Tag: How Writing

03

I meant to use this one earlier, but I accidentally used the wrong one.  Three things was supposed to go on the third.
*shrug*
I fuck things up from time to time.  My brain is scarred or something.
If you could go back in time to 5 years ago, and was able to tell your past self where your life is now; do you think your past self would believe that so much, or so little as the case may be, has changed?
Well, I actually did write five years ago.

08/03/2012 – 8/3/2012

Again, I’ve been horrible about writing and reading. What else is now?

Wednesday, I was as close to quitting a job as I’ve ever been in my life. I’d struggled, and struggled to get feedback on this thing I was working on. Very little. I incorporated most of the suggestions. I turned it in Monday night. <b>Very</b> late Tuesday night (we’re talking after 10pm, after I’d sent her something basically finises last Friday), I finally got some response from the person who’d tasked me on it. She said it was utter shit. I was livid. I know I make mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. I also miss things; comes with having bad eyesight. But that doesn’t mean I’m late, or what I turn in is bad.

In fact, very little of what I’d done was wrong. Most of it was actually perfect (amazing as that is!). I just hadn’t done the added, unnecessary, nonsense she felt it needed.

So I added it. And got it in late Wednesday afternoon.

I guess she, my direct supervisor, the guy who’d held the job before my supervisor, and the mumbling, stumbling idiot reviewed it. No major gripes. But it wasn’t “adding value.”

Give me a fucking break. It’s not supposed to “add value.” It’s a fucking academic exercise; CYA.

Whatever. I’m still employed. My boss understands the situation. I’ve been responsive. I haven’t undermined the mumbling, stumbling idior (yet). Life goes on.

It will be interesting to see what happens if I win this contract, and they lose theirs……..

My wife and I were discussing the logistics of the move to DC this afternoon/evening.

I’ve decided I want the following:

1. Moving expenses in cash, up front.
2. 80% telecommute
3. A 6% raise (I’d normally expect 8%, but I’m going to trade some of it for the increased telecommute).
4. Promise of twelve months’ employment after relocation. (I have zero faith in the Congress adn the President to prevent shit from turning bad in January…..whoever wins the election is unimportant, really. This die is cast.)

My wife is fully marooned in Olympicdom. *sigh*

I’m bored.

Notes:

Having your moving expenses covered is a very, very nice thing. I’ve never been that important to a company though. I watched two straight days of the Olympics, and I’m so bored of them now. I want my regularly scheduled programming back. [Shedhabit] 8/4/2012 6:55:07 AM

This just sucks! [Cats Rule] 8/14/2012 8:45:41 AM

I didn’t know that only a few months later I’d be being forced to deal with accepting employment with a new company at my salary from 2006.
At this point, I’d be happy just to get back what I was making when I wrote that.
Perhaps I should take solace in knowing that the person responsible still has several more years in Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison.
I think I do want to write more about religion; I don’t accept agnosticism. Maybe I should write about why.

30

Though today as I saw things coming in from DEFCON…


I found it interesting, at the time, that the party that was portraying itself as the Party of SCIENCE would have its top candidate calling for this.
Last time I checked, Math is a part of science…..
Or to simplify it for someone working as a Barista, most universities don’t sell an M.A. in Mathematics.
There’s a lot I could say, but when you can cast your partisan faith as science, there’s no sense in trying to even have a discussion.
Looking for a desktop PC with a processor that supports the Vx bit, and can accommodate SATA II drives. A second NIC would be nice, too, but I can probably figure that out if it doesn’t have one.
The old bos I was planning to use is probably now beyond repair. It was dodgy before I moved it, and wouldn’t power on when I tried it yesterday.
Me knocking it off where I’d had it perched probably didn’t help; the case is now bent. Oops.
Onto recycled prompts from NoJoMo 2010….

1. Were you named after anyone? Do you know the meaning of your name? How does it or does it not suit you?
Purportedly, there were lots of reasons for my first and middle names. I could ask my mother again, but it seems like I got the two most-common boys’ names from the 1970s.
There were six Sean/Shaun/Shawns on my high school football team. Going by our last initials wasn’t an option, either. Of the six of us, four had surnames that started with a B..
So go by your middle name!
There were about four Matts on the team, too.
In the very-unlikely event that I fathered a child, I would be sure to give him/her a simple first name without multiple spellings.
(Thankfully, I only know of one way to spell “Leopold,” which is who my wife and I would create…..)
2. Choose a quote and write about its meaning to you.
I just realized I don’t have the slightest idea what I wrote for this when I originally answered it.
I’m really drawing a blank on this one right now. Everything that’s popping into my scarred brain is snark, and that’s not what I was going for.
Maybe by NoJoMo, I’ll have come up with something, and can revisit.
3. What is the sweetest thing someone has ever done for you?
This one I probably wrote after my wife did something for me; a note on a napkin in my lunch bag, or something like that.
Lately, I don’t know. There have certainly been some very kind people who’ve treated the disaster that is me. I will say that my new landlord’s esteem further declined when I figured out that the welcome bottle of wine we receieved was Two-Buck Chuck.
But it did make decent Beef Bourguignon.

Three Things

I didn’t get out prompts yesterday.
Much of the afternoon was spent trying to get my mother’s laptop working.
Then my in-laws’ house, the supermarket, and home for dinner.
After dinner and a beer, I was in dreamland.
So, onto a prompt I’m recycling for today….
Tell us about 3 things you have done in the past year that you have never done before, big or small.
1. Spent a night in hospital. One of those bucket list items, I suppose. I ended up spending five nights in three trips between September and June. When you’re killing your immune system every four weeks, bacteria can have a pretty miserable effect.
2. Ditched a day of work to go on a job interview. One of the changes that Amtrak made was extending the Northeast Regional down to Norfolk. I had an interview with a Federal agency, so I went up, interviewed, had lunch with a friend at Union Station, and rolled back home. It’s a long day, and I didn’t get the job, but the whole experience was probably more worthwhile than spending a day analyzing network scans.
3. Considered moving to NYC. This is something that’s come about in the past few months, really, but I’m sick of what I’m seeing here, and want something different.

Double Deuce

The last two years, I’ve written in the month leading up to my birthday.
I also write in November.
I am starting late this year, however.
This week has kind of been a week from hell.  My in-laws had to put their dog to sleep on Sunday.  Tuesday I got laid off.  Again.  Third time in the past four and a half years.
While it hurts, I was actually considering whether or not to give them any notice when I got another offer.  In the IT world, and I can’t help but think this is one of those unwritten side-effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, companies don’t seem to be hiring full-time employees.  Keep everybody as a W2 contractor, and you don’t have to spring for expensive “employer-sponsored” insurance.
The group I was supporting was going through all sorts of fun financial gymnastics, so what was supposed to be a six-month contract-to-hire, became fifteen.
No benefits.  No PTO.  No sick leave.
No paid time off.  That includes Federal holidays.  While others were getting paid for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, I was just not working, not getting paid.
That I landed in the hospital three times over the past year probably didn’t help matters.  (One night in September, two in October, and another two in June.)
C’est la vie.
But it’s over now.  On to other things.
I need to get up my writing prompts.  My wife said she was going to help me find some, but I’m still open to suggestions.  I will probably dig up stuff from my old diary, and previous writing efforts, but I just haven’t had the time.
I just got my PC up and running.  We had to move very unexpectedly in May, and really haven’t gotten the new place fully set up.
Maybe I’ll get some prompts up this afternoon.  Maybe.