People Think My Life is Fascinating, Vol 2

Unfortunately, I had a busy morning today, so I didn't have the chance to detail my morning ritual. On the upside, I have a whole evening and most of a workday to talk about today. I was going to start at the beginning of my day, or maybe last evening, and tell the events of my life in chronological order, but that would require me to remember what happened yesterday, and eventually time would catch up and we'd be back here with me typing at the computer. Instead, I'm going to go reverse, Memento-style with the most recent events back to the point where I sent the email yesterday, unless I get bored at some point and stop.

So a few minutes ago (4:00PM) I visited the Flavia machine. I figured I needed a little bit of energy if I was going to have to enumerate all the boring, annoying things that I had to deal with today. There are six bays in the Flavia dispenser. Each bay contains about 20 packets and four ofthe bays were empty. All that was left were French Roast, which is just too weak, and something called "Choco," I reloaded the dispenser with the Sumatra packet and made myself a black, iced coffee. A contractor came up to me and asked how the machine worked. I said you click the "coffee" button, which will cause the door to open. Insert the packet and close the door. Then coffee comes out.

Before that, I was on the phone with the project manager for the Global Antivirus Project that I'm supposed to be working on. I was trying to convince her to kick a particularly annoying person off the project, and arranging a bunch of requirements gathering discussions that I'm going to have to lead, but I'm actually not all that excited about.

Before that I was on the phone with Symantec to talk about their AV product that I'm working on upgrading for the company. The guy on thephone was trying to be helpful. We pay them a huge amount of money for what's called Platinum Support, so you can basically shit on them if you want to, and they have to be really polite anyway. I don't usually try to take advantage of that, but I did kind of give him a hard time because I wanted a real answer to my question.

Before that I found out that a particulary annoying person working on the Global AV project was taking a month off for back pain of some sort. My friends that have to deal with her all think that she's faking. She's super-super incompetent and never actually does anything. We think this is her way of saving her job, at least in the short term. This is a girl that has never, never completed anything. Ever. Seriously. For years. And they won't get rid of her. Everyone assumes she must have naked pictures of the CIO, because there is no reason why she should still be working here.

Before that I went to lunch. Got Sushi with my friend in the Security Ops group. We complained about the annoying person. I order the Chirashi and a couple rolls. It was ok.

Before that I was in a two hour All-Hands meeting for the department. The meeting is supposed to be about celebrating our accomplishments and communicating the new way forward. But really it feels like a meeting where the managers are trying to justify their existence. Totally boring and totally pointless. But we were all wearing green shirts!

Before that I got into work around 9:30AM. There weren't many people in the parking lot. It seems like a lot of people just don't show up onFridays. Went up to my desk and powered up my laptop. One of the guys on my team walks by and says "Nice, wearing the green shirt!" He was wearing the green shirt too. I just rolled my eyes.

Woke up at about 8AM. Set my alarm for about 6:30, and hit snooze every15 minutes. The alarm is set to just do the beep-beep-beep thing. If I have music or talk on, I'll just sleep through it, incorporating the audio into my dreams. Before I had it tuned in between stations, where I could get a ear-and-mind-piercing static. Unfortunately, it would wake my roommates before it would wake me, so I had to settle on the beeps. Finally got up and had a Mint Chocolate Clif bar and a glass of water for breakfast. Had an orange. Got dressed. Put on my green work shirt and felt like a sell-out. Had to dig for a while last night to find it. The director of the department wants everyone to wear these green polo shirts the first Friday of every month. She thinks it shows solidarity and teamwork, but it's really just the director saying, I control you, I can make you do whatever I want! Last month I was one of the few that "forgot" to wear the green shirt. Today I would wear the shirt. It would just be too noticible to not wear the shirt and the director holds personal grudges.

So if you made it through, that was my day at work today, for the most part. A little disappointed that I didn't see the daily update from anybody else though. What's going on with you guys? Considered setting up a blog this morning, but would it be worth it? Is this something you guys want to have? We could post whatever and have it all in a central place... I was thinking we could call it Olaf, short for "Our lives are fascinating." What do you think?