I still don't want one

I paid a visit to my old place of employment yesterday. The new guy was in a panic over a report that's due at the end of the month. It's something I set up in Excel, and that he couldn't figure out.

I am not sure how it happened, but as I was walking him through what to do, the new guy told me his salary. The college is paying him more than they paid me.

They are paying him more even though the position was downgraded from director to dean after my resignation. They are paying him more despite a state budget crisis and hiring freeze.

WTF?

The limits of charity

I hate being taken advantage of.

I'm all for helping people. Goodness knows I've had a lot of help along the way. I've always been grateful for it, and I've tried my best to "do unto others" and all that good stuff.

But every now and again I encounter a person who is a master at exploiting the generosity of others. We've gotten ourselves involved with one such person. She goes to our church, and it all started with our offering to take her to Sunday services every week.

I really wouldn't mind this little weekly good deed, except that she ALWAYS keeps us waiting, such that we are late for church most weeks. I hate being late for anything. I absolutely hate it. If you ever want to see me go from zero to full rage, just make me late for something.

After-church rides have evolved into side-trips to the grocery store.

The woman's gall reached it's peak this morning, when she sent us this note: "If I schedule a return trip to East Jesus to come in at 5:36pm or 11:35pm, which time would be better for you to pick me up at the airport?" That's right, she didn't ask if we could give her a ride, she just assumed that we would.

Grrrrrrrr!

This is bullshit

This week's Time magazine proposes a loosening of spelling standards.

That's bullshit. Spelling matters.

And while I'm ranting, know the rules.

Dear Sen. Obama,

Every time you stammer -- and you stammer a lot -- you convey inexperience.

Why must you stammer through complicated answers to simple questions? For example, it seems to me that if a live sperm fertilizes a live egg, and that living material forms a life, then there is no "When does life begin" because it was always there.

The question does not address the issue, which is your (and Sen. McCain's) political position on the proper role of government in the private lives of citizens, in this case in regard to medical decisions and life (from conception to frozen embryo to old age or vegetative state).

Done.

Why is that so fucking hard?

I want to support you, because the GOP is meddling and morally corrupt. I want to have confidence in you, Sen. Obama, but you aren't earning it.

That whole stadium thing at the convention? It will serve you right if the fundies get their wet dream and it rains. After eight years of Bush-Cheney hubris, the last thing America needs is more hubris. But "hubris" is what your campaign is showing me.

Hubris is a loser [just ask Hillary Clinton].

Respectfully yours,

Trop

I hate when they do that

Why must sportscasters insist on replaying injuries as they happened over and over and over again? ESPN must have shown Candace Parker's dislocated shoulder 100 times tonight.

Don't they know squeamish viewers like me are trying to watch a game?

Why our government sucks

Source

When peevery meets snobbery

One of my pet peeves is people who walk around wearing their bluetooth ear piece all the time. To me the person might was well carry a sign that says "Look at me! Me, me, me! I'm important!"

Bully VP's secretary wears her bluetooth ear piece all the time, as if her crap doesn't stink (I can assure you it does). Odd thing is, she NEVER answers her phone. She just wears that damned ear piece to impress us with her importance.

People who wear those things to the mall, or the movie theater, or a restaurant, really need to get a clue. They look like a dumbass with that thing dangling off their ear.

As it turns out, I have a bluetooth device for my cell phone. Amanda caught me wearing it around the house the other night.* Having heard me rant on this subject too many times, she just looked at me and said, "When did you become a snob?"


*In my defense, I was on the phone with Verizon tech support restoring our DSL service and I needed my hands free to configure our modem.

I discovered something about myself this morning

I fucking HATE working with an allen wrench!

Fucking Microsoft!!!

Once again Microsoft has released a major upgrade of it's Office suite of products. For the most part I really like the improvements. But God damn if they haven't screwed me in a major way.

For both my day job and my consulting work, I generate a lot of charts. A LOT. Usually the analysis requires a series of identical charts each summarizing different pieces of data (like one for SAT scores, another for ACT scores, yet another for GPA, and so on). Typically, the charts I create are the result of painstakingly trying different ways of portraying data, such that the end user can quickly "see" what is going on. The process starts with hours of generating the first chart to get it just right. And then, once I have it laid out exactly the way I want it, I make a copy of that chart, like so...



Once I have the copy, I need only click on the chart, and select the next series of data, like so...



...and viola, all I have to do is change the chart title and axis labels and in about one minute (as opposed to another hour or so), I have the next chart in the series...


This time-saving strategy doesn't work with Excel 2007.

I am completely screwed.

Not NOW!

I'm thinking of getting one of these signs for when I'm at the office and need to spend time in the women's restroom.

Do people really carry on conversations in restrooms while doing their business? Maybe they do while at the sink washing their hands; I can live with that. But while in the stall?

I'm not very sociable at the office anyway, but I particularly dislike talking in the restroom, especially when I'm in my stall doing my business. To me it's like being watched.

Bully VP's secretary (let's call her "Bitch" since that's what everyone else calls her) is a member of Falwell's church and rarely makes eye-contact when we cross paths. I guess she's afraid of getting lesbian cooties. Knowing her aversion to all things gay, I purposely stand by her at campus gatherings just to make her squirm (she does) and walk away (she will). It's no surprise that Bitch never talks to me.

Until today.

Yep, Bitch came into our two-stall restroom while I was in the middle of a productive morning (if you know what I mean), entered the other stall, and started asking me all about Amanda. Her feigned compassion was enough to make me want to punch her lights out, which I couldn't do because... well... I was busy.

Am I alone in thinking the time to carry on a conversation is NOT when a person is in the bathroom stall?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And damn if I didn't just now think of this... I should have started tapping my foot the minute Bitch recognized my shoes. That would have taught her not to talk to me in the restroom.

My cursed name

My surname, which is that of my ex-husband, is a simple five-letter, two-syllable name that is spelled just like it sounds, and sounds just like it's spelled. And no matter how slowly and how clearly I say it, no one seems to get it right.

We had to go through hospital admissions this morning because Amanda is an outpatient for the day. I had to say and spell our name FIVE fucking times for the 90-year-old fossil staffing the admitting desk.

My surname begins with an S and its spelling does not include the letter "g." Yet when people read it aloud, invariably they add a "g." For the longest time Court teasingly called me "Dr. Singin" because an instructor in her department thought that was my name (and of course this instructor insists I'm a "he" because doctors are male, don't ya know). Those of you who know my name must be wondering how someone can get "Singin" from the spelling, but they do.

Despite all this, Courtney took the surname when she married me. Just call her "Mrs. Singin."