Aimless Wandering

So do you know what really burns my butt?   Ok, other than a flame about three feet high…

The weekly statistics that I have to submit to my boss - statistics that I’m pretty sure nobody reads, but heaven help us if we don’t get them submitted on time.  Now I don’t mind doing the weekly report, it’s not hard and I have a pretty good system going.  When I get the data I need, I can complete the report in about 30 minutes - and then claim that it took me at least 90 minutes to finish…

The trouble is that I have to rely on other folks to get me the data I need in order to complete the report, and if they forget to pull their data or just generally slack off then I can’t submit the statistics on time and I get chewed out by my boss because the numbers are supremely important to him.

So knowing that the statistics are due today, that I had yet to receive the data I needed, that I couldn’t begin to work on the report for the week - my boss decides to let the person who needs to pull the data I require go home early…

Ummm yeah thanks!

So we got notice last week that we are now under mandatory water restrictions.  The local water authority has declared that all users must reduce their water consumption by 15%.

Ok.

The problem is they don’t say how.  They offer several ways you can conserve water - all of which are ways that have always been promoted as methods to conserve water.

Everywhere I’ve been that has enacted water restrictions has published specific restrictions, whether it’s restrictions on watering landscaping to prohibitions on washing cars and other outdoor water uses.  Not here, all that we’ve been told is to reduce by 15%.

I’ve got to wonder if such an ambiguous restriction is actually effective.  We are in an extremely eco-friendly area, but if folks are given any real guidance for conservation will they actually conserve?

Maybe it’s me, maybe my expectations are a little high. I’ve been known to be a bit demanding at times.

However, I would think that if you put on your resume that your experienced with Microsoft Office products… That if you tell a classroom full of students that you have 10 years of experience with the Microsoft Office suite… That if you had been spending the last 3 months reviewing our courses… That if you told me that you were an “expert” with Microsoft Excel…

With all of that, plus notification a month in advance that you were going to be expected to actively assist with instructing and Introduction to Excel class, I would think that it would be an absolute piece of cake for you to teach a chapter or two of the class.

You’re supposed to be a knowledgeable and experienced training professional right? So an Introduction to Excel class where the most difficult concept is the Auto Sum button should be a piece of cake…

However, I’m apparently smoking crack since you told me you were unfamiliar with the material and therefore uncomfortable teaching it.

Yes, it’s been one of those weeks at my office…

No, I haven’t forgotten about this site.  I’ve been struggling for inspiration that wasn’t something I try to avoid posting about.So I start off this latest return with a rant.We use Microsoft Outlook as the e-mail client where I work.  It’s been the standard for years, and folks have grown accustomed to being able to format text and have pretty pictures in their signatures and such.Now a few months ago our IT security folks recognized the bazillions of security threats as well as the fact that when it comes to protecting our network, our biggest security threat is the blatent laziness and stupidity of our users.   As a result the put forth a mandatory security policy - All e-mail sent or received will be in plain text and not HTML or rich text.  Any formating you make in the message will be blocked when the message is sent, messages from outside the organization have their formatting stripped off.  It’s an automatic thing so users don’t have a choice in the matter.  The whole idea is to prevent some malicious code from firing in an e-mail when they view it.Users being users have of course figured out a way around this.  They quickly realized that even though their messages aren’t displayed in HTML or rich text, all that they needed to do is click on a spot in the header, and poof all the formatting would return.This has led to folks going back to the old way of changing fonts and adding colors in their e-mail and then adding the phrase View In HTML to tell their recipients how to view all the bold fonts and the like.  Of course it’s so over used that it’s a joke.  Folks make one word bold or three words italic and they want us to view their message in HTML, or they decide that they want their message in Arial instead of the Times New Roman font that plain text uses. My favorite, when people don’t do anything to their message - yet still tell you to View in HTML. 

To the people who know me and our family, it’s not much of a secret that TV is pretty important to us.  We watch A LOT of TV (possibly more than we should).  But hey, after a hectic day it’s nice to let the evening unwind with a few hours of somewhat escapist entertainment…

One of the show that we like a lot is Jericho over on CBS.  It was a new show this season, and when I first started watching it I wasn’t sure if I would continue.  I wasn’t sure a show based on a doomsday scenario was going to be something I would really want to get in to.  But Jericho is a show that jumped on the ABC bandwangon of serial dramas.  Like Lost, Jericho had an ongoing plotline that is really the basis of the entire show.  A good serial drama like Lost or Jericho can suck you in as you try and figure out just what the heck is going on…  and that’s exactly what Jericho managed to do…

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I love to travel, I love going places and seeing new things, or for that matter just re-experiencing old favorites. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve done quite a bit a traveling, so I know what to expect. Even still it never ceases to amaze me when I encounter somebody who just doesn’t have a clue. Now I’m not talking about somebody who doesn’t know to take their shoes off – oh no I’m talking about somebody who must live in a cave!

