, soaking up the fine ocean air and developing a sheen of rust. Lately, when we do travel together, he stutters and jerks and generally voices his discontent. I'm hoping his new home can fix him up, take off the rust, and take him to the mountains. There's lots of California left to explore. I'm ready to lace up my sneakers, grab a book, and get going. On the bus.

What do you think?

Ponder this, discuss it among yourselves, and let me know your opinions: is it appropriate to drop the F-bomb in your office? I'm asking because somebody did it today, loudly, in the course of a conversation with another employee, and it seems to me to be a little out of bounds. But then, my last job was in a house of worship.

Where's that ringing coming from?

In what I hope will be the last of the telephone posts, I am relieved to report that the phones are mostly up and ringing, in an irritating trill reminiscent of old rotary phones, but ringing nonetheless. The fax machine isn't connected, most of the phone numbers were incorrectly assigned, and who knows if we're actually getting calls for our office, but I guess it's progress.

This is what happens when you leave a guy in charge who has to work from his hospital bed.

Hold my calls, please

It's now 2 pm on Monday, and we still have no phones (see my previous posts for the lowdown on the phone issue). Happily, on Friday, the phone technicians wired the building we'll be moving into NEXT YEAR. As for the building we're in until February, it went unwired until about lunchtime today. What a fiasco. It's good no real work is going on here right now. What if people needed to conduct business? And the phone batteries still aren't fully charged. But now one phone is ringing. In an empty office....

The rewards of delayed gratification

As I sit here in my now telephone-free office (the replacement phones need batteries - they weren't included), I wanted to take a minute to contemplate the wonder of my ipod. For those of you who don't know the story, I saved for a year to be able to buy it, even opening a dedicated ipod savings account. I saved every extra penny and any cash gifts I received for graduation. It took forever. When I finally had the cash, I spent a week comparing different models, before finally deciding on the 20 GB special edition U2 version, which was conveniently on sale. The order was fraught with complications, but it arrived intact, and with a special poster of the band.

The wait, though painful at times, was definitely worth it. The sound quality is excellent - so much better than my portable CD player, and I no longer have to lug around a bunch of CDs. It's relatively easy to operate, and it's got a calendar and I can write myself notes and even use it as an alarm clock. I no longer have to carry packages of AA batteries with me, and it looks like the battery will get me through even my longest days. And with 20 GB of space, which I'm pretty sure all my CDs won't fill, I can download audio books. Maybe now I can stop lugging big books to work. This might revolutionize my life.

But for right now, I'm going to go back to listening to the amazing fiddle playing of Natalie MacMaster. She fills the silence left by the phones.

Hold the phones!

So our fearless leader, apparently still laid up and potentially in a half-body cast, communicated with us this morning via email that the phone technicians would be here this afternoon to remove the telephones. Apparently, as part of closing this place, the phones are being moved to the offices of another firm - which some of the lucky folks here will join next year. However, as part of this merger, the other firm is moving into the new offices this weekend, and obviously those folks need telephone communication with the outside world.

So, the phone guys are here now, removing the black telephones, putting them in cardboard boxes, and transporting them down the street to the new office building. This raises several questions to me, the lowly temp in an office about to be phone-less.

1. How are we supposed to communicate with the outside until the end of the year?
It turns out, we're getting temporary phones. However, they won't be hooked up to our phone numbers. Rather, the receptionist at the other firm will have to transfer all calls to our office. I foresee a fiasco. Anyone else?

2. What becomes of our receptionist?
In the long term, I have yet to get an answer. However, he'll be away next week, but I guess nobody'll have to worry about a replacement.

3. If the office doesn't close until Dec. 31, why is this happening now?
This is perhaps the best question of all: it seems that, while the phone date was scheduled quite some time ago, in the interim the closing and moving dates have been pushed back - the phones leave today, the office closes on Dec. 31, and the move happens in February, or at least that's the current rumor.

So, here we are, on a Friday afternoon in San Francisco's Financial District, with no phones. And my cell phone battery is dead. And I only this week memorized the office phone number.

Hello, Wisconsin!

Check out the new link at the left, and welcome blondiedred to the blogosphere.