Downsized

There was a flurry of activity today at the Olde Honey Well. I mentioned it to my supervisor, who quickly and quiety told me that "they" were whacking people today. Yikes! That's not a good way to start the day. We had noticed some guys who looked like suits milling around the front door. That happens all the time, though.

So as soon as I heard that, I wanted to know what was going on. I was assured that it wasn't going to affect our department. Later, I realized why. Tech writers don't cost much. Engineers are expensive, especially those who are middle-management. Five of them got axed, plus the only in-house salesperson. (She has a special story of her own. Her boss called her last Friday, and told her to meet him at the airport today. He's located somewhere in the US. So she met him at the airport. He fired her while he was on a layover. In fact, he probably altered his itinerary so he could fly here and fire her. Such a special guy!)

The problem is that these engineers had been there for a long time, are wicked smart, and are generally nice guys. They're engineers, so they're kind of weird. But harmless and helpful. In other words, this sucks and shall continue to such while the rest of us scramble to fill in the gaps. Nice.

But the best part is that they did do the "you're fired, pack your things, and then you're out of here" scenario. Except there was one, slightly funny aspect to it. The person who was escorting the firees out the back door (of the warehouse, so nobody could witness the walks of shame), is the lovely office manager. She is small (under 5 feet), slim, and older. She's fun, terribly nice, and sings in a Gospel choir. She is certainly not a burly security guard. Maybe they picked her because of her caring, kind, and generally jovial demeanor. She did her best to make it less traumatic for those who were fired. Kinda like being fired by your grandma.

I wish the best for those who were fired and for those who were left behind. A-cow was on edge all day. Annoying!

Animal Farm

I have been gently reprimanded for not updating my blog. I'm interpreting that as a good thing; it means that people are reading and are interested. This time, I was told that someone had looked for a specific entry about a specific topic: llamas. So here is the post-dated entry.

On Sunday, August 10th, I joined Xine, Melanie, Len, and Rochelle at a llama farm owned by a co-worker of Melanie. It was the annual llamarama, where you could tour the farm, eat delicious (and surprising...who knew that was included) food, and pick up some llama beans for your garden. If I had known, I would have come prepared. There was no way that I was going to fill up my trunk.

But I did have my camera. I had thought that far ahead. So instead of llama beans, I brought home a bunch of llama photos.

That's a cute little fella right there. Here is a photo of his dashing daddy, Tiva. A-cow has fallen in love with him (and I'm not going to get into that, although I will say that she has a lot of cats, and she's single). Whenever she gets wound up, which is very frequently, I tell her to look at the llama. It calms her down. Well, he calms her down.

Xine spotted him first, though.

Here's one that will blow your mind...a photo of Rochelle watching Melanie take a photo of Len and the llama (hey, that sounds like a children's book).

There were a couple of dogs. One was active; one was inactive. The active one's name is Gypsy. She tortured her cow for a while and then sat next to/in a tree.

The inactive one, whose name I can't remember, stayed on the porch for most of the day, near the food.

Xine and I cut out early to hop the quaint Albion Ferry. She was going to Krause's Farm for blueberries. I was going home. It turned out that that route was shorter and faster than the route I had taken in the morning. Oh well, I took the scenic round trip.

Advertising

On the back of a crappy old pickup I was driving behind today:
"Single German seeking single, young Asian woman." [I put the comma in there.]

Hmmmm, let me think. Would a hot, young Asian woman (or any woman for that matter) be attracted by a painted-on advertisement on a beat up old pickup. I'm thinking no.

Good luck, Single German.

Complaint Dept

I think that I have previously written about how I cannot stand the new co-worker. (By the way..."new" is used loosely here...she has been there for about four months now.) If I haven't, then I'll summarize: she's a loud know-it-all who has never once thought that we won't want to hear her opinion. She never hesitates to butt in and speak on behalf of our department. She's always there to answer questions not asked of her. And she stubbornly continues to loudly mispronounce our supervisor's name while she shouts across our four desks. (Keep in mind that she was the one who found and introduced us to our company-/world-wide instant messenging system. But she still yells across the room.) I haven't corrected her. She calls me her "work buddy". Fuck off.

We had our mid-year performance reviews this past week. For some weird reason, A-cow (the nickname I've given her...which is short for annoying-co-worker) had her meeting with Caroline before I did. Later that afternoon, we took our daily walk. (I started this tradition before I realized that she annoys the hell out of me.) During that walk, she asked me if I would mind being mentored by her, because Caroline had asked her to.

Wtf?!?!?!?

I couldn't answer that question truthfully ("I would rather be slowly eaten alive by those pedicure fish"). So instead, I acknowledged that I lack the interpersonal skills required by the job, and suggested that perhaps she could help me with that.

In reality, my biggest problem is that I can't think quickly and defend myself.

Why didn't Caroline check with me first?