This week I flew out of the smallest airport I’ve ever been in. The “terminal” was so small that the baggage carousel at Los Angeles (where I was headed to) wouldn’t have fit inside the terminal building. The terminal is so small that security is in another building (as is the waiting room). After clearing security and waiting for our flight, I actually heard a woman say “I can’t believe they made us go through security here, I thought that they would take care of it right after we got off the plane in Los Angeles…”

Ah yes, because we’re not concerned about the bad guys getting on the plane – Nope they can get on the plane, but we just can’t have them arriving in Los Angeles! I was tempted to ask her when she planned on getting her money changed to the local currency in Los Angeles…

So I stumbled across this auction on e-bay.  The seller is either a blithering idiot, or a genius.  I’m not sure which.

An e-mail address, heck a crappy e-mail address on yahoo, on sale for $329.99?!

Who would buy this?

Maybe there’s an idiot out there bigger than the seller?

…. and a few layers of bare skin too…

So today I resubmitted my voluminous package for a promotion to my boss. She’s supposed to sign off on it, then forward it to her boss who does the same, and give it to her boss who does the same, and finally up to his boss who endorses the whole thing (and his endorsement is the only one that matters). After that the package heads up to a selection board in Washington who decides whether or not they agree that I walk on water and then give me a nice fat paycheck…

The first stop should have been quick. 5 minutes to slap on a routing slip and then off to the next person in line… Three hours and countless phone calls and runs back and forth between offices to fix little nit picky things… I think the entire exercise hit the peak of ridiculousness when I was told that I needed to find out WHAT COLOR FOLDER THE PACKAGE NEEDED TO BE IN! The response - Blue. Except it then got worse when I was asked “light blue or dark blue!” It took every ounce of my being not to ask if I should find out the Pantone color code of the folder for her….

My friend Frank helped me a lot on this package. His advice was invaluable because he’s actually sat on these selection boards and he knows what the board is looking for. So I incorporated most if not all of his tips into my package. Great right? Can you believe my boss asked me why I was following his advice since I had no guarantee that he would be sitting on the board that my package was being submitted to!!!!

….and it’s only Monday….

Ok, to start off with the subject of this post is not the show the wife and I do, nor am I talking about WRR.

I am however talking about an un-named podcast that while I don’t subscribe to, I do keep tabs on since they have similar content to what the wife and I do.  They just have a much narrower focus.

First, I don’t subscribe because your show SUCKS, your website wasn’t bad before however your latest changes are horrible!

It is nice to see that you’ve learned a little.  Your first shows were incredibly boring, you both spoke in a monitone and just put me to sleep, it didn’t help that you thought you’d add some “ambiance” to your show and ran a background noise track behind you.  It was annoying, repetive, and distracting.

You’ve gotten a little better though, it only took you 3 months and close to 20 shows to finally kill that stupid background track.  You’ve finally learned that the monotone drone was a real snoozer…  however, both of your voices are at just the right tone that even with some inflection the two of you are still boring to listen to.

But there’s something else…  You two aren’t experts about your subject, you’re enthusiasts.  That in and of itself is great BUT, you’re poorly informed enthusiasts.  This means that instead of informing and entertaining, you’re inaccurate and in some cases perpetrating myths and mistakes!  You two dweebs need to go listen to WRR, they’re enthusiasts too… But they know what they’re talking about.  It’s because they don’t talk out of their butts (or at least when they do, they’re at least right) that they have real credibility and as a result actual sources in the industry.  You two morons know not what you speak of, and eventually it will wind up biting you in the ass.

Now to top it off, you’re farming MY SHOW for program ideas! You’re at least smart enough not to copy us directly, but isn’t it interesting that just two weeks after we cover a topic, you two dweebs  decide to do the same thing!  Oh, and used OUR joke to intro your topic!

Oh, and your website redesign blows!  The static front page wasn’t a bad idea, except the front page is poorly assembled that by having the static front page you’ve also effectively buried the content people care about.

So yes, I’m in a no good, rotten, horrible mood today.  How are you?

So I’m working in one of our classrooms today and watching MSNBC as the House of Representatives debates the bill regarding the President’s redeployment of troops in Iraq.

I’ve got to say I’m stunned… Shocked…. Amazed..  What has blown me away?  As Representative John Boehner finished speaking on the floor of the House, somebody’s cellphone can clearly be heard ringing!

Are you kidding me?  Congressmen (and women) are certainly important people, but WTF?  You have staffers, let them answer your phone.  If it’s that fricken important your staffer can come and get you!  There shouldn’t be any reason that ANYBODY needs to have a cellphone with them while on the floor of the House of Representatives, or for that matter in either chamber of Congress.  However, if you that inseperable from your phone, at least turn the ringer off!  Set the thing to vibrate!

Then again, is anybody really going to sit in either the House or the Senate while it’s in session and yack away on their cellphone?

I like the ringtone on my phone, yet I almost never hear it…  Why?  Because I find myself in front of classes, in meetings, etc and so I normally leave my phone on vibrate so that I don’t disrupt what’s going on around me and call undue attention to myself.  It makes sense to me, but apparantly doesn’t make sense to the folks in Congress